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

[Celebrim]

The math is off there. By that average array, it takes 6 wishes to get two 18's and you then have to multiply by 4 since the party is greater than one. Also, since it's almost definite you aren't 18th level yet and can't cast wish, you have to find all 24 of those wishes.

You interpret this as a problem. I interpret this as a typical Gygaxian way to completely shut down an outcome he finds undesirable. And since I cut my teeth on these rules and had my preferences shaped by them and by DMs who also privileged this point of view, it seems completely reasonable to me to limit wishes in this way. What you find as unnecessary overkill, I find to be completely reasonable overkill. Look at it this way, even if 24 wishes would do the trick, Gygax is strongly pushing the party away from treating Wishes as a valid resource of this sort, rather than something to be used for the process privileged by the rules, namely, to prevent party wipes or recover characters that might otherwise be beyond the reach of lesser magic.

 

[Celebrim]

You still refuse to see the point don't you?

No, I'm not refusing anything. You offered the proposition that magic item creation had gotten easier from edition to edition. That's what is being argued here, not whether it is merely possible in 1e. If anyone can't see the point, it's you.

I have tried to disengage from you because I didn't want to get into a direct argument with you, but you keep pestering me, so I'll be blunt. Your interpretation of the 1e rules varies from overly generous and permissive, to down right objectively wrong. For example, restoration does not restore constitution lost through casting of the permanency spell, as anyone can read the rules and discover. Moreover, nothing about the wording of the permanency spell suggest that this is some sort of curable damage or drain anyway, but rather an actual change of the score. Likewise, putting a fully mature clone into temporal stasis prevents the clone from going mad, but does not prevent the original caster from going mad. And that's not even to get into the problem that I don't agree a mature clone, even one that isn't insane yet, is going to agree to go into stasis voluntarily but will almost certain rationally request the original go into stasis and murder them if they do not (or even if they do) if for no other reason than that is exactly what the original is planning to do with respect to the clone. Nor do I agree you can subvert the notion of who the caster of the wish is by using the magic jar spell, nor do I agree that you can find willing victims for this plan much less that such willing victims can be bribed to accept for mere gold. And so on and so on and so on, through the dozens of either questionable, unique, or down right wrong rulings you've flung out in the thread as evidence of the truth that magic item creation was easy in 1e.

Yes, I fully agree that it was possible. The persistent and resourceful 18th level M-U could eventually gain the means to create a ring of spell storing to his design. But, you refuse to see that the possibility of success was never even what was under discussion. To argue from the possibility of success after arduous in game quests that the process is therefore much easier than that of later editions boggles the mind. And we've clearly seen that it's only much easier if you are willing to handwave away certain steps and difficulties with convenient rulings to achieve that desired result, which you did.

I'd happily agree that the process in 1e is more immersive and compelling than the vending machine model of 3e, but that's not nearly the same as it being easier and more accessible.

And really, give it a rest about your groups supposed elite status. EnWorld is the big boy leagues, and your swooning over your own success in whatever small pond you swam in is as fallacious of a way to support an argument as it is annoying.

 

[Maxperson]

Moreover, your conversation is against the provided rules and guidelines.

Page 116, DMG: "A properly run campaign will be relatively stringent with respect to the number of available magic items, so your players will sooner or later express a desire to manufacture their own. Do not tell them how this is to be accomplished!" - emphasis original

Which is directly contradicted by the magic item creation rules on page 118.

"With respect to the former, you must determine which spells and ingredients are necessary to the manufacture of each specific magic item. For example, a player character wizard of 15th level desires to make a ring of spell storing. He or she commissions a platinumsmith to fashion a ring of the finest quality, and pays 5,000 g.p. for materials and labor. He or she then casts the enchant an item spell according to the PLAYERS HAND. BOOK instructions. As DM, you now inform him or her that in order to contain and accept the spells he or she desires to store in the device, a scroll bearing the desired spells must be scribed, then a permanency spell cast upon the scroll, then the scroll must be merged with the ring by some means (typically a wish spell). As all of that could not be done in time, the ring would have to be prepared with the enchant an item spell again. Of course, you could tell the player before, if you are soft-hearted or he or she is intelligent enough to ask before starting the ball rolling."

As you can see, the DM determined the spells and ingredients, then informs the player of them. The last line even says that the DM can be soft-hearted and let the player know before the casting what is required.

Player: DM, what do I need to do to make a ring of spell turning.
DM: You don't know.
Player: Ok... err.. how do I find out?
DM: You don't know.
Player: Could I find someone that might know?
DM: You could certainly try.
Player: How would I go about doing that?
DM: You don't know.
Player: *thinking hard* Well, there must be some university or center of learning somewhere. Have I ever heard of such things before, and do I have some idea where one might be located?
DM: Actually, yes...

Nah. It goes just like I laid it out in my post.

Player: What do I need to do to create a ring of spell storing?
DM: Talk to a sage and he will tell you, then follow his instructions(per the page 116 direction you mentioned).
Player: I do that.

It's easy when you have clear familiarity with the contents of the DMG and experience in D&D to figure that you need to find a sage to answer a question, but that the expert hireling rules are also not accessible. The process of finding the mechanism for creating a particular ring of spell storing could take more than a year of game time, even if you have some idea how to navigate the environment created by the rules. Multiple sages might need to be hired to learn each of the exacting answers involving. Finding such sages might take months of game time, and the research involved might take months more. Once the recipes to each of the special inks, special quills, and to the final construction itself are known, months more might pass collecting the rare ingredients and finding the master artisans that can create the pieces of the commissioned work. Then weeks more may pass attempting to scribe the scroll, which, if it is a five spell scroll for the most desirable sort of ring may require multiple attempts to create an a perfect and unblemished work. The weeks more may pass crafting the final enchantment, which may fail utterly at the last moment, ruining the work, and even if it doesn't will leave the character drained for yet weeks more. And none of this will be obvious to the player embarking on the project from the start, nor is it even obvious that the player has only a 5% chance of losing a point of constitution since this information itself is buried inaccessibly in the DMG rather than found in the PH.

Sure, if you have a crappy DM it might take a year, multiple sages and a lot of hard ingredients. Most, no all of the DMs that I've played with wouldn't screw over the players like that. It would take a fair amount of game time, yes, which is the primary reason why nobody in any game(other than that once time myself) ever tried to create items. Who wants to sit on the sidelines while the rest of the group does stuff?

Certainly, but I'd been playing about 12 years before anyone ever reached a level of understanding of the system sufficient to be conscious that they were making that choice and be able to explain to themselves why they were doing it. When I say that I was skipping the rules on training in order to facilitate a certain style of play, that's hindsight talking. I could not have explained so clearly why I was doing it at the time, and probably would have appealed to some notion of 'realism' or some other sort of red herring, resulting in a lengthy argument with anyone that disagreed. In 1983 or 1988, no one I had met would have suggested that you shouldn't play the way Gygax was suggesting was the right way to play, and if anyone quibbled with the rules, it wasn't over concepts like creating a different style of play. It wasn't until the early 2000's, that I even fully understood Gygax's table and why some of his advice that had hitherto seemed to me to be a bit wrong or a bit overly harsh, was actually very functional for his assumptions about what being a DM was like, or that my version of D&D had to be different than his because it's fundamental assumptions were different.

I'm just going to put this out there, but you don't need an in depth understanding of how the game functions in order to play the game your way. All you have to do is not like a rule and change it. No system understanding is required.

 

[Maxperson]

You interpret this as a problem.

Yes, I interpret a game where the PCs find literally dozens of wishes as a problem.

Player: I hunt a rabbit for lunch.
DM: It has a lucky foot, you get a wish!

No thank you. A game where wishes were that common would be one I quit and walk away.

I interpret this as a typical Gygaxian way to completely shut down an outcome he finds undesirable.

Unless you trivialize wishes and hand them out by the dozens, there's quite literally nothing to shut down.

What you find as unnecessary overkill, I find to be completely reasonable overkill.

You really think it's reasonable to hand out dozens of wishes to the PCs?

 

[Helldritch]

For the restoration spell, you are absolutely right. This was a thing in 3.5e. My bad. And thank you for pointing that to me.

For the clone in stasis. Check Vecna lives. Although second edition, the working of the spells are the same. In From the ashes, The Greyhawk wars and in Rary the Traitor; it is explicitly said that Rary and Robilar tracked all Tenser's clone to make sure he'd stay dead. So yep, my interpretation, this time is right. And I try to remember in which dragon magazine but this had been brought up (in a sage advice or in the reader's column?) and answered the way I ruled at the time.

As for the fact that it was easier in 1e and 2e.
Creating magic items was easier only in the way that creating magic items was giving experience to the mage. Not costing experience but giving experience. I thought I had been clear on that but apparently I was not. The only hard part, however, was to get the receipe. Once you knew a receipe, you could do it over and over and rise in levels just by creating magic items. Yes you needed the funds. But the cost to create was less than the amount of gold you made with a sell. A few potions here and there. Then a few wands. You get the picture.

As for the permanency spell, magic jar could be used to avoid the potential loss, or simply using a stone of good luck. The only real hard part, as I said, was to get that receipe. At least in 3e and above, there is an experience cost associated with creating magic items. Now the crafter has to go on adventures to make more items. 5e now makes sure that you would not make money by doing magic items. So if you do some, it will be for your benefits alone (or maybe some friends).

And no harsh feeling for your "bluntness" you have stayed quite polite in my book. I am not an omnipotent DM. I am old and memory can get fuzzy sometimes. You are perfectly within your rights to correct the mistakes that I make.

 

[Hussar]

Again, in a system where one class is "limited" to TEN magic items seems like it's pretty expected that every other PC in the group would have more than 10. Otherwise, that's not much of a limitation is it? Why have such a strict limit (picking up that 11th item strips you of your paladinhood - the equivalent of performing an evil deed) if magic items are so rare that no one ever reaches that limit?

Sorry, not buying it. The random treasure tables in the DMG are pretty darn generous. If anything, 3e clawed back on that (although, perhaps not on 2e). A 6th level 3e fighter, if you use Wealth By Level, has a +1 sword, +1 suit of armor and maybe enough for 1 more magic item, like a +2 stat boost item. That's it.

 

[Tallifer]

Do you miss the time when a 4 Intelligence character couldn't be an Elf, or when a female human couldn't have 18/00 strength?

Agh! Never again! So frustrating for players who wanted to create unusual yet viable characters.

 

[schnee]

While agreeing with your judgment of the discussion here...

Well, we will have to agree to disagree then. That's "Mother May I", which is about the least accessible rules you can have. We're talking about a set of rules that is deliberately obscure and outside the control of the player. In order for rules to be accessible, the player has to understand what propositions lead to what results, have some rough idea of the difficulty of a proposition before it is made, and have confidence that they can succeed because the rules tell them that they can. That's why 3e's magic item creation rules are accessible. They are transparent. They are clear. And they involve resources that are fully in the control of the player.

...that's why they were removed. They made magic much too much and much too easy.

The default game doesn't need this. The new rule is 'magic is not something that you just do like everything else, it's inaccessible, strange, ancient, rare, lost, eclectic, and something worth adventuring for.

It's not a manufacturing game. It's not a 'deck completion' game.

It's an adventure game.

Magic is a thing worth adventuring for.

 

[Arilyn]

While agreeing with your judgment of the discussion here...



...that's why they were removed. They made magic much too much and much too easy.

The default game doesn't need this. The new rule is 'magic is not something that you just do like everything else, it's inaccessible, strange, ancient, rare, lost, eclectic, and something worth adventuring for.

It's not a manufacturing game. It's not a 'deck completion' game.

It's an adventure game.

Magic is a thing worth adventuring for.

Yes, except DnD has never been that game, and 5e definitely, not, no matter how often we're told magic is rare and special. Practically every class has magic at their finger tips, spells are extremely predictable and formulaic, healing potions are ubiquitous because they are badly needed and healing kits might as well be magic too with the healing feat. In such a world, we are left asking who made these items, which are scattered about, and shouldn't it be something my wizard can do too? If not, why not? Making magic rare, unknowable, dangerous and unpredictable requires a different game, or a heavily reworked DnD.

 

[Celebrim]

While agreeing with your judgment of the discussion here...

...that's why they were removed. They made magic much too much and much too easy.

Well, I can happily agree with your judgment of that as well.

To be honest, for me the perfect system would be somewhere between the two. Third editions transparency combined with its use of XP costs as a balancing feature was in many was quite inspired. But turning gold into a veritable secondary chargen point buy system, and reducing magic down to a "vending machine" model made it overly commoditized, far too easily broken (see 'wand of cure light wounds') and demystified.

That being said, I've played around with different mechanics for making magic "inaccessible, strange, ancient, rare, lost, eclectic", mysterious and numinous, and the big problem with them is that though I think they work pretty well, they shift to much mechanical burden on to the GM. It only really works to make magic mysterious and numinous if you have a system that does the book keeping for you.

I think ultimately, table top roleplaying games will morph into a quasi-electronic system that runs off table apps and the like. I can imagine spells being cast by pressing barcodes up to phones or tablets to automatically do the bookkeeping, and DMs able to send messages from their app to all players like 'new round', 'new hour', 'new day', 'short rest', 'long rest', etc. to allow automatically updating resources, effect durations, and what not. At that point, you could have players owning items that they don't fully understand yet. But as it is, eclectic items with quirks and unidentified powers are really burdensome in play.

As for magic item creation, I'd like to see a model move to research/recipe + XP cost, plus perhaps power ingredients, sacrifices, rituals and so forth to help defray XP costs.