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Let me guess, you only played the Neverwinter games and therefore got the idea that level 3 is where you are supposed to start. It is different in PnP.
The rest of the post is you moving the goalpost. Your initial post stated that you can make interesting and varied WEAPONS (which was the thing in my post) using the 3.x system. Stick with that.
Your claim was that you couldn't do a loot-heavy campaign in DnD and then started talking about weapons. I responded to your primary claim, not your secondary example.
The games with the best loot were, IMO, Diablo 1, Icewind Dale (not HoW) and Might and Magic 2.
Might and Magic 6 also had some neat artifacts that were huge power spikes.
These days, I mostly don't care about minor stat boosts and itemization that is incremental. It just makes me want to stop playing - which is, in fact, what I do with most games.
Items should be meaningful and scarce. It's a hard thing to balance. Most games seem to have gone down the full OCD rabbit hole of inundating players with 99% garbage. I don't feel like playing shit janitor most of the time.
I prefer RPGs with few, but good items I have an use for besides "sell for cash".
Vagrant Story was good in that you didn't have shops to sell items to (nor a currency to speak of), so you only looted that which you found useful, and you were never actually swimming in shit.
Your claim was that you couldn't do a loot-heavy campaign in DnD and then started talking about weapons. I responded to your primary claim, not your secondary example.
In fact, some of the stuff you threw out do not even have rules for in the 3.x system, which means you are throwing out the wealth-by-level table entirely.
I can, however, see where you are coming from. If you want to play Diablo on paper, try 4th Ed.
Your claim was that you couldn't do a loot-heavy campaign in DnD and then started talking about weapons. I responded to your primary claim, not your secondary example.
In fact, some of the stuff you threw out do not even have rules for in the 3.x system, which means you are throwing out the wealth-by-level table entirely.
I can, however, see where you are coming from. If you want to play Diablo on paper, try 4th Ed.
Exactly my thought and as someone else said it's also about how easy it is to manage inventory, infinite loot with 5 inventory spots is quite dumb, if you have enough space and the inventory is made easy to manage, there's no problem at all.
Still, useless junk is useless, i don't mind a few useless items just to confuse hoarders (like myself) but if half or even 90% (it happens) of the loot is useless and isn't even worth selling, then, we have a problem.
So, the best loot system is unlimited loot inventory, limited junk and auto-loot after battle with a screen showing the loot after a battle, Wizardry 8 like.
Well, actually, except for having to hoard heavy stones to throw at your ennemies, Wiz 8 loot system is one of the best i've experienced.
I just finished Wizardry 8 and thought could try to start another playthrough since the charm seems to manage to hold. I was just let down by the very easy difficulty of the end game.
Your claim was that you couldn't do a loot-heavy campaign in DnD and then started talking about weapons. I responded to your primary claim, not your secondary example.
In fact, some of the stuff you threw out do not even have rules for in the 3.x system, which means you are throwing out the wealth-by-level table entirely.
I can, however, see where you are coming from. If you want to play Diablo on paper, try 4th Ed.
I just finished Wizardry 8 and thought could try to start another playthrough since the charm seems to manage to hold. I was just let down by the very easy difficulty of the end game.
Yeah, that's a common problem, careful if you replay it with mods, some of them makes the game even easier, just use the speed mods, if you didn't already, to speed up the battles.
The problem with playing Wizardry 8 is once you did, you can't discover it anymore, it's over and you know there's no wizardry 9 and 10 coming.
When I see an enemy wielding a weapon or flashing a piece of armor in battle, I expect to find it on his dead body, period. Anything less than that is for sawyerite balancecucks.
I don't care whether it's loot heavy or not as long as it has unique and interesting loot. Also if I fight an enemy with a cool sword then I expect to be able to loot it and use it myself.
I'm also highly opposed to infinite inventory (stash) like in PoE, the old games were far better.
Edit: Basically I favor the old DnD CRPGs like Baldur's Gate, when you loot a soldier you find what a soldier is usually equipped with ie. sword, chainmail, etc. And when you loot the hoard of a Dragon I expect unique items and one or two legendary items.
No +5% damage shit by the way. I hate that. I like creativity not balancetardism.
Poor UI is a factor.
Playing Dead State and I'm clicking on 50 containers & bodies per map to loot.
Also moving stuff to the car or container near the exit if there is not enough space to take all in one trip.
The game does not have a move all items to container so I have to click one item at a time.
Then have to deposit one at a time again at the base for non-resource items.
Then take items from container again after I came back from base.
And no, everything you can see on characters being reflected by their inventory does not automatically mean repeatedly wheelbarrowing mountains of crappy gear back to the merchant.
Coincidentally 99% of everything is shit.
Your point?
That shit is shit? Well, you haven't exactly discovered America here.
6 different mechanics working together would prevent 1 thing which would be easier to prevent by simply not doing it. And if something requires prevention, why just not do it to begin with? Just make enemies drop actual meaningful loot instead of trash.
They hardly just prevent looting garbage tier trash and for just that a combination of some of them should be perfectly sufficient. Nevertheless having all or most of them is good, because they are good mechanics reinforcing good gameplay:
Limited inventory limits waste of time from excessive inventory management and puts bounds on player's available resources at any time.
Good economy that can meaningfully react to player's shenanigans mitigates any economical exploits that might be discovered
Dropped item cleanup helps memory management and prevents save bloat and late game stability issues
Stat inflation in general is shitty, leading to shitty combat, severe railroading and lack of meaningful relations between gameplay mechanics and gameplay presentation
Costs and other forms of resource sinks help control resource accummulation and prevent trivial and pathological gameplay cycles - in particular most forms of farming
Surprise! Different mechanics tend to interact and you actually need to consider that when trying to design a game. You can't just throw a bunch of random shit together and loudly proclaim "I ARE TEH GAYM DESIGNER! I MAEK GAYMPLAY MECHANICS FOR TEH RPG GAYMES!!!1".
Don't want to think? Tough fucking luck - even digging ditches (which I would recommend as a more reasonable alternative should you ever consider getting into game design) requires some rudimentary understanding - for example you need to know which end of the shovel goes into the ground.
Also, 99% of RPGs don't have even 2 of these things.
How is it relevant?
Stuff generally doesn't exist until someone decides to make it. This has no bearing whether the idea is good or bad. If all good ideas were obvious and readily implemented we would have all the nice things - which we don't.
TheoryDraQ at his usual, demanding his realism which would keep player entertained for maybe first few loot events.
No, you simpleton. Cause muh consistency.
The guy has sword, so he can:
hit people and other things with his sword.
damage or break his sword or have it damaged or broken
have his sword noticed by an outside observer who can then plan accordingly
have his sword bought if he is willing to part with it
have his sword stolen even if he does not
have his sword looted if he is dead or incapacitated
It shouldn't matter whether this guy is a PC or NPC, the system should not care.
Presentation should be consistent with mechanics and mechanics should be consistent with itself.
Similarly, if a game features doors, I will expect to be able to open and enter them, If a game features climbing I will expect everything that looks reasonably climbable to be climbable, If a game features containers I will expect all the containers to be searchable. If the game is any good it should not resort to highlighting or other UI mechanics merely to tell player what they can and cannot frob.
Similarly, if the game is any good it should not feature invisible walls across what looks like traversable terrain; if a game is any good and allows tactical preparation, it should not feature cutscenes nullifying it.
If a game features a more or less fixed protagonist (e.g. Witcher, most non-RPGs out there) it can disallow actions that make no sense for that protagonist - for example looting full plate off everyone and carting it to town, but for a typical pick your race/class/sex/background RPG this is a non-option. If you really want you might try to codify such mechanics on a chargen level, so that, for example a monk character won't be able to *take* anything they cannot use according to their vows, unless they switch class, but this will probably not work well and is definitely an extra (note: this still won't be a legitimate way to prevent wizards from using weapons and such, but this could be used to prevent characters from violating norms they feel bound by).
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It shouldn't matter whether this guy is a PC or NPC, the system should not care.
Presentation should be consistent with mechanics and mechanics should be consistent with itself.
Similarly, if a game features doors, I will expect to be able to open and enter them, If a game features climbing I will expect everything that looks reasonably climbable to be climbable, If a game features containers I will expect all the containers to be searchable. If the game is any good it should not resort to highlighting or other UI mechanics merely to tell player what they can and cannot frob.
Similarly, if the game is any good it should not feature invisible walls across what looks like traversable terrain; if a game is any good and allows tactical preparation, it should not feature cutscenes nullifying it.
I like to thing I prefer "meaningful" loot, nothing turns me off more than finding a "magical" sword called "Quick sword of flames+2" then walking 5 feet and finding a "Resourceful mace of shredding+1"
You can guess I don't play many hack'n'slash games and you would be right