D&D 5E Does anyone else find the arcane magic items in LMofP and in HoDQ over the top? (spoilers)

Mandragola · Sep 1, 2014

samursus said:
In the LMoP though, as written, the players are not as likely to get the Staff of Defense. My players didn't.

Spoiler in white text below:

Mine did. The party was able to storm straight through the lab room in a single initiative round. The fighter got to GS while he was still sat at his desk, looking surprised that his familiar had been zapped by the wizard a second or two before. Two chops with the magic longsword he'd just found, thanks to action surge, and the wizard was bleeding on the floor. It never even got to his turn! They didn't succeed in taking him prisoner!

drjones · Sep 1, 2014

samursus said:
In the LMoP though, as written, the players are not as likely to get the Staff of Defense. My players didn't.

I suppose it depends on the group. Those who compulsively look for hidden things or scout ahead and happen on the right path have a pretty good chance to get it.

Storminator · Sep 1, 2014

Mandragola said:
Spoiler in white text below:

If you use the default color scheme the background is black.

There's a spoiler tag.

PS

WitchyD · Sep 1, 2014

Chocolategravy said:
The real crime is that fighters aren't interested in taking a couple levels of wizard for the aura of antipathy anymore so they won't be using the wands themselves. Wizards on the other hand will take a fighter level or two very often.

Is there anything RAW that says only casters can use wands? I've not run into it. My understanding of the rules is that anyone can pick up a wand and use it.

Remathilis · Sep 1, 2014

Bear in mind, many of the +1 items in LMoP have extra effects.

For example: there is an axe that is +1, but deals max damage vs. plant creatures. There is also a mace that sheds light and does 1d6 radiant damage. They aren't in the back of the module, but in the text itself.

Curmudjinn · Sep 1, 2014

drjones said:
It seems like the new rules for magic items should be that players have no way to tell how many charges the item has or how many it recharges every day. Just that it stops workign for the day, and eventually stops working forever.

I kind of like that. Unless you do some detection magery, I could see charged magic items working like Out-Of-Ammo rolls for modern/sci-fi games. You roll everytime you use it, and if a certain number comes up, it is exhausted for the day. You could even make the DC to continue using it cumulatively-increasing, so it almost tires itself out.

SilverBulletKY · Sep 1, 2014

Mandragola said:
Spoiler in white text below:

Mine did. The party was able to storm straight through the lab room in a single initiative round. The fighter got to GS while he was still sat at his desk, looking surprised that his familiar had been zapped by the wizard a second or two before. Two chops with the magic longsword he'd just found, thanks to action surge, and the wizard was bleeding on the floor. It never even got to his turn! They didn't succeed in taking him prisoner!

Spoiler here as well:

They didn't stop to look around the lab at all?

Mandragola · Sep 1, 2014

SilverBulletKY said:
Spoiler here as well:

They didn't stop to look around the lab at all?

More spoilers below. I can't seem to find the button to do this properly.
No, they saw a room with no monsters, a suspicious rat and another door leading out. They literally didn't spend a single full combat round in there. Instead the fighter burst through to where the wizard was sat at his desk and chopped him down. I was pretty impressed, and kind of glad actually. It would have been irritating if he'd got away.

One thing I really found with the adventure as a whole is that magic items are very rarely given out in a straightforward way just by killing monsters and searching them. You need to go digging - sometimes literally - for items that have been hidden away places. Having the option of casting detect magic at will would be hugely useful, but failing that it probably makes sense to go round dungeons scanning once everyone's dead, just to be sure.

Plane Sailing · Sep 2, 2014

Mandragola said:
More spoilers below. I can't seem to find the button to do this properly.

use an SBLOCK tag.

[SBLOCK]
No, they saw a room with no monsters, a suspicious rat and another door leading out. They literally didn't spend a single full combat round in there. Instead the fighter burst through to where the wizard was sat at his desk and chopped him down. I was pretty impressed, and kind of glad actually. It would have been irritating if he'd got away.

One thing I really found with the adventure as a whole is that magic items are very rarely given out in a straightforward way just by killing monsters and searching them. You need to go digging - sometimes literally - for items that have been hidden away places. Having the option of casting detect magic at will would be hugely useful, but failing that it probably makes sense to go round dungeons scanning once everyone's dead, just to be sure.
[/SBLOCK]

drjones · Sep 2, 2014

One of the interviews with Mearls about the starter he mentioned that most of the items were out of the way and rewarded exploration so groups would probably not get all of them.

In this case, I don't know if I would write it that way. Not that it's wrong but usually when planning items I am trying to keep things balanced so I assume if I put it in the adventure the players will get it. If the NPC just needs some boost or spell cast on them to be a threat I make it a potion of just a hand wave pre cast spell.

BUT since the rules don't count on a certain magical bonus to be competitive then it should not matter if they find them or not. On the other hand one would assume giving out too many items would unbalance the game some amount, up until the max 3 each player can carry.

Might not get guidance till the DMG I suppose.

D&D 5E Does anyone else find the arcane magic items in LMofP and in HoDQ over the top? (spoilers)

Mandragola

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drjones

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Storminator

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Remathilis

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SilverBulletKY

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