D&D 5E Dissapointed with Attunement

GreyICE · Oct 23, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
It's actually in reference to the fact that it's pretty taboo to use those colors in your post if you're not actually speaking as a mod, because that can create some confusion. You might not've been aware, though. So I'm going to ask you kindly to stop doing that with the colors. Ideally, you should go back and edit your posts to remove the colors, too.

Now that that's out of the way...

Then you're missing the nuance between "Default" and "Average," and the space that recognizing that difference opens up.

If you're just providing a pre-packaged product, it can be useful to assume that the "average" and the "default" are the same thing. But D&D isn't in the business of delivering a generic prepackaged product. D&D has always been tremendously local and personal. It's always been a DM-controlled experience.

Toy Analogy Time: D&D has been in the business of selling LEGOs, not selling plastic castles.

Car Analogy Time: D&D has been in the business of selling car parts, not selling new automobiles.

Food Analogy Time: D&D has been in the business of selling recipes and ingredients, not selling prepared food.

Computer Analogy Time: D&D has been in the business of selling processors, not building you a Macbook.

That's a valuable distinction, and it changes the value of "default." You can't do anything really with those "defaults" by themselves. You need to assemble them into a useful form. Indeed, the assembly is part of the fun.

For D&D to try to be a pre-packaged product would be a tremendous mistake, IMO, because that's not what it is, and that doesn't play to its unique strengths as a game, or as a brand.

So when you say that "default" and "average" should be the same thing, that seems remarkably foolhardy to me, for D&D. D&D has never been a game you just play. It's always been a game you make with your friends.

Oh come on. What if the Paladin was designed so that they were as good as the fighter while fighting undead... and undead alone? And Wizards said "Well, the default assumption we were using was that all campaigns would face entirely undead enemies, if Paladins are fighting something else the DM can houserule it to fix this problem."

What if they include the 3E Druid, and say "well, the default assumption is that the Druid will be played by newer players who don't have any idea what they're doing, so the design is fine, and if it's played by a more experienced player then the DM should fix it?"

What if they don't include any rules for torches or light sources, and say "Well we're going with the default assumption that everyone is playing a character with low light vision or blindvision, so we figured the default rules didn't need that, if DMs want to put it in they can houserule it?"

How is any of this garbage acceptable, Kamikaze Midget? It's not! It's clearly not! The only reason you can't see this IN THIS VERY SPECIFIC CASE is that you don't like the default rules.

- Also anyone who doesn't like AEDU can houserule it, AEDU should be the default for D&D Next
- Anyone who doesn't like gridded combat can houserule it, grid combat should be the default for D&D Next
- Anyone who wants Vancian casting can houserule it, Wizards shouldn't be Vancian in D&D Next

Hope these opinions make perfect sense to you and you agree with them~

Blackbrrd · Oct 23, 2012

My last post wasn't helpful at all and I just realised what that I dont know what kind of rules you are envisioning Kamikaze. Any details would be interesting to read.

dd.stevenson · Oct 23, 2012

I'm sort of getting the sense this disagreement isn't really about magic item attunement. I'm not even sure it's about the game.

Tony Vargas · Oct 23, 2012

dd.stevenson said:
I'm sort of getting the sense this disagreement isn't really about magic item attunement. I'm not even sure it's about the game.

I'm not sure exactly what the point is. KM is living up to his handle in staking out a shrinking and self-defeating position that it seems can only boil down to "there's no such thing as a bad game, so 5e will turn out to be good" (or "there's no such thing as a good game, so 5e doesn't have to try").

The attunement rule looks like an attempt by Mearls &Co to keep magic items from unbalancing the game too much, while the intention to not 'figure in' magic items to level progression the way modern D&D did, necessitates limiting that damage in the first place. That is, if you are willing to judge the result at all. So, in the broader sense the crux of the issue is whether there's any basis for discussion or discernment at all.

Jeff Carlsen · Oct 23, 2012

Tony Vargas said:
I'm not sure exactly what the point is. KM is living up to his handle in staking out a shrinking and self-defeating position that it seems can only boil down to "there's no such thing as a bad game, so 5e will turn out to be good" (or "there's no such thing as a good game, so 5e doesn't have to try").

The attunement rule looks like an attempt by Mearls &Co to keep magic items from unbalancing the game too much, while the intention to not 'figure in' magic items to level progression the way modern D&D did, necessitates limiting that damage in the first place. That is, if you are willing to judge the result at all. So, in the broader sense the crux of the issue is whether there's any basis for discussion or discernment at all.

Some, but most of it's been covered. As my first post implies and I've later built upon, I really want attunement, including the number of items you can attune, to be well tied to the story.

I would like to redirect this thread back to ways attunement can be improved in a narrative sense.

What would be some good attunement rituals?

1. A sword to retribution that attunes when it drinks the blood or tears of one the wielder loved.

2. An intelligent item that only attunes when the owner answers a riddle.

3. Gloves of climbing that attune when the wearer climbs a mountain of at least 10,000 feet.

I'm A Banana · Oct 23, 2012

Blackbrrd said:
To me it's completely logical to make the default hit has broad an audience as you can get. The broadest audience uses magic items, so that gets to be the default, like in all other editions of DnD.

Again, I'd make a distinction between "average" and "default."

If your average DM has to make some active decisions in order to include optional things they might want to include that the default omits, that's a good thing -- it involves the DM actively in running their own game. Which they should be involved in.

Blackbrrd said:
My last post wasn't helpful at all and I just realised what that I dont know what kind of rules you are envisioning Kamikaze. Any details would be interesting to read.

Pretty directly:

The game doesn't assume you're using attunement if you use magic items. Instead, it's presented as an option you can add onto magic items (preferably, with bigger requirements and a less arbitrary max limit).

GreyICE said:
What if the Paladin was designed...
...
What if they include the 3E Druid...
...
What if they don't include any rules for torches or light sources...

- Also anyone who doesn't like AEDU can houserule it, AEDU should be the default for D&D Next
- Anyone who doesn't like gridded combat can houserule it, grid combat should be the default for D&D Next
- Anyone who wants Vancian casting can houserule it, Wizards shouldn't be Vancian in D&D Next

Hope these opinions make perfect sense to you and you agree with them~

Ah, a slippery slope of meandering hypotheticals! Better put some salt on that...someone could break their absurdum.

I think it's safe to say that magic items have different design considerations than paladins, druids, light sources, ability pacing, combat mechanics, and spellcasting mechanics, wouldn't you?

The "default" in D&D has its own requirements that must be met. Those requirements don't include magic items.

Tony Vargas said:
I'm not sure exactly what the point is. KM is living up to his handle in staking out a shrinking and self-defeating position that it seems can only boil down to "there's no such thing as a bad game, so 5e will turn out to be good" (or "there's no such thing as a good game, so 5e doesn't have to try").

Naaah. My position is that attunement seems silly to require as it is now.

Jeff Carlsen said:
What would be some good attunement rituals?

1. A sword to retribution that attunes when it drinks the blood or tears of one the wielder loved.

2. An intelligent item that only attunes when the owner answers a riddle.

3. Gloves of climbing that attune when the wearer climbs a mountain of at least 10,000 feet.

Dude, those are awesome. Big improvement over the "10 minutes" rule.

GreyICE · Oct 23, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
Ah, a slippery slope of meandering hypotheticals! Better put some salt on that...someone could break their absurdum.

I think it's safe to say that magic items have different design considerations than paladins, druids, light sources, ability pacing, combat mechanics, and spellcasting mechanics, wouldn't you?

The "default" in D&D has its own requirements that must be met. Those requirements don't include magic items.

Yes, yes the default condition of D&D includes magic items. Magic items are as core to D&D as Fighters. They're more core than Druids, Monks, or Sorcerers.

For gods sake when this game first came out you used to level up from getting treasure. Treasure. That was the very first edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

Magic Items are as core to D&D as Dwarves. They're as core as Wizards. They're as core as having stats on a 3-18 scale. They're much MORE core than skills.

The ONLY reason you want to call magic items "not core?" That way you have an excuse for the system not to control them for new DMs.

That's pure isolationist bull that WILL kill D&D if it ever becomes the attitude of the designers. It's not the 1980s anymore. People are used to user-friendly systems, we've had 3 decades to refine our user-friendliness and basic default assumptions. The default assumption of ALL games nowadays has changed. It used to be that "the player has the privilege of playing our game." It has altered to "the game designer has the privilege of creating a game for their customer."

We're not going backwards. Want to know the biggest thing Pathfinder changed from 3E? They made it "cooler" and more user friendly.

How is a lack of magic items in the core in any way "cool?" How is not giving some basic guidelines to control them "user friendly?"

These attitudes that are three decades old, this is not the path to success.

And at the end of the day? You STILL at no point have explained what's so horrifying to you about attunement because you can JUST REMOVE IT IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT.

Jeff Carlsen said:
Some, but most of it's been covered. As my first post implies and I've later built upon, I really want attunement, including the number of items you can attune, to be well tied to the story.

I would like to redirect this thread back to ways attunement can be improved in a narrative sense.

What would be some good attunement rituals?

1. A sword to retribution that attunes when it drinks the blood or tears of one the wielder loved.

2. An intelligent item that only attunes when the owner answers a riddle.

3. Gloves of climbing that attune when the wearer climbs a mountain of at least 10,000 feet.

These sort of suggestions are huge improvements to the attunement rules that I'd really enjoy.

Steely_Dan · Oct 23, 2012

GreyICE said:
Yes, yes the default condition of D&D includes magic items. Magic items are as core to D&D as Fighters. They're more core than Druids, Monks, or Sorcerers.

I completely disagree, they have never been integral to the D&D game (playing since 1986), IME, I have run campaigns with zero magic items, X-Mas tree characters, and everything in between.

I'll agree that they are "more core" than the sorcerer (as that's a Jonny-Come-Lately class).

I'm A Banana · Oct 23, 2012

GreyICE said:
Yes, yes the default condition of D&D includes magic items. Magic items are as core to D&D as Fighters. They're more core than Druids, Monks, or Sorcerers.

Yeah, I don't believe this to be true.

So, in the first point, I believe that NEXT magic items will be roughly as core as druids, monks, and sorcerers, in that NEXT magic items will not be "default," but that a lot of DMs will turn those options on. I believe the same will be true of druids, monks, and sorcerers.

The same will not be true of the fighter. The fighter (at least a dead simple version of the fighter) will be in 5e by "default." It'll be opt-out, not opt-in.

And I really can't believe that a chaotic and unpredictable and perhaps destructive and optional pure character power-up reward that you roll for on a table and may never even award is at all as key to the core D&D experience as one of the fundamental choices that give your character an identity.

How many games have you seen or heard of that don't use magic items, or that use magic items sparingly, or that use magic items in that random, chaotic, unpredictable, unreliable, possibly cursed and destructive way that pre-3e handled them, or wherein the DM chose what to include and what to exclude?

How many games have you seen where the group doesn't allow the Fighter?

All editions have had magic items as a hypothetical reward.

Only two editions have tried to require them, though.

Nah, 5e can safely put a default out of "no magic items," and let each DM add magic items as they see fit, and thus you can get the effects of every edition you want. If you want chaotic, random, unpredictable magic items -- hey, the system, like OD&D, 1e, and 2e, doesn't assume you have any particular distribution of any of them. If you want a well-balanced treadmill for whatever reason, you can add +1 to AC's and HD's when you add +1 swords.

And in neither case do we need attunement to shepherd us to the "right number of items."

Which it doesn't do anyway.

GreyICE · Oct 23, 2012

I'd call magic items core in all 4 versions of D&D.

As for fighter, it's funny you choose him. I have seen the Wizard banned or restricted in AD&D/3E much more frequently than I've seen a no magic item game.

Would you therefore say that the Wizard is opt-in?

And it's really unquestionable that, in terms of determining encounter design relative to a party's strength, attunement > no attunement, yes?

P.S. you never hit on the other good part of attunement - that it effectively replaces magic item "slots" which feel very video game (even if they predate video games)