Thoughts on D&D magic items

[Dracos]

Okay, I finished a complete cover to cover reread of MIC.  I still think its crap.  A lot of it is filler or just poor trash, but there's a few things deserving of talking about in it.

A)They introduce 3 new types of things.  That's part of the problem.  The sets are complicated conceptually, difficult to map and explain, and give almost trivial bonuses for it.  They also largely look stupid, but that's just a quibble.  The Relics are practically cleric only.  Did you really need to spend like a fourth of the book on stuff for an already overpowered class, with lots of them not even being relevant to it?  What the hell?  And energy crystals, a good idea that's a bit overcomplicated and reflects the 'larger' issue of item slots being a serious mess.  And that they only gave like 4 pages to.  Beyond that there's a lot of really exotic shit.  Like Skins.  Nobody in any game I've ever seen has worn a skin, but these pieces of crap (of which 3 can be worn at a time) have been published in like 4 books, usually with the same art too.  Are they big on the minitures circuit?  Soulmeld, I would not be able to tell you what book that's referencing.  Etc, etc.  Not good for making a solid compedium of the ITEMS YOU WANT TO USE~

B)A lot is simply cruddy items (too bad, too good, complicated).  Disarming?  Sweeping?  That's trash.  Berserker?  That's better hands down every single time than any other damage enhancer for a barbarian.  If you're specialized there, its no longer a choice.  There's no reason not to stack those  if you want to add some damage enhancers on versus the fire stuff.  The synergy thing means I now have to look at between 2 to 4 ennchantments to figure out the net cost of something.  I see 'why' it is that way, but that's getting around a different shoddy problem.

C)The lore section could've provided room for probably 100 more items.  Clearly the guy didn't get the memo around that the story basis for the items is NOT IMPORTANT.  It will be different in every game these things ever come up in if the GM is good and if the GM is bad, they aren't going to pay attention to them.  What a waste.

D)This belongs higher up, but I put it here to talk about.

The big issue that it missed was two design precepts it just didn't understand.

Number 1 is that for certain classes, certain item slots are fucking stacked.  If you play a monk, everything that will ever be relevant to you will exist as an amulet or a glove.  Maybe, if you're lucky, a set of boots will appear and be decent for you.  Otherwise, everything is fighting for the same slots.  Other classes have similar issues sometimes, but none as cleanly statable.  This situation is stupid and a side effect of focusing on prices for 'specifically described items' over prices for 'effects'.  The whole slot thing is ridiculous and really boils down to most  players as "I have  this many slots to be clever with.  You want to make an item useful?  Put it in a less used slot for that character.  Don't fight for the glove position for rogues, give them a handy vest.    Get some rings for fighters, rather than yet another gauntlet and vest.  How about eye wear/helmets?  Go on, its keen!  Or even better yet, get out of that mentality.  Just leave the effects and let the GMs slap them on as need.  Then there'll be less "Joy, another item for a slot that I already have something good for.  Do I want to break my current build for this?"

Number 2 is that selling costs 50 percent of the value.  In general, a player that is outfitted by the GM entirely will come to have a resource value that is 30-50 percent greater than one that sells what they don't have a use for or worse...sells everything and buys what interests them (god forbid).  What does this mean as far as item competition for slots?  It means that not only is your 4500 gp gloves of thievery competing against the equitiably cost of a +2 gloves of dexterity at 4000...  but so is your 500 gp gloves of handle animal!  Why?  Because generally, most players aren't carrying around items for swapping (a few do if there's a reward for it or they're that kind off player), but in general, they keep in mind that they lose out on at least half the expenditure (usually a bit more because they sold stuff to buy it originally~) that they paid when they switch items.  And stacking stuff doubles the price, so that's a rare occurance as well!  This is what they 'tried' to work around with their synergy concept, but that was ignoring rather than addressing the whole issue that in general, trading up is a lossy thing.  What that means is players are going to generally be cautious about it.  You might think its a pretty neat deal to offer an 18000 gp +1 blade of flaming burst, but when the player realizes he had to buy his current +2 blade of 8000 gp and that he had to sell 16000 gp worth of stuff to afford it...and then another 28000 gp of stuff to make up the difference between the two...   

I'm going to just put that up there since I think it is a pretty meaningful thing to take into account.

If the GM hands items out at proper treasure value and you sell it to buy something you want with any consistency, you are operating at half resource value.  If you then trade in these to buy new items, you are spending an additional half of the previous items value to afford it.  In other words, the setup results in a situation that players who act entirely dependent on the GM will come to have vastly higher treasure amounts over time, unless the GM actively works to funnel treasure back into the player who is selling stuff and interacting with the world in that fashion.  This often is difficult for the GM to do as most parties have a splitting policy in place, which means that they are going to spread out this new wealth with everyone and if they aren't its still difficult to ensure it goes to the right person.  And this even pushes folks FURTHER into buying towards already upgradable items...since it costs less to have a wizard re-enchant your sword to be more powerful than to buy a new more  powerful sword in the first place!  These things are already advantaged without this and then they also become a more conservative expenditure of your imaginary funds  :P

In S&S with Eb, I went ahead and avoided buying upgrade items for a significant number of levels...so that I could save the extra 12000 gp that I would've spent selling back the used item to upgrade.  You can go "Oh, you would've had that advantage earlier, so its a valid tradeoff', but it is basically a reward for avoiding spending money on things around you as much as you can survive doing.  "Man, if I don't get this neat item now for 8000...that's 4000 gp more gp I'll have available if there's a neater item right down the road."

And this being D&D...there is ALWAYS a neater item right down the road for the most part.

My 'strong' suggestion on this?  Get rid of the exceedingly retarded resale rules.  They're dumb, they've always been dumb, and there's plenty of better ways to reduce the treasure stock of the players than an arbitrary resale cost.  A GM shouldn't need any help with this, and in a medieval world, that vast overwhelming majority of items you come across and buy are used anyway, so why should player stuff be treated as if it is a custom made car and loses half its value after driving off the lot?  Wouldn't you rather have players pick up the wacky thing, try it out for a while, and not be resentful when they  can't get  rid of it to get something neater compared to the player saving loot?

You want to restrict item access?  Do it the classy way, by restricting what's available in game.  Folks want to purchase something specific?  Don't encourage them to ask in character because it totally results in every character having to have a ton of knowledge on magical items.  This happens constantly in games and its kind of bleh.  Let OOC lists form and make it a special thing that occassionally stuff off of them will appear.  It might even be stuff they can't afford yet, so they can remember "Back in Timberwood, they had this old beaten up battleax of storms that did sonic and lightning damage alongside thundering effects.  It was pretty expensive, but maybe it'll s till be there when I come back 5 levels down the line."

</end argumentative troublemaking!>

[Jon]

A)They introduce 3 new types of things.  That's part of the problem.  The sets are complicated conceptually, difficult to map and explain, and give almost trivial bonuses for it.  They also largely look stupid, but that's just a quibble.  The Relics are practically cleric only.  Did you really need to spend like a fourth of the book on stuff for an already overpowered class, with lots of them not even being relevant to it?  What the hell?  And energy crystals, a good idea that's a bit overcomplicated and reflects the 'larger' issue of item slots being a serious mess.  And that they only gave like 4 pages to.  Beyond that there's a lot of really exotic shit.  Like Skins.  Nobody in any game I've ever seen has worn a skin, but these pieces of crap (of which 3 can be worn at a time) have been published in like 4 books, usually with the same art too.  Are they big on the minitures circuit?  Soulmeld, I would not be able to tell you what book that's referencing.  Etc, etc.  Not good for making a solid compedium of the ITEMS YOU WANT TO USE~

The skins are intended for psionic characters, really. I played a Paladin/Psion (well, the game never actually started, but I got the charsheet done) and I used the armor psychoactive skin, because that was the single best armor I could find for my character concept, due to its bonuses, lack of some of the usual armor penalties, and the fact that it can be put on or removed as a standard action. Oh, and soulmeld is for Incarnum, from Magic of Incarnum. Useless if you never use that book, but I'm actually glad to see they haven't forgotten some of the more obscure stuff they put out.

Runestaffs are idiotic, though, because preparing spells is idiotic.

C)The lore section could've provided room for probably 100 more items.  Clearly the guy didn't get the memo around that the story basis for the items is NOT IMPORTANT.  It will be different in every game these things ever come up in if the GM is good and if the GM is bad, they aren't going to pay attention to them.  What a waste.

Truth.

My 'strong' suggestion on this?  Get rid of the exceedingly retarded resale rules.  They're dumb, they've always been dumb, and there's plenty of better ways to reduce the treasure stock of the players than an arbitrary resale cost.

Truth.