Tuesday, June 10, 2008

4e: Counting the Cost

While James Mishler might be warming a bit to 4e, some issues still set his teeth on edge:

The economic system is so broken I don't even know where to begin. To provide a few examples:

Cloth Armor (i.e., "clothing" to most folks) provides a +0 armor bonus to AC and has a purchase price of 1 gp.
+6 Magical Cloth Armor provides a +6 armor bonus to AC and has a purchase price of 1,125,000 gp.

Plate Armor provides a +8 armor bonus to AC and has a purchase price of 50 gp.
+6 Magical Godplate Armor provides a +20 armor bonus to AC and has a purchase price of... yes, 1,125,000 gp.

The cost to enchant either item? 1,125,000 gp. The time required to enchant either item? 1 hour.

One. Hour.

Yeah, ouch. But this is what happens when you try to balance your economy around game considerations.

4 comments:

Brian Murphy said...

So Magical Godplate Armor takes the same time to enchant and costs the same amount as magical cloth armor.

That is, in every way, plain dumb.

Not to mention the dumb name (Godplate Armor? Is +1 called Commonerplate Armor).

(Captain Kirk voice) Interest...in 4E...waning.

David Larkins said...

Wait, so enchanters sell their magical armor at cost? How considerate! Who knew the world of D&D was such a socialist utopia.

trollsmyth said...

Not to mention the dumb name (Godplate Armor? Is +1 called Commonerplate Armor).

The word-salad that is 4e is mind-numbing. They aren't quite as bad as the folks who name anime shows, but I still get the feeling that they dropped a bunch of "cool" nouns and adverbs in a hat and just started drawing when inspiration ran low.

- Brian

Noumenon said...

Probably done by the people who have to name 1 million Magic cards a year (Fireflame Sword, Cinderfire Dagger, etc, etc, etc)