The Problem With Magical Items

When it comes to magical items, I have something of a reputation for being a stingy DM. I'm not proud of that description, but it's the truth. For whatever reason, when it comes to vanquished foes, they seem to lack the tons of gold or treasure chests of magical items that they're supposed to be carrying for the party to rummage through.

I know, I'm not being fair in my description. I know that items and gold can be fairly and realistically fed into campaigns. Gold can be given as rewards, and weapons and armor can be found in the enemy's armory. With some work and planning, it's not too crazy to follow the tables and keep everything running like it's supposed to.

And every campaign, I seem to toss all of that out the window.

Honestly, it really never affected our games, for the most part. During our time in 3.0 and 3.5, we rarely had magical items creep into our game. The one magical item of note in our old game was a flaming longbow, which made the group's jaws collectively drop when the ranger fired a few arrows and dealt a wizard's fireball in damage to his enemies. When the bow was sundered, the player almost quit the game forever, and his character was scarred for life, endlessly lamenting the supposed loss of his viability and worth in the group. Despite the lack of magical items, the group was able to handle whatever came their way, short of that time they ran away from an army and doomed two continents to an empirical takeover.

This all seemed to change as we got into Pathfinder, however. The farther we got in levels, the more we could feel the pressure to boost our numbers through magical items. Monsters were terrifyingly accurate, and the amount of damage they were dishing out made the whiffs and misses of our group all the more painful. It didn't take long before my old approach to sparse item distribution on items was really hurting the group. It wasn't long before I had to go back and reexamine my entire approach to the game. When Pathfinder cleaned up and polished 3.5, one of the results was that damage was more prominent. Not that you couldn't do the damage in 3.5 that you could do in Pathfinder, but Pathfinder did a much better job of ensuring that it was easier to build a good character. And in turn, they made their monsters able to return the damage as well.

The problem I have with magical items is that the game in completely balanced around the group having them. This isn't to say I don't think the system works. It obviously works, and works well. However, the dependency on magical items, especially The Big Six (magic weapon, magic armor, ring of protection, cloak of resistence, amulet of natural armor, and stat boosters), diminishes the fun of the game for me in a few ways.

First, I don't enjoy how most everyone in the group is seeking the same items, every time, in every game. If we start higher level, everyone's looking at what they can start with and going "*sigh*, let's get AC out of the way." If we come across magical equipment in the wild, the group immediately starts figuring out where they can sell it in order to get what they actually need/want. Of course, I could simply give them exactly what they expect, every time, in every game. That comes off as a bit bland, though.

"I pity the foo that don't
take Power Attack."

Secondly, the combat in the mid and upper levels is so wrapped around the fact you are expected to possess certain bonuses that it really starts to feel like the magical items are wearing you. I've never been comfortable with the fact that a fighter outside of his gear is so much less a threat. At higher levels, the clothes make the man, not the other way around. If magical items were bling, your level 15 fighter would look like Mr. T.

So what's the solution? Well, for myself, I'm going to be experimenting with adding in the inherent bonus feature from D&D 4E's Dungeon Master's Guide II. This system basically grants an enhancement bonus of +1 every so many levels to both Base Attack and AC, in order to make up for a game that either lacks magical items or doesn't wish to incorporate a lot of items into their game.

What do the rest of you think? Is there a better way to keep the game from becoming dependent on magical items? Is it ok that the game is? Or do you think I'm completely wrong? Let me know in the comments!