D&D 5E What will be the maximum bonus on magic weapons?

[SilverfireSage]

So I'm DMing a long term campaign right now and trying to convert from Pathfinder. At 10th level they all have about +2 weapons and armor, which was about par for the course in that campaign, but I'm trying to convert over and I feel like +6 weapons won't be the max. I'm thinking more of a +3 with attunement with the most powerful items, so should I bump their weapons down to a +1 for balance? Or let them keep their powerful stuff and just don't give them much else for a long time?

 

[Evenglare]

+3 as far as I know. If I were trying to convert something I'd probably divide the bonus by 2 round down. Normally +5 was max so that would give you a +2 which makes your +3 weapons REALLY rare.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I would seriously consider converting 'par for the course' to 'nothing.'

That is, if a character is w/in the wealth/level guides, no magic items, he's just baseline. If he's significantly over for some reason, that's equivalent to having an item in 5e.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

We're converting a lot from Pathfinder and continuing our campaign.

For magic weapons, our houserule is that PF magic weapons of +1 or +2 convert to +1.
+3 or +4 convert to +2. And, +5 converts to +3.

However, no one has anything more than a +2 PF weapon in play. So, all magic weapons will be +1 when we are finished converting.

 

[Shiroiken]

Judging by the playtest and everything we've seen, I would hope that they keep it at +3. Since magic items are not considered part of the math for leveling, every single bonus is a huge boost. With Bounded Accuracy, +3 is still very strong.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Judging by the playtest and everything we've seen, I would hope that they keep it at +3. Since magic items are not considered part of the math for leveling, every single bonus is a huge boost. With Bounded Accuracy, +3 is still very strong.

That's a strong point.

I could see (and would play in a game) where PF/3.x magic weapon bonuses converted to 5E at 1/4th their PF/3.x value. So, only +5 weapons would be +2. Plus 1 through 4 would only be +1 in 5E.

I won't be surprised if there aren't artifacts level weapons in the 5E game that exceed +3. But, there probably won't be many. And, they'll likely also come with Gygaxian drawbacks (as in the AD&D DM's Guide).

 

[Ichneumon]

We haven't seen artifacts yet. There's a chance one or two of those, like the Sword of Kas, might go over +3. But the standard assumption is all nonattuned magic weapons are vanilla +1 items. Named magic weapons can go up to +3 and are attuned.

 

[Mercurius]

It seems that the range is +1 to +3, but my guess is that we eventually see artifacts and/or epic weapons that are +4, even +5. So Excalibur might by a +4 sword of sharpness and Mjolnir might be a +5 hammer of some kind.

The PHB uses a loose array of tiers, levels 1-4, 5-10, 11-16, and 17-20 (I don't know why they aren't all five levels, but that's just me). So how about this:

tier one (1-4): non-magic weapons are the norm, +1 are rare
tier two (5-10): +1 weapons are the norm, +2 are rare
tier three (11-16): +2 weapons are the norm, +3 are rare
tier four (17-20): +3 are the norm, artifacts/epic weapons of +4 are rare
tier five (21-30 "epic"): +4 weapons are the norm, +5 are rare
tier six (31+ "immortal"): +5 weapons are norm

Or something like that.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am much more worried about a plus to hit rather than a plus to damage. I would tend to allow higher damage bonuses while keeping the +1 to hit.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

We haven't seen artifacts yet. There's a chance one or two of those, like the Sword of Kas, might go over +3. But the standard assumption is all nonattuned magic weapons are vanilla +1 items. Named magic weapons can go up to +3 and are attuned.

That's a good point about attunement. Nothing more than +1 unless attuned.

Very good point.