The Magic Item Reset (IV): Implements

Continuing with my standalone magic item collection, here are the magic implements.

As usual, any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Magic Implement - Level 1+ Common Implement
Lvl 1 (+1); Lvl 6 (+2); Lvl 11 (+3); Lvl 16 (+4); Lvl 21 (+5); Lvl 26 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus.

Reaching Implement - Level 2+ Common Implement
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus.
Property: Ranged and area implement attacks made with this implement gain a +2 bonus to range.

Implement of Fear - Level 2+ Common Implement
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus.
Property: When you hit with an implement melee or close attack using this implement, the target can't flank until the start of your next turn.

Healing Implement - Level 3+ Common Implement
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: You or an ally within 5 squares can spend a healing surge.
Property: When you hit with an implement attack with this implement, you or an ally within 5 squares gain a power bonus to healing surge value equal to the implement's enhancement bonus until the end of your next turn.

Overwhelming Implement - Level 4+ Common Implement
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d4 damage per plus, and the target is pushed one square per plus.
Property: You gain a +1 untyped bonus to the distance you push, pull or slide creatures with implement attacks using this implement.

Implement of Friendly Fire - Level 3+ Common Implement
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus.
Property Implement attacks made with this implement gain a -2 penalty to attack rolls against an ally. Damage dealt to allies with attacks using this implement takes a penalty equal to twice the implement's enhancement bonus.

Attuned Implement - Level 4+ Common Implement
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Special: Choose one of the following damage types when the implement is created: Acid, Cold, Fire, Force, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Psychic, Radiant, or Thunder.
Critical: +1d4 damage per plus, or +1d10 damage per plus with attacks of the chosen type.
Property You gain a +1 untyped bonus to damage rolls with implement attacks of the chosen type using this implement.
   Level 14: +2 bonus.
   Level 24: +3 bonus.

Implement of Imposition- Level 2+ Uncommon Implement
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus.
Property: When an implement attack made with this implement inflicts an effect that a save can end, the target takes a -2 penalty to the first saving throw made against it.
Power (Daily). Free action. Trigger: An enemy saves against an effect caused with this implement. Effect: The triggering enemy rerolls the saving throw.

Implement of Ruin- Level 3+ Uncommon Implement
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d8 damage per plus.
Power (Encounter): Minor action. Effect: The next implement attack you make with this implement this turn deals an extra 1d6 damage.
   Level 13: 2d6 damage.
   Level 23: 3d6 damage.

Storing Implement - Level 3+ Uncommon Implement
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus.
Special: When the implement is created, choose one level 1 encounter implement attack power that can be used as a standard action, from a class that is proficient with this implement.
Power (Daily). Standard action. You use the chosen power.
   Level 13: Encounter attack power of level 7 or less.
   Level 23: Encounter attack power of level 17 or less.

Implement of the Initiate - Level 4+ Uncommon Implement
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d8 damage per plus.
Special: When the implement is created, choose one level 1 at-will implement attack power that can be used as a standard action, from a class that is proficient with this implement.
Power (Encounter). Standard action. You use the chosen power unaugmented.

Implement of Explosions - Level 5+ Uncommon Implement
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d8 damage per plus to the target and all enemies adjacent to it.
Power (Encounter) Minor action. The next time you use a burst or blast implement attack power with this implement this turn, if it is an at-will or encounter power, increase the size of the burst or blast by 1.

Prismatic Implement - Level 3+ Rare Implement
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: Choose any damage type. The target takes +1d12 damage per plus of that type, and you charge the implement with that type until the end of the encounter.
    (Damage types are Acid, Cold, Fire, Force, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Psychic, Radiant, and Thunder)
Property Once per round, when an implement attack made with this implement damages an enemy, you can choose one damage type dealt by the attack. After the attack, you charge the implement with that type until the end of the encounter.
Property: You gain a bonus to damage rolls of implement attacks made with this implement equal to the number of damage types charged in the implement.
    Level 23: The bonus is equal to twice the number of charged types.
Property: You gain resist 2 to all damage types charged in this implement.
    Level 13: resist 4.
    Level 23: resist 6.

Implement of Transferred Fate - Level 4+ Rare Implement
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: The target takes 5 ongoing damage per plus (save ends).
Property: When you hit an enemy with an implement attack with this implement, until the end of your next turn the enemy takes a -2 penalty to saving throws, and an ally you can see takes a +2 power bonus to saving throws from effects caused by that enemy.
Power (Encounter) Free action. Trigger: You hit an enemy with an implement attack using this implement. Effect: Choose one effect on you that a save can end. You can make a saving throw against it. If you succeed, the enemy is afflicted by that effect.

Implement of Deadly Accuracy- Level 5+ Rare Implement
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
Critical: +1d10 damage per plus.
Property: When you hit with a melee or ranged implement attack with a single target using this implement, for every 5 points in which your attack roll exceeds the targeted defense, you deal an extra d4 damage.
   Level 13: extra d8 damage.
   Level 23: extra d12 damage.
Power (Daily) Minor Action. You gain a +5 power bonus to your next attack roll with this implement.

Previous: Weapons     Next: Armor

Index

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The Magic Item Reset (III): Weapons

Updated (v1.1) 26/06/11

 

Having explained why and how I designed a standalone set of magic items to replace the existing ones in D&D 4E, I can proceed to show them to you. Here are the magic weapons.

Note: These items are intended to be used instead of the official ones, rather than alongside them. They should present a complete and varied, if small, array of abilities for PCs of all kinds. Whether or not I succeeded in that task is a different matter ;)

 

It should also be taken into account that the items have been designed with the item rarity system (introduced in the Rules Compendium) in mind. I believe they present the best (and only) attempt at exploiting the potential of this system, to date. In case you hate item rarity for whatever reason, you can still use them with the old rules, with a couple of caveats. In particular, rare items are (definitely!) not balanced with non-rare items, and should be dropped altogether. In addition, some uncommon items may be problematic in multiples due to spammable encounter or daily powers.

 

The item stat block has been slightly modified from the one presented in the books, for brevity and clarity.

 

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Magic Weapon - Level 1+ Common Weapon
Lvl 1 (+1); Lvl 6 (+2); Lvl 11 (+3); Lvl 16 (+4); Lvl 21 (+5); Lvl 26 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus

Throwing Weapon - Level 2+ Common Weapon
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Requires: Melee weapon
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d4 damage per plus
Property: This weapon counts as a heavy thrown weapon with a range of 3/6

Mage’s Weapon - Level 2+ Common Weapon
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus
Property: When making a weapon basic attack with this weapon, you can use your highest ability modifier instead of the one you would use normally for the attack roll.
(Your modifier for the damage roll is still determined as usual)

Winged Weapon - Level 2+ Common Weapon
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Requires: Ranged or thrown weapon
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, and the target is knocked prone if it is flying
Property: Ranged and area attacks with this weapon deal extra damage equal to its enhancement bonus to creatures that are flying.

Healing Weapon - Level 3+ Common Weapon
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: You or an ally within 5 squares can spend a healing surge.
Property: When you hit with a weapon attack with this weapon, you or an ally within 5 squares gain a power bonus to healing surge value equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus until the end of your next turn.

Vicious Weapon - Level 3+ Common Weapon
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d12 damage per plus

Energy Weapon - Level 4+ Common Weapon
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Special: Choose one of the following damage types when the weapon is created: Acid, Cold, Fire, Force, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Psychic, Radiant, or Thunder.
Critical: +1d10 damage of the chosen type per plus.
Power (At-will): Minor Action. All damage dealt by weapon attacks with this weapon is of the chosen type. You can dismiss this effect as a free action.

Overwhelming Weapon - Level 4+ Common Weapon
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d4 damage per plus, and the target is pushed one square per plus.
Property: You gain a +1 untyped bonus to the distance you push, pull or slide creatures with weapon attacks using this weapon.

Defending Weapon - Level 2+ Uncommon Weapon
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Requires: Melee weapon
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: 1d4 per plus, and you gain a +2 untyped bonus to all defenses until the end of your next turn.
Power (Encounter): Minor action. You don't grant combat advantage until the start of your next turn.

Extending Weapon - Level 3+ Uncommon Weapon
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus
Power (Encounter): Minor action. Until the end of your next turn, the reach of this weapon increases by 1, and the range of this weapon increases by 5.

Snap Shot Weapon - Level 3+ Uncommon Weapon
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Requires: Ranged weapon
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus.
Power (Encounter). Opportunity Action. Trigger: An adjacent enemy provokes an opportunity attack from you. Effect: Make a ranged basic attack with this weapon against the triggering enemy.

Rending Weapon - Level 4+ Uncommon Weapon
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: You make a basic attack with this weapon as a free action. You gain an untyped bonus to the attack and damage roll equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus.

Feinting Weapon - Level 4+ Uncommon Weapon
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d8 damage per plus.
Property: When you miss with a weapon attack using this weapon, you gain a power bonus equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus on your next damage roll against the target.

Keen Weapon - Level 5+ Uncommon Weapon
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d8 damage per plus.
Property: When making a weapon attack with combat advantage, this weapon scores critical hits on a roll of 19-20.
  Level 25: the critical hits are scored on a roll of 18-20.

Weapon of Light and Shadow - Level 3+ Rare Weapon
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d8 necrotic and radiant damage per plus. Until the end of the encounter, all damage dealt by your weapon attacks with this weapon is radiant and necrotic.
Power (At-Will): Choose radiant or necrotic. Your weapon attacks with this weapon gain that keyword, and all damage dealt by them is of the chosen type.
Property: When you hit with a radiant weapon attack with this weapon, an ally adjacent to the target gains temporary hit points equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus. When you hit with a necrotic weapon attack with this weapon, you gain temporary hit points equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus.

Energy Burst Weapon - Level 4+ Rare Weapon
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Special: Choose one of the following damage types when the weapon is created: Acid, Cold, Fire, Force, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Psychic, Radiant, or Thunder.
Critical: +1d12 damage of the chosen type per plus to the target and all enemies adjacent to it.
Property: You gain resist 5 against the chosen damage type.
  Level 15: Resist 10.
  Level 25: Resist 15.
Power (At-will): Minor Action. All damage dealt by weapon attacks with this weapon is of the chosen type. You can dismiss this effect as a free action.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Until the end of the encounter, weapon attacks with this weapon deal an extra d6 damage of the chosen type.
  Level 15: d10 damage.
  Level 25: 2d6 damage.

Vorpal Weapon - Level 5+ Rare Weapon
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d12 damage per plus.If you rolled a natural 18, 19 or 20 on the attack roll, you deal+2d12 damage per plus, and roll a d20. On a roll of 18-20, the enemy takes double damage from the critical hit.
Property: When you bloody an enemy with a weapon attack with this weapon, the enemy makes a saving throw. If it fails, the enemy is crippled until the end of the encounter. Choose an effect: while crippled, the enemy is slowed, or it takes a -4 penalty to damage rolls.
  Level 15: -7 penaly.
  Level 25: -10 penalty.

Next: Implements

 

Index

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The Magic Item reset (II): How many items?

Having determined that the current list of magic items is flawed, and decided to build my own one from scratch, removing all the clutter and keeping just the interesting stuff, there is a major question that needs to be answered: how many magic items does the system require? The main goals of this new item list is to offer a varied and fun experience without overwhelming players with options. Also, my resources as a standalone designer are limited, so I’ll tend to err on the side of brevity. With that in mind, what is the absolute minimum amount that would still provide an acceptable degree of variety?

We can answer this by looking at the parcel system described on the Dungeon Master’s Guide. We’ll forget about the new rarity system for now, though I’ll tackle that in a future article. Anyway, the DMG tells us that for a typical 5-man party, each level of adventuring should be rewarded with 4 magic items and enough gold to buy 2 more. This means that the party will see 6 items per level, 60 per tier, and 180 over the course of its whole career. Likewise, each PC will have 1.2 items per level, 12 items per tier, and 36 items total until he reaches his epic destiny. Not all of these will be wholly different items, as the primary slots of items (weapons, armor, and neck) get upgraded frequently, often with higher level versions of what a PC already has, but this should be a decent guideline. Also, we’ll ignore about the effect of consumables and rituals, because these tend to screw the game economy a lot.

I find it most useful to examine these numbers over the course of a whole tier, and on a per slot basis. We have 9 main item slots in the game: weapon/implement, armor, neck, arms, hands, head, feet, belt, ring. Wondrous items don’t take up a slot, but they could be considered as an extra slot or two. For each of these slots, we’ll want an item per PC per tier, except for primary slots, which require two. Overall, this nets us about 12 item slots to fill in a tier for each PC, which very conveniently fits the item supply from the parcel system, as described above. However, this shows us a very important point: it’s not enough to have high raw numbers of items in the systems, they also need to be evenly distributed across slots. Our example 5-man party would require 5 different items for each slot, at the very least, in addition to the 60 total items per tier.

This minimum limit of 5 items per slot and 60 items in total per tier is useful as a reference, but won’t play all that well: all parties will end up seeing the same items, and item repetition across PCs will be too frequent. That said, a multiple of that may be good enough. For now, I will settle with a number slightly above twice this minimum, which I’ve found out to provide an acceptable level of variety, while keeping the treasure list very accessible for players to look up. The fact that it’s low enough to make item design a manageable task was also a considerable upside, of course.

I ended up with 120 items for each tier, with the following slot distribution:

- Weapon: 15

- Implement 15

- Armor 14

- Neck 13

- Feet 10

- Belt 10

- Head 10

- Arms 13

- Hands 10

- Ring 9 (no heroic rings)

Wondrous items and consumables are still unfinished at the time of writing this. Distribution across levels and rarities is an interesting topic, which I’ll cover on a future article.

Maximizing the impact of items.

So, once we know we are going to run with a low item count, how can we make sure that it all works out? I tried to follow these guidelines:

- Make each item count. As a rule of thumb, every single item should be useful (though not necessarily optimal) for at least one PC in a typical party.

- Avoid clearly superior options. There is no point in coming up with a dozen cool items for a slot, if one of them is blatantly stronger than the rest. I did make an exception for rare items, of which I will talk at a later point.

- Avoid narrow designs. The more different PC builds that can benefit from an item, the better. This means that no item should reference or require specific races, powers, or features. However, we can still make gear that synergizes particularly well with certain builds.

- Loosen up requirements for weapons, implements and armor. Related to the previous point, I think that most weapon enchantments should work with any kind of weapon, and the same applies to armor enchantments, which should at most be restricted to either light armor or heavy armor, rather than specific types. In the case of implements, the existing design actually assigns a different item slot for each category of implement, leading to huge redundancy. To avoid this, I’ll use a generic implement slot, with enchantments that can be applied to all types of implement.

- Everything scales. Under the current design, all primary items (i.e. those with enhancenment bonuses) scale, but many secondary ones (boots, gloves, helms, etc.) do not. This means that secondary slots are usually crowded with lots of items that are only useful for a short level range, which often have slightly tweaked versions with different names at other tiers. This is an inefficient use of items that I won’t be able to afford; for this reason, all of my secondary items will scale every 10 levels and have three different versions, for heroic, paragon, and epic play (except for rings, which will remain unavailable at heroic). In addition all primary items will cover the full range from +1 to +6, which gives more consistency and makes a better use of design resources.

- Use customizable items. Armor of Resistance is a design I love, because it effectively aggregates 9 different magic items (one for each type of damage you can resist) in just one item with additional options. By contrast, Fire Weapon and its elemental brethren (Cold Weapon, Lightning Weapon and so on) are terrible from a system clutter perspective, since they repeat the same concept over and over with minor variations. For my items, Armor of Resistance will be the model to follow, whenever possible.

Next: Rarity and Level

Index

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The Magic Item reset (I): Why I hate magic items

Forget about feats, powers, or paragon paths. The most bloated, cumbersome and fun-killing part of D&D 4E are the magic items. For a game that is basically about killing monsters and taking their stuff, picking treasure too often feels like a chore rather than a reward. Today I will discuss why I feel this way about one of the sacred pillars of D&D, and in subsequent articles I will present my ideas on how to improve this situation.

It’s the item selection

To be clear, my gripe is not against the basic framework of the item system, which I find rather solid and well thought out. Nor am I opposed to the much maligned rarity system introduced by the Essentials books - on the contrary, I see it as an elegant solution which had the misfortune to come out three years too late, receiving zero support. No, the problem that plagues magic items lies in an element that is much harder to fix: the selection of items sucks.

 

It’s not that there aren’t fun, interesting items out there - but, to get to them, you have to filter through overwhelming amounts of junk. One of the stated design goals for items in 4E was to de-emphasize the importance of a character’s equipment (at least, compared to previous editions of the game), and while I consider this a noble purpose, it led to too many worthless pieces of gear. Even worse, a small minority of items were inadvertently (I assume) implemented with a much higher power level, overshadowing all the filler, but also the few interesting options that also existed. Ironically, this turned the process of choosing an item into a treasure hunt of sorts, with players digging through piles of stuff in order to find the rare gem.

 

This is compounded by the fact that a lot of items have very narrow applications, only being useful for characters built in a specific way, and sometimes even referring to specific class features - which is a compelling idea, but reduces even further the percentage of useful stuff for any given character. This approach requires printing huge amounts of items in order to provide minimal support for each possible build - and, given the wild variance in item power level, it implies that some classes will randomly get much more mileage out of their gear.

 

To sum up, the main problems I identified were the following:

•  Most items are terrible.
• A very small fraction of items are extremely strong.
•  Items are too narrow.
•  There is just too much stuff.

Unlike other game issues I have previously addressed in this blog, this just isn’t something that can be addressed by houseruling a few dozen (or even a few hundred!) items. The sensible solution would be to just give up on it, and either accept the tedious searches to compile each wishlist, or eschew magic items altogether in favour of inherent bonuses. But why be sensible, when you can be bold? I decided to try out a radical approach, which would require considerable efforts and was highly likely to end up as flawed as the original implementation: I would forget about the existing item list, and create a new one from scratch. I called this the Magic Item Reset. In future articles, you will see the design process I followed, and what came out of it.

Article index

1. Full item list

• Compiled PDF, v1.13
• Reference tables 

2. Item lists by slot

• Weapon
• Implement
• Armor
• Neck
• Feet
• Waist
• Head
• Arms
• Hands
• Ring
• Wondrous

3. Optional rules

• Treasure Generation
• Damage Adjustment

4. Articles on design

• Number of items
• Rarity and level

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D&D 4E: What Works, What Fails?

From the very beginning, this blog has tried to answer what can be improved about D&D 4E. For this reason, I couldn't resist participating when I saw the following call for feedback from the game devs:

Hey Folks;

It’s agonizing self-appraisal time in the D&D reeducation camp. Mike Mearls has asked for a list of issues that players see as problems with 4E. No group of people is better equipped to compile that list than all of you.

We’re only interested in the D&D rules right now—what’s broken, what’s underpowered? What change would get you to play an unloved class or race, or to pick a feat or power that no one uses? Whose damage is too low, whose basic attack is rubbish, which secondary effect doesn’t work as written? Let’s collect them all here, where they’ll be easy to find and compile.

Steve

(Steve is Steve Winter, editor of Dungeon and Dragon) The discussion is taking place in this thread in the official forums, and I'd encourage any readers to chime in. If you are interested in making D&D a better game, this looks like the perfect place to go. Here's what I had to say on the matter:

What works

The core combat system: It's still the best tactical board game I've played. It deserves to be ported to a pure squad battle game (but without collectible miniatures nonsense, please), and with enough simplification, it might even work for warhammer-style massive battles. It may be a bit on the slow side, but it's pure fun.

The class system, even outside of the At-will/Encounter/Daily template: One of the things I loved the most about 4E from the begining was how all characters played with the same rules, ending the historic fighter/wizard asymmetry. However, I'm glad that you experimented with classes that break this mold (first psionics, and more recently the much maligned Essentials), as they have brought fresh ideas, more variety, and great options for player who can't (or don't want to) deal with the default level of complexity. Just be aware that there are still many of us who love the traditional, more complex style.

Errata: I know there is people who think otherwise, but I'm really happy with the game errata. I may be biased because I use the online Compendium and Character Builder, which make dealing with rule updates really easy. Nevertheless, there have been many changes, most of them much needed, and I think that most of them have been a success. The game may still be far from perfect, and it might have been preferable not to need that errata in the first place, but I'm glad it has received this kind of support.

New monsters: Everything that has come since Monster Manual 3 has been great, and many historic flaws in the monster system are a thing of the past. Monster roles are balanced and interesting, new solos are all kinds of awesome, and minions, though still too fragile, have also experienced some great improvements. The downside is, I like this new math so much, that I can't stand looking at old school monsters. I'd really like to see the creatures in MM1, MM2 and all older adventures updated, even if I had to pay for it. Right now, I'm converting monster stats to the new standard when I DM, but that takes a LOT of work (though a functional Monster Builder would help!)

Dragon and Dungeon editing: Yep, the new material is definitely getting better. The errata forums hardly get any traffic these days! I do not approve of the drastic reduction of content (I want more stuff!), but I have to admit that I'm enjoying the few articles I get to read.

What doesn't work

Magic Item rarity: While I do like the rarity rules, they fall apart without a decent amount of common and rare items. This shouldn't have been introduced without a major errata, or a new item book.

Magic Item selection: Magic items also suffer from the fact that the current selection of items in the game is, well, terrible. There are too many items, and most of them are thoroughly uninteresting ("once per day, do something insignificant"), with a few that are absurdly good. There is no consistent idea about what the power level should be, nor is there a clear distinction between slots - what's the difference between an Arms item, a Waist item or a Head item? I honestly can't tell, because abilituies for each slot are all over the place. Having a separate item category for each type of implement was also an error, as it contributes to option bloat, and I think these would work much better with a generic "implement" slot, similar to magic weapons.

Psionic classes past heroic: I am very satisfied with the performance of psionics at heroic levels, but the power point scaling is really screwed up. I suspect that higher level augments were made more costly to prevent characters from spamming their strongest augment, but poor number adjustment has lead to the opposite - paragon and epic augments are ridiculously overcosted. I have been toying around with paragon augments costing 3 power points and epic ones 4, and the power point pool varying with the level of your at-wills (like hybrid psionics currently work), and I think this would solve most of these issues.

Skill scaling: Ok, this is not entirely accurate - the last revision of the skill DC table has been a great job, and it works surprisingly well. But I still think it was a failure not to have skill bonuses and DCs progress at the same rate as attack and defense bonuses (+1/level). What's the point of having a consistent math progression if some subsystems in the game just ignore it for no apparent reason?

Initiative scaling: Like skill scaling, I feel this really should have progressed at a rate of +1/level.

Tertiary abilities in general: Although the two previous points are the main offenders, anything that depends on ability modifiers in the game is subject to similar problems - the gap between characters who use a primary ability and those who don't is far too large. This affects basic attacks, AC for certain builds, and defenses, among other things. I have found that setting a minimum cap on these ability modifiers, and having the cap scale with character level, makes the game math much more consistent, and building characters far more forgiving. For reference, I use minimum bonuses of +1 per 5 levels (i.e. the same progression as enhancenemnt bonuses). Read More......

Monsters of the Trollhaunt V: Encounter W4

Monsters of the Trollhaunt: Index – Previous - Next

** SPOILER ALERT**
This is a series of articles about the monsters included in the adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens- so you may want to stop reading, if you intend to play the module anytime soon.

 

Our party keeps delving into the dungeon. Here are the updated monster stat blocks for their second encounter there.

Blackfire Flameskull (Level 10 Artillery)

Aside from its outdated stats, this flameskull isn’t as broken as you’d think by looking at my extensive list of revisions. Several of the changes I made were due to my personal preferences and expected party composition, rather than things that were inherently wrong. If you want to remain more faithful to the original monster, just changing the Fireball and updating damage would do the trick.

1. Issues identified:

- Flying Artillery. Your mileage may vary, but I find that combining flight and monsters that can attack at long range can often lead to annoying encounters unless a DM deliberately makes poor strategic choices. This is particularly true at heroic and lower paragon levels, where melee PCs can’t be expected to have a method to counter flying enemies other than ranged basic attacks. Given that 60% of the enemies in this encounter were flameskulls, and that my party was very melee-heavy, I really wanted to change the monster to prevent turn after turn of throwing javelins.
- Lack of reach. I only realized this after playing the encounter. Once the monster’s near immunity to melee was taken away (by limiting flight), we found that it could become extremely vulnerable to certain varieties of defender, on account of having reach 0 on its melee attacks. Typical artilleries get screwed enough when engaged by a defender, on account of having terrible AC and HP, and lousy melee attacks, but flameskulls are even worse off. Against a defender that punishes shifting (like fighters or cavaliers), reach 0 means that you can’t even make a bad melee attack without taking damage.
- Devastating opening attack. As bad as it is for wizard PCs, Fireball makes for a great monster power. It is not rare for a flameskull to target all PCs with its fireball on the first turn of an encounter, dishing out quite a bit of damage. This is particularly troublesome in multiples, though - put two (or three, like in this encounter) of these monsters together, and you can end up with most of the party bloodied before they even know what hit them!

2. Changes introduced.

- Added maximum altitude. Maximum altitude is a mechanic I’d like to see on more low-level flying monsters. Setting this at two stops flameskulls from sitting comfortably at the dungeon ceiling without worrying about melee attacks, though they retain an amazing level of mobility.
- New melee power: Fiery Assault. This is not particularly elegant, but after seeing three (!) skulls locked down by a cavalier, unable to do anything without taking considerable amounts of radiant damage, I am persuaded that they need a method to use their humble bites against defenders.
- Blackfire Ray blinding toned down. Blinded (save ends) is way above the power curve for an at-will attack from a non-Controller monster. I opted for gradual blindness instead.
- Fireball now has ongoing damage. After lowering Fireball damage (or, rather, not increasing it) to leave it as 100% of a normal attack instead of 125%, I was still worried about the effect of multiple instances of the spell burning down a party in a single round. By making part of its damage ongoing, we penalize this course of action, and create an interesting decision for the DM: use all fireballs at once, or try to wait to maximize damage?
- Tweaked resistances and vulnerabilities. I prefer to cap monster resistances at 5/tier unless there is a very good reason, so fire resistance took a small hit. I also dislike how radiant vulnerability can have an excessive effect on undead monsters; having radiant damage shut off regeneration instead of hitting harder is still good, but not as crippling.
- Tweaked damage and defenses. Damage was brought up to MM3 standards, ranged accuracy was increased a little, and I slightly reduced reflex because having defenses much higher than AC doesn’t feel quite right, to me.

Dire Bear (Level 11 Elite Brute)

The Dire Bear was one of the lucky monsters to get revisited in Monster Vault, so I didn’t need to change much for its stat block. Still, I was not entirely happy with how the side effects of its attacks worked.

1. Issues identified:

- Grabbing enemies is too difficult. An effect that relies on hitting with two consecutive attacks might end up not triggering at all during a whole encounter, particularly if defender PCs are involved. Since this is the only special ability of the bear (apart from Ursine Crush, which only works against grabbed targets!), there is a definite risk that the monster will end up excessively boring, in play.

2. Changes introduced.

- Make the grab trigger off a single hit. Letting the bear get a sucessful grab almost every turn doesn’t break anything, and makes for a far more compelling monster. There is even a remote chance to have multiple grabbed enemies at a given time, which led me to tweak Ursine Crush in order to affect “all grabbed creatures”. It won't come up all that often, but it should feel great when a DM gets to live the dream.

Troll Vinespeaker (Level 14 Controller)

1. Issues identified:

- Thorny Burst provides excessive control. I am usually wary of ongoing action-negating effects for at-will attacks that target a single character. On an area attack, it definitely crosses the line, particularly when attached to a permanent area of damaging difficult terrain. Something has to go, or be moved elsewhere. There is also the concern that the troll has four standard action attacks, and very little motivation to use anything but Thorny Burst.

2. Changes introduced.

- Toned down Troll Healing - see previous article about trolls as a race.
- Added Forest Walk. This is a minor change, but I thought it would be fitting for the troll to ignore difficult terrain from his own.
- Tweaked damage and defenses. Will defense in particular was extremely low, so I raised it by a whopping 5 points to leave it at standard levels.
- Redesigned Thorny Burst. Since the bramble zone was the coolest part of the power by a mile, I left that and took away the absurd immobilization effect. I turned it into a slow, which still has huge synergies with the permanent zone. This also allowed me to turn Ray of Thorns (the ranged attack) into a tempting option, by granting it the immobilization rider, but only against slowed enemies.

All images are (C) 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. The formatted statistics blocks have been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools. But not with the last version, which lacks a Monster Builder. The one before that, which works despite the billions of bugs. Read More......

Broken Bits: Morninglord

Broken Paragon Paths, Part Seven
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The Morninglord paragon path is one of the most ridiculously potent options available to players looking for an offensive boost. The reason is its 16th level feature, Burning Radiance, which reads as follows:

Burning Radiance (16th level): Whenever you hit with a power that has the radiant keyword, the target gains vulnerability 10 to radiant damage until the end of your next turn.

That is a LOT of extra damage, even when used fairly. The obvious (and probably intended) application is a radiant attack from a divine class, with Invokers and ranged Clerics getting the most out of it, due to the abundance of area attacks. However, any weapon-based character can benefit from it with the help of a Sunblade or Radiant Weapon, opening the door for Twin Strikes, Brutal Barrages and other multiattacks, with really impressive (and dangerous) results. Even worse is the use of group optimization to exploit the fact that the radiant vulnerability affects all attacks, not just those from the Morninglord - just stack characters with radiant attacks in your party, and see your foes disintegrate in an explosion of light.

The fix

There are quite a few things wrong with Burning Radiance. The vulnerability provided is excessive, it is too easy to apply it outside of the relatively safe divine classes, and boosting the whole party is downright crazy. Also, the rest of the path has a decent power level (with strong encounter and utility powers), so there is not a huge risk of rendering it unplayable by toning down its key feature. With that in mind, this is the version I’d use in my campaign.

Burning Radiance v.2 (16th level): Whenever you hit with a divine radiant power, the target gains vulnerable 5 radiant against your divine powers until the end of your next turn.

This cuts the vulnerability in half, limits it to divine attacks, and prevents it from boosting your allies. It is a huge drop in effectiveness, but I find that the revised feature (and the path as a whole, which still has an impressive area encounter attack) is still a very nice choice for most divine characters. It should no longer be a valid option for random characters looking for extra damage, but that was part of the point.

You can find an errata thread in the official forums for this paragon path here.

EDIT (06/04/11): Changed feature benefit from "divine attack powers" to "divine powers"
Read More......