D&D (2024) 2024 needs to end 2014's passive aggressive efforts to remove magic items & other elements from d&d

[CapnZapp]

Tools vs checks vs skills: the only sane solution is to resolve any conflict by saying "yes".

If the character can make a case they should be allowed to make a check or use a bonus, simply allow it.

Trying to decode what the devs were thinking when they separated proficiencies from skills, that way lies madness.

 

[ECMO3]

I really like the way 5E handles magic items. Out of all the versions I think it is the best baseline/core.

One thing I really like is no rules about mixing potions, maximum number of rings or cloaks or etc you can wear.

We have a character in one game going around with two magic gauntlets. Kind of rediculous? Sure, but it leaves it up to the individual DM and table to mediate that kind of stuff.

I also like the attunement limits, which prevent getting too many really powerful items.

I personally like high magic games, but I don't like games where you can buy or craft magic items. But D&D can be played with high magic, low magic, no magic, with crafting, without crafting and the rules are flexible enough to do that well.

 

[CapnZapp]

I really like the way 5E handles magic items. Out of all the versions I think it is the best baseline/core.

What's missing is official support for assigning rational prices to magic items for those that want a quick and easy way to spend their gold.

 

[Horwath]

What's missing is official support for assigning rational prices to magic items for those that want a quick and easy way to spend their gold.

Now if we can only get rid of +X bonuses to attack, AC, saves and DCs. or keep it max at +1(with mandatory attunement for those items).
So "bounded accuracy" can keep being bounded.

 

[CapnZapp]

Now if we can only get rid of +X bonuses to attack, AC, saves and DCs. or keep it max at +1(with mandatory attunement for those items).
So "bounded accuracy" can keep being bounded.

Well, yes, ... and no.

I fully agree that as soon as the fighter gets +3 armor with a +3 shield, the game goes out of whack.

But a simple limit of "max three things with attunement" just becomes so restrictive it ceases to be any fun. When you already have three good attunement items, every new piece of loot becomes one out of two things:

• vendor loot (because it doesn't represent enough of an upgrade). Even if it is a seriously cool item with interesting powers, it's a hard sell to give up something with a basic bonus to "everything" for it.
• OP stuff (because in order to entice you, new items need to be ever-more "better")

If the attunement system instead had some measure of nuance, it would be much easier to remain enthusiastic about new loot.

Just a quick and dirty example to show what I mean:

Imagine you have 10 attunement points.

Most "major" items that today require (and deserve) an attunement slot now costs 3 attunement points. But now you have design space for items that require only 2 or 1 attunement points.

(You also have design space for items that increase your number of attunement points, for those campaigns that like more magical power. A +1 increase is much less disruptive than a vanilla +1 attunement slot item)

If the item provides a colorful and appropriate bonus to some secondary ability or enhances your roleplaying potential, but does not make you significantly better in combat, say, that item could be a 1-point item.

Now one player could opt for three "big" items, while another player could go for many smaller items that maybe are "cooler" but doesn't provide core bonuses (to attacks, spell saves, or AC).

+3 plate mail should in this system easily be 6 or more attunement points, driving home the point that you need to make some serious compromises to be allowed such a disruptive item. And if you have even stronger opinions about this item, Horwath, make it an 11 point item...

 

[Horwath]

Well, yes, ... and no.

I fully agree that as soon as the fighter gets +3 armor with a +3 shield, the game goes out of whack.

But a simple limit of "max three things with attunement" just becomes so restrictive it ceases to be any fun. When you already have three good attunement items, every new piece of loot becomes one out of two things:

• vendor loot (because it doesn't represent enough of an upgrade). Even if it is a seriously cool item with interesting powers, it's a hard sell to give up something with a basic bonus to "everything" for it.
• OP stuff (because in order to entice you, new items need to be ever-more "better")

If the attunement system instead had some measure of nuance, it would be much easier to remain enthusiastic about new loot.

Just a quick and dirty example to show what I mean:

Imagine you have 10 attunement points.

Most "major" items that today require (and deserve) an attunement slot now costs 3 attunement points. But now you have design space for items that require only 2 or 1 attunement points.

If the item provides a colorful and appropriate bonus to some secondary ability or enhances your roleplaying potential, but does not make you significantly better in combat, say, that item could be a 1-point item.

Now one player could opt for three "big" items, while another player could go for many smaller items that maybe are "cooler" but doesn't provide core bonuses (to attacks, spell saves, or AC).

+3 plate mail should in this system easily be 6 or more attunement points, driving home the point that you need to make some serious compromises to be allowed such a disruptive item. And if you have even stronger opinions about this item, Horwath, make it an 11 point item...

Weapons without attunement can just have damage bonususes.

I.E. instead of +1/+1 att/dmg it could be +1d6 damage, +2d6 or +3d6.

if it's only that, and there is no attack bonus that breaks bounded accuracy, then that weapon does not need attunement.
and it is described with simplest math how it's better than stock weapon.

simple magic armor can just reduce 1/2/3 damage from all sources.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Now if we can only get rid of +X bonuses to attack, AC, saves and DCs. or keep it max at +1(with mandatory attunement for those items).
So "bounded accuracy" can keep being bounded.

Let's get rid of basic +X items with no other ability and the terrible game philosophy of bounded accuracy!

 

[Horwath]

Let's get rid of basic +X items with no other ability and the terrible game philosophy of bounded accuracy!

it's not terrible, CR1 monsters should remain a moderate threat through out your leveling, or most of it, if in sufficient numbers.

best 4E that I played is when we removed the +1/2 per level bonus to everything.

 

[Vaalingrade]

it's not terrible, CR1 monsters should remain a moderate threat through out your leveling, or most of it, if in sufficient numbers.

I disagree. I think low level monsters should become wheat for the thresher so my characters' growth actually shows.

and I want tactics and consideration to actually make things easier rather than just letting me try again once and only once.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Low-level monsters will always be meat for the thresher... Bounded Accuracy just says that if you put enough of those low-level monsters together, they can eventually as a group still be able to take down a higher-level foe. The numbers do not make that possibility impossible.

Granted, in actual game practice it's a situation that will almost never come up... because any DM that wants a thousand Commoners to help defend their town by trying to take down a dragon will more often than not just turn that scene into a "narrative story action" rather than actually bother rolling that combat out (with Commoners needing Nat 20s to hit and then plink-plink their damage time and again)... but the DM could do it if they really wanted to.

Me personally? I think at the end of the day the concerns about BA are a whole lot of nothing because 99% of the time the DM is going to throw level appropriate enemies against the party anyway. So whether the PCs have attack bonuses of around +9 or all the way up to +35... their attack bonus is going to get perfectly acceptable for the enemies they will face. So at the end of the day what difference does it make where the numbers fall?