D&D 5E Do you miss attribute minimums/maximums?

[Celebrim]

Okay. I see the problem. You wrote your PHB. The 1e PHB on page 86 just talks about a few 6th and 7th level spells that have nothing to do with enchantments or scrolls.

My apologies, page 84. The text of the 'enchant an item' spell.

Fair enough, though you can get +1 to a stat with a single wish up to 16 in the stat. To go higher than 16 might require more wishes, depending on the DM, but since the vast majority of stats will under 16, a single wish(much easier to get than one of the books) will work better than the book will. It won't take 3-5 days to use the wish.

Fair enough. If you have an nigh unlimited supply of wishes, then really the world is yours. You can do nearly anything with a nigh unlimited supply of wishes. However, to make a few points:

a) The only reasonable way to actually get a night unlimited supply of wishes is to cast them yourself, and if you do you are disabled for 2d4 days (per the spell description). Thus, if wish is used as anything but the last step of item manufacture, it fails, since the next step must be started within 24 hours.
b) The discretionary power of the DM is in play if you begin to abuse the wish spell. If you start using wish spells to subvert game balance, the DM is fully empowered to begin interpreting wishes according to their strict wording rather than their intent, and even in some cases interpreting the wish perversely to prevent the entire game from being derailed.
c) Fundamentally, we are talking about characters that have obtained 16th-18th level. Most groups would retire characters by then or before then. We are in 1e terms well passed the normal end game, and there is very little provided in the game to challenge characters of such extraordinary puissance - even if we weren't providing them with all sorts of generous interpretations of the rules.

"When you build your campaign you will tailor it to suit your personal tastes. In the heat of play it will slowly evolve into a compound of your personality and those of your better participants, a superior alloy."

I've already called out that I consider it perfectly acceptable for the DM to depart from the official rules and play however they liked. I've also called out that I myself did so. For example, while I was as stickler regarding most rules of the game - right down to weapon vs. AC modifiers - I by conscious choice ignored the rules on training time and costs and applied XP to players immediately upon the receipt thereof. I did so because my stories were often what we would call now 'adventure paths', and I did not want to interrupt the story - which might be occurring in far corners of the world or other planes - to force players to return to civilization for training. Others made other choices to ignore the rules in order to facilitate the particular sort of play that they desired.

My only quibble is vehemently announcing how strictly you are following the rules, and proclaiming how things were, when anyone that can actually read the rules can point to a half-dozen rule violations in as many sentences - even before we get to the matter of rulings.

Gygaxian process of play and advice to fellow DM's has a particular form, that can be summed up as, "Be harsh, but fair." Gygax's sees the main role of the DM as ensuring the cultivation of what he calls 'skillful play', where skillful play is marked by the creativity of the players in utilizing the limited resources they have available, by their carefulness, and their foresight, and by the cooperation to achieve a task. He most certainly does not consider it to be skillful play to wheedle or browbeat the DM, to engage in rules arguments, to be creative in rules interpretations, and generally to try to win through the metagame rather than through play. He likewise continually points out that players will expect and will argue that they ought to receive something for nothing, when in fact they ought to always pay through the nose for any advantage that they are seeking. For example, he points out in particular that players will expect to be able to trade spells or items with NPC friends or followers either for free or in even trade, when in fact even close friends or loyal henchmen will demand exorbitant surcharges if they are even willing to cooperate at all.

You don't have to be harsh to your players in order to keep them from walking all over you.

Define 'harsh'. Obeying the letter of the rules of the game is not 'harsh'. Demanding that the DM set the cost according to what the NPC wants to receive, not what the player wants to give is not 'harsh'. Making the NPC's and foils of the PC's as creative or more creative than the PC's is not 'harsh'. Ensuring that the game always offers a challenge for all participants, and a suitable reward for the challenge is not 'harsh'. That's actually just 'fair'.

Look, fundamentally, all I have to do to win this argument is demonstrate that in 1e, magic item creation was less accessible and more difficult than it was in 3e. I think I've done that in spades. I think winning my side of the argument is trivially easy, because anyone familiar with both systems will recognize that having fixed costs of abundant and well defined resources (gold and XP), and allowing you to create almost anything by 5th level and certainly every level appropriate item by that point without any special restrictions beyond abundant chargen resources that a player is in full control of, makes for a much more accessible magic item creation system than exists in 1e.

What I have no desire to do is recreate the table arguments I had with rules lawyers and power gamers back in the 1e era. I leave it up to the interested reader to examine the rules being tossed around here and see if what is being said about them actually matches the text.

 

[Helldritch]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]

Again in the last post you assume a lot of things. We already told you that magic item creation was not easy to attain. But once it was attained, it was not that hard either.

From the DMG every magic created awards you the same experience that the item would bring you if you found it! So creating magical items was in the rules. It wasn't as hard as you make it IF you are the correct level. The hardest thing in reality was to get to the appropriate level. In fact, it was far easier to make than in 3e where you had to spend your experience to create even simple potions. That is a limiting factor. In 1e, you could go to a pocket time dimension where time was going faster and for the rest of the world, you were gone only for a few minutes! Yes you would need to make a +4 sword just to make it works as a +1 sword on the prime material plane but at that point...

More over, not all campaigns were adventure paths. Most of the time, they were kind of episodic, with sometimes years between them. In one campaign, the players got so old that they started a group with the kids of their characters! It was not unusual for me to let 2 or 3 years pass between adventures. Ok, now your funds are running low, and there is this guy which has a strange proposal...

As for the wish spell you wrote:"The only reasonable way to actually get a night unlimited supply of wishes is to cast them yourself, and if you do you are disabled for 2d4 days (per the spell description). Thus, if wish is used as anything but the last step of item manufacture, it fails, since the next step must be started within 24 hours. "

Ishhh... reread the spell correctly. The spell is a better version of the limited wish spell. All that applies to limited wish can be done with the wish spell and more. If you use the wish to duplicate a spell, it won't bring disability. If you use the wish spell to alter reality to : Modify damage sustained by a party, resurect a dead character to life, making the caster and his party escape a dangerous situation by moving/transporting them from one place to an other, the spell will not create disability.
Disability will occur for anything other than that. Example:" I wish to be stronger" Bang! Your strength goes up permanently by one, then you are disable with a -3 on Strength erm and 2-8 days of fatigue. But you can do it.
In fact, most of the time, the limited wish was used to duplicate spells that the caster didn't have. The wish spell was used the same way sometimes.

As for the end game... Tables in the PHB were not stopping at level 20. There are table for MU 29... Illusionist 26th... I don't know where you got that idea that there was an endgame... You're talking about a game where the players could ascend into godhood. They were supposed to become the stuff of legends. Do not limit yourself with what you have known. Go beyond, imagine what can be done. In greek mythology, some heroes went to hell and back. They defeated gods! Your players can be the Odysseus, the king Arthur, the Morgan la Fey, the Merlin, The lancelot, The Grey Mouser, The Richard, The Kalan, The Conan, The Legolas or whatever they wish if you let them to. Sometimes, they can. At other times, fate brings them low.

I find it distasteful when I hear:"Ho... we're level 14, time to retire." What a bland, tasteless and almost coward way to end a campaing. If the goals were reached, fine. We won! Sound the victory cheer! But where do we go from here? Heroes never retire for long in a fantasy world. I admit that high level adventures are hard to create. But it can be done. Island of the ape, Bloostone pass, and a lot more were written just with high level characters in mind. You can challenge your players in many ways.

From my point of view, you DM was putting additional limits in your games that were not there. If for every victory you had to second guess if there was death trap waiting for the group, that was a sad thing indeed. Sometimes, it's fun to have an easy victory. Players like that. I like that too.

Be fair, Be strict, but don't be tyranical. Yes the treasure can be trapped, but not always. Dard was found in the mud, but the ceiling didn't fell on Gandalf's head because of that. Sometimes, a good battle need to be rewarded. Again, reward clever play and thinking.

 

[Maxperson]

My apologies, page 84. The text of the 'enchant an item' spell.

No worries.

Fair enough. If you have an nigh unlimited supply of wishes, then really the world is yours. You can do nearly anything with a nigh unlimited supply of wishes. However, to make a few points:

Gygax seems to have assumed a nigh unlimited supply of wishes. If you look at page 11 of the DMG he says that PCs will eventually be running around with several 18s or higher if allowed to raise stats above 16 with 1 wish apiece. The average array with 4d6 drop the lowest is roughly 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9. It would take 37 wishes to get those all to 18 at one wish apiece. In an average sized party(4) it would take 148 wishes for that to happen. That's not even just a bit absurd, it's bat&@@!$& crazy.

In my experience the entire party by the time they hit level 15 or so, finds 1-4 wishes. The suggestion(not rule) that it take 10 wishes to go from 16-17 and 17-18 seems like it should be ignored.

a) The only reasonable way to actually get a night unlimited supply of wishes is to cast them yourself, and if you do you are disabled for 2d4 days (per the spell description). Thus, if wish is used as anything but the last step of item manufacture, it fails, since the next step must be started within 24 hours.
b) The discretionary power of the DM is in play if you begin to abuse the wish spell. If you start using wish spells to subvert game balance, the DM is fully empowered to begin interpreting wishes according to their strict wording rather than their intent, and even in some cases interpreting the wish perversely to prevent the entire game from being derailed.
c) Fundamentally, we are talking about characters that have obtained 16th-18th level. Most groups would retire characters by then or before then. We are in 1e terms well passed the normal end game, and there is very little provided in the game to challenge characters of such extraordinary puissance - even if we weren't providing them with all sorts of generous interpretations of the rules.

I agree that it isn't the problem that Gygax made it out to be.

I've already called out that I consider it perfectly acceptable for the DM to depart from the official rules and play however they liked. I've also called out that I myself did so. For example, while I was as stickler regarding most rules of the game - right down to weapon vs. AC modifiers - I by conscious choice ignored the rules on training time and costs and applied XP to players immediately upon the receipt thereof. I did so because my stories were often what we would call now 'adventure paths', and I did not want to interrupt the story - which might be occurring in far corners of the world or other planes - to force players to return to civilization for training. Others made other choices to ignore the rules in order to facilitate the particular sort of play that they desired.

There is only one rule in early D&D. Rule 0. All else are official suggestions. My experience in early D&D is that pretty much every table added, removed or altered "rules", which was fine.

My only quibble is vehemently announcing how strictly you are following the rules, and proclaiming how things were, when anyone that can actually read the rules can point to a half-dozen rule violations in as many sentences - even before we get to the matter of rulings.

They usually aren't even violations. 1e and 2e were written so vaguely, that you could interpret a section multiple ways and still not be violating what it said. Take this discussion. You're interpreting the magic item creation section to be instructions to the DM to screw over the players by making it incredibly hard to create items. I'm interpreting it to be not so difficult.

What the text says is that the DM comes up with the formula. To make the example ring of spell storing, the DM might just require enchant an item, a blank scroll, permanency and the PC to fart on it all. That would be perfectly in line with that section, and not at all difficult to come up with.

Gygaxian process of play and advice to fellow DM's has a particular form, that can be summed up as, "Be harsh, but fair." Gygax's sees the main role of the DM as ensuring the cultivation of what he calls 'skillful play', where skillful play is marked by the creativity of the players in utilizing the limited resources they have available, by their carefulness, and their foresight, and by the cooperation to achieve a task. He most certainly does not consider it to be skillful play to wheedle or browbeat the DM, to engage in rules arguments, to be creative in rules interpretations, and generally to try to win through the metagame rather than through play. He likewise continually points out that players will expect and will argue that they ought to receive something for nothing, when in fact they ought to always pay through the nose for any advantage that they are seeking. For example, he points out in particular that players will expect to be able to trade spells or items with NPC friends or followers either for free or in even trade, when in fact even close friends or loyal henchmen will demand exorbitant surcharges if they are even willing to cooperate at all.

True enough, but that doesn't mean that the DM has to require that you get the reflection of a Medusa in the morning dew in order create a flesh to stone wand. He can make it that hard if he wants to, or he can require a Medusa to fart on it all. Much easier to get.

Define 'harsh'. Obeying the letter of the rules of the game is not 'harsh'. Demanding that the DM set the cost according to what the NPC wants to receive, not what the player wants to give is not 'harsh'. Making the NPC's and foils of the PC's as creative or more creative than the PC's is not 'harsh'. Ensuring that the game always offers a challenge for all participants, and a suitable reward for the challenge is not 'harsh'. That's actually just 'fair'.

The game should be a challenge, but that doesn't mean that it should be unfairly difficult like some of the suggestions that Gygax makes. It really depends on the group, so how hard it is to create magic items will and should vary from group to group, all within the 1e creation rules as written.

Look, fundamentally, all I have to do to win this argument is demonstrate that in 1e, magic item creation was less accessible and more difficult than it was in 3e. I think I've done that in spades. I think winning my side of the argument is trivially easy, because anyone familiar with both systems will recognize that having fixed costs of abundant and well defined resources (gold and XP), and allowing you to create almost anything by 5th level and certainly every level appropriate item by that point without any special restrictions beyond abundant chargen resources that a player is in full control of, makes for a much more accessible magic item creation system than exists in 1e.

It did start earlier in 3e. That's for sure. However, the items that were any good were often 11th level and higher, just like in 1e. That said, the biggest limiter in both games was time. The wizard had to sit out of the game and make his item for a long time. While that was happening, the world moved on, the party was engaged in events that happened in the city they were in. It really sucked for the player of the wizard, so very few actually made items unless the DM just put the world on hold and let time pass with nothing happening. In my entire time playing 3e(day 1 to present), I saw exactly 6 magic items were made, and it was by me. I had a high level wizard in a group where we had multiple PCs, and he was off by himself as part of the story while I played my other PC. I used that time to make a gift item for each of the members of the group.

 

[Celebrim]

Gygax seems to have assumed a nigh unlimited supply of wishes. If you look at page 11 of the DMG he says that PCs will eventually be running around with several 18s or higher if allowed to raise stats above 16 with 1 wish apiece. The average array with 4d6 drop the lowest is roughly 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9. It would take 37 wishes to get those all to 18 at one wish apiece. In an average sized party(4) it would take 148 wishes for that to happen. That's not even just a bit absurd, it's bat&@@!$& crazy.

I read that passage entirely differently than you do.

First off, recall earlier my discussion that in 1e AD&D most ability scores had very little effect on your character. Wisdom had a great effect on the viability of a cleric, but only marginal utility for any other class (thus, 9-15 were basically the same). Intelligence likewise has profound impact on the viability of a wizard, but only marginal utility for any other class. And for some of the more pervasively useful abilities like Strength and Constitution, only fighters had any profound reason to desire more than about a 16.

So Gygax is not at all worried about getting 'all 18's'. There isn't much utility in 6 18's. What he's worried about is characters with 2-3 18's because he knows such characters can be game breaking. He knows that the increase in power between 16 and 17 or 17 and 18 is roughly as large as the increase between 9 and 15. Ability scores in AD&D don't linearly increase in power, they explode in power as you get past a 15. If a PC were to spend 22 wishes to get all 16's, it would be mostly wasted wishes.

So first, Gygax informs his fellow DMs that they should not interpret a wish to increase ability scores as greedy, and respond with perverse or overly harsh interpretations of the wish. If the player wants to spend a wish on such a thing, let him receive a reward.

But note that even in saying this, he's already cutting out as ridiculous what might otherwise be seen as a reasonable interpretation by an excited player or a naïve DM - that a wish could at one go raise an ability score to 18. You can't wish to have an 18 STR or 18 INT. It just doesn't work that way.

Secondly, he is well aware that if everyone in the party could get multiple 18's, the game will start breaking. So he does a typically Gygaxian thing. Rather than telling the DM to "Just say, "No."", he instead tells the DM to say "Yes", but with such a 'harsh' interpretation regarding what is fair that it effectively is a, "No."

It's not using wishes to get all 18's you have to worry about. It's using wishes to achieve, "18, 18, 13, 12, 10, 9", which only takes 5 wishes if you ignore Gygax's ruling - and likely only 2 wishes if you accept the generous interpretation that a player would otherwise argue for if Gygax didn't give the DM this shield to defend himself. And unlike you, I consider Gygax's statement on page 11 to be a rule, and not a guideline, and one you ought to ignore at your parallel. If you really want to deal with powerful PC's and the table behavior suggests that players are chaffing from low ability scores, use Method III or Method V. Because "18, 18, 13, 12, 10, 9" isn't necessarily the worst thing you could end up with by ignoring this passage; you could end up with "21, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9".

There is a further consideration. I finally found what I've been looking for since this conversation started, which is that every wish that a M-U casts ages them 3 years. This means that you need to find life extending magic if you are going to abuse your nigh unlimited potential for wishes, which means you are going to need to find a formula for longevity potions quite soon if you aren't to wither yourself to death.

As for the rest, there really are only guidelines for making magic items, and very few rules. That's one of the reason that the rules are so inaccessible. But the same sort of pattern is found in Gygax's guidelines. He doesn't advice the DM to say, "No", but when he does provide a guideline it's one that sets an extremely high bar. A ring of spell storing is a desirable item, but it falls into the category of nice to have. It's neither extremely valuable nor particularly 'chase'. It's not part of a game breaking 'kit' of items that a power gamer is going to want. And yet the guidelines he gives for creating this rather ordinary item put the costs at such a level that only the most dedicated to actually making one will actually do so, and then only after obtaining 18th level. Compared to the sort of guidelines he could have provided, which would be that you simply cast the spells you want the item to contain, the whole deal about creating the scroll and then employing a wish (which you yourself have to cast) is extremely - even surprisingly - demanding. And it encourages, along with the entire rest of the text, the DM to be equally demanding. Your suggestions just obviously are very different than the sort provided in the text.

 

[Lanefan]

so you do think that the *majority* of D&D (and maybe PF) players worldwide still play dungeon after dungeon with little to no RP and don't play more than the equivalent of an MMO avatar in terms of character depth and investment?

The characters tend to last longer, but - at my best estimate - a large amount (maybe the majority?) of play these days is based around published adventure paths, and most published adventure paths I've seen just want you to go from one thing to the next (i.e. dungeon after dungeon) with little downtime or RP opportunity. Throw in the gamist-first crowd as well and I think it safe to say that yeah, there ain't much RP.

The intent has always idealistically been what you're suggesting. The result over the editions has been more or less wide of the mark.

it can, but it doesn't have to and in my opinion it doesn't.

At least on the D&D side, there's certainly been some moments of sterility and that pre-packaged feeling; and they're getting more frequent as time goes on.

So yes, you have one week to set things right after your clone is grown up. For about a week, you and your clone will get along. You are both yourself after all. But dual existence starts to gnaw at both your sanities. Thus the quick stasis. You will go in stasis so that one of us will go on. And since 9th level spells required an 18 in intelligence we can safely assume that they are both really logical (for a brief period of time), before madness sets on in the clone 75%, or your self 25%.

If you're my clone - that I created! - and you're in stasis I still a) know you exist, and b) know you are alive [the whole point of stasis is it doesn't kill you]...so before long I'll either destroy you or end up a basket case.

Now if someone else had somehow created a clone of me without my knowledge and then put the clone in stasis, that's a different question entirely.

a) The only reasonable way to actually get a night unlimited supply of wishes is to cast them yourself

Or have a friendly wish-granting creature e.g. a genie on speed dial...

and if you do you are disabled for 2d4 days (per the spell description). Thus, if wish is used as anything but the last step of item manufacture, it fails, since the next step must be started within 24 hours.

Unless the wish is cast by someone else.

That said, until-unless a PC gets to high enough level to hard-cast them* wishes should be a rare and unpredictable thing. This comes up in my game now and then - someone will pick up a hidden wish from a luck blade or a wild magic surge, and the next time they happen to start a sentence with "I wish..." their wish goes off; sometimes with strange and unforeseen (and hilarious!) consequences and sometimes to great usefulness.

* - not something I expect to see in my lifetime in any of my games, but you never know...

Lan-"I wish I had a beer...drat, didn't work"-efan

 

[Helldritch]

If you're my clone - that I created! - and you're in stasis I still a) know you exist, and b) know you are alive [the whole point of stasis is it doesn't kill you]...so before long I'll either destroy you or end up a basket case.

Now if someone else had somehow created a clone of me without my knowledge and then put the clone in stasis, that's a different question entirely.

Read the temporal stasis of 1e. In the stasis you are effectively cut from the continuum. Nothing can affect, nothing can interact with you. For all intent and purpose, you do not exist. You can't be found via spells, visual aid, visual clues nothing. The only way to remove you is to destroy the stasis by disenchanting it by whatever mean you can. So at the moment you "stasis" your clone, the link though not necessarily severed (rules are a bit sketchy on this) will simply cease its dreadful progression as long as the stasis last. Stasis is a great way to extend the duration of a spell to near infinite. For all intent and purpose, time cease to function in relation to everything that was put in stasis, including the progression toward delusion and madness.

Since the clone is removed from the continuum, you get to stay yourself way past the one week limit as your clone is no longuer affecting your mind. That perticuliar shenanigan was used by Tenser in many instances. You can even have multiple clones in stasis (in 1e at least...).

A truly devious DM could arrange for a clone to be wakened prematurely. How and why is entirely up to the DM. It is almost unfair, but it is possible.

 

[Maxperson]

I read that passage entirely differently than you do.

First off, recall earlier my discussion that in 1e AD&D most ability scores had very little effect on your character. Wisdom had a great effect on the viability of a cleric, but only marginal utility for any other class (thus, 9-15 were basically the same). Intelligence likewise has profound impact on the viability of a wizard, but only marginal utility for any other class. And for some of the more pervasively useful abilities like Strength and Constitution, only fighters had any profound reason to desire more than about a 16.

So Gygax is not at all worried about getting 'all 18's'. There isn't much utility in 6 18's. What he's worried about is characters with 2-3 18's because he knows such characters can be game breaking. He knows that the increase in power between 16 and 17 or 17 and 18 is roughly as large as the increase between 9 and 15. Ability scores in AD&D don't linearly increase in power, they explode in power as you get past a 15. If a PC were to spend 22 wishes to get all 16's, it would be mostly wasted wishes.

So first, Gygax informs his fellow DMs that they should not interpret a wish to increase ability scores as greedy, and respond with perverse or overly harsh interpretations of the wish. If the player wants to spend a wish on such a thing, let him receive a reward.

But note that even in saying this, he's already cutting out as ridiculous what might otherwise be seen as a reasonable interpretation by an excited player or a naïve DM - that a wish could at one go raise an ability score to 18. You can't wish to have an 18 STR or 18 INT. It just doesn't work that way.

Secondly, he is well aware that if everyone in the party could get multiple 18's, the game will start breaking. So he does a typically Gygaxian thing. Rather than telling the DM to "Just say, "No."", he instead tells the DM to say "Yes", but with such a 'harsh' interpretation regarding what is fair that it effectively is a, "No."

It's not using wishes to get all 18's you have to worry about. It's using wishes to achieve, "18, 18, 13, 12, 10, 9", which only takes 5 wishes if you ignore Gygax's ruling - and likely only 2 wishes if you accept the generous interpretation that a player would otherwise argue for if Gygax didn't give the DM this shield to defend himself. And unlike you, I consider Gygax's statement on page 11 to be a rule, and not a guideline, and one you ought to ignore at your parallel. If you really want to deal with powerful PC's and the table behavior suggests that players are chaffing from low ability scores, use Method III or Method V. Because "18, 18, 13, 12, 10, 9" isn't necessarily the worst thing you could end up with by ignoring this passage; you could end up with "21, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9".

The math is off there. By that average array, it takes 6 wishes to get two 18's and you then have to multiply by 4 since the party is greater than one. Also, since it's almost definite you aren't 18th level yet and can't cast wish, you have to find all 24 of those wishes. Good luck. Most likely, the entire party will be splitting 1-4 wishes in total by the time they are anywhere near 18th level, so multiple 18's are not going to be a concern, even if you allow stat raises past 16 to cost a single wish.

There is a further consideration. I finally found what I've been looking for since this conversation started, which is that every wish that a M-U casts ages them 3 years. This means that you need to find life extending magic if you are going to abuse your nigh unlimited potential for wishes, which means you are going to need to find a formula for longevity potions quite soon if you aren't to wither yourself to death.

You have to find the wishes, so the aging isn't going to be in play. If you are already 18th level, a few 18's aren't going to be much of a concern. The power level is already extreme.

As for the rest, there really are only guidelines for making magic items, and very few rules. That's one of the reason that the rules are so inaccessible.

I disagree. That makes them very accessible.

Player: DM, what do I need to do to make a ring of spell turning.
DM: You do this.
Player: Okay, I do that.

It's that simple to access the rules. The only thing that might be hard is if the DM decides to make you find a bunch of impossible ingredients like the first ray of the sun following a full solar eclipse. That's not the rules, though. That's the DM.

But the same sort of pattern is found in Gygax's guidelines. He doesn't advice the DM to say, "No", but when he does provide a guideline it's one that sets an extremely high bar. A ring of spell storing is a desirable item, but it falls into the category of nice to have. It's neither extremely valuable nor particularly 'chase'. It's not part of a game breaking 'kit' of items that a power gamer is going to want. And yet the guidelines he gives for creating this rather ordinary item put the costs at such a level that only the most dedicated to actually making one will actually do so, and then only after obtaining 18th level. Compared to the sort of guidelines he could have provided, which would be that you simply cast the spells you want the item to contain, the whole deal about creating the scroll and then employing a wish (which you yourself have to cast) is extremely - even surprisingly - demanding. And it encourages, along with the entire rest of the text, the DM to be equally demanding. Your suggestions just obviously are very different than the sort provided in the text.

That single example is not a rule at all. It's not even a suggestion. This is the only rule in that section...

"With respect to the former, you must determine which spells and ingredients are necessary to the manufacture of each specific magic item."

That's it and nothing more. It's up to the DM how easy or hard it will be. Period. Nobody is required to play the way Gygax did, or have the preferences Gygax had.

 

[Helldritch]

I disagree. That makes them very accessible.

Player: DM, what do I need to do to make a ring of spell turning.
DM: You do this.
Player: Okay, I do that.

It's that simple to access the rules. The only thing that might be hard is if the DM decides to make you find a bunch of impossible ingredients like the first ray of the sun following a full solar eclipse. That's not the rules, though. That's the DM.

God did I laughed with that statement. How do I do this? Ok, I do that... But you are absolutely right. It will be, in the end, exactly like that.

 

[Celebrim]

I disagree. That makes them very accessible.

Player: DM, what do I need to do to make a ring of spell turning.
DM: You do this.
Player: Okay, I do that.

It's that simple to access the rules.

Well, we will have to agree to disagree then. That's "Mother May I", which is about the least accessible rules you can have. We're talking about a set of rules that is deliberately obscure and outside the control of the player. In order for rules to be accessible, the player has to understand what propositions lead to what results, have some rough idea of the difficulty of a proposition before it is made, and have confidence that they can succeed because the rules tell them that they can. That's why 3e's magic item creation rules are accessible. They are transparent. They are clear. And they involve resources that are fully in the control of the player.

In the case of the one sample we are given, the process is not only opaque to the player, it has multiple levels of opacity, and multiple unknowable possibilities of failure.

Moreover, your conversation is against the provided rules and guidelines.

Page 116, DMG: "A properly run campaign will be relatively stringent with respect to the number of available magic items, so your players will sooner or later express a desire to manufacture their own. Do not tell them how this is to be accomplished!" - emphasis original

You conversation is not how it is supposed to happen. The actual conversation would be something like this:

Player: DM, what do I need to do to make a ring of spell turning.
DM: You don't know.
Player: Ok... err.. how do I find out?
DM: You don't know.
Player: Could I find someone that might know?
DM: You could certainly try.
Player: How would I go about doing that?
DM: You don't know.
Player: *thinking hard* Well, there must be some university or center of learning somewhere. Have I ever heard of such things before, and do I have some idea where one might be located?
DM: Actually, yes...

It's easy when you have clear familiarity with the contents of the DMG and experience in D&D to figure that you need to find a sage to answer a question, but that the expert hireling rules are also not accessible. The process of finding the mechanism for creating a particular ring of spell storing could take more than a year of game time, even if you have some idea how to navigate the environment created by the rules. Multiple sages might need to be hired to learn each of the exacting answers involving. Finding such sages might take months of game time, and the research involved might take months more. Once the recipes to each of the special inks, special quills, and to the final construction itself are known, months more might pass collecting the rare ingredients and finding the master artisans that can create the pieces of the commissioned work. Then weeks more may pass attempting to scribe the scroll, which, if it is a five spell scroll for the most desirable sort of ring may require multiple attempts to create an a perfect and unblemished work. The weeks more may pass crafting the final enchantment, which may fail utterly at the last moment, ruining the work, and even if it doesn't will leave the character drained for yet weeks more. And none of this will be obvious to the player embarking on the project from the start, nor is it even obvious that the player has only a 5% chance of losing a point of constitution since this information itself is buried inaccessibly in the DMG rather than found in the PH.

That's it and nothing more. It's up to the DM how easy or hard it will be. Period. Nobody is required to play the way Gygax did, or have the preferences Gygax had.

Certainly, but I'd been playing about 12 years before anyone ever reached a level of understanding of the system sufficient to be conscious that they were making that choice and be able to explain to themselves why they were doing it. When I say that I was skipping the rules on training in order to facilitate a certain style of play, that's hindsight talking. I could not have explained so clearly why I was doing it at the time, and probably would have appealed to some notion of 'realism' or some other sort of red herring, resulting in a lengthy argument with anyone that disagreed. In 1983 or 1988, no one I had met would have suggested that you shouldn't play the way Gygax was suggesting was the right way to play, and if anyone quibbled with the rules, it wasn't over concepts like creating a different style of play. It wasn't until the early 2000's, that I even fully understood Gygax's table and why some of his advice that had hitherto seemed to me to be a bit wrong or a bit overly harsh, was actually very functional for his assumptions about what being a DM was like, or that my version of D&D had to be different than his because it's fundamental assumptions were different.

 

[Helldritch]

You still refuse to see the point don't you?

In the end, the player will find the receipe. IF you are as impartial as you claim to be and you stick to the rules. The player will find a way. Whatever the receipe, or however you make it hard to do, the player, if you are impartial, will have his ring in the end. To say otherwise is not only unfair to the player but unfair to impartiality. Yes it can be hard. Yes the player might die in the adventures involved in getting the ingredients you imagined to impeech him. But if you are truly impartial, he will make his ring.

Of course the receipe will not easy to get. But the player should have a chance to find it. It might be in the hands of an archmage who will share his knowledge for a few services. The ingredients then required could be hard to get. But since the ring isn't an artifact, it should be relatively possible to get them. The gizzard of a roper, mithril ring forged in the positive energy plane, a gem cut in the void of the negative energy plane, the iris of the central eye of a beholder and whatever else you want to put. These are all possible ingredients. But if you are adhering to the rules, as you claim, yep, the player will get his ring. I really think that he earned it.