5e Are Ioun stones supposed to need attunement?

Ioun stones are the one place where I allow multiple items to count as one attunement.

If I wrote the 5E rules, I'd have given each item an attunement value and then limited PCs to an attunement limit that grew over the course of their career - perhaps having items be between 0 and 3 attunement points and allowing a PC to have up their proficiency bonus in items of attunement. Limitng items is all and good - but there are a lot of attuned items that are rarely used because there are better items available as uncommon items tat PCs would rather collect and attune.

the Jester said:

Why bother with having it if you're discarding the whole reason attunement exists in the first place?

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So that a PC can't just step across the river of lava then pass the ring of fire immunity back to the next in line.

lowkey13 said:

Or, to borrow and expand your idea, keep attunement, but set the number at 0.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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And then have all rapiers require attunement to function?

the Jester said:

Why bother with having it if you're discarding the whole reason attunement exists in the first place?

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Satyrn said:

So that a PC can't just step across the river of lava then pass the ring of fire immunity back to the next in line.

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While that is one aspect of 5E attunement, by far the greatest impact when someone is discussing attunement in a 5E context is how it limits each character to three attunable items. Claiming "attunement is fine" will come across as severely misleading if all you like about it is this minor property. The days when the primary meaning of "attunement" was "there's a waiting period before you can use the item" are over.

Here it (finally) is:

Congenio's Ritual
Over the course over a tenday, you join the temple's elder in retreat, in an attempt to unlock the mystical energies of Ioun stones. As a prerequisite you must permanently devote one of your attunement slots to Ioun – it can no longer be used to attune any other item than Ioun stones. Then make three DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) ability checks, each taking 8 hours of time. Each success means one extra Ioun stone can share the attunement slot you devoted to Ioun.

Developer's Notes:
- Yes, DC 20. This ritual can't be too much of a no-brainer for high-level wizards. Setting the DC to a reasonable number for everybody else just means it becomes a free lunch for Wizards.
- the time expenditure is intentional, to disallow short-term buffing. That is, you're not supposed to be able to claim trivial bonuses (Cleric's Bless, Bard's Inspiration etc). You need buffing spells with a minimum of 8 hours duration unless the DM feels like making this particularly easy for the players.
- knowing how crafty players can be in minmaxing particular outcomes, I set the DC to 20 fully expecting the character to make these checks with advantage, and with a bonus that likely is bigger than just ability plus proficiency, and maybe some form of re-roll as well. That is, expect your players to score at least two successes if they really set their mind to it! (If you have a Rogue with the Reliable Talent, they should easily claim all three successes)
- each success represents a major boon*, since we assume ioun stones aren't less useful than other items on average. (Indeed, the Mastery stone is one of the best items all categories) Meaning that even one success isn't meant as some kind of half-failure. Instead each success really is worth celebrating! *) Obviously assuming you find any ioun stones. The ritual is balanced on this assumption. Players usually find a way.
- the worst case scenario: you fail all three checks. This merely means one of your slots is permanently devoted to Ioun. But I can't see anyone performing this ritual without already having a half-decent Ioun stone, so this should in practice never mean "I was reduced to only two slots". That is, the intent is that the price of failure is almost only the missed opportunity.
- the best case scenario: you succeed at all three checks. The main purpose is to explain and allow what Realms canon already suggest: characters with a "cloud" of ioun stones. This result allows no less than 6 ioun stones in total (4 in the "ioun slot" and two more in your regular, unaffected, attunement slots) which counts as a "cloud" as far as I'm concerned.
- since you must still find a lot of ioun stones, I don't expect more than one character (with reasonable luck) to attempt this ritual.

CapnZapp said:

While that is one aspect of 5E attunement, by far the greatest impact when someone is discussing attunement in a 5E context is how it limits each character to three attunable items. Claiming "attunement is fine" will come across as severely misleading if all you like about it is this minor property. The days when the primary meaning of "attunement" was "there's a waiting period before you can use the item" are over.

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"Severely misleading" . . . for simply answering a simple direct question.