Red Flags for DMs?

[Grod_The_Giant]

VoP isn't bad in the context of 'players have nothing resembling any of WBL'. It's also easier than ripping stuff from 3.P, usually, I expect.

Though if you don't have BoEDs, then yeah, taking stuff from 3.P would be easier, most likely.

Going from 3.5 to Pathfinder, you occasionally have to edit for consolidated skills and CMB/CMD, and maaaaybe change prereqs if you don't want to import them as well. It ain't bad either way.

I'd probably create a custom progression (+~1/3 level for everything is surprisingly not bad) though, because both VoP and the ABP have their own weird quirks. (Among other things, for VoP you'd probably want to cut the Exalted AC bonus down and get rid of the sustenance-type effects)

[Cosi]

How you remove the Christmas Tree also depends on why you want to do that. If you just want people to have more interesting items, you can mandate that every item that grants a stat bonus ("stat" here meaning ability scores, but also attacks/saves/AC) also comes with a free non-stat bonus effect of equal or lesser value. So your +4 Gloves also let you summon a magical dog companion (equivalent to the Onyx Dog Figurine of Wondrous Power). If you just want people to not need items, I would figure out some rate of scaling for each type of bonus (ability score, AC, skills, and others all scale differently), then let people get one per level up to some cap. Doing this has the secondary effect of making classes that want one big item (like Wizards) slightly worse and classes that want lots of small items (like Paladins) slightly better, which is nice.

[Quertus]

How you remove the Christmas Tree also depends on why you want to do that. If you just want people to have more interesting items, you can mandate that every item that grants a stat bonus ("stat" here meaning ability scores, but also attacks/saves/AC) also comes with a free non-stat bonus effect of equal or lesser value. So your +4 Gloves also let you summon a magical dog companion (equivalent to the Onyx Dog Figurine of Wondrous Power). If you just want people to not need items, I would figure out some rate of scaling for each type of bonus (ability score, AC, skills, and others all scale differently), then let people get one per level up to some cap. Doing this has the secondary effect of making classes that want one big item (like Wizards) slightly worse and classes that want lots of small items (like Paladins) slightly better, which is nice.

Other than hitting incorporeal creatures, when do characters actually need items?

A magic free party should be able to function just fine. They have the same capabilities, just lower numbers. They will need to tackle lower challenges, and thus they will level more slowly. I'm not seeing the problem.

Personally, I prefer to go way over WBL, and otherwise help "martial" characters try to keep up with the Jones - be that wizards or monsters. Because I like Christmas.

[Barstro]

Other than hitting incorporeal creatures, when do characters actually need items?

When DMs decide that the enemies still get all the benefits of magic items. As long as everyone is, in actuality, treated equally, then I agree with you.

[Svata]

Other than hitting incorporeal creatures, when do characters actually need items?

Overcoming DR/Magic?

[Zanos]

Other than hitting incorporeal creatures, when do characters actually need items?

When the CR system has numbers and abilities set up to take magic items into account, making them a requirement for characters to be able to regularly overcome appropriately CR'd threats.

But yes, if your DM is willing to manually adjust the power of every monster you come across to account for you not having magic items, then it isn't a problem. But in most cases the DM wants to make magic items rare and then makes you fight dragons and ghosts anyway.

[Mikemical]

When the CR system has numbers and abilities set up to take magic items into account, making them a requirement for characters to be able to regularly overcome appropriately CR'd threats.

But yes, if your DM is willing to manually adjust the power of every monster you come across to account for you not having magic items, then it isn't a problem. But in most cases the DM wants to make magic items rare and then makes you fight dragons and ghosts anyway.

Been there, got the shirt. I got a 20/20/20 against a red dragon, my character beheaded it with his greatsword in the third round. DM got mad at me and sent in it's mother, who proceeded to target her breath entirely on my character while flying around until I died. Nobody was allowed a magic wand or scrolls to help in the situation, only a couple +1 weapons, which were useless, because they were all flaming.

To add to the list: Salty people are the worst DMs, especially if they have a "me vs them" mentality.

[Quertus]

Overcoming DR/Magic?

* Lance + spirited charge?
* Power attack, especially 2-handed?
* x4 crit multiplier?
* Bucket of water?
* Spells?

Sure, it helps to have an appropriate weapon to overcome DR, but it isn't required.

Ok, DR 50/+3, on a non-breathing, magic immune monster immune to crits, was a bit nasty - and that was in core - but most monsters aren't too tough that you can't beat them despite DR.

When the CR system has numbers and abilities set up to take magic items into account, making them a requirement for characters to be able to regularly overcome appropriately CR'd threats.

But yes, if your DM is willing to manually adjust the power of every monster you come across to account for you not having magic items, then it isn't a problem. But in most cases the DM wants to make magic items rare and then makes you fight dragons and ghosts anyway.

You missed my point. Let me try to be more clear.

A naked 20th level party can fight, say, a CR 10 monster.

They just level slowly - like they did in older editions, dagnabbit! - and you have to expand the XP table to cover earning XP for lower CR.

If you're trying to say that the CR system would no longer be a good measure of whether a random party can handle a random threat, well, I'd contend it already doesn't do that very well.

EDIT: so, I'm not talking about changing the monsters, I'm talking about changing the expectation of what monsters the party can fight.

[Zanos]

You missed my point. Let me try to be more clear.

Nah, I think i got it and we just disagree.

A naked 20th level party can fight, say, a CR 10 monster.

Depends on the party and depends on the monster, but generally true.

They just level slowly - like they did in older editions, dagnabbit! - and you have to expand the XP table to cover earning XP for lower CR.

EDIT: so, I'm not talking about changing the monsters, I'm talking about changing the expectation of what monsters the party can fight.

Okay, except most people who just wholesale ban magic items or make them very rare do not not do this. In fact I've never seen a DM that didn't like magic items screw with XP tables or adjust encounters all that much, they just shrug when the party with no gear at level 5 dies to a group of shadows.

If you're trying to say that the CR system would no longer be a good measure of whether a random party can handle a random threat, well, I'd contend it already doesn't do that very well.

It doesn't do a great job but it can provide approximations in many cases, to the point where gross outliers like the crab and the adamantine horror are notable rather than commonplace.

[arclance]

+ DMs who roll all loot randomly without a easily accessible means of exchanging the random loot for gear appropriate to the party.

This ends up being very similar to the low magic item DM if the random loot contains nothing for your character.
Hope you don't fight unarmed, you basically get nothing with standard tables.

[Cosi]

A magic free party should be able to function just fine. They have the same capabilities, just lower numbers. They will need to tackle lower challenges, and thus they will level more slowly. I'm not seeing the problem.

Well, that's kind of the point. The game expects you to beat CR 10 monsters at level 10. If you're beating CR 10 monsters at level 14 because you don't have items, you needed those items to do what the game expected you to do. Obviously, you can still play without them, but it's dishonest to say you don't need them because the game can be warped to accommodate not having them.

[icefractal]

Other than hitting incorporeal creatures, when do characters actually need items?

Flying foes. Foes who can move fast enough to kite them. Foes with sufficiently good stealth abilities. Foes who inflict conditions that you need magic to protect again and/or cure.

A party of casters could probably handle being zero-wealth, though they'd have to be a lot more cautious than typical. But many classes will run into problems that higher numbers don't help with.

[danielxcutter]

Flying foes. Foes who can move fast enough to kite them. Foes with sufficiently good stealth abilities. Foes who inflict conditions that you need magic to protect again and/or cure.

A party of casters could probably handle being zero-wealth, though they'd have to be a lot more cautious than typical. But many classes will run into problems that higher numbers don't help with.

The Tarrasque can only be killed if you drop it to -10 hit points, and then use the greater function of Wish or Miracle. Sending it against a party that doesn't have access to either of those is literally impossible to justify.

[Cosi]

The Tarrasque can only be killed if you drop it to -10 hit points, and then use the greater function of Wish or Miracle. Sending it against a party that doesn't have access to either of those is literally impossible to justify.

Once you get it down to below 0 HP, you can keep it permanently unconscious if you can deal 40 damage a round to it. Since it's helpless at that point, you can have people repeatedly coup de grace it, which means you don't have to worry about AC. However, it still has DR 15/Epic, so you need to use something with a pretty high crit multiplier. 1st level Warriors with scythes average 20 damage on a critical hit without any other bonuses, which means that an eight man team could keep the Tarrasque down permanently. Probably better to just go with the maximum number of people you can fit around it for safety (6 on each side, plus 4 corners for 28), working in eight hour shifts. That's doable with a 23+ Leadership score, or less with multiple leaders (using higher level followers too doesn't help much as there aren't that many). If your whole party takes Leadership you can manage four full shifts with a score of 16, which lets people get time off.

In theory, you could use Energy Substitution + wall of fire + permanency to lock it down without any need for manpower, but that runs into problems with SR.

[danielxcutter]

Once you get it down to below 0 HP, you can keep it permanently unconscious if you can deal 40 damage a round to it. Since it's helpless at that point, you can have people repeatedly coup de grace it, which means you don't have to worry about AC. However, it still has DR 15/Epic, so you need to use something with a pretty high crit multiplier. 1st level Warriors with scythes average 20 damage on a critical hit without any other bonuses, which means that an eight man team could keep the Tarrasque down permanently. Probably better to just go with the maximum number of people you can fit around it for safety (6 on each side, plus 4 corners for 28), working in eight hour shifts. That's doable with a 23+ Leadership score, or less with multiple leaders (using higher level followers too doesn't help much as there aren't that many). If your whole party takes Leadership you can manage four full shifts with a score of 16, which lets people get time off.

In theory, you could use Energy Substitution + wall of fire + permanency to lock it down without any need for manpower, but that runs into problems with SR.

Yeah... I get what you mean, but honestly, if your DM pulled something like that on you, you wouldn't be happy, would you?

[Cosi]

Yeah... I get what you mean, but honestly, if your DM pulled something like that on you, you wouldn't be happy, would you?

I mean, if you manage to hit 20th level without anyone who can cast wish or miracle, either your party is four Druids or you're doing some kind of funky MacGyver campaign and are presumably expecting challenges that require weird tricks to beat.

That assumes you don't have wish because of your choices. If the DM is blocking access, then, yeah, I'd be pissed.

Also, I figured out how to get wall of fire to work:

1. Play a Red Wizard. Mostly your feats are unimportant, but you need Energy Substitution.
2. Get at least CL 31 out of Circle Magic so that you automatically beat the Tarrasque's SR. At 11th level, this takes five circle buddies giving up a 4th level spell (which is a little hard to pull off). At 14th level, you could use Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit) to make mini-mes for the purpose.
3. Cast wall of fire at CL 31 Energy Substitutioned to not-fire (bypassing the Tarrasque's immunity to fire). Cold is a good choice as it allows skeleton workers to harvest from the Tarrasque.
4. Cast permanency on the walls of fire (or have a Dweomerkeeper friend do so).

Each wall deals 2d4 damage, so twenty castings makes the Tarrasque permanently incapacitated.

[danielxcutter]

I mean, if you manage to hit 20th level without anyone who can cast wish or miracle, either your party is four Druids or you're doing some kind of funky MacGyver campaign and are presumably expecting challenges that require weird tricks to beat.

That assumes you don't have wish because of your choices. If the DM is blocking access, then, yeah, I'd be pissed.

Also, I figured out how to get wall of fire to work:

1. Play a Red Wizard. Mostly your feats are unimportant, but you need Energy Substitution.
2. Get at least CL 31 out of Circle Magic so that you automatically beat the Tarrasque's SR. At 11th level, this takes five circle buddies giving up a 4th level spell (which is a little hard to pull off). At 14th level, you could use Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit) to make mini-mes for the purpose.
3. Cast wall of fire at CL 31 Energy Substitutioned to not-fire (bypassing the Tarrasque's immunity to fire). Cold is a good choice as it allows skeleton workers to harvest from the Tarrasque.
4. Cast permanency on the walls of fire (or have a Dweomerkeeper friend do so).

Each wall deals 2d4 damage, so twenty castings makes the Tarrasque permanently incapacitated.

I hear Allips work, too, but I don't know how that one works.

[Cosi]

I hear Allips work, too, but I don't know how that one works.

The Tarrasque is immune to ability damage, but not ability drain. Therefore, if you sick a bunch of allips on it, it will eventually hit 0 WIS, go catatonic, and be safely incapacitated for the long term. Since ability drain doesn't come back naturally, you only have to do it once.

[Arbane]

Other than hitting incorporeal creatures, when do characters actually need items?

Going underwater. Dealing with fliers. Most extraplanar travel. Getting high enough will saves to avoid the fighters being sicced on the rest of the party. Healing if the cleric gets ganked first.

[Blu]

+ DMs who roll all loot randomly without a easily accessible means of exchanging the random loot for gear appropriate to the party.

This ends up being very similar to the low magic item DM if the random loot contains nothing for your character.
Hope you don't fight unarmed, you basically get nothing with standard tables.

In one of my tables we have 27 different scrolls and 27 different potions, most of wich are situational or useless.
DM dindn't have a clue to why we were having dificulty handling encounters...

Edit: We're level 5

Okay, except most people who just wholesale ban magic items or make them very rare do not not do this. In fact I've never seen a DM that didn't like magic items screw with XP tables or adjust encounters all that much, they just shrug when the party with no gear at level 5 dies to a group of shadows.

Big red flag when DM's think magic items should increase the CR for the party

[danielxcutter]

Big red flag when DM's think magic items should increase the CR for the party

Depends on the magnitude of the magic items, I think. If it's well in the area of WBL, or if it's not, it still allows the players deal with the encounters without totally stomping on them, then upping the encounters is just cowdung. If the DM gives them seriously overpowered items, possibly for story reason(such as an artifact), then giving them somewhat higher CRed encounters might not be so bad. Pretty sure the former is much more common, though.

[Blu]

Depends on the magnitude of the magic items, I think. If it's well in the area of WBL, or if it's not, it still allows the players deal with the encounters without totally stomping on them, then upping the encounters is just cowdung. If the DM gives them seriously overpowered items, possibly for story reason(such as an artifact), then giving them somewhat higher CRed encounters might not be so bad. Pretty sure the former is much more common, though.

I mean any magic item should count for higher CR, I already found one of those DM

[danielxcutter]

I mean any magic item should count for higher CR, I already found one of those DM

So you have to fight equal-CR encounters if you're stark naked, and if you get so much as a +1 longsword, the CR goes up by 5 or 6? Then your DM's being an asshat. The reason the PCs can fight equal-CR encounters in the first place is thanks to their items.

[Thurbane]

Eh, I don't think it's all that bad. At 6-10 characters tend to have a handful of magic items. A magic weapon, maybe some armor, probably a vest or cloak of resistance, some kind of flight or short range teleportation item, then a smattering of utility stuff like belts of healing or battle and wands/scrolls/potions. That's a good amount of stuff but not ridiculous. I guess it gets silly as you start to hit the upper teens and every character has 20+ magic items minimum, but each individual item in D&D tends to do less on it's own then items from classical myths. If all the powers of a level 20 characters magic items were actually just on the same hat, people would find it a lot easier to swallow. Or hell, if it was just a single "outfit" called a raiment of legend that only did anything when you had all the pieces.

My experience has been that you start accumulating almost a "full loadout" of body slots by about level 8 or 9, but I agree with your general point.

Well yeah, players are going to tend to not take a feat that they can literally never use. Banning the feat and structuring your game such that it never does anything are pretty similar, with the exception that the later still allows it as a trap for people who don't know how your game is run yet.

I think maybe my little post was a little unclear: I was making two separate but related points.

1. Pretty much no one in my group has ever taken item creation feats, except Wizards who get Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat. Not because it's discouraged or the various DMs go out of their way to make the feats nonviable - just because the concept of item creation hasn't been one that appealed to anyone.

2. A lot of pre-written adventures tend to put the party on a timeline, which would adversely effect PCs who've invested in crafting feats. My first (and so far only) foray at playing a Wizard as a PC in 3E suffered from this; the module we were running suffered from a severe lack of downtime - so much so that I wasn't even able to scribe the vast bulk of scrolls found as treasure into my spellbook.

[Zanos]

I think maybe my little post was a little unclear: I was making two separate but related points.

1. Pretty much no one in my group has ever taken item creation feats, except Wizards who get Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat. Not because it's discouraged or the various DMs go out of their way to make the feats nonviable - just because the concept of item creation hasn't been one that appealed to anyone.

2. A lot of pre-written adventures tend to put the party on a timeline, which would adversely effect PCs who've invested in crafting feats. My first (and so far only) foray at playing a Wizard as a PC in 3E suffered from this; the module we were running suffered from a severe lack of downtime - so much so that I wasn't even able to scribe the vast bulk of scrolls found as treasure into my spellbook.

Ah, fair enough. I thought you were outlining two portions of the same scenario. Can't disagree with 1 since it's your personal experience. I agree with 2 but I also hate both playing and running pre-written adventures to begin with, for this and other reasons.

[Barbarian Horde]

DM's that give their players Magical Walmart for all their needs. Magical Walmart buys all their gear in bulk from their local Pun-Pun and have it shipped in daily. Anything and everything you need. Check out the sporting section for every possible combination of magical weapons as we do sell it here.

[Lorddenorstrus]

DM's that give their players Magical Walmart for all their needs. Magical Walmart buys all their gear in bulk from their local Pun-Pun and have it shipped in daily. Anything and everything you need.

I actually use a joke character for high level magic mart. Me and a friend designed a wizard who loops into infinite wishes and infinite power. Not using Pazuzu summoning items. Was the Elven Generalist Domain wizard. Anyway, we joked about the character and decided to start using him as a magic mart. It's good comedy and quite useful as the excuse on where items come from. "The multi dimensional salesmen."

[Barbarian Horde]

I'm not fond of the idea at all. I think you should have to work for your magical gear to some extent. It rubs me the wrong way. I can't imagine any one shop having more then 1-3 magical items tops. Thousands, and thousand of pp or gold just doesn't seem reasonable shop keeper could afford multiple pieces of gear. Barrels of masterwork weapons? Sure! Mundane Items? Sure!

(Ex:) Helm of telepathy (Expensive show piece) as the item being displayed as the main attraction at the shop for the public. After that maybe a few cheap things like dust of tracelessness and scroll of fireball CL 4th locked up and secured in some fashion.

Maybe the Merchant is a red dragon thats has shape shifted into a humanoid form and has jacked up the price 10, 20% cause of his greed. However he has many show pieces available for select few to view.

Invest in feats to create it yourself? Sure NP.

[Lorddenorstrus]

I'm not fond of the idea at all. I think you should have to work for your magical gear to some extent. It rubs me the wrong way. I can't imagine any one shop having more then 1-3 magical items tops. Thousands, and thousand of pp or gold just doesn't seem reasonable shop keeper could afford multiple pieces of gear. Barrels of masterwork weapons? Sure! Mundane Items? Sure!

(Ex:) Helm of telepathy (Expensive show piece) as the item being displayed as the main attraction at the shop for the public. After that maybe a few cheap things like dust of tracelessness and scroll of fireball CL 4th locked up and secured in some fashion.

Maybe the Merchant is a red dragon thats has shape shifted into a humanoid form and has jacked up the price 10, 20% cause of his greed. However he has many show pieces available for select few to view.

Invest in feats to create it yourself? Sure NP.

It's basically an egotistical pun pun that decided to be a salesman for the sh*ts and giggles. It works. I can understand it rubbing some people the wrong way who try really hard for realism and immersion.. but got dragons flying around magic everywhere I really don't see a problem personally with there being a multi dimensional traveler that sells crap for the lulz.

I'd be more concerned with magic item starvation than monte haul esque campaigns. I like to give loot, sadly it gets ignored or misused.. or thrown in a bag a lot. So just opening up magic mart so they can at least put the wealth to work. Also my groups tend to love comedic effect. God Wizard does this, with his excellent traveling companion. The troll with intelligence so low he thinks his name is me. The misadventures of God and Me.

[Barbarian Horde]

Realism is fine in doses, but I just don't want to saturate the world in convenient gear. depending on what the other players do to sometimes.. It can be a nightmare when they make other party members obsolete because they have enough gear that compliments them enough to fight an encounter by them self.