I’ve been playing 4e (sporadically) for the last 10 months or so and I love it. However, a few of the rules, or at least how they are presented, just rub me the wrong way. One of the biggest irritants being the rule of limited Magic Item Daily Power Usage.
From a game design perspective I can understand why it was put in place… balance. Daily powers are, after all, the most potent of abilities or powers, with the possible exception of rituals. If not for this built-in limitation, what would stop you from amassing a stockpile of powerful magic items that you can then trade out, releasing a daily power round after round. That would be a game breaker, to say the least.
On the other hand, from a player perspective, it doesn’t really make sense. I’ve always thought of magic items in the same sort of terms as technological devices. The object holds the power, you just access it and employ it. So why can I access the power of one item and then not be able to access the power of another item, after the first, without a short rest? It’s the sort of thing that ruins my immersion in the game world.
Recently, Chris Stevens over at Roleplaying Pro, explained it in layman’s terms. It’s not that your other items suddenly lose their power temporarily after you use one of them. It’s that it takes a certain amount of personal/will power to access and activate these powerful items. This explanation makes sense and allows me to maintain my immersion in the game world. However, my logical side is still screaming “But it’s only for game balance!”
So, in order to appease both the game balance side and the game immersion side, I have come up with a compromise. You can still use one magic item daily power use per tier, as usual. In addition, you can activate another daily power from a magic item, but at the cost of a healing surge. You are still restricted to only one such use per round and with all the usual limitations. This allows you to access more item powers each day, yet it still puts an overall limit to item usage.
As I stated earlier, I don’t get to game nearly as often as I would like and probably not as often as you do. So, if you decide to give this probationary houserule a try, like it or not, please let me know how it works out.
Good gaming.
