In Season 8, when magic items are found, they get “unlocked” and added to a catalog of purchaseable items. Players don’t get to keep the items they found.
One of the complaints of Season 8 rewards is that immersion is lost because having items disappear and become purchaseable later feels disruptive.
If WotC made just one change, a large amount of immersion could be restored.
(1) Let one player keep the magic item
Immersion can then be restored. Now that one player has the item, it can be used by Artificers as a “template” by other players to make “copies.” Unlocking an item, simply means being able to capture enough information about the item that it can be constructed later.
If WotC absolutely has to ensure balance via Treasure Points - then let players go into TP debt during the adventure when taking items. Our second suggestion would be to get rid of TP and replace it with gold - but that is for another discussion.
One suggestion I would add is in addition to the paltry amount of gold that you get to level up you still are able to receive monetary based quest rewards or something to the tune of 25gp every time 1 TP is earned at tier 1, 50gp at tier 2, 100gp at tier 3, 1000gp at tier 4. I might do a homebrew ALish run with these changes to see if things get broken in a bad way. By the way I based the suggested extra gold rewards off of the level up gold per tier.
That bypasses the idea that TP is supposed to at least partially address. The one player that keeps the item now has the item + TP and the other players at the table only get TP. Now the play has Item + level appropriate TP. Even if the play didn't get TP for that session, all magic items in the DMG cost at least 8 TP and sessions are usually 2 to 4 hours so they still an disproportionate amount of loot.
I think you missed the sentence about TP debt. See the last sentence about TP debt in the OP. That approach Can be used to solve the issue you mention about misbalance in items.
The admins had pitched several ideas to WotC to improve immersion in the new rules, such as gold at the end of an adventure - based on ACP gained (so that characters gain the same amount as they currently do by leveling). The rules that have been released are the ones that were approved by WotC.
To be fair, though, immersion has never been a strong point of Adventurers League. AL is more about portability, which by itself often breaks immersion. One example is being able to play a hardcover with a main group and side missions with other groups during the events of the hardcover. Another example is multiple characters having completed the same quest separately now playing together at the same table sharing the same story, even though they didn't adventure together during that quest.
The issue with going into Debt is that people will find high level items (non-tier appropriate) and gain non-tier debt (more bookkeeping). I can also see where people would find ways to break the system and 'trade' for specific items by going into debt.
I played and DM'd in seasons 4-7 and found the AL rules to be a decent balance between portability and freedom to play as you wanted.
That being said - Season 8 is like someone cast Rock to Dung on a Meteor Swarm just as it landed on players inflicting 20d6 of "What is this bullsh*t?!" damage.
Not being able to keep treasure you find. Not gold, not gems, not magic items and not even a half-rusted suit of splint armor.
I'm still running an AL game at one of the local game stores (my other games are all homebrew now) and at the end of the session my players always groan and ask, "Why the f*ck would my character even do this if he/she can't keep anything??".
Season 8 kills immersion on a whole new level. It is unpalatable garbage and the WoTC staff who approved this mess should be forced to find new employment.
If it helps they're making it worse with the new adventure (Dungeon of the Mad Mage). They're carving it up level by level and saying that if you want to play through it with 1 group you need to get your entire group to commit hardcore to a single levelling plan. That kinda defeats the whole point of organized play doesn't it...
The issue with going into Debt is that people will find high level items (non-tier appropriate) and gain non-tier debt (more bookkeeping). I can also see where people would find ways to break the system and 'trade' for specific items by going into debt.
Are you suggesting those are un-solvable? How are those items not just tweaks to the concept of Debt?
(1) Why would you allow people to go into debt for non-tier appropriate items? How is that a problem if the rule is simply you can only go into debt for tier appropriate items?
(2) Why would you allow people to trade and go into debt if that’s going to break the system? Trading to go into debt is something that isn’t even suggested as part of the rule.
Consider the rule to be simply “if you find the item, and it is tier appropriate, you can go into debt to keep it. You can only go into debt in an adventure if you aren’t already in debt from a previous adventure.”
There may be other tweaks that are needed - but are there any truly unsolve-able problems - or better yet - problems created that are *worse* than the game incentive problem created by never keeping any treasure you find?
Going into debt enables more problems than it solves, at least when trading comes into the picture. How about just banning trading all together?
You've got to address the issue of who keeps the magic item vs who it is unlocked for. I know +1 weapon is on the evergreen list but as an example, the group finds a generic magic weapon +1. The ranger (bow), barbarian (great axe), paladin (long sword) and rogue (rapier) all want it and each can make use of it. When the module, or session if in hardcover, is over the group has to decide who gets to have the magic weapon next session with the result being 3 are left out (part of what TP is trying to fix). Is the type of weapon locked based on who got to keep the weapon?
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In Season 8, when magic items are found, they get “unlocked” and added to a catalog of purchaseable items. Players don’t get to keep the items they found.
One of the complaints of Season 8 rewards is that immersion is lost because having items disappear and become purchaseable later feels disruptive.
If WotC made just one change, a large amount of immersion could be restored.
(1) Let one player keep the magic item
Immersion can then be restored. Now that one player has the item, it can be used by Artificers as a “template” by other players to make “copies.” Unlocking an item, simply means being able to capture enough information about the item that it can be constructed later.
If WotC absolutely has to ensure balance via Treasure Points - then let players go into TP debt during the adventure when taking items. Our second suggestion would be to get rid of TP and replace it with gold - but that is for another discussion.
One suggestion I would add is in addition to the paltry amount of gold that you get to level up you still are able to receive monetary based quest rewards or something to the tune of 25gp every time 1 TP is earned at tier 1, 50gp at tier 2, 100gp at tier 3, 1000gp at tier 4. I might do a homebrew ALish run with these changes to see if things get broken in a bad way. By the way I based the suggested extra gold rewards off of the level up gold per tier.
That bypasses the idea that TP is supposed to at least partially address. The one player that keeps the item now has the item + TP and the other players at the table only get TP. Now the play has Item + level appropriate TP. Even if the play didn't get TP for that session, all magic items in the DMG cost at least 8 TP and sessions are usually 2 to 4 hours so they still an disproportionate amount of loot.
I think you missed the sentence about TP debt. See the last sentence about TP debt in the OP. That approach Can be used to solve the issue you mention about misbalance in items.
The admins had pitched several ideas to WotC to improve immersion in the new rules, such as gold at the end of an adventure - based on ACP gained (so that characters gain the same amount as they currently do by leveling). The rules that have been released are the ones that were approved by WotC.
To be fair, though, immersion has never been a strong point of Adventurers League. AL is more about portability, which by itself often breaks immersion. One example is being able to play a hardcover with a main group and side missions with other groups during the events of the hardcover. Another example is multiple characters having completed the same quest separately now playing together at the same table sharing the same story, even though they didn't adventure together during that quest.
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The issue with going into Debt is that people will find high level items (non-tier appropriate) and gain non-tier debt (more bookkeeping). I can also see where people would find ways to break the system and 'trade' for specific items by going into debt.
The game is what you make it (player perspective) yet new rules compel break in immersion. Big difference.
I played and DM'd in seasons 4-7 and found the AL rules to be a decent balance between portability and freedom to play as you wanted.
That being said - Season 8 is like someone cast Rock to Dung on a Meteor Swarm just as it landed on players inflicting 20d6 of "What is this bullsh*t?!" damage.
Not being able to keep treasure you find. Not gold, not gems, not magic items and not even a half-rusted suit of splint armor.
I'm still running an AL game at one of the local game stores (my other games are all homebrew now) and at the end of the session my players always groan and ask, "Why the f*ck would my character even do this if he/she can't keep anything??".
Season 8 kills immersion on a whole new level. It is unpalatable garbage and the WoTC staff who approved this mess should be forced to find new employment.
If it helps they're making it worse with the new adventure (Dungeon of the Mad Mage). They're carving it up level by level and saying that if you want to play through it with 1 group you need to get your entire group to commit hardcore to a single levelling plan. That kinda defeats the whole point of organized play doesn't it...
Are you suggesting those are un-solvable? How are those items not just tweaks to the concept of Debt?
(1) Why would you allow people to go into debt for non-tier appropriate items? How is that a problem if the rule is simply you can only go into debt for tier appropriate items?
(2) Why would you allow people to trade and go into debt if that’s going to break the system? Trading to go into debt is something that isn’t even suggested as part of the rule.
Consider the rule to be simply “if you find the item, and it is tier appropriate, you can go into debt to keep it. You can only go into debt in an adventure if you aren’t already in debt from a previous adventure.”
There may be other tweaks that are needed - but are there any truly unsolve-able problems - or better yet - problems created that are *worse* than the game incentive problem created by never keeping any treasure you find?
Going into debt enables more problems than it solves, at least when trading comes into the picture. How about just banning trading all together?
You've got to address the issue of who keeps the magic item vs who it is unlocked for. I know +1 weapon is on the evergreen list but as an example, the group finds a generic magic weapon +1. The ranger (bow), barbarian (great axe), paladin (long sword) and rogue (rapier) all want it and each can make use of it. When the module, or session if in hardcover, is over the group has to decide who gets to have the magic weapon next session with the result being 3 are left out (part of what TP is trying to fix). Is the type of weapon locked based on who got to keep the weapon?