Sunday, June 14, 2015

The Death of Magic Mart

Dungeons and Dragons always had magic items. But, possibly inspired by Diablo, 3rd edition went crazy with the concept. Tons of new magical items were introduced, and the rules explicitly stated that players could buy anything they wanted that they found in the rule books. This was possibly the most world-breaking idea introduced by the game. The fluff claims that magic is rare in the world, yet you can apparently walk into any town and find stores that keep arsenals of magical gear in stock...yet these pieces cost a king's ransom for just one simple +2 magic sword. Gear essentially became a way to further augment your character's ability as you leveled up. It also destroyed the concept of loot, making it pointless to explore random dungeons and side quests except to level up. Hence, many DMs house-ruled Magic Mart out of the game.

A major consequences of Magic Mart was that magic item bonuses were simply baked into the numbers. This had the unfortunate effect that magic items largely didn't feel that awesome. A Magic +2 Sword was a godlike weapon of smiting in AD&D, but by 4e, it was merely the base-level item you were expected to have at level six.

5e has returned to a low magic setting. Magic Mart is gone entirely---any special items you find are either randomly rolled or at the DM's discretion. Not only is a magic item bonus not baked into the numbers, but most magic gear has no modifier bonus at all.  The Flame Tongue Sword is 2d6 of fire damage. There is no +2 Flame Tongue Sword.

The up side of this is players no regard Magic +N gear as trash to sell immediately, and finding something special is a big deal. The down side of this is that Eberron campaigns don't convert well.

No comments:

Post a Comment