Magic Items and Necessity

[Endarire]

NOTE: This isn't a thread about "Are magic items necessary or expected for a certain level?"  That's built into the 3.x system.

This thread is about what items, specifically, are in the highest demand by what roles (arcanists, divine casters, skillsmen, and the brutes), and when the game expects these items.

Items in highest demand seem to be these:
-Mobility enhancers (Ring of Freedom of Movement, Anklet of Translocation from Magic Item Compendium, items that grant permanent flying, etc.)
-Healing items (Wand of Cure Light Wounds, etc.)
-Reviving items (Wand of Revenance, Scroll of Revivify, etc.)
-Items which give bigger numbers (Save boosters, skill boosters, stat boosters, more magical weapons/armor/shields)
-Items granting extra actions or which grant ability use as better actions (Magic Item Compendium's Chronocharms)

[Prime32]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851

[Endarire]

Thanks.  Pretty much what I expected.

Still, what about all the +X items and their expected levels?

[RobbyPants]

Still, what about all the +X items and their expected levels?

At a minimum:

Best stat booster and cloak of resistance available for everyone. Secondary and possibly tertiary stat boosters too, depending on funds (possibly +2 less than the best stat booster).

Best magic weapon and armor for people in melee.

Deflection and Natural AC boosters are nice, but they're expensive, and AC isn't mandatory for a lot of classes.

Some skill boosters can be nice for niche builds, but I don't often see much use for these myself (at least not with available funds and other must-haves).

[Tequila Sunrise]

Still, what about all the +X items and their expected levels?

The typical response to this question seems to be "you can expect whatever you can buy," though such a laissez faire attitude doesn't sit right with me.

Me, I figure everyone's supposed to get an upgrade to each of their Big Six every four levels or so.

[Kethrian]

There's one other item that can be very useful: Gauntlets of Ghost Slaying (MIC, 4000gp).  They let all your attacks and spells ignore incorporeal miss chance.  And, as a bonus, melee attacks deal an extra 1d6 damage against incorporeal enemies.  Great for the tank or the mage!

[Unbeliever]

@+X items, I think Trailblazer did some calculations for what the game seemed to "expect" you to have purchased.  It's good for looking at the supposed raw numbers buried in the system, largely by looking at median or representative scores for monsters in the Monster Manual (though I don't know if they went beyond MMI for their research).

[Tequila Sunrise]

@+X items, I think Trailblazer did some calculations for what the game seemed to "expect" you to have purchased.  It's good for looking at the supposed raw numbers buried in the system, largely by looking at median or representative scores for monsters in the Monster Manual (though I don't know if they went beyond MMI for their research).

I've also been told that according to Trailblazer, "magical items don't make much difference." Don't know if that's an accurate quote of TB, but if it is I wouldn't cite TB in any research papers.

[Endarire]

I'd rather have a +5 saves item than not.  (I'd rather have superior resistance up on my party at all times for +6 saves.)

Still, these little numbers do add up.  There have been times I've made or missed a target number by 1.  One of those times, I missed by 1 and died to wyvern poison.  Ow.

[Eldritch_Lord]

I've also been told that according to Trailblazer, "magical items don't make much difference." Don't know if that's an accurate quote of TB, but if it is I wouldn't cite TB in any research papers.

What the Trailblazer analysis does is show that, for average PCs without +X items facing MM-standard monsters, you can still achieve a 70% "success rate" for all stats (hit attacks, block enemy attacks, make saves) in all categories except poor saves.  So when they say "you don't need +X magic items" what they mean is that they consider a 70% success rate against unoptimized MM-standard monsters to be acceptable and that you can hit that mark without the Big 6.  If you face optimized opposition, or if enemies target your weak saves, or if any enemy uses buffs, it's not all that applicable anymore.

[Tequila Sunrise]

I've also been told that according to Trailblazer, "magical items don't make much difference." Don't know if that's an accurate quote of TB, but if it is I wouldn't cite TB in any research papers.

What the Trailblazer analysis does is show that, for average PCs without +X items facing MM-standard monsters, you can still achieve a 70% "success rate" for all stats (hit attacks, block enemy attacks, make saves) in all categories except poor saves.  So when they say "you don't need +X magic items" what they mean is that they consider a 70% success rate against unoptimized MM-standard monsters to be acceptable and that you can hit that mark without the Big 6.  If you face optimized opposition, or if enemies target your weak saves, or if any enemy uses buffs, it's not all that applicable anymore.

Ah, that makes a lot more sense.

Except for AC; seeing as how AC is mostly dependent on magic bling, I don't see how a typical PC can maintain a 70% block rate past low levels. But maybe one of the TB house rules is a level-based AC bonus?

[Bozwevial]

I've also been told that according to Trailblazer, "magical items don't make much difference." Don't know if that's an accurate quote of TB, but if it is I wouldn't cite TB in any research papers.

What the Trailblazer analysis does is show that, for average PCs without +X items facing MM-standard monsters, you can still achieve a 70% "success rate" for all stats (hit attacks, block enemy attacks, make saves) in all categories except poor saves.  So when they say "you don't need +X magic items" what they mean is that they consider a 70% success rate against unoptimized MM-standard monsters to be acceptable and that you can hit that mark without the Big 6.  If you face optimized opposition, or if enemies target your weak saves, or if any enemy uses buffs, it's not all that applicable anymore.

Ah, that makes a lot more sense.

Except for AC; seeing as how AC is mostly dependent on magic bling, I don't see how a typical PC can maintain a 70% block rate past low levels. But maybe one of the TB house rules is a level-based AC bonus?

Not really sure about that. Maybe they're factoring in miss chance from something like Mirror Image or Blur?

[Unbeliever]

^ they note that it becomes very difficult to maintain the necessary AC, which they calculate to be a 50% miss chance with the monster's primary attack (i.e., the monster needs to roll a 10 to hit you with it's primary attack) becomes much harder beyond 9th level.  So, that one is where you need magic or optimization help, or another way of doing "damage mitigation" viz. hp, spells, etc. 

For their analysis they toss out the highest and lowest values for a given CR, which seems to be a good methodology.  I think they also only look at MM I.  For $5, I find the statistical analysis stuff, as well as a couple of their other suggestions, pretty worthwhile.