D&D 5E Amulet of Health, Another Strong Item

KarinsDad · Aug 19, 2014

ExploderWizard said:
Remember attunement slots too. If you are a low STR character that doesn't need it much then you will use your attunement slot for something more beneficial.

5 PC party. 3 attunement slots each. 15 total attunement slots. 20 levels.

How many attunement items do you think most DMs will hand out compared to non-attunment items?

How many total items in 20 levels?

I suspect that the vast majority of attunement items will be sucked up in most groups and that most PCs will have attunement slots open for a REAL long time. Most games typically do not even get past level 14 or so.

Attunement number of items is a restriction, but one that will very rarely come into play. For it to do so, one player will own 4 such items and have to decide which one to give up. I don't know of any groups that will often give one player 4 such items before everyone else has 2. So, typically 12 attunement items before it becomes an issue.

Kinak · Aug 19, 2014

Sacrosanct said:
I admit I'm having a hard time parsing some of your posts. Here you're saying that in over 20+ years you've only had one campaign where PCs would have had more than 3 powerful magic items, but earlier your post seemed to imply that your players would use their primary stat as a dump stat because it was nearly assured they would get an item (like gauntlets).

That doesn't seem to jive in my mind because there are TONS of magic items, and the odds of the items being rare enough that PCs hardly ever had 3 combined with the odds that they always got an ability boost item (fairly early on) seem pretty low; almost contradictory.

It's probably because I'm not explaining myself well.

Everyone makes their characters normally. Nobody's dumping anything assuming they're getting items later.

But, if I do give out an item like this, they eventually realize that the magical item is all that actually matters now that they have it.

They wish they could dump the stat in question after getting the item, because it does literally nothing for their character anymore. For a 5e example, see the post [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] up thread.

Hopefully that's a bit clearer. If I still don't make sense, don't worry about it too much. I'm probably talking in circles.

Cheers!
Kinak

ki11erDM · Aug 19, 2014

I really don't understand this thread. As a DM and a Player I do not expect the party to have more than one amulet like this within the first 13 levels. If someone gets an Amulet of Health it should be damn cool. As it stands right now, it is damn cool to have.

I guess this must come down to what the definitions of "uncommon" is. To me, a house is a common thing, a noble's manor is an uncommon thing, a castle is a rare thing and Constantinople is very rare. And maybe a fly citadel is legendary/artifact.

By the time your 5th level or so you probably have run into 2 or 3 nobles that might have a manor, and probably 2-3 uncommon magic items.

Sacrosanct · Aug 19, 2014

Kinak said:
It's probably because I'm not explaining myself well.

Everyone makes their characters normally. Nobody's dumping anything assuming they're getting items later.

But, if I do give out an item like this, they eventually realize that the magical item is all that actually matters now that they have it.

They wish they could dump the stat in question after getting the item, because it does literally nothing for their character anymore. For a 5e example, see the post [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] up thread.

Hopefully that's a bit clearer. If I still don't make sense, don't worry about it too much. I'm probably talking in circles.

Cheers!
Kinak

So it's not really a problem in 20+ years of DMing? (since they existed back in AD&D) I've been gaming for just over 30 years, and I guess in my own anecdotal experience (FWIW I know

), these items were pretty rare (certainly nothing to be planned for), and when they did show up, they were given to the PC who would gain the most benefit. I imagine that's a pretty common way of doing it.

Therefore, I really don't think they are a problem or take away choices as has been claimed earlier.

YMMV of course

Dausuul · Aug 19, 2014

ki11erDM said:
I really don't understand this thread. As a DM and a Player I do not expect the party to have more than one amulet like this within the first 13 levels. If someone gets an Amulet of Health it should be damn cool. As it stands right now, it is damn cool to have.

I guess this must come down to what the definitions of "uncommon" is. To me, a house is a common thing, a noble's manor is an uncommon thing, a castle is a rare thing and Constantinople is very rare. And maybe a fly citadel is legendary/artifact.

By the time your 5th level or so you probably have run into 2 or 3 nobles that might have a manor, and probably 2-3 uncommon magic items.

My issue is that the amulet of health is vastly better than gauntlets of ogre power or headband of intellect, yet they are the same rarity. The party is almost guaranteed to have somebody who'll see a huge hit point boost from the amulet, but it's unlikely anyone is going to get significant benefit from the gauntlets or headband.

The value of an item that sets a stat to 19 depends on how much that stat is worth as a secondary stat (if it's your primary stat, you're unlikely to get more than +1 to your stat mod out of the deal). If it were up to me, I would say that the "19 stat" items for Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma should be uncommon; Dexterity and Wisdom should be rare; Constitution should be either rare or very rare.

ExploderWizard · Aug 19, 2014

Kinak said:
Even back then, we were "roll and assign." So, yes, if someone put a decent score into strength, then got a pair of gauntlets, they felt kind of dumb.

It's not a huge deal in and of itself, although getting a magical item as a reward and feeling dumb because of it certainly isn't optimal.

But, in the process of feeling dumb, they realize that the magical item has more mechanical impact than the choices that defined their character. Maybe that excites some people, but it's certainly not what we were looking for in a game, even back then.

Players make choices that they want for their characters much like we make choices in life. I grew up, went to college, graduated and make a decent living. If I win the lottery tomorrow does that mean I should feel dumb for bothering to get an education and a job?

Build choices are much the same way. Your character doesn't know where the adventuring life may take him/her and so makes the best choices possible in the present. A magic item falling into their lap doesn't invalidate those choices any more than winning the lottery would invalidate mine.

TwoSix · Aug 19, 2014

Dausuul said:
[/I]The value of an item that sets a stat to 19 depends on how much that stat is worth as a secondary stat (if it's your primary stat, you're unlikely to get more than +1 to your stat mod out of the deal). If it were up to me, I would say that the "19 stat" items for Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma should be uncommon; Dexterity and Wisdom should be rare; Constitution should be either rare or very rare.

While I agree with your valuation, I fail to see the issue with some magic items simply being better than others, even of the same rarity.

Agamon · Aug 19, 2014

Dausuul said:
My issue is that the amulet of health is vastly better than gauntlets of ogre power or headband of intellect, yet they are the same rarity. The party is almost guaranteed to have somebody who'll see a huge hit point boost from the amulet, but it's unlikely anyone is going to get significant benefit from the gauntlets or headband.

The value of an item that sets a stat to 19 depends on how much that stat is worth as a secondary stat (if it's your primary stat, you're unlikely to get more than +1 to your stat mod out of the deal). If it were up to me, I would say that the "19 stat" items for Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma should be uncommon; Dexterity and Wisdom should be rare; Constitution should be either rare or very rare.

Wand of Magic Detection and Goggles of Night are both uncommon, too. These are very general categories, not highly specific ones. X of *increased stat* are all uncommon. That makes more sense than dividing them up arbitrarily.

ki11erDM · Aug 19, 2014

Humm. So are you saying that the God of Magic has made an item that provides the user with supreme health more difficult to make than an item that provides the user with supreme intellect? Thus making it more rare? I don't think so.

Plus, if you do feel that the amulet IS that much better then so will all the NPCs in the world and they will all seek them out with extreme prejudice. If there are a 1000 gloves of dex in the world and a 1000 amulets of health... more people will be fighting over the amulets thus, from a game world perspective, making them more rare, but mechanically they will still be uncommon.

I guess I just don't buy that from a game world point of view and it is just not that important that I think they have to put in meta rules like that.

Dausuul · Aug 19, 2014

Agamon said:
Wand of Magic Detection and Goggles of Night are both uncommon, too. These are very general categories, not highly specific ones. X of *increased stat* are all uncommon. That makes more sense than dividing them up arbitrarily.

It's not arbitrary at all; it's based on the item's general utility. Given the choice between a wand of magic detection, goggles of night, and gauntlets of ogre power, I can see a reasonable party choosing any of the three (well, okay, the goggles would probably win out most of the time, but not by a lot).

Add an amulet of health to the list, and it becomes a no-brainer for 99% of parties. You can have free magic detection; you can have 60-foot darkvision for one PC; you can give one PC +4 to +5 on Athletics checks and Strength saves; or you can give one PC a 30-40% hit point boost and +2 to +3 on Con saves. Those aren't even in the same ballpark.

ki11erDM said:
Humm. So are you saying that the God of Magic has made an item that provides the user with supreme health more difficult to make than an item that provides the user with supreme intellect? Thus making it more rare? I don't think so.

In the game world, the concepts of "Constitution score" and "Intelligence score" don't exist. There is no particular reason why making an item that improves health should be the same difficulty as making an item that improves intellect.