D&D 5E Attack Bonuses

[Jester David]

And you're not seeing a clear path from "Let's make an item that gives you 22 - 30 in a stat" to "Let's make an item that gives you 22 - 30 in another stat"?

Or from "We're designing a system so that X will never happen." and "Here's X!"

No.
It's "we're designing a system so that X is not mandatory. Here's X, use it if you want."

It's "magic items are not assumed or part of the math" and not "magic items cease to exist" or "magic items give you a very minor bonus to avoid breaking the game."

 

[Jester David]

Characters can get up to +5 to attack rolls from their class levels, +5 from their ability score (or higher, if they have a magic item that boost an ability score above 20), and up to +3 from a magic weapon. A 20th level fighter with a belt of storm giant strength (29) and a +3 magic weapon could have a +17 to hit. That's the highest attack bonus I've been able to come up with. If ioun stones are allowed to stack with other bonuses, you could add another +2 to that (using a pale blue rhomboid to boost str to 30 and a pale green prism for a +1 to attack rolls).

Except how likely is getting a 20 in your primary stat?
Both the array and the point buy go to 15, and rolling an 18 is pretty darn rare even with 4d6 drop the lowest.

The fighter will be lucky to have a 17 with a +3, and an attack range of +4 at level 1 to +11 at level 20 assuming she puts her ability score boosts into Strength every level.

 

[Falling Icicle]

What if the belts worked like this?

Belt of Giant Strength: Your Strength score increases to that granted by the belt for the determining how much weight you can lift, carry, push, pull or drag, for feats of strength (such as breaking down doors and bending bars), and for weapon damage.

 

[Wulfgar76]

What if the belts worked like this?

Belt of Giant Strength: Your Strength score increases to that granted by the belt for the determining how much weight you can lift, carry, push, pull or drag, for feats of strength (such as breaking down doors and bending bars), and for weapon damage.

That would be fine, as it doesn't turn bounded accuracy on its head.

 

[keterys]

Except how likely is getting a 20 in your primary stat?

Extremely high. Start with a 15, then add +1 for class, +1 for race, +1 at 4th, 8th, 12th.

Wait til 16th if you didn't take a Str race. Or just leave your Str low and bribe the DM to give you a belt

 

[Wulfgar76]

How are they forced?
They're included as potential treasure, that a DM might choose to award. Even if they publish modules that given them out like candy, no one is going to slip them to your players without your permission.

They are 'forced' because it is quite obvious these attack-bonus increasing items dramatically break the rules of Bounded Accuracy - which, in D&DNext, is probably the most important rule not to break.

 

[Sage Genesis]

One big reason why I dislike these "set stat to this value" items is because they're not really needed anymore. It used to be that your stats simply didn't improve, but ever since 3e that's changed. There is less need to let people set their strength to a higher value - quite literally so in the case of hill giant belts, gaining a strength score of 21 doesn't really help you if you've already got a 20 of your own. Ironically, most often you're best off giving the belt to someone like the cleric instead of the fighter, because it gives a proportionally larger benefit.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think an argument based on an artifact is a good one to have. Simply put, they don't exist for players in most games. Its not like I have the deck of many things in every game I play. So if an artifact breaks the game, I don't have an issue with it.

But anything below that is a fair ground for debate. Even "very rare" items should still be under careful balance scrutiny.

 

[Gargoyle]

It almost seems like attack bonuses from magic items aren't taken into account at all when 20th level fighters with 20 Strength have a 70% chance to hit the highest AC monsters in the bestiary without any bonuses from magic items.

My question is, maybe this was intentional? The advantage would be that you could run a very low magic campaign without modification, and that magic items feel like bonuses, and not necessary. So maybe it's intentional that I shouldn't need all those magic items to hit Asmodeus at level 20, and I would still have a chance of beating him without them?

Of course there isn't anything in the magic items section explaining this, or any guidelines on "giving out treasure" so I don't know (edit: other than "it's up to the DM", which is fine IMO). But I do know that getting rid of expected wealth levels is a good thing...maybe they just need to reevaluate its effect on bounded accuracy with all the stacked bonuses.

Or maybe the designers just feel like some that hitting 95% of the time (the "I only miss on a 1" situation) when conditions are optimal (high level, high strength fighter with magic items) is ok. After all, it's more frustrating to go the other way and have AC's too high or attack bonuses too low with fights dragging on and on.

 

[the Jester]

If this happens in D&DN, then the experiment has failed.
Bounded accuracy is the bedrock of a D&D system that actually works.

This is very easy to fix.

House rule or dial: "Attacks always miss on a natural 1-3." Or 1-5, if you want to be a bit more extreme about it. I've seen the "miss on 1-3" rule back in 2e, and the players of that particular campaign loved it.