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.
January 28th, 2010 - 6:47 am
I’ve been basically ignoring the whole rule about only being able to use one a day, but I think I could handle this compromise. My players rarely use all their healing surges, so this would force them to choose between their magic items, and healing. I like it.
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January 28th, 2010 - 9:51 am
I like your idea for using healing surges as a limiter to daily usage, but honestly, there is a game balance reason to not let characters unleash every Daily Magic item in their possession.
Some Classes rarely use healing surges in higher level play, because they rarely get clobbered, and I’ve seen posts discussing how they look for ways to transfer healing surges to other classes that do get hurt more often.
So taking your idea a step further, I’d recommend making the healing surges cumulative. First Daily beyond Tier limit – 1 surge, Second Daily beyond Tier limit – 2 surges, etc. It will make blowing all your Daily item powers hard to do, and make Characters really consider if it’s really needed.
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January 28th, 2010 - 10:29 am
This is similar to what I do (charging a surge to use a daily from a magic item). Like you, I understood the limit from a game balance mechanic point of view, but I prefer my games to be a little more organic.
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January 28th, 2010 - 1:18 pm
I really don’t know anyone who follows that rule. Everyone I’ve talked to just ignores it or uses a similar house rule to yours.
I understand from a design perspective, but I think it was a little lazy. It increases the amount players have to keep track of, adds in a decision that’s not necessarily fun, AND is torturous and unsatisfying to explain in-game. I’m not too upset, since I like the system and nothing is perfect, but it’s definitely not a rule I feel bad ignoring.
January 28th, 2010 - 1:53 pm
I just treat magic item use the same way I treat hit points, healing surges, and other limited use powers: they don’t represent something tangible, like life force, fatigue, etc; they represent “force of plot”. Things don’t happen because they can. Things happen because someonw has the force of plot necessary to make it happen. Interestingly enough, since I started modeling stuff from a plot-force perspective, my players have all gotten more narratively involved.
January 28th, 2010 - 5:27 pm
I’m not the kind of person who gets tied up trying to justify real-world explanations for mechanics. But I like the idea of spending healing surges to use more item dailies. This feels like a good balance to me and it gives a nice flexibility. It also helps with those players who never use daily powers because they might need one more in the next encounter.
January 30th, 2010 - 2:31 am
[...] 4e Magic Item Use: A Compromise from Power Word: Blog [Thundarr Thursday] Notorious NPCs: Queen Stryia from The Savage [...]
January 31st, 2010 - 5:08 pm
[...] in the 1-10 level range where most would just stick standard kobolds, goblins or orcs. •Over at Power Word: Blog, the author talks about 4e daily magic item uses, and offers a houserule for allowing them to use [...]
February 1st, 2010 - 10:19 am
This is a good idea at its core, but I can immediately think of a (low level) item that would cause a problem. Dwarven armour allows a player to heal 1/4 HP as a free action without spending a healing surge.
At first, you might think there isn’t a problem here, because using more than one time would require multiple surges. However, PCs are normally very limited in how many surges they can spend in an encounter (1 second wind + whatever the Leader can provide). This rule combined with dwarven armour means that the party’s defender could theoretically spend all 13 of surges in a single battle (“Stand behind me guys, I can’t be killed”). Beside loss of balance and verisimilitude, this option would actually encourage such behaviour, and as a result start to bring back the “five-minute work day”. Even if it wasn’t a healing item, any power that’s good enough could encourage a player to blow all of his surges early on and than beg his teammates for an extended rest.
If you are going to allow players to use healing surges to activate magic items, I would suggest that you limit the number of times per encounter a player may do this.
February 1st, 2010 - 10:25 am
Actually, I should note that I am partially speaking from experience, not just conjecture. A while ago I gave my players some magic items that require healing surges to use (very similar to your idea). There have been few cases of abuse so far, but I know that if my generally-non-power-gaming friends will abuse something then it is likely that most other people will too, and some people much more than others.