Sacrosanct
Legend
So I'm getting ready to run SKT soon, and I'm replacing the Dripping Caves with the old module, Horror on the Hill. I was gonna use KotBL, but I think I like HotH better for my purposes (I want more adventuring to justify going to level 5 as opposed to what's in the SKT campaign proper)
While prepping, something occurred to me. I'm a long time AD&D player, playing it from 1981 to 2012, skipping 3e (for the most part) and 4e completely before 5e came out. Each edition that I've played, seems to have a focus on magic items that reinforces a certain playstyle beneficial to that edition's design.
In AD&D (and b/x), magic items are everywhere. And the overwhelming majority of them are +1 weapons, potions of healing, and items that grant invisibility. That seems to reinforce three things that are very important in TSR D&D: PCs are fragile compared to later editions and need healing (since natural healing is pretty much non existent unless you want to hole up at the Hyatt for a couple weeks), many monsters had monster immunity to non magical weapons (not resistance like later editions), and finding ways around monsters was just as important as actually fighting them.
with my limited time playing 3e (only about 50 sessions or so), it seems that edition is designed around magic items being required, and weapons turned up to 11. What I mean by that is a ton of magic weapons not only gave bonuses, but they all seemed to have additional elemental damage added as well. Combat seemed to resemble a fireworks show, with everyone having a weapon that added acid, fire, cold, or lightning damage lol. That seems to reinforce 3e's design of sharply increased numbers bloat and magic item dependence
Now 5e? That turned everything around. I think it's the least magic item dependent edition. They come right out and say the design goal was to make magical items optional, and with bounded accuracy, including magical weapons or armor from 3e would create all kinds of havoc. Going through the published campaigns, and with the exception of Hazeron in HotDQ, magic items and treasure are far more rare and less powerful than any other edition I have played. We recently finished HotDQ/RoT, going all the way up to level 15, and I think my PC only ever had 4 magic items (not counting potions of healing) the entire time. And none of those were weapons or helped avoid combat altogether (like AD&D by comparison) By the time you reached level 15 in AD&D (which admittedly would take A LOT longer than in 5e), you would have a virtual treasure pile of items.
Anyway, just an observation, and when converting TSR modules to 5e, I'm finding I'm eliminating most of the items.
While prepping, something occurred to me. I'm a long time AD&D player, playing it from 1981 to 2012, skipping 3e (for the most part) and 4e completely before 5e came out. Each edition that I've played, seems to have a focus on magic items that reinforces a certain playstyle beneficial to that edition's design.
In AD&D (and b/x), magic items are everywhere. And the overwhelming majority of them are +1 weapons, potions of healing, and items that grant invisibility. That seems to reinforce three things that are very important in TSR D&D: PCs are fragile compared to later editions and need healing (since natural healing is pretty much non existent unless you want to hole up at the Hyatt for a couple weeks), many monsters had monster immunity to non magical weapons (not resistance like later editions), and finding ways around monsters was just as important as actually fighting them.
with my limited time playing 3e (only about 50 sessions or so), it seems that edition is designed around magic items being required, and weapons turned up to 11. What I mean by that is a ton of magic weapons not only gave bonuses, but they all seemed to have additional elemental damage added as well. Combat seemed to resemble a fireworks show, with everyone having a weapon that added acid, fire, cold, or lightning damage lol. That seems to reinforce 3e's design of sharply increased numbers bloat and magic item dependence
Now 5e? That turned everything around. I think it's the least magic item dependent edition. They come right out and say the design goal was to make magical items optional, and with bounded accuracy, including magical weapons or armor from 3e would create all kinds of havoc. Going through the published campaigns, and with the exception of Hazeron in HotDQ, magic items and treasure are far more rare and less powerful than any other edition I have played. We recently finished HotDQ/RoT, going all the way up to level 15, and I think my PC only ever had 4 magic items (not counting potions of healing) the entire time. And none of those were weapons or helped avoid combat altogether (like AD&D by comparison) By the time you reached level 15 in AD&D (which admittedly would take A LOT longer than in 5e), you would have a virtual treasure pile of items.
Anyway, just an observation, and when converting TSR modules to 5e, I'm finding I'm eliminating most of the items.