D&D 5E Amulet of Health, Another Strong Item

[Ruin Explorer]

I disliked the old girdles of giant strength because they wiped away your choices. Suddenly, your choice to play a weak character by assigning a low score to strength became completely irrelevant.

In a way, I think 5e's equivalents are actually worse, because the people with good scores (read: 20s) won't get any benefit from them. So they'll naturally trickle down to the party members with the worst scores.

Cheers!
Kinak

I can understand this POV, but I have to say, I prefer the "fixed stat" way, because it's more shocking/exciting/magical, and it's less open-to-abuse, because it means that you can't stack it with higher scores to produce REALLY high scores.

What you could do, potentially, to try and have it both ways is make it so if you had 19 or 20 in a stat, these items added +2 to that stat, instead of setting it to a value, but I personally think that that's kind of boring.

 

[BryonD]

In general, I prefer the modifier items. Mostly because it keeps the character consistent with the core character/ (The stronger char is still the stronger char)
It is a little ironic to me that in this case the idea of characters being not defined by their items is trumped.

However, I have seen corner cases where, for example, a STR10 char ends up with a hand-me-down belt of "GIANT" strength (+2), thus getting a STR12 (!!!). It works mechanically, but certainly fails to live up to the concept. And I'm certainly one to prefer the concept over the mechanics. So if this was more common, I'd completely change my mind.

Specific to 5E it seems clear that a modifier approach doesn't sit well with bounded. So this is a trade off. And as long as bounded keeps working out as a fun approach, I see it as a very small price to pay.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I can understand this POV, but I have to say, I prefer the "fixed stat" way, because it's more shocking/exciting/magical, and it's less open-to-abuse, because it means that you can't stack it with higher scores to produce REALLY high scores.

What you could do, potentially, to try and have it both ways is make it so if you had 19 or 20 in a stat, these items added +2 to that stat, instead of setting it to a value, but I personally think that that's kind of boring.

We have also only seen the smallest sampling of magic items. The DMG may contain items of greater rarity that set ability scores above the normal maximum. That is something powerful magic may be able to do.

 

[Li Shenron]

No definition right now, maybe, but I'll be extremely surprised if the DMG uses those terms and doesn't define them, because that would be bloody stupid, frankly. If you just want DMs to determine how common something is, you don't go around putting that sort of tag on things - it only has value if you define it in some way.

One implicit definition is in the random treasure tables, but obviously not everyone will use them.

 

[Kinak]

Wiped away your choices? Unless you played that all such items came with a compulsion to wear them (no save) I don't see how any choices are removed. If you don't want to be super giant strong the don't put on the item.

Of course you can choose not to equip the item. It's what happens if you do put it on that counts.

It's just that wearing the item makes your choices at character creation and level up regarding that statistic irrelevant.

Any resources you spent on that attribute is wasted whether that involved assigning a decent stat, racial bonuses, applying points for point buy, or bumping it with feats. Unless, of course, you got it all the way to 18, in which case the item never does anything for you.

This isn't theorycraft. Every time I handed out gauntlets of ogre power or girdles of giant strength back when they worked like this, the recipient realized within a few sessions that their character would be better if they'd assigned a worse score to strength.

I can understand this POV, but I have to say, I prefer the "fixed stat" way, because it's more shocking/exciting/magical, and it's less open-to-abuse, because it means that you can't stack it with higher scores to produce REALLY high scores.

What you could do, potentially, to try and have it both ways is make it so if you had 19 or 20 in a stat, these items added +2 to that stat, instead of setting it to a value, but I personally think that that's kind of boring.

I'll just apply the lessons learned in 2nd Edition and never hand out items like this.

Or give them substantially larger drawbacks than just eating up an equipment slot. It's a fine ability for Stormbringer or the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, for example.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[SilverfireSage]

Of course you can choose not to equip the item. It's what happens if you do put it on that counts.

It's just that wearing the item makes your choices at character creation and level up regarding that statistic irrelevant.

Any resources you spent on that attribute is wasted whether that involved assigning a decent stat, racial bonuses, applying points for point buy, or bumping it with feats. Unless, of course, you got it all the way to 18, in which case the item never does anything for you.

This isn't theorycraft. Every time I handed out gauntlets of ogre power or girdles of giant strength back when they worked like this, the recipient realized within a few sessions that their character would be better if they'd assigned a worse score to strength.

Remember three things: 1. These items typically require attunement. When your party finds an item such as this at a relatively high level (say 10 or so) they're probably going to have maxed out their primary stat, and will probably have close to three attuned items. Would a wizard really give up a ring of protection or a staff of fire just to have a high strength? I doubt it.
2. These stats fall just shy of having a +5 score, giving a +4. With bounded accuracy, this is actually a pretty big jump, so that fighter that has a 20 strength will still look a good deal more powerful than the bard with a 19. Not to mention that even if that bard raised his strength up by one more, it still wouldn't hit 20 until his natural did, making the fighter permanently stronger.
3. You can lose magic items. Whether its stolen, destroyed, or otherwise removed from your person, someone with a natural 10 strength goes back down to that after losing the item. A fighter will always be able to use their 20 strength no matter the circumstance.

 

[Dausuul]

The stat boosting items appear to all give you a flat 19. So powerful, but below the potential peak. In fact almost every character will natively surpass the stat boosting items some time around level 8, for their primary stats anyway. While this is a potent item, the 5e approach completely eliminates the stat boosting arms race of 3e. Instead of stat boosting items being critical to performing your primary role, they are rapidly obsoleted for your primary role and thus relegated to bolstering a secondary stat or reducing the MAD penalty for mutli-classed characters.

This is true, and it means these items are not particularly powerful... when the stat in question is mainly used as a primary stat. Gauntlets of ogre strength are a good example. Typically, a PC will either be a Strength specialist (great weapon or sword-and-board melee warrior), or won't use Strength all that often, and either way the gauntlets don't do much for you--if you're a Strength specialist, you were planning on maxing out Strength anyway, and you were probably well on your way to doing it by the time you found the item. The same is true for a headband of intellect. A wizard will already have a high Intelligence score and nobody else cares that much.

However, Constitution is nobody's primary stat. Instead, it's the universal secondary, and that makes the amulet of health far more powerful than the gauntlets or headband. If you're a 5th-level character with Con 12 and d8 hit dice--note that I don't even have to resort to a low-Con wizard for this example--you have 33 hit points without the amulet. With it, you shoot up to 48! That's a 45% boost. And you get +3 to your Con saves. For a spellcaster, that's huge; for a noncaster, it's still nothing to sneeze at.

 

[Crothian]

Any resources you spent on that attribute is wasted whether that involved assigning a decent stat, racial bonuses, applying points for point buy, or bumping it with feats. Unless, of course, you got it all the way to 18, in which case the item never does anything for you.

It looks like they are going to have items for each attribute that does this so does that make all attributes worthless? Also, these resources one spends on attributes can't be spent other places. Feats are optional so I'm ignoring those. Those point buy points can't be spent anywhere else so it is not a wasted resource. They have to go to attributes. Also a 19 attribute is going to be better then a magical item because it is a lot easier to loss that magical item.

 

[Hand of Evil]

[D][/D]
A simple house rule could also address the issue, I simple "rejection" roll. Basically your body rejects the device, make it a WIL or CON roll.

 

[Remathilis]

I disliked the old girdles of giant strength because they wiped away your choices. Suddenly, your choice to play a weak character by assigning a low score to strength became completely irrelevant.

In a way, I think 5e's equivalents are actually worse, because the people with good scores (read: 20s) won't get any benefit from them. So they'll naturally trickle down to the party members with the worst scores.

Cheers!
Kinak

By all means, give yourself an 8 Con and wait for that Amulet of Health to come your way. Maximum return on investment, if you live that long.