D&D 5E Attunement

[Crothian]

Your proficiency limit may work for you, but note of course if someone dies and they have 6 attuned items getting them re-attuned will be a pain in the butt.

It's really not that big of a problem if you stick with the limit of three. Once you start changing rules it does cause a cascading effect to other rules. But if re attuning items after death is such a pain in the butt it makes me wonder if coming back from death so easily is not the real problem.

 

[tom.zunder]

Yes. Just how often are your PCs visiting the other side?

 

[Staffan]

It's really not that big of a problem if you stick with the limit of three. Once you start changing rules it does cause a cascading effect to other rules. But if re attuning items after death is such a pain in the butt it makes me wonder if coming back from death so easily is not the real problem.

I can see it being a problem when combined with the revivify spell, which is essentially an in-combat resurrection (it has to be applied within 1 minute of death). If you need a raise dead, you're already taking a break, and thus won't have much trouble re-attuning items.

 

[Chocolategravy]

It's really not that big of a problem if you stick with the limit of three. Once you start changing rules it does cause a cascading effect to other rules. But if re attuning items after death is such a pain in the butt it makes me wonder if coming back from death so easily is not the real problem.

No, I'm going with the rule people feel seems super artificial being the problem and not the coming back from death that has worked just fine in previous editions.

If you make death harder to deal with then the re-attunement time becomes a non-issue. You're not fixing a bad rule, you're just making it so the rule never comes up.

Yes. Just how often are your PCs visiting the other side?

At 5th your party can revivify. At higher levels your party can recover from death, during combat, 3 or 4 times per day, or more with magic items, and more often still out of combat. If you as a DM aren't killing them off now and then, then you aren't giving them an appropriate challenge. If Captain America is never given a threat he has to pull out his shield for and just punches mooks all day, then he's probably fighting the wrong fight and should be somewhere else.

 

[Chocolategravy]

I can see it being a problem when combined with the revivify spell, which is essentially an in-combat resurrection (it has to be applied within 1 minute of death). If you need a raise dead, you're already taking a break, and thus won't have much trouble re-attuning items.

You need an hour to raise, but then you need 3 short rests to re-attune. Taking short rests back to back has utterly blown people's minds on this forum before when it was pointed out as a good way to recover HP with second wind. So at some of these people's tables re-attuning may take strange amounts of time, days even.

For most people that don't have issues with back to back short rests, it is still a minimum of 4 hours which can be problematic or you have to deal with record keeping of different ACs or ability scores etc. that 5E was trying to avoid.

 

[Crothian]

No, I'm going with the rule people feel seems super artificial being the problem and not the coming back from death that has worked just fine in previous editions.

Rules are artificial. What worked in previous editions does not always work in the current game. Assumptions have greatly changed and we see people not changing with those assumptions and it causes problems like these. People are changing the game to be something different and not allowing the game to be what it is.

 

[tom.zunder]

No, I'm going with the rule people feel seems super artificial being the problem and not the coming back from death that has worked just fine in previous editions.

If you make death harder to deal with then the re-attunement time becomes a non-issue. You're not fixing a bad rule, you're just making it so the rule never comes up.



At 5th your party can revivify. At higher levels your party can recover from death, during combat, 3 or 4 times per day, or more with magic items, and more often still out of combat. If you as a DM aren't killing them off now and then, then you aren't giving them an appropriate challenge. If Captain America is never given a threat he has to pull out his shield for and just punches mooks all day, then he's probably fighting the wrong fight and should be somewhere else.

Death really has no sting in your games does it? Why call it death?

 

[KarinsDad]

The DMG states "A creature can be attuned to no more than three magic items at any given time"

Let's interpret this as "A creature can be attuned to no more than three powerful magic items at any given time"

and add "A creature can attune to two items of lesser power in place of attuning to one powerful item".

Then, all we need to do is define "powerful" and "lesser power". I suggest tying this to the tiers of play. And the DMG already contains all the guidance we need - on page 135.

All this means:

• For a tier I character (level 1-4) a powerful magic item is Rare or higher. Common and uncommon items are considered to be of lesser power to you.
• For a tier II character (level 5-10) a powerful magic item is Very Rare or higher. Common, uncommon and rare items are considered to be of lesser power to you.
• For a tier III character (level 11-16) a powerful magic item is Legendary or higher. Common, uncommon, rare and very rare items are considered to be of lesser power to you.
• For a tier IV character (level 17+) only Artifacts count as powerful magic items. Common through legendary items are considered to be of lesser power to you.

So a tenth level character could have three Very Rare items attuned, for example. Or one Very Rare, one Legendary, and one Artefact - items of those rarities all count as "powerful" for a tier II character.
This houserule does not prevent you the DM from giving a 1st-level character that Ring of Invisibility!

Alternatively, she could give up one of those items to attune two Rare items instead. Or she could give up on "powerful" items altogether, and instead attune up to six Rare and Uncommon items. At least until she levels into the next tier of play!


As you can see, the number of items is the same as the proficiency bonus suggestion: six items at the most. But. There's a trade-off to be made. A (hopefully interesting) choice. For all levels, not just the highest ones.

Thanks. I like this suggestion.

As is, most of the items that the PCs have are common or uncommon, so this would work well.

 

[Wik]

Yet there's a huge amount of consumables in there that ironically are incredibly powerful (potions), yet you end up collecting a massive number of them - and they stack. The Paladin in my group drank a few (oil of speed, potion of storm giant strength, etc) then went off to solo a CR18 Dragon at level 14.

The fix for that is potion miscibility. My players love that it's there, even though they haven't seen the table. And, just to encourage honesty, I've told the players that I have "my own table" (I don't). Seriously, that table is amazing - it makes PCs nervous every time they down a potion.

 

[KarinsDad]

The fix for that is potion miscibility. My players love that it's there, even though they haven't seen the table. And, just to encourage honesty, I've told the players that I have "my own table" (I don't). Seriously, that table is amazing - it makes PCs nervous every time they down a potion.

I allow the PCs to craft/purchase scrolls. I use the Scroll Mishap table if a PC tries to use a scroll higher level / different class spell. Our 3rd level wizard / 2nd ranger (at the time) tried to cast a fireball spell and was lucky that his roll ended up with smoke coming out of his ears instead of the fireball going off at his feet.

But I do not actually like that table. I think I'll have to go off and create my own. That table only has 6 possibilities. I prefer a table with maybe 20 possibilities (low rolls are mild, high rolls are bad) where I can add a bonus and/or penalty based on situation: casting a Wish spell off a scroll at wizard caster level 3 means 7 levels higher spell, so +6 to the roll (i.e. 1 spell level higher puts the PC on the table, so +0 to roll).