D&D 5E Dissapointed with Attunement

I think the purpose for attunement is for inexperienced DMs and Lazy DMs. That way they can't make mistakes and they don't have to worry during prep time because the Game Designers have hard-coded everything for them in game.

For me it's an additional construct into the game and unnecessary, then again I'm very conscious of what I'm doing and enjoy taking some time for prep. The last time I was in a mounty haul campaign was when I was a teenager in the 1980s. So basically I developed a playstyle that avoids it and naturally balances things out. People who want no prep time and don't want to learn the rules well are gonna need attunement I imagine.

I'm sure that will be many issues with attunement that will crop such as "the rogue pickpockets a magic wand from evil wizard, but you have wait 10 minutes and give up your ring of protection to use." I have not researched this, but I'm sure older campaigns might not work now because of attunement. It will make D&D next incompatible with older D&D in some regards.

Frankly, I think it's stupid.

Kamikaze Midget said:

To me, the wrong approach is to have the designers plop down arbitrary restrictions trying to balance the inherently unbalanced.

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The rule is not arbitrary its based on your character's charisma which is very apt given all that charisma oversees. Remember back in the day we had intelligent weapons with Egos - part of that Ego included the charisma of the weapon. So the designers have given a small perk to those investing in charisma, reflecting perhaps a strong personality, which allows the character to "manipulate" the energies/egos of conflicting magical items.

In addition, raw magical energies, used by the sorcerer require charisma - so what better attribute than charisma to control the surrounding energies of magical items. It makes more sense than any other ability.

Perhaps the story goes that you may use unlimited magical items from the same crafter, but when 2 or more magical items from different origins/crafters come into contact with each other - the energies become conflicted, based on the way they were made...etc

The RIGHT approach is to tell DMs what affect magic items will have, empower them to make the decision that is right for their campaign, and get the heck out of their way. If they want to coat the world in flying carpets, let them. No arbitrary headcount needed.

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That would satisfy you, but there are others out there who challenge the designers that the game is not complete and that a number should have been stipulated and that they dont pay monies for advice columns and suggestions but for complete games. I've seen this kind of argument on these forums. Rediculous but true.

It would be much easier to provide a number with a story attached to it, and then make suggestions/advice separately which explain to DMs how to empower themselves and define magic within their own settings and change the ruling as they see fit. That to me, would please both camps.

However on the 10 minute attunement, personally I'm not much of a fan. I think the attunement concept is a nice touch with many interesting branches to explore, just not a fan of the 10 minute duration. Its open for abuse without more regulation.

Sadras said:

The rule is not arbitrary its based on your character's charisma which is very apt given all that charisma oversees.

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Actually, right now the default rule is that three items may be attuned, with an experimental rule basing it on charisma. The former feels arbitrary, the latter too restricting. Perhaps 1 + Charisma modifier (minimum of 2 total).

Kamikaze Midget said:

To me, the wrong approach is to have the designers plop down arbitrary restrictions trying to balance the inherently unbalanced. It's tilting at windmills. The RIGHT approach is to tell DMs what affect magic items will have, empower them to make the decision that is right for their campaign, and get the heck out of their way.

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Is this assuming that it won't be so? I agree with you on the advice bit, but I don't see how having (and preferably explaining) this default (and presumably optional) rule harms the game. It doesn't seem mutually exclusive. Is it fear of 3e/4e-style rule lawyering and general disrespect for Rule Zero?

(I don't have any strong feelings towards the attunement rules--neither yay nor nay--but I've also never had any problems with dreaded christmas tree in my games.)

Jeff Carlsen said:

Actually, right now the default rule is that three items may be attuned, with an experimental rule basing it on charisma. The former feels arbitrary, the latter too restricting. Perhaps 1 + Charisma modifier (minimum of 2 total).

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Cool thanx, havent as yet downloaded the playtest
Your suggestion sounds good, although I wouldnt want the minimum to be set in stone specifically in some circumstances. For instance, perhaps the uncharismatic orc or crass logger is just not able to attune to items - whether it be their stubborness, fearfulness, lack of personality, lack of intelligence...etc
Perhaps some other parameters should be in place (although I dont want to make it complex) so maybe these parameters can be discussed as fluff and under DM advice/suggestions. I'm speaking mostly from an NPC point of view not necessarily character.

Kamikaze Midget said:

That's a fair point, but I'm saying that it should be up to the DM (with plenty of advice in the rulebooks) to figure out when that point is reached for their own table.

Some DMs might never allow more than 1 magic sword to come down from on high. Others will hand them out by the cartful. Both ways need to be fine. Since it's up to the DM to hand them out, it's up to the DM to determine how wildly unbalanced they want their game to be. Some DMs really don't care about balance, or are "cool sword first, ask questions later" kind of DMs, or at least don't care about very tight levels of balance for every attack.



To me, the wrong approach is to have the designers plop down arbitrary restrictions trying to balance the inherently unbalanced. It's tilting at windmills. The RIGHT approach is to tell DMs what affect magic items will have, empower them to make the decision that is right for their campaign, and get the heck out of their way. If they want to coat the world in flying carpets, let them. No arbitrary headcount needed.

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Well, for me it's logical that the rules have some default numbers set and that if you want, you can change them.

For instance, they are looking at giving 4 skills from the background as a default. Should they change this to just say "you get skills from your background, but it's up to your DM how many there are"? Because the number is just as arbitrary as the number of magic items you can attune to.

For skills they are adjusting the number of skills according to how big the skill list is. I assume they will be adjusting the number of items you can attune to to match the power of the magic items to the characters abilities and the power of the monsters.

To sum it up: I much prefer rules with thought out defaults that I can adjust, to rules that gives me no guidelines.

Sadras said:

Cool thanx, havent as yet downloaded the playtest
Your suggestion sounds good, although I wouldnt want the minimum to be set in stone specifically in some circumstances. For instance, perhaps the uncharismatic orc or crass logger is just not able to attune to items - whether it be their stubborness, fearfulness, lack of personality, lack of intelligence...etc
Perhaps some other parameters should be in place (although I dont want to make it complex) so maybe these parameters can be discussed as fluff and under DM advice/suggestions. I'm speaking mostly from an NPC point of view not necessarily character.

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Upon further reflection, I'm thinking of it like this. Anyone can attune an item. It's only when you have multiple items attuned that you have to impose yourself upon them. If you can't control them, it's not that the items won't attune, but that there will be side effects.

Thus, you can safely attune one item plus additional items equal to your charisma modifier. For each item beyond that, though, you roll on a chart similar to the potion miscibility chart.

This presents DMs three solid options:

1. No limit on attuned items
2. Items limited to 1 + Charisma Modifier (default)
3. The same as number 2, but with the attunement side effects table.

Kamikaze Midget said:

To me, the wrong approach is to have the designers plop down arbitrary restrictions trying to balance the inherently unbalanced. It's tilting at windmills. The RIGHT approach is to tell DMs what affect magic items will have, empower them to make the decision that is right for their campaign, and get the heck out of their way. If they want to coat the world in flying carpets, let them. No arbitrary headcount needed.

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The DM can still do exactly that. Just remove all the attunement restrictions. Takes about 0.1 seconds.

The system should tend to default to the more balanced state, rather than the less balanced state. Magical Items might be designed to fiddle with the math somewhat more than desired, but that doesn't mean they get uncontrollable. You'll have a range (0-3) and therefore a known quantity of math messing with.

The fact that perfect balance is impossible doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and declare everything related to balance is impossible and go back to God Druids and NPC Monks being in the same PHB.

Sardras said:

That would satisfy you, but there are others out there who challenge the designers that the game is not complete and that a number should have been stipulated and that they dont pay monies for advice columns and suggestions but for complete games.

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When you see an optional rule presented, do you just use it willy-nilly, or do you read about what affects it might have on your game if you introduced it?

If you're going to do that reading anyway, it's not just advice, it's instructions for how to do it. And the instructions for how to add magic items should probably include a warning not to go overboard with the things.

Blackbrrd said:

For instance, they are looking at giving 4 skills from the background as a default. Should they change this to just say "you get skills from your background, but it's up to your DM how many there are"? Because the number is just as arbitrary as the number of magic items you can attune to.

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But skills aren't designed to be acceptably imbalanced. Magic items are. That's kind of the point here. Including a rule for reasons of balance on something that is inherently imbalanced is pretty insane.

Blackbrrd said:

To sum it up: I much prefer rules with thought out defaults that I can adjust, to rules that gives me no guidelines.

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The default is "don't use magic items." An adjustment would be, "Here's a +1 magic sword for doing something awesome." A bigger adjustment would be "Here's 100 +1 swords."

GreyICE said:

The DM can still do exactly that. Just remove all the attunement restrictions. Takes about 0.1 seconds.

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Better idea: lets have a game without default rules that are arbitrary and pointless.

GreyICE said:

The fact that perfect balance is impossible doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and declare everything related to balance is impossible and go back to God Druids and NPC Monks being in the same PHB.

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You don't need to get all Chicken Little, here. Magic items aren't supposed to be balanced, classes are. Thus, magic items can be given out and used however the DM wants, and whatever the DM does with them, the game's generally fine with it, since balance isn't taken into account. You don't need to balance magic items. That isn't the point of magic items.

[MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]: I think you're being completely disingenuous here. The attunement rules are not "pointless" like you described them. They have a very clear point - to limit the number of math-affecting magic items a player can use.

3E and to a lesser extent 4E both had a "magical christmas tree" effect, where players had more magic items than you can shake a stick at run in anywhere close to their default configuration by high levels. 4E tried very hard to stem the effect, but it too failed. And the Magical Christmas Tree is heavily disliked.

At the same time, we want magic items in the game. If we get 1 per 3 levels (a rate that is quite slow compared to 3E or 4E) we would end up with a good 6-7 magic items at level 20, which is the same goddamn Christmas Tree that we all know and hate.

If we want magic items to keep the game fresh, but we also want to prevent Christmas Trees, this seems like a very solid solution.

Magic items may not be a default assumption of the game, but you can still make allowances. "If the entire party has 1-2 magic items they can be treated as a party 1 level higher, if they all have 3, treat them as a party 2 levels higher." See? I just made a rule of thumb to help DMs with encounter design even though the magic items are not necessarily balanced into system math.

There's no need to torture a DM just because he or she decided that magic items were fun and cool to have in a campaign.