Balance vs. Fun

[Username17]

Why do we need a whole bunch of magic items at all? We can give players the numeric boosts they need as they level. We have the technology!

Sure.We could just go superheroic, and have people choose basic weaponry layouts from fantastic options such as glass swords and snake staves. And that's absolutely fine for things like He-Man where no one loots anything off of anyone. But if you want to find Christmas presents in treasure piles, it's a non-starter. If you already have everything you want, then there's nothing you can unwrap that is something you want.

These are two incompatible design goals, and they make very different games with very different expected player actions and motivations.

I'd rather have a game where your character could function on zero magic items. That makes every single item a distinct and noticeable improvement (assuming players acquire like 1-3 items total over the whole game).

Well, I don't think that's terribly plausible, because then you couldn't fight another guy who had a magic item but once or twice in your whole life.

Which is totally fine for something like aWoD, where magic items are rare and the expectation is that your character does not have one. But if everyone is supposed to sword fight you and magic swords exist, it's pretty constricting to never be able to face someone who has one.

Like it or not, D&D is more like Mongo than like historical France. And that means that the Hawk Men have magic radium blades and shit.

-Username17

[Jacob_Orlove]

For christmas presents, you could throw in consumable items. Potions of healing or invisibility or whatever, combs that turn into forests when you throw them, that kind of thing.

Plus, you can give players actual treasure. Like, piles of gold and castles and all that fun stuff. And like Sinbad, they could gain and lose incalculable fortunes on a per-adventure basis.

And for fighting people with major magic items, you could easily set that up to happen two or three times per character. That's 8-12 major foes, which should get you through most reasonable campaigns. And they wouldn't necessarily have the item on them at first, anyway. You could thwart the necromancer with the scrying sphere two or three times before you finally face him down in his tower and recover it for yourself.

It's a very different feel from normal D&D, but I'm not convinced it's a change for the worse.

[K]

I've been letting this perc in the back of my head for a few days and I think I have an answer.

So, we know that people are eventually going to settle on some iconic gear they like.... and we know that horizontal power increases and consumables will get old eventually....

So how about Artifacts as Consumable Items. As much as I hate to retap the well of LotR, the basic idea of the uber-powerful item with a short shelf-life before things go bad is a pretty elegant solution.

That way, you seriously can have the Dagger of Vashna just be an item you loot off Darklord Vashna, but you keep it in the scabbard until you do another fight with some badass you don't have the raw power to take because the Dagger totally corrupts or kills you with prolonged use.

I mean, the basic idea of the Personal Artifact is bad. Its bad for game balance, and its bad for other players' happiness (even when it makes one player happy). I know I'd feel bad if I was playing a Sorcerer and suddenly saw the group's swordsman get a badass sword and there was nothing for me.... heck, I'd even feel lame if everyone got a personal artifact at the same time since it makes me feel way less special (thus defeating the whole purpose).

It also solves the problem of people getting used to the power upgrade of a personal artifact and then be like "ho hum, I'm bored of this Sword of Kas...... let's try to get Excalibur so I can dual-wield them and really kill some stuff."

I mean, I like the idea of the Batman cave with stuff you looted in the event it might be useful later. It has a "gotta catch 'em all" vibe that appeals to the trophy collector and the tactician part of me. The trick is to make the choice to use one of those items more meaningful than choosing today's outfit.

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On another note, you can also upgrade iconics Inuyasha-style, so that someone's iconic item gets more power after certain adventures.

[mean_liar]

Upgrading is basically the same as not having any items at all, since its presumably integral to your character progression and generally independent of GM fiat.

[K]

Upgrading is basically the same as not having any items at all, since its presumably integral to your character progression and generally independent of GM fiat.

Upgrades have to be horizontal power-ups for them to work at all. Vertical upgrades like more damage, more plusses, etc, just leads us back to 3e and 4e DnD land where you get into this weird situation where you are playing Accountants and Dragons to try and get enough gold to get enough bonuses to not fall off the RNG because mobs are set for those bonuses.

Horizontal upgrades are things like:

-Using a Sword of Flame to kill a King Fire Elemental turns it into an Inferno Blade which has the ability to grant fire resistance to its user and the ability to talk to fire elementals.

-Using a Sword of Flame to kill a King Ice Elemental turns it into a Flame Drinker Blade that puts out normal fires and counts as ice damage as well as fire damage.

-Using a Sword of Flame to destroy an artifact turns it into a Spellfire Blade that glows in the presence of magic and confers immunity to divination magic.

Doing this turns iconic normal equipment into "DM special" equipment at the point in a player's career when they've already decided that they look good with a flaming sword.

[hogarth]

I know I'd feel bad if I was playing a Sorcerer and suddenly saw the group's swordsman get a badass sword and there was nothing for me.... heck, I'd even feel lame if everyone got a personal artifact at the same time since it makes me feel way less special (thus defeating the whole purpose).

What? Everyone getting a cool item make you feel small in the pants? How does that work?

I've played in a game where everyone got a (single) bad-ass item, and we all liked it just fine.

[Blicero]

It's the whole "if everyone's special then no one's special" situation. If everyone in the party gets one totally hardcore artefact in extremely short succession, then what the players will almost certainly think is, "Oh, the DM just contrived a bizarre situation just so that we'll all stay in the same power level. That's nice, but still kinda boring.

I think that K's idea could work pretty well.

[RobbyPants]

K's idea works nicely in that you aren't getting items that make you that much more powerful, but they do make you cool. The game can run smoothly for a few sessions if there is a bit of a disparity of cool items, but not if there is a disparity of powerful items.

This allows the DM to sprinkle cool stuff around without handing them out in chunks that is conveniently the same size as the party.

[Username17]

I know I'd feel bad if I was playing a Sorcerer and suddenly saw the group's swordsman get a badass sword and there was nothing for me.... heck, I'd even feel lame if everyone got a personal artifact at the same time since it makes me feel way less special (thus defeating the whole purpose).

What? Everyone getting a cool item make you feel small in the pants? How does that work?

I've played in a game where everyone got a (single) bad-ass item, and we all liked it just fine.

That can work sometimes. Unfortunately, "Keeping Up With the Jones" is a real psychological effect. That is, to a real extent everyone getting a magic item simultaneously can feel a lot like no one getting a magic item. Not entirely, th Hedonistic Treadmill is not complete, but it's certainly a lot less of a feeling of empowerment if whn yu turn to your friends and say "Look what I got!" their response is "Yeah, me too!"

Now, it is fair, and a lot of people like "fair." So giving out magic items to everyone simultaneously is something you should do sometimes. But not all the time. The 4e plan of handing out one magic item at a time is actually pretty reasonable - it's just that they never went anywhere with that idea and made a system that does not hang together mathematically and left no conceptual instructions of what the hell they thought the end results were supposed to look like so no one else can fix their math for them.

Upgrades have to be horizontal power-ups for them to work at all. Vertical upgrades like more damage, more plusses, etc, just leads us back to 3e and 4e DnD land where you get into this weird situation where you are playing Accountants and Dragons to try and get enough gold to get enough bonuses to not fall off the RNG because mobs are set for those bonuses.

Well, sort of. I contend instead that pushing off the RNG is actually OK if you understand that this is what you are doing. It's actually OK if the players become better than monsters of their level as they grow more powerful. Because then they feel like they are really powerful. It's not OK if the PCs have to sit around and suck if they don't get the +5 Hackmaster, but it's totally fine if having the +5 Hackmaster lets them go through giants like butter. That is kind of the point.

So how about Artifacts as Consumable Items. As much as I hate to retap the well of LotR, the basic idea of the uber-powerful item with a short shelf-life before things go bad is a pretty elegant solution.

Definitely like that idea. It allows you to have one player lord it over the other players with his ring of total sweetness for a bit without having to make it up to the other players by offering up an even bigger cloak of excellence to one of the others.

Of course, I still hold out that people getting and keeping a +5 Hackmaster in some games and then running around being clearly overpowered because of it is a good thing, so long as it was planned for in advance.

-Username17

[Thymos]

What about artifacts that don't really give a benefit to one person so much as a group. One person still wields the item, but everyone has some tangential benefit from the item.

For example a sword of null magic that causes anyone it hits to no longer be able to cast spells is there for the fighter. Still it actually gives a group benefit rather than a benefit only to the fighter. Sure, the fighter is stripping away the lich's spells, but the entire group enjoys that the lich doesn't have any spells.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Now, it is fair, and a lot of people like "fair." So giving out magic items to everyone simultaneously is something you should do sometimes. But not all the time.

I personally don't think it's so much as getting bennies from the other party members as getting a more different benny from everyone else.

It's hard to get excited about your Hackmaster +12 if everyone else has one, but if you have a Hackmaster +12 that lets you turn into a fire-tiger, another one has a Hackmaster +12 that lets them teleport at will, another one has a Hackmaster +12 that lets them cast Telekinesis and Detect Thoughts whenever they feel like, and another person has a Hackmaster +12 that lets them summon a kyton chain cohort then you still can get everyone excited about their individual item.

3E and 4E especially fucked up by having gear that was so much more elite for the stuff of the same power level that you couldn't get excited about this. 3E to a modest extent, 4E to a ridiculous extent.

[Username17]

I think this is as good a time as any to talk about the D&D Cartoon. Now e all know that it was an 80s cartoon and it kind of sucked. And we all understand that it was nothing like balanced. But there is something that I think is fairly important about the magic items the characters had: some are a lot more memorable than others.

First of all, technically Presto had a magic hat. But all the hat did was allow him to use his class features as a magic user. He functionally didn't have a magic artifact, he was just a character class that got interesting abilities inherently and didn't need one. That's a pretty important thing to keep in mind: because Presto was basically the most memorable character even so.

Second: Sheila and Bobby had a Cloak of Invisibility and a Girdle of Giant Strength respectively. And they were the most memorable characters after Presto.

And now we come to the three characters whose names I actually have to look up because I don't remember them: the Ranger, Cavalier, and Monk. Their powers weren't worth mentioning because their artifacts didn't seemingly do anything. And what were they? A Magic Bow, a Magic Shield, and a Magic Staff. The staff was the most interesting, because I think it could extend or something, making it almost as interesting as one of Presto's minor conjurations. And that's an important thing to remember: enhancement bonuses by themselves don't count when you think about what makes a character awesome.

But remember: D&D players would have their character wear assless pants if it gave them an extra +1 to Reflex Saves. If you want players to really use a Reason Stealer Spear, it has to be vertically superior to a Yuan-Ti War Rake. Giving out that +3 enhancement on Medium Magic Weapons and +5 Enhancement on Greater Magic Weapons is not what makes those weapons interesting or memorable. But it is what makes people actually excited to try them out and use them in combat. When you give out a Greater Magic Sword it has to be "Soulcutter, the End of Hope" and it has to look crazy with a dull blade that looks like the black material of a go stone, and when drawn it emits the sound of turbulent wind and babies crying. And holding it needs to give you a bunch of options like stilling air and water and creating darkness and spreading fear. And all that good stuff that makes the sword a good story that the players will remember. But let's be honest: it needs to be +5 on top of that or the players are just going to use a Yuan Ti War Rake instead.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

Like it or not, D&D is more like Mongo than like historical France. And that means that the Hawk Men have magic radium blades and shit.
-Username17

But within a decade of isolation of Radium by a French scientist it was being deployed for military medical use by French medics in WWI.

And I am quite sure you already knew that.

So somehow, I can't shake the hunch that everything you are advocating in this thread is just a heap of similar subtle ironies.

[mean_liar]

I'd disagree about the Ranger's bow being non-memorable. The character was the champion that the Paladin should've been, and he at least stood out for that, but the bow was the real star there. IME that bow that shot energy has always been the DnD archer's unattainable thematic awesomeness... at least, until the DnD Cartoon book came out for d20.

[K]

So, I have been in the situation where the DM does the "and now everyone gets an uber-item." I can say with all honestly that it's kind of annoying.

I mean, it just means we now have to fight more powerful monsters. Since we are fighting more powerful monsters, then I have to use it or fail my party. Basically, its all the bad of having someone choose my character concept AND the insult of getting a token reward.

I mean, if you want players to feel powerful you can just toss lower-level monsters at them, and make sure you don't make the mistake of having multi-level versions of a manticore (they need to set it at a difficultly, and not try to sex it up by making higher-level Fiendish Manticores or Half-Dragon Manticores.) Fixed power levels means that at 8th level a Manticore is tough, and at 12th level they come in groups.

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PS. I remember that show pretty well, and I can say that the Bow and the Shield were pretty memorable. The Ranger was one of the only fighting characters so he got all the action shots next to the kid with the Magic Club (not belt). The Shield was basically a Cube of Force, so it was pretty awesome even when they contrived uses for it.

I honestly forgot the staff.

Basically, if you want to model artifact use, you go with Thundercats. Their weapons constantly displayed new powers (like, would you guess that Panth-ro's nunchucks had crystals inside that turned into poison gas?).

[Draco_Argentum]

Sure.We could just go superheroic, and have people choose basic weaponry layouts from fantastic options such as glass swords and snake staves. And that's absolutely fine for things like He-Man where no one loots anything off of anyone. But if you want to find Christmas presents in treasure piles, it's a non-starter. If you already have everything you want, then there's nothing you can unwrap that is something you want.

I really don't see the difference. Once you acknowledge that sometimes people get an artifact and become overpowered it really doesn't matter what your baseline is. People will drop their bow like a sack of shit in favour of an artifact bow that shoots pissed off demon wasp swarms. Whether the original is mildly magical or not is immaterial.

[Username17]

Sure.We could just go superheroic, and have people choose basic weaponry layouts from fantastic options such as glass swords and snake staves. And that's absolutely fine for things like He-Man where no one loots anything off of anyone. But if you want to find Christmas presents in treasure piles, it's a non-starter. If you already have everything you want, then there's nothing you can unwrap that is something you want.

I really don't see the difference. Once you acknowledge that sometimes people get an artifact and become overpowered it really doesn't matter what your baseline is. People will drop their bow like a sack of shit in favour of an artifact bow that shoots pissed off demon wasp swarms. Whether the original is mildly magical or not is immaterial.

I don't know what your point is. You are quoting me contrasting the situation where the Demon Bow that shoots bees out of its mouth is genuinely superior vs. the situation where the Demon Bow is another nominally balanced option vs. the lightning bow or the big wooden bow. My point remains that if you hand out a bow that is "better" then the players will feel obligated and privileged to use it. And if you hand out one that is merely different, players will very frequently just ignore it (and players will eventually find equilibrium equipment states where they never change weapons or armor again).

Since we are fighting more powerful monsters, then I have to use it or fail my party.

Yes. If you give out equipment that is "better," then the players will feel obligated to use it, because it is better. Whether this is an exciting new unforseen chapter or an insulting yoke on the character's coolness is merely a facet of whether the new item feels cool and new and special. If you suddenly have the option to wield the Sun Naginata or Soulcutter, then that's pretty cool, and your old fir sword can be dropped without a second thought. If it's just a really sharp sword, it's an insult and an emasculation even if the plus is bigger.

Basically, bigger items must carry bigger (and bigger looking) powers on them. Otherwise they are anticlimactic and fun ruining.

-Username17

[K]

Yes. If you give out equipment that is "better," then the players will feel obligated to use it, because it is better. Whether this is an exciting new unforseen chapter or an insulting yoke on the character's coolness is merely a facet of whether the new item feels cool and new and special.

Don't you see how this is bad? The last thing people want is to be forced to use some "DM insert" item.

I mean, if someone conceptualizes their character as a Fire Sword guy, then they aren't going to enjoy being a Sun Natigana guy regardless of how awesome it is. They'll especially hate it if you start tossing higher level challenges at them and they can't afford to not use.

That's why the "more powerful item that takes you off the RNG" is just bad on first principles. Sure, it will make some people happy for a while, but once the novelty fades you have to deal with the issue that is makes everyone else unhappy AND no longer makes that guy especially happy.

Futzing with power levels is just too difficult, and the rewards aren't good enough to justify it. My experience with MMOs teaches the lesson that chasing the item is exciting..... once you get it, you just don't care any more even if it lets you kill the next tier of mobs.

Artifacts as Consumable Items works. You get to feel special, but when the item gets taken from you can get back to the business of chasing the next artifact. Also, since you know that the item is not a permanent part of your character, you don't get butt-hurt if you need to pimp-smack Lolth or Pazuzu.

[RandomCasualty2]

Futzing with power levels is just too difficult, and the rewards aren't good enough to justify it. My experience with MMOs teaches the lesson that chasing the item is exciting..... once you get it, you just don't care any more even if it lets you kill the next tier of mobs.

Honestly I disagree. While that's true of MMOs, that's because the items in MMOs don't even matter. They're 4E small power increment items and having one helps a little but is really just a small reward to keep you going until you get the next item.

And like 4E, every item in MMOs is carefully planned and placed, so you can never get ahead. There's no thrill of discovery because you already know what you're trying to get, what it does and all that bullshit because you read about it. 4E taught us that most people dont' want to play that kind of formulaic game.

[Koumei]

Also there's the matter that you get to a point where it doesn't matter who holds the artefact - it's better than the wielder, and your character is now their equipment. See: most characters in Rifts. I like to be awesome on my own, not because I'm holding the Sword of Kas or the Eye of Vecna or the Balls of Pelor.

[Prak]

Also there's the matter that you get to a point where it doesn't matter who holds the artefact - it's better than the wielder, and your character is now their equipment. See: most characters in Rifts. I like to be awesome on my own, not because I'm holding the Sword of Kas or the Eye of Vecna or the Balls of Pelor.

Ah those mighty balls of Pelor... has anyone ever statted something out for them?

[Username17]

Don't you see how this is bad? The last thing people want is to be forced to use some "DM insert" item.

Of course I do. Don't you see how this is Good? Getting something new an unexpected is like unwrapping a birthday present from a friend. If you don't know what sword your character will use, it becomes a game in itself to find out.

I mean, if someone conceptualizes their character as a Fire Sword guy, then they aren't going to enjoy being a Sun Natigana guy regardless of how awesome it is.

Well that's a problem, I agree. And that's the way it's bad. But look at what a fucking failure MMOs and 4e are as far as items go. You decide ahead of time that you are going to use a frost bastard sword with a syberis shard and a purple fucking solitaire. And then you grind until you get that stuff. There's no mystery, no excitement, no interest. All there is is disappointment that lasts until you actually get the shit you are entitled to.

As long as you get to know what you're going to use, that equipment becomes an entitlement instead of a gift. Yes, it sucks to b forced to change your character concept, but it sucks to have your character concept unaffected by your adventures as well. If you can't see a visible mark of the things you've done on your character, then there's little reason to actually play the game.

Yes, you need to have the character be uniquely yours, and to have abilities that are genuinely based on your personal decisions. But you also need some portion of your character to be legitimately random. If everything is designed by a point system, you make your character's entire story at home, and actually playing the game is something of a letdown.

Futzing with power levels is just too difficult, and the rewards aren't good enough to justify it. My experience with MMOs teaches the lesson that chasing the item is exciting..... once you get it, you just don't care any more even if it lets you kill the next tier of mobs.

Don't you see? This is exactly why letting players have full control over what items they will use in the future is bad. If you know that your character will be using an AF2 Hat at some point in the future, then getting the AF2 Hat is a letdown. You don't care any more because you always knew you were going to have one eventually.

The only way that actually getting a better hat can be interesting or exciting is if you didn't know what it was going to be. Then you can adapt your tactics and character image to the new hat, and maintain interest in the process after the hat is gained.

-Username17

[virgil]

So alter the magic item situation such that their presence is both random in terms of arrival and abilities, but guaranteed to be overpowered and a limited shelf-life?

[Thymos]

To be honest MMO's are decent at the item game, as is Diablo 2.

I can't actually think of a game that does items better than Guild Wars or Diablo 2, each on the extreme end of the spectrum.

Hell, in Guild Wars it's easy as hell to get optimized weapons, what people go hard as hell to find are ones with skins they like. That's the only thing in the game that's actually really expensive, skins of items that aren't even mechanically superior. Yet you find people shelling out huge amounts of in game gold for skins they like.

Diablo 2 is about the most random game I've ever seen when it comes to items coming out and it still had people planning exactly what items they wanted. Sure, it was hard as hell to get that ethereal breath of the dying sword (to be honest almost no one had one), but that didn't mean the people who could weren't planning it out. Even when I was just picking up random items that were awesome the novelty of having a new great item wore off pretty damn fast.

I think the epitome of randomized lethal gameplay where you play again and again trying to get farther is found in dungeoncrawl and nethack and other roguelike games. Of course I think that this kind of gameplay is extremely addicting, but also fairly limited in it's application to Pen and Paper like games due to the restrictions on how long it takes to make a character and how much the world they are playing in depends on the DM.

[Fuchs]

As long as you get to know what you're going to use, that equipment becomes an entitlement instead of a gift. Yes, it sucks to b forced to change your character concept, but it sucks to have your character concept unaffected by your adventures as well. If you can't see a visible mark of the things you've done on your character, then there's little reason to actually play the game.

Items are not the only way, and not even the best way, to leave marks on your character. Relations to NPCs are one option to leave marks on a character (and the game world): Founding or joining an order or other organization, adopting an orphan, or a village, helping the true heir back on his throne - or taking the throne for oneself. Or simply creating through play an actual character history, which one can refer to in game, and of which songs are written by (N)PC Bards.