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

[Celebrim]

Really? Virtually every treasure roll had about a 10% chance of 2-4 magic items. That meant that killing a single troll (trolls came in groups of 1 as well as groups of 10) could net you magic items. EVERY lair had about a 10% (give or take) of multiple magic items.

Even if we take what you say as truth, that would mean that you'd have to kill about 55 Trolls to find a magic item stash. It's actually worse than that though. The number appearing on trolls is 1d12, and only 40% are encountered in lairs. Trolls are treasure type D, so every 108 trolls you slay you find about 2 magic items and one potion (which, if it is useful, the trolls are likely to drink). One third of magic items are potions or scrolls, so really its about 1 magic item per 108 trolls.

And actually, it's worse than that. Because while trolls can come in groups of 1 as well as groups of 12, groups of 1 do not in fact have the same amount or chances of treasure as a group of 7 or 12. Per those little regarded and little read rules of 1e AD&D that always seem neglected:

"Finally, it must be stated that treasure types are based upon the occurrence of a mean number of monsters as indicated by the number appearing and adjustments detailed in the explanatory material particular to the monster in question. Adjustment downwards should always be made for instances where a few monsters are encountered. Similarly, a minor adjustment upwards might be called for if the actual number of monsters encountered is greatly in excess of the mean."

Notice typical Gygaxian logic - you definitely should reduce the chance or amount of treasure if the encounter is easy, but you only might should increase the chance of treasure a little bit if the encounter is hard.

How many lairs would a party have cleared out by, say, 7th level?

I've done the math before. If you are relying on lairs for treasure rather than published modules or placed treasure, you are playing a very gritty game indeed. If those are your standards, then I assure you that magic is rare and highly prized.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I'm beginning to think we weren't playing the same game. I'm trying to think what treasure table of the AD&D era you think is generous with magic items. If you played straight up by the tables, you'd end up with almost no magic items at all. I had rep as a 'killer DM', but even I would place more magic items than the rules strictly called for.

Looking at the AD&D treasure tables themselves, every treasure type except the individual ones (J-R) had a chance for magic items, usually multiple. The chance was often as low as 10% per monster, but that meant over the course of an adventure you'd still find quite a bit.

Even looking at orcs, a lair has C, O, and Q (x10) or a 10% chance of any 2 magic items, and a 40% chance of 2-8 potions.

Troglodytes (no. appearing 10-100) have a treasure type A, or a 30% chance of any 3 items in their lair.

We went through a lot of orcs, troglodytes, and other low level monsters, and had a lot of chances to roll magic items as a result.

But then Gygax also commented in the MM that random determination of a treasure guarded by a monster in a dungeon should not be used. In other words, the DM should determine what's there, and the only real guideline there is to look at what Gary placed in his published adventures.

If I recall, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth had 80+ magic items as treasure, including one of each of the manuals. That's just one of the published adventures from the 1e era.

I seem to recall the manuals showing up in another adventure, and each time it included one of each. Maybe it was an adventure in Dungeon magazine.

Granted the magic items generally included a share of potions and scrolls, along with items that are of limited use or use by only certain classes. So much of the items might have been sold rather than retained by the PCs. But most of them were useful items that would be used by the PCs. It wasn't uncommon for a powerful item, Zagyg's Lanthorn, Black Razor, Whelm, etc. to be part of the adventure too in the earlier adventures. The tournament versions of many of them held considerably less, but this was also before the time of players using the same character across organized play.

This was also a time where the magic items tended to sit in the listed treasure, rather than be used intelligently by the creatures guarding them.

So I think that for OD&D/AD&D there was a wide variation between different campaigns as to the amount of magic items handed out.

 

[Celebrim]

Troglodytes (no. appearing 10-100) have a treasure type A, or a 30% chance of any 3 items in their lair.

Or to put it another way, there are about .9 magic items per lair of troglodytes, or about a 1.6% chance per slain troglodyte in a lair that there is magic item to be found in some secure, hidden, and possibly trapped location.

I'll roll for the treasure possess by this troglodyte lair (rounding up to 1 magic item) now (literally I will)....

What luck, a staff of striking, a fantastically potent and powerful item! The staff, unrecognized by the primitive troglodytes, has been incorporated as a simple stick in the large mud and thatch dam that they have constructed as a breeding pond for the fish that supply the village. Players have a 1% cumulative chance of noticing it as unusual per full turn that they spend investigating the dam. The staff can be freed after 10 minutes of vigorous pulling and digging, but unfortunately this has a 50% chance of causing the dam to collapse. Unfortunate characters that fail a saving throw versus petrification are swept to the doom and are 85% likely to drown unless they have some means of breathing water. When recovered, the staff has but 5 charges remaining. A wizard of 11th level or higher may be able to recharge the staff, but if one can be found they will demand at least 75% of the payment of the full cost of such an item for the service - if they are even willing to perform the work which they will only do for parties that impress them with their demeanor and similar outlook upon life.

With only a slight exaggeration, that is very much the game I grew up playing.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Or to put it another way, there are about .9 magic items per lair of troglodytes, or about a 1.6% chance per slain troglodyte in a lair that there is magic item to be found in some secure, hidden, and possibly trapped location.

I'll roll for the treasure possess by this troglodyte lair (rounding up to 1 magic item) now (literally I will)....

What luck, a staff of striking, a fantastically potent and powerful item! The staff, unrecognized by the primitive troglodytes, has been incorporated as a simple stick in the large mud and thatch dam that they have constructed as a breeding pond for the fish that supply the village. Players have a 1% cumulative chance of noticing it as unusual per full turn that they spend investigating the dam. The staff can be freed after 10 minutes of vigorous pulling and digging, but unfortunately this has a 50% chance of causing the dam to collapse. Unfortunate characters that fail a saving throw versus petrification are swept to the doom and are 85% likely to drown unless they have some means of breathing water. When recovered, the staff has but 5 charges remaining. A wizard of 11th level or higher may be able to recharge the staff, but if one can be found they will demand at least 75% of the payment of the full cost of such an item for the service - if they are even willing to perform the work which they will only do for parties that impress them with their demeanor and similar outlook upon life.

With only a slight exaggeration, that is very much the game I grew up playing.

Not disputing that at all. I've been in/run those games too. Until I realized that what he preached via the tables didn't match up with the published adventures at all. And accepted his adventure design as the example to be followed which meant we shifted to a more magic item model. Local stores didn't have Judges Guild or other options, I found those later.

Just saying that it all depends on whether you followed the tables or Gary's suggestion that you don't, with his only published example of what that meant being his adventures.

 

[Helldritch]

Troll hunting? Bha... Hunt dragons! Now we're talking. Hunt Giants! Vampires! Why should you restrict yourself?

By the way, the strict application of spell learning is for a given intel. You can try at next intel increase (modifications due to age or simply a wish?). Or just make a limited wish? A stone of good luck wouldn't hurt either. And it's not a 25% of failing but 15%. Unless you are unlucky, then sorry. But in general, it was possible to get it.

Next, if you take time to compare the amount of magic found in 5th edition to what could be found in 1st, you'll see that 1ed was really generous. Monster in a dungeon are already assumed to be in their lair (most of the time, though I admit that it can change from time to time). This means a lot of treasure roll. 20 different type of monsters? 20 Different rolls. It is as simple as that if you apply a strict application of the rules. And I am not including wandering monsters, some of them can have potions and scrolls as personal treasure. Why do you think that the paladin was restricted to 10 magic items? 10 magic items was quite a restrictions for many players. Monks were even more restrained with a total of 5 magic items potions included! How many magic were the other classes expected to carry? A lot more.

The campaigns that I ran were (and still are) cruel, harsh and not easy to play. I was known (and still carry the well deserve reputation) as a PK and a TPK DM type. The groups that could rise as high as the one I am talking about were perhaps one in ten or twenty? Many groups died at level 3,4 and even at 1st level. My games were always strict interpretations of the rules. If I was proven wrong on a ruling, I would immediately adjust. I was an avid fan of the Sage advice in Dragon magazine. I was not however, making things harder for the sake of it. My moto have always been: "Players kills themselves. Not me." And this has been the case. Many times I heard, that adventure was too hard. My answer was:" Why did such and such group suceeded then?" And the fact that such and such group had the same DM, that is me, was quite a rebutal.

For me, IF something is in the player's handbook, then it can be available to them. Spells, equipment, races, whatever you can see in the PHB is always available. It might be rare, prohibitive, but it will be there. You see something in a supplement? Then I chose if it is available. Core rule is core rule. And everything in the core rule is in the campaigns that I run. And it is partly why I hated 2e. Too many option books lying around. It was impossible for me to buy everything. The 3.5e and 4e fell in the same trap. So far, 5e is avoiding the pit fall. We'll see what Xanathar's guide will bring us. SCAG additions were welcomed. I hope Xanathar's guide will be as well.

From your comments, you seem to assume that I was a santa clause DM giving treasure and lee ways around the rules to please my players. If this is what you think, read again 'cause you're dead wrong. Think about what was written and try to put yourself in the seat of these, dare I say, elite players? When you have 6 power gamers in front of you, who know the rules as well as you do (if not better), you'll see that they find ways around some rules. Yes you can either oblige them or just say no. But my games were always democratic. We were adjucating gray areas with many players sometimes with other DM just to be sure. Guess what? Most of the time, a sage advice column would give the same answer as we had found...

If it is your cup of tea, read the spells again and imagine you're one of my players. You rose that high through hard work. You are a 14th level wizard, cleric or whatever and you need a magic item. What will you do? Exactly what they did. Use everything at your disposal to either locate a dungeon where there is one, create one or even buy or steal one. To do that you have every spells, contacts, rumors and even the back up of your church/guild/spies or whatever you have build around you and your henchmen. If you really want something, if you are a power gamer, if you have the wits; You will get what you want. But if you think that it will be easy, rest assured that it might not be the case. Depending on how bad you want it and how much you are willing to risk and prepare.

 

[ccs]

I've never actually played AD&D, but the people who have told me that they often asked their players what they wanted to play and made sure the stats matched the requirement. And if that meant boosting a stat to 17 (Paladin) then so be it.

It really depends on what and how you're playing. For example, my last few campaigns were very character-driven despite playing "gamesy" systems like PF or 4e. Which meant I often talked with the GM about the setting, the general directon and my character ideas (along with an elaborated background story) before throwing any die or even knowing my class. So if I wanted to play a female fighter/warrior who focused on strength and dexterity and wisdom (one of my PCs), I would have decided this before knowing my abilities or stat array. Because I want to play a person first, and fun mechanics second.

Yeah, that would fall into the catagory of not really rolling for your stats.
We did (& still do) this occasionally. But the vast majority of the time (whatever the edition) it's 4d6,keep3 x6, arrange as you please. It's been working well for 30ish years.
Now & then we'll do "in order" or even "3d6 in order".

 

[Maxperson]

There are three increments in 1e Str between 18/50 and 18/00.

Would you be okay setting the female Str max to 12 in 5e? Because THAT'S what the difference was. +2/hit and +3 to damage is the difference between 18/50 and 18/00. Pretty much the difference between 12 and 18 in 5e.

That's apples and oranges. The game math is not the same from 1e to 3e, so your comparison based on increments is horribly flawed at best, and just plain nonsense at worst.

Still think it's not sexist?

Yep.

Oh, and you cannot be racist to fictional races. Sorry, that's not how racism works.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Give the man a cupie doll! They also can't be sexist, either.

Then why are you attempting to apply real world gender differences to our figments of the imagination?

I'm not. I've said more than once that that's more realism than I want in my game. All I'm saying is that it isn't sexist.

 

[Helldritch]

Or to put it another way, there are about .9 magic items per lair of troglodytes, or about a 1.6% chance per slain troglodyte in a lair that there is magic item to be found in some secure, hidden, and possibly trapped location.

I'll roll for the treasure possess by this troglodyte lair (rounding up to 1 magic item) now (literally I will)....

What luck, a staff of striking, a fantastically potent and powerful item! The staff, unrecognized by the primitive troglodytes, has been incorporated as a simple stick in the large mud and thatch dam that they have constructed as a breeding pond for the fish that supply the village. Players have a 1% cumulative chance of noticing it as unusual per full turn that they spend investigating the dam. The staff can be freed after 10 minutes of vigorous pulling and digging, but unfortunately this has a 50% chance of causing the dam to collapse. Unfortunate characters that fail a saving throw versus petrification are swept to the doom and are 85% likely to drown unless they have some means of breathing water. When recovered, the staff has but 5 charges remaining. A wizard of 11th level or higher may be able to recharge the staff, but if one can be found they will demand at least 75% of the payment of the full cost of such an item for the service - if they are even willing to perform the work which they will only do for parties that impress them with their demeanor and similar outlook upon life.

With only a slight exaggeration, that is very much the game I grew up playing.

Welcome to my game. Now, the trog would've had 3 items or none at all. Not only one. Let us assume that the other two were potions that had been used.

Here is what my 1st edition players would have done. Let us assume level 5.
Ok, it's a nice pile. Now let us detect magic.
Detect Magic: You sense magic emanation in a path 1" wide per 30" long.
Bla, bla, bla
Your sensing will be blocked by 3' of solid wood.
You sense magic, so you don't have to see it. OK back to the players.
Ho magic is in the dam... damn! (pun intended).
Is there some risks if we remove whatever is in there?
Roll d20 under your intelligence.
Done, Yep there is.
Ok, we investigate what could be done.
ME: you see that the magic comes from a wooden staff incorporated into the dam. It seems to be a key element for supporting the dam.
Them: Ok, lets reinforce the area around the staff. Can the dwarf determine how to reinforce it?
ME: Sure, its not that different from doing it in an underground river. Roll d20 under your intelligence or wisdom
Dwarf: I'll take intelligence. I failed.
ME: You're not sure of what to do to properly reinforce the dam. It might be really dangerous to do it.
Cleric: Lets wait tomorrow morning. I'll pray for bless and prayer to help you.
Mage: I'll memorize Monster summoning to help in the digging.
Druid: Ok, I'll pray? For water breathing, just in case.

When the staff is recoverd and identified.
Only 5 charges, well, it is still a good weapon.
Cleric: The patriarch of my church could use and recharge such a staff. Maybe we can give it to him and get something in return? A free raise dead for a friend?
Mage: Hu... Only wizard can recharge stave...
Cleric: Maybe so, but my church has the money to do it, if necessary. We don't. The gain in helping my church will outweigh the small benefit we can have now. Even future consideration will be better than using such a weapon ourselves.
Paladin: Agreed.
Elven Rogue/Wizard: That will be deduced from your share. I want nothing in this. I... (Dwarf) Shut up and pay. Just like me.

And this is not an exageration of what would've happen.

As you can see, try as you may. Some groups will find ways, others won't. My games were not unlike yours. In fact from what you wrote, they were quite similar. Only I was not always doing such things all the time. After a while, it becomes quite boring. Players are supposed to be heroes after all. Sometimes they get it easy, sometimes they don't.

 

[Maxperson]

Really? Ok, allow me to quote from those non-onerous conditions. First, the least onerous and most accessible, "Enchant An Item"

First, it's a 6th level spell so at minimum you need to be 11th level and you have to have tested this spell and made into your minimum known spells - even with an 18 INT there is at least a 15% you'll never be able to learn this spell at all. Here is what the spell reads like, cleaned up a bit to not fill up the whole screen:

Magic items can be created at lower levels through use of scrolls. There is a failure chance, but it still works.

"The item to be prepared must be touched manually by the spell caster. This touching must be constant and continual during the casting time which is a base 16 hours plus an additional 8-64 hours [divided over 8 hours working days] All work must be uninterrupted, and during rest periods the item must never be more than 1' distant from the spell caster, for if it is, the whole spell is spoiled and must be performed again.... absolutely no other form of magic may be performed and the magic-user must remain quiet and in isolation. At the end of the spell the caster will "know" that the item is ready for the final test. He or she will then pronounce the final magic syllable [and if the spell-caster the passes a saving throw versus magic], the spell is completed. Once the spell is completed, the magic-user may begin to place the desired dweomer on the item, and the spell he or she plans to place on or within the item must [be begun] with 24 hours or the preparatory spell fades, and the item must again be enchanted. Each spell subsequently cast up on the object bearing an enchant an item spell requires 4 hours plus 4-8 additional hours per spell level of the magic being cast [and each of these may secretly fail as the DM rolls saving throws in secret without informing the caster is he's just wasted his time, thus it is possible to go through this whole process and end up with a magical item that does nothing]...No magic placed on or onto an item is permanent unless a permanency spell is used as a finishing touch... Scrolls or magical devices can never be used to enchant an item or cast magic upon an item being prepared."

Doesn't sound too bad, lets consider that permanency spell.

Well, to start with, it's a 8th level spell, and if I have an 18 INT there is a 15% chance I'll never learn it at all (so more than a quarter of 15th level 18 INT M-U's can't create permanent magic items). If you want to make a wand starting at 11th level, you can do that. But if you want to make a mere sword +1, you need to be 15th level! I don't think I've ever seen a 15th level M-U started legitimately, and I certainly never got a character that high. But that's not remotely the onerous part. The bad part is every time you cast permanency, you have a 5% chance of losing a point of Constitution permanently! I have no idea what idiots actually create sword +1's in D&D, because I have a hard time imagining a 15th level M-U ever deciding to risk a point of Constitution to create an implement that is so mundane and of so little use to himself as a sword +1, but there it is.

The DMG also notes regarding this process that once it is complete, the M-U finds it so draining that the spell caster must rest for one full day for each 100 g.p. of the items experience point value, and during this period the caster is unable to use spells or undertake any but the most mild exercise. So even if you could create a Manual of Bodily Exercise, you'd be 50 days in bed before you could get any even after having completed the work.

It takes time. So does creating them in 3e.

But even the 5% chance of Constitution loss and the death spiral that entails isn't the worst of it.

5% isn't bad. Sure, if you run around creating dozens of items it will bite you in the rear, but if all you want is to make a few items that complement you, you are very unlikely to lose any con.

The worst of it is that you are vaguely up to the whim of the DM who is encouraged by the text to make the process as onerous as possible. For example, this is the proposed process for creating an example magic item in the DMG:

I read it and there is no instruction to make it as onerous as possible, and even gives a suggestion on being soft hearted.

"For example, a player character wizard desires to create a Ring of Spell Storing. He or she commissions a platinum smith to fashion a ring of the finest quality and pays 5000 g.p, for materials and labor. He or she then casts enchant an item spell according to the Players Handbook instructions. As DM you know inform him or her that in order contain and accept the spells he or she desires to store in the device, a scroll bearing the desired spells must be scribed, and then a permanency spell cast upon the scroll, then the scroll must be merged with the ring by some means (typically a wish spell)."

Now, this is even worse than it sounds, because to do that, we have to come by a wish - which according to the Player's Handbook, can't come from a scroll or device if it is to be used in the manufacturing process, so in other words we are now in this case up to a 17th level character. Plus, he has to craft the scroll, which means that for each spell he has to discover a secret ink invented by the DM and containing whatever rare and fiendish ingredients that the DM demands (typically monster body parts, which then must be found and harvested). And the whole thing could still fail because the item fails a saving throw versus magic, some time after the special scroll is prepared (with chance of CON loss) and the wish then cast.

Where is that wish limitation? I don't see it in permanency, enchant an item or wish, nor do I see it under magic item creation in the DMG.

Now if that is the standard we are using, then asked to invent the recipe for actually desirable and 'chase' or 'kit' items, I'm as a DM going to be much harsher than that. I suppose there are groups out there that forgo some or all of these restrictions in practice or by declaration, but as a practical matter I have never seen a party in 1e AD&D create more than a few potions for their own use. The full force of the rules is designed in my opinion to ensure that parties generally prefer to acquire items through adventuring, rather than create magic marts.

You can opt to be harsh, but I don't know what you have against your players. The rules don't require you to be harsh, though. That's on you.

"Books (including tomes, librams and manuals), artifacts and relics are of ancient manufacture, possibly from a superior human or demihuman technology, perhaps of divine origin, thus books artifacts and relics cannot be made by players and come ONLY from the Dungeon Master."

It seems pretty plain to me that PC's can't make a Manual of Bodily Health or a Libram of Silver Magic.

What page is that on?

 

[Helldritch]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]

You are clearly better than I at debunking arguments. I salute you in that. However misguided our friend is, he is right on some points. Magic item creation was not in the reach of many groups. In my many groups that I had in 1ed, it has been 4 or 5 different that could've done some of what I have been talking. It was far from the majority. I think that our friend Celebrim assumed that it was all my groups (or simply all groups in 1ed) that could do magic items. It was not so.

But those that could, they never stopped for a mere loss in constitution, the restoration spell was just for that. Aging 10 years? Clone yourself before hand. Put the clone in stasis and if you die, have a programed unseen servant pour some disenchanting oil on the stasis buble and you would be back with the age you had at the time of your cloning. That was a good way to survive death in 1ed. Tenser used it and many other mages in D&D litterature.

Once you are at this level of power, you have access to most spells or information (if not all). What you can't create, you'll seek. Of course low level characters won't be able to create magic items in 1ed. Neither would they in 2e. The 3e brought in the fact that for creating magic items you had to spend experience. In 1e and 2e it was the reverse! Creating magic items would bring experience, not remove it. Both systems are good. But 3e was better. It was forcing spell casters to go on adventure to have more experience to spend on their creations. The 4e view on magic item creation was the same as 3e. Only 5e makes it almost impossible. And note this, almost, not impossible. Especially if you read the unearthed arcana on downtime...