The Gaming Den

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080514a

From what I can figure out, they've actually made treasure more complicated AND less balanced.

How do you even do that with a straight face?

Wow, they literally have the disenchanting function from WoW taken almost whole-cloth. You can break magic items for generic magic crap, which you use as the primary components in making new magic items.

The merchants are apparently even more greedy than before. Now they buy your magic items for one-fifth their value, and buying magic items are at a ~25% markup.

I don't know why it seems like it's going to be even more of a stretch than before as to why our adventurers don't mug merchants for their magic items and gold.

WotC wrote:The 5th-level NPC has a 6th-level item—not because he needs it, but because it’s one of the treasure parcels. The characters don’t find magic items that are beneath their notice—they won’t walk out of the drow enclave with a wheelbarrow full of +1 rapiers.

...

When this happens, the characters ordinarily sell those items—it’s slightly more beneficial to do that than to use the Disenchant Magic Item ritual, because the characters don’t have to pay the component cost. A merchant, agent, or fence buys items from the character at one-fifth the items’ value, in the hope of selling them at significant profit (usually, above the items’ value). Buyers are hard to find, but the profit to be made makes it worth the merchant’s risk.

Ok...so how do they rationalize the fact that you can't find lower level items? Are they seriously assuming that all Dm's are simply not going to allow the Pc's to attack significantly weaker opposition? Are all fights set so firmly in their encounter rubrics that you can't tell stories like:
-The party wading through a small Hobgoblin army on their way to assault the leaders?
-The party taking time out of their day to stop petty crimes in a destitute city?
-etc

You can still melt down small magic items for bigger magic items. WotC's solution to this problem seems to be the Dm saying "You don't find any magic items."

Am I supposed to believe in this gameworld? Or is it merely a backdrop for a mini's game?

WotC wrote:During the course of gaining that level, expect a group of five characters to acquire four magic items ranging in level from one to four levels above the party level. In addition, they should find gold and other monetary treasure equal to the market price of two magic items of their level. So a 6th-level party would find four magic items, one each of levels 7 through 10, and gold worth two 6th-level items, or 3,600 gp.

So in this example one party member gets a magic item four levels above, one party member gets a magic item one level above, and one party member gets to choose what to buy? They must be assuming that all the levels before and after will even out the magic item distribution. I can think of the following ways that could function so that there isn't party disparity:

-All magic items are interchangeable between classes, and have the same value to different classes.
-Magic items are so weak that it doesn't matter if one Pc has significantly more than another.
-Magic items are significantly powerful, are class dependant, and therefore the Dm is expected to balance treasure with different classes across different levels, while accommodating particular player tastes.

None of those are appealing.

I'm curious as to how rules-bound this rubric is. I stopped using the treasure tables of 3E a long time ago, occasionally audited the party's gear, and then just made the treasure piles sufficiently large to make up their deficiency; and in varying methods from literal piles of gold, to gems, to wheelbarrows of +1 rapiers, to true gear upgrades (which was handy in accounting for intra-party money imbalances).

Every level they are giving out 4 items that are "above your level" and some gold. This means that when you get to level X, your party will have found 10 items that are level X or higher, as well as having 4 items from each lower level and/or whatever the hell you've purchased/robbed from merchants in the meantime. Using their purchasing system heavily benefits leaving gold in a pile for as long as possible and purchasing big ticket items, because if you cash it in for lesser items and then try to trade up later you literally have 1/6th as much high end stuff later on.

Both the merchant system and the "no weak drops" system are completely unbelievable. As far as I can tell it's not even supposed to represent a world, just a game. But everything else in 4e is like that too, so I'm not super surprised.

-Username17

Ok, that's it... now I swear off 4th edition. I refuse to play something designed by people who thought WoW's godawful enchanting system was good enough to rip off wholesale.

The above-your-level part made my brows furrow. What the hell is this?

Nothing like a giant leap in the wrong direction to make FnK item variant once again superior to anything WOTC can dish.

I liked 4E better when it was called "World of Warcraft".

I don't know why it seems like it's going to be even more of a stretch than before as to why our adventurers don't mug merchants for their magic items and gold.[/qote]

There won't be a stretch: they're going to mug those merchants.

K wrote:http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080514a

From what I can figure out, they've actually made treasure more complicated AND less balanced.

How do you even do that with a straight face?

It isn't particularly complicated. Or even necessarily unbalanced. You get X gold and 4 items per level. Thats really it. Around 5-7th level you start to get involved in the economy as you want to replace the lower level shit that you're replacing as you level with better items.

It is, however, fairly stupid and completely artificial. Given the assumptions of the 'default' world, travel outside towns is really dangerous and rare. Travelling merchants that load up and valuable shit and wait for passing adventurers (being essentially the only market for the stuff they're carrying), just in case said adventurers need it are exactly the last thing thats going to actually going to happen.

The system itself makes a certain amount of internal sense. Its just completely disconnected from the RPG and setting aspects of the game.

Residuum is going in the box of Words that Should Not Be Used, along with Demispell and Hyperplanar from the Epic Destinies article.

virgileso wrote:I don't know why it seems like it's going to be even more of a stretch than before as to why our adventurers don't mug merchants for their magic items and gold.

I think they're coming from the assumption that this is a video game and you can't attack green targets.

And their 'trade' inventory is different from their 'corpse' inventory. If you kill them all they have is a rusty sword, a suit of leather armor and a aquamarine gem.

Am I seeing Phoenix Downs in that high level loot table?

SphereOfFeetMan wrote:

WotC wrote:The 5th-level NPC has a 6th-level item—not because he needs it, but because it’s one of the treasure parcels. The characters don’t find magic items that are beneath their notice—they won’t walk out of the drow enclave with a wheelbarrow full of +1 rapiers.

Ok...so how do they rationalize the fact that you can't find lower level items? Are they seriously assuming that all Dm's are simply not going to allow the Pc's to attack significantly weaker opposition? Are all fights set so firmly in their encounter rubrics that you can't tell stories like:
-The party wading through a small Hobgoblin army on their way to assault the leaders?
-The party taking time out of their day to stop petty crimes in a destitute city?
-etc

Remember, though: NPCs don't have magic items. If you give, say, an Orc Chieftain a +2 badass axe, he's not a Level 6 Brute with a magic item - he becomes a Level 7 Brute. You're not supposed to go to that level of detail for NPCs. Once the PCs kill him, they'll find the +2 badass axe, because you want them to find it.

Using this system, you'll never have a 10th-level party finding wheelbarrows of +1 daggers, because that level of complexity is specifically avoided. No matter who or what you fight, you'll find either (1) nothing, or (2) level-appropriate gear.

About the only thing I like about this is not having to wonder where all thouse thousands of +1 weapons came from.

Talisman wrote:
Remember, though: NPCs don't have magic items. If you give, say, an Orc Chieftain a +2 badass axe, he's not a Level 6 Brute with a magic item - he becomes a Level 7 Brute. You're not supposed to go to that level of detail for NPCs. Once the PCs kill him, they'll find the +2 badass axe, because you want them to find it.

Well... the level adjustment part of this seems to have been a fanwank over at ENworld, trying to rationalize a piece of the system that didn't make much sense without the rest of it. But the rest of it seems to be the case. They don't have magic items except as treasure, and their gear is somehow valueless. You just find piles of treasure at various points over your ~10 encounters per level.

One notable thing- treasure piles are back to being big again. Platinum is worth 100 gp now, so some of those 'epic' tier treasures are pretty big if they're in gold. Going from 25th to 26th level, you're really expected to get 1,250,000 gp. Plus the magic items.

I'm curious to see how exploitable the disenchant/creation system is. Given Mikey was talking about the secondary items essentially not being taking into account, there is a lot of potential for pure cheese there, depending on how much arbitrarium you get from breaking down an item and how much you need to make one of your level or less. Being able to make half-a-dozen gloves of asskicking (usable 1/day) that you can just swap out between encounters has the potential to be very game-breaking. Particularly when you've also got a stash of boots of bad-assery, bracers of oh, I so hit you and belts of who's your daddy.

Voss wrote:

K wrote:http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080514a

From what I can figure out, they've actually made treasure more complicated AND less balanced.

How do you even do that with a straight face?

It isn't particularly complicated. Or even necessarily unbalanced. You get X gold and 4 items per level. Thats really it. Around 5-7th level you start to get involved in the economy as you want to replace the lower level shit that you're replacing as you level with better items.

It's more unbalanced because you have to get figure out at each level who gets the "your level +1 item" and who gets the "your level +4 item." The treasure tables are "per party", so figuring out who gets the better items is a chore after every adventure.

Also, unless they have a lot of tables in the book (and I wouldn't put it past them), you have to recalculate treasure parcels and divide it up into units every time your party is bigger or smaller than 4 people. Also, there is no way to audit a person's wealth because it is assumed that he's selling stuff at vastly reduced prices, so in many ways people are avoiding the magic treasure to get the gold they need for better items. In effect, there iis no way to insure that party members have appropriate treasure.

Now, as far as I can tell magic items in 4e suck, so it might not be a problem that handing them out is done willy-nilly.

And they still haven't addressed problems like "what if we gank the magic item seller" or "what if we sell the giant frog statue made of obsidian?" or magic item creation.

In effect, it has all the problems of 3e treasure, but it adds in new problems and it's less believable.

Good show, guys.

K wrote: Now, as far as I can tell magic items in 4e suck, so it might not be a problem that handing them out is done willy-nilly.
.

Not exactly suck, by my standards, but the curve isn't anywhere near as steep. Items that have been mentioned, for example:
+1 vicious long bow [level 2] (extra damage die on a crit)
+2 lightning sword [level 9]
+2 flaming sword [level 10]
+3 vicious sword [level 12]

So not a huge balance issue in that regard.

Verisimilitude is definitely an issue, though. Pretty much every system that touches on the setting or RPG issues has a serious flaw. Nothing new, but the design seems to be 'we don't talk about role-playing'.

Well it shows that they are learning. They are learning that if people do unexpected things that their system breaks. So their response is to hamhandedly remove the ability of players to do unexpected things.

-Username17

K wrote:And they still haven't addressed problems like "what if we gank the magic item seller" or "what if we sell the giant frog statue made of obsidian?" or magic item creation.

You can't. The Magic Item Seller is in town, and you're not allowed to fight in town. Also, the Giant Obsidian Frog Statue is prerendered.

I always say that if a merchant is dealing with magical items then of course they would be wearing the best protections at all times, including a Contingency to rescue them in case of near-death, if not being powerful casters themselves.
Even a L1 Expert can use some decent items, since so much passes through their inspection.

And then you'd have the factor of infamy for killing respected merchants within an area. Sure the PCs might get away with it, but then you have trade guilds, assassins, magic sleuths, and mercs after the criminal party.
And chances are, they will come when least expected.
And the party will die.

But that would indeed be 'unfair to players' so 4e designers will probably put a "NoDamage=1" flag in for all in-town NPCs, since the whole game is an MMO on paper anyway.

Except that really doesn't make any sense beyond a certain (and low) level, and the party can always do things in a clandestine fashion. If the merchant exists, and you can rob him without any moderate side effects, robbing him is really the way to go.

I thought you were joking about being able to shard items for magical bling.

That is hilarious.

What were they thinking?!?!

I assume it's the same thing they're always thinking:

"DuuUUUuuuh, I make games gooder. DuuuUUUuuuh, money now?"

Question: if they are serious about the "no wealth/magic gains outside of the adventure path" that they keep talking about, why not just have magic items trade for full value?

The amount of total "wealth" that your party will get y level 10 is fixed, so the inclusion of potions (which take wealth out of the system when used), and the 4e equipment tradeup rules (which take 85% of the wealth out of the system when used) really introduce the possibility of characters getting to higher levels with radically different amounts of loot.

I'm not sure why they think it's "fixed" now that one player can have 6 level appropriate items (because they were able to use all 4 items they found and sell off their share of the wealth/old items for 2 more) and another player can have just 1 (because they were not able to find use for their found items and had already taken all the old wealth and sold it for lower level equipment and had to sell it all together just to afford one item).

As near as I can figure, the current rubric is that organic characters are fucked. A premade level N character will have appropriate equipment and chances are that any other character will have drunk potions or interacted with the economy in any way in which case he will have some amount less than that.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:As near as I can figure, the current rubric is that organic characters are fucked. A premade level N character will have appropriate equipment and chances are that any other character will have drunk potions or interacted with the economy in any way in which case he will have some amount less than that.

Close. The current rubric is that you receive chosen magic items above your level, and you should be glad of it. If you like (are able to use) the magic items that the Dm has chosen to grace you with, then you are powerful. If you don't like (can't use) the special magic items then you are punished for it.

You don't like that special Fire Sword you just got? Well, you sure as hell better use it, because it is better that anything else you have.

The fact that it screws over organic characters is secondary to the fact that is screws over ungrateful players.

Remember that you don't actually get those magic items until after the encounters, so the items that you get at 5th level are mostly the items that you can use at 6th level. So the degree to which they are above your level is less than it at first seems.

Indeed, by the time you get to sixth level, the entire party will have found:

1 2nd level item.
2 3rd level items
3 4th level items
4 5th level items
4 6th level items
3 7th level items
2 8th level items
1 9th level item
---
20 item "parcels"

What this means is that your character is assumed to not only not have all of their slots filled by 6th level, but that fully half the slots which are filled will be full of items which are to one degree or another below your level. And while it is possible that one of the characters has (gasp) a +2 Lightning Sword, the other 3 characters certainly do not.

Indeed, a 6th level party has 12 "primary slots" and 20 "secondary slots", but only 20 found items. Meaning that Not only are half your items under level, but 1/3 of your slots are empty. And that's before we calculate the very real possibility that any of the items you picked up are direct replacements for your old swag. Remember that your trade-in rate is only 1:6, so if you found upgrades for six of your items, you can trade all of them in for just one item for one of your empty slots (and it won't even be appropriately leveled or anything, it will be the level of the crap you replaced, just slapped into an empty slot so you can use it at all).

-Username17