The well-known “Christmas tree” effect of magic items in the d20 system, discussed by Pedro earlier today, is a thorn in the side of many, players and Dungeon (or Game) Masters alike. The problem is wrapped up deeply within the fundamental math that lies behind the system, and so any number of attempts to rectify it can have far-reaching consequences that echo throughout the rules. But there’s some good news. Though it may not seem like it on the surface, Pathfinder has made a lot of subtle changes that, as a whole reduce character reliance on the staple Big Six magical items. These changes don’t solve the problem wholesale—Pathfinder’s adherence to backwards compatibility prevented the sort of sweeping changes necessary to the core of the game to really do so—but they do give players more flexibility in their magic item choice, and Dungeon Masters more flexibility in how they award treasure. The most important changes, as I see them, and why they’re important are as follows:
1. Increased Hit Points: Just about every Pathfinder character should end up with more hit points than she would have had if she were written up using the 3.0 or 3.5 rules. Four of the 11 core classes (Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard) now have greater Hit Dice, granting them an extra hit point with each level. Most characters will also receive an additional hit point per level from Pathfinder’s favored class mechanics, and the Toughness feat received a welcome buff that can further boost hit points for those that feel need of it. These increases are, for most purposes, equivalent to giving each character +2 to her Constitution score (minus the increase to Fortitude saving throws), meaning that fewer characters will be in dire need of an item to boost that score. It’s also worth noting that many characters will gain a few effective hit points thanks to Pathfinder’s widening of the “near death” window from -10 to the negative of the character’s Constitution score, which again does something to lessen the need for a secondary Constitution item.
2. Increased Attack Bonuses and Damage: Most non-spellcasting, damage dealing characters hit more often and they hit harder when they do hit, thanks to a number of interlocking changes made in Pathfinder. Fighters receive the benefits of a +5 magical weapon over the course of 20 levels for free (from Weapon Training). Power Attack and Deadly Aim provide greater bonuses for softer penalties than they did in 3.0/3.5. While many monsters deal more damage than they may have in previous versions of the game (because they too benefit from these general changes), many of them have similar Armor Class and Hit Point values to those that they had before, allowing characters to hit with a +1 weapon where they would have only been able to hit with a +2 weapon before, and in many cases, they’ll be dealing more damage with that hit as well.
3. Extra Feats: A level 20 3.5 character typically had 7 (or 8 if human) feats, while a level 20 Pathfinder character has 10 (or 11). In the grand scheme of things, this makes many characters more able to take feats they might have otherwise skipped, such as Great Fortitude, Toughness, or Weapon Focus. Thus, the extra feats tie into items one and two above, allowing characters to have greater survivability and offensive capability than they would have otherwise had. Those characters that don’t take such feats will often gain flexibility, which though difficult to model, can’t be discounted either.
4. Encounter Recalibration: In the 3.5 encounter guidelines, characters were expected to take on encounters that were up to four levels higher than the average party level as “boss encounters.” Pathfinder defines the “Epic” encounter equivalent as equal to the party’s average level plus three. This has the benefit of lowering the target numbers slightly in the player’s favor, on average. This is further supported by Pathfinder’s much greater support for building encounters with numerous opponents of level lower than that of the player characters. Building such encounters was often a nightmare in the 3.5 system, and it was often pointless because monsters couldn’t do anything incredibly dangerous to begin with, but in Pathfinder, with their increased attack bonuses and damage, even monsters three or four levels below the party can be a notable threat when found in numbers or with some other advantage, be it terrain or otherwise.
Taken together, these changes greatly increase character power, but given that many of the “target numbers” for a given level remained the same or increased at a lesser rate than character power did, they also help to reduce, slightly, character dependence on magical supplementation. The difference is a subtle one, and I know from my own experience that the player drive to acquire magical items is as great as it ever was, so it’s not always noticeable at the table. I’ve seen a number of players, as well, attempt to blame their failures on a lack of magic items, when they were defeated just as much by poor tactical decisions.
All that being said, I think system could still use some work, and it’s my hope that an eventual 2nd Edition of Pathfinder will take further steps to reign in the Christmas Tree effect. There are a number of solutions one can use to address the situation for now, though, the most common of which is through automatic bonuses of some type. My preferred solution is to give every character enhancement bonuses to ability scores as they level up, eliminating the need for the staple ability score increasing items. You can mix and match these variants to taste, though I myself worry less about magical weapons and armor as they don’t take away slots from “cool” items the way others might.
I originally planned to dive into another topic today, but I felt it was worth giving my views on magic items, since Pedro really brought up a lot of the foibles of the system in that area. Within the next couple of days, I hope to have an article up on the topic of player avatars and player characters, what I mean by those terms, and the differences between them.
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