D&D 5E Bracers of Defense

[transtemporal]

They can sulk all they like. I don't give a crap. If they keep dropping hints, I'll ask what their characters are doing in the game world to locate and obtain the stuff they want. If they have an answer, I'll put them through hell and make them sweat blood for it, and in the end they'll get their +3 bracers and everybody's happy. If the answer is "Nothing," well, then, guess you didn't want it as much as you thought.

You make it sound like you punish players for having ideas. This is a game, not a military bootcamp.

I don't mind if players have a wishlist that I can take under advisement ala 4e. I don't automatically put those items in my adventures but if its appropriate I'll drop one or two of those items in since I know as a player, its disappointing and anti-climatic if the hard-won treasure hoard at the end of the adventure doesn't have at least one item someone can use.

 

[Remathilis]

No, it's not a good thing if there is no guidance as to the relative value these items. A suit of +1 armor and bracers of defense are both "rare." One will boost a fighter's AC by 1 over mundane equipment and another will boost a monk or dragon sorcerer or barbarian's AC by 3. Are novice DMs supposed to just know innately that one of them is significantly more powerful than the other?

I mean, this info isn't really needed in a premade adventure, but I hope the DMG has at least more detailed tiers of items for new DMs trying to figure this out.

Because 3 > 1?

And really, its only more powerful than +1 padded or leather. The Bracers give a 13 base AC. +1 Studded Leather Armor is base AC 13. +1 scale mail is Base 15. +1 Chainmail is Base 17.

Also; a barbarian with 16 Dex/Con and bracers: AC 19. A Fighter with an 8 dex, 16 con, +1 chainmail and a shield: AC 19.

Why "spoiled"? That's like saying that AD&D spoiled playes of thieves into thinking they needed thieves's tools.

Magic items should be rewards, not expectations. 3e and 4e explicitly said "you need an item of X power by this level to remain effective against level-appropriate challenges). It was expected that a wizard had his amulet of natural armor, ring of protection, cloak of resistance, bracers of armor, and headband of intellect to keep him mathematically correct. A fighter needed +X weapon, +X armor, a cloak of resistance, gauntlets/belts of strength, etc.

So players began to expect regular "gear" updates and when they couldn't find the "gear" they wanted, they bought it or crafted it (usually from the husk of either tons of npc crap which was weaker than theirs or from interesting items nobody wanted to trade an item slot for; IE sell the cloak of the bat to get another +1 to my cloak of resistance).

While AD&D still had lots of treasure (the infamous +1 swords to all my henchmen thing) the fact it was in the DMs hands did mean you couldn't depend on mithral chain shirts, floating shields, cloaks of charisma, and other "number boosting" items to make your build work. I'm glad we're going back to that.

I guarantee, NOBODY will be selling these "+3 bracers" for 4,500 because a wand of mage armor is a better value in 5e...

 

[Dausuul]

You make it sound like you punish players for having ideas. This is a game, not a military bootcamp.

True, but it's also not a customer service position. The post I was responding to described players acting like it's the DM's job to just give them what they want.

I find people take more satisfaction in things they've worked hard for. To me, the ideal adventure is one where the PCs are repeatedly beaten within an inch of their lives, have several moments where they think a TPK is imminent, and ultimately emerge victorious. (It's a fine line to walk between that and an actual TPK, of course.) So, if there's a magic item you want--yeah, I'm going to make you fight for it! When you get it, it won't be just a set of +3 bracers. It'll be the +3 bracers that you took off the Master of Black Roses after fighting her army of ninjas and defeating her in single combat.

Furthermore, I want the players to engage with the world via their characters. If you want something to happen in the game world, your PC is how you make it happen. That gets them thinking about their characters and connecting with them, rather than treating them as disposable game pieces. 4E was the first time I heard players referring to their characters as "toons," and if I never hear that again, it'll be too soon.

I don't mind if players have a wishlist that I can take under advisement ala 4e. I don't automatically put those items in my adventures but if its appropriate I'll drop one or two of those items in since I know as a player, its disappointing and anti-climatic if the hard-won treasure hoard at the end of the adventure doesn't have at least one item someone can use.

It's not hard to provide items somebody can use. I don't follow wish lists because, as I said, I want players to go out and make things happen in the game world if they want them to happen. I also want serendipity to play a role. Sometimes PC find magic items and the players get really attached to them even though they weren't on any wish list. Characters go in unexpected directions as a result.

 

[Crothian]

Are there any magical items in the PHB this time around? From the way people are talking I'm guessing no and that there are no rules for making them either.

 

[Kinak]

Are there any magical items in the PHB this time around? From the way people are talking I'm guessing no and that there are no rules for making them either.

Yeah, both the items and the creation guidelines are supposed to be in the DMG.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Wormwood]

Magic items should be rewards, not expectations ...

Quoting for emphasis.

 

[pemerton]

Magic items should be rewards, not expectations. 3e and 4e explicitly said "you need an item of X power by this level to remain effective against level-appropriate challenges).

<snip>

So players began to expect regular "gear" updates and when they couldn't find the "gear" they wanted, they bought it or crafted it

I know how 4e works. And as a GM, on balance I prefer the 4e approach to mathematical bonuses because I prefer the tightly bounded accuracy that it tends to generate.

If I was to run 5e, in which the bounded accuracy ostensibly works without the need for mathematical bonuses as part of the system, then I would probably just drop +X items altogether.

AD&D still had lots of treasure (the infamous +1 swords to all my henchmen thing) the fact it was in the DMs hands did mean you couldn't depend on mithral chain shirts, floating shields, cloaks of charisma, and other "number boosting" items to make your build work. I'm glad we're going back to that.

I guarantee, NOBODY will be selling these "+3 bracers" for 4,500 because a wand of mage armor is a better value in 5e...

AD&D certainly expected plenty of selling of magic items (and had a chart with the gp value for when that took place).

More generally, I don't see the point of "rewards" that are not actually that. I think magic items are more interesting when they are pleasing to the players. In the very first AD&D campaign I ever GMed, I put in a Flame Tongue two-handed sword without having rolled the 1% chance for that, because the fighter in the game was a 2h-sword wielder. This was for exactly the reason [MENTION=6777693]transtemporal[/MENTION] gave upthread.

And yet more generally, I just don't feel it's helpful to characterise play preferences - "I prefer a game in which magic items are a part of PC build that is under GM rather than player control" - in a way that sounds moralising - "Players who prefer the opposite are spoiled". In any version of D&D, acquiring magic items (whether via discovery or via expenditure of treasure to manufacture them) requires the players to play the game. The only difference is who decides what is acquired.
[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION] says upthreat that "people take more satisfaction in things they've worked hard for". Even if we allow that playing a hobby game can count as "working hard" - which is at least open to question - does anyone think that earning levels in 4e play - which is, per the rules, a necessary condition of triggering treasure parcel placement - is not hard work in the relevant sense? I've seen no evidence to suggest that playing 5e demands more from a player per unit of time spent playing the game. And questing for a specific item, in a GM-placement player-sandbox design, is still just playing the game, and thus - unless there is a problem with the GM - still just as interesting and fun-inducing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The bracers require attunement. The armor doesn't. That's the crucial difference. You only get three attunement slots, so they're a valuable resource.

Though I have to admit that it's hard to justify the arrow-catching shield being on the same level as bracers of defense.

+3 BoDs require attunement, we can see that, but we don't know whether +3 armour also does, AFAIK. Even in the late playtest we only ever saw +1/2 armour.

I dunno about anyone else, but I'd be pretty surprised if there was any +3 armour that didn't require attunement, personally. Tell me if I've missed some that didn't.

That said, I have literally no idea why people think these things are somehow overpowered, and this thread has done zero to clarify that. It seems to just be a sort of assumption that we are all expected to take for granted. As has been illustrated, they are, at most, the equivalent of +3 armour, but usable by Barbarians/Monks/Casters. It's unlikely, in actual/practical play (rather than pure theorycraft) that any of those people is going to be beating a Plate-wearer on AC, let alone Plate, Shield and possibly Fighting Style stacked together, unless said Plate-wearer doesn't have magical armour.

The only problem I see is that the Arrow-Catching Shield, as you seem to be saying, also requires attunement and is "rare", despite being wildly less powerful. The extremely short range on the ability combined 1/round nature of it means that it's extremely corner-case in it's usage (if it had a 15' or 30' range it'd be a different story). Presumably it's one of those slightly-shoddy low-level items that one eventually moves past.

As for the reward vs. expectation debate, it's seems like much hot air either way. If you give out magic items as "rewards", you are creating a particular expectation, that being that if a PC does something that you, the DM, think is cool/hard/otherwise pleasing, he may be rewarded with a magic item suitable to him. Obviously if it was useless, it wouldn't be a reward, so there's that.

Similarly, DMs who do use wish lists and the like actually end up playing a very similar way in actual play - they're not handing out items "at request", or the like, they just ensure the bulk of the items that they do let the PCs get their hands on are ones that the players actually want.

In the end, I think it's fair to say that in the very vast majority of D&D campaigns of any edition, DMs place items with an eye to what the PCs in their game will actually get either some use out of, or a kick out of, but they also place ones which merely seem appropriate to the situation/place/enemy, or which they personally think might be interesting to introduce, and may well introduce a few random ones too. There probably are campaigns where item placement is exclusively random-by-table (at one end) or exclusively player-list-driven, but I think it's fair to say that both are pretty rare approaches. So the whole reward vs expectation thing strikes me, personally, as posturing. In reality 90%+ of DMs are both rewarding and to some extent playing to player expectations, even if those expectations are ones that they've shaped.

 

[Remathilis]

I know how 4e works. And as a GM, on balance I prefer the 4e approach to mathematical bonuses because I prefer the tightly bounded accuracy that it tends to generate.

If I was to run 5e, in which the bounded accuracy ostensibly works without the need for mathematical bonuses as part of the system, then I would probably just drop +X items altogether.

AD&D certainly expected plenty of selling of magic items (and had a chart with the gp value for when that took place).

More generally, I don't see the point of "rewards" that are not actually that. I think magic items are more interesting when they are pleasing to the players. In the very first AD&D campaign I ever GMed, I put in a Flame Tongue two-handed sword without having rolled the 1% chance for that, because the fighter in the game was a 2h-sword wielder. This was for exactly the reason [MENTION=6777693]transtemporal[/MENTION] gave upthread.

And yet more generally, I just don't feel it's helpful to characterise play preferences - "I prefer a game in which magic items are a part of PC build that is under GM rather than player control" - in a way that sounds moralising - "Players who prefer the opposite are spoiled". In any version of D&D, acquiring magic items (whether via discovery or via expenditure of treasure to manufacture them) requires the players to play the game. The only difference is who decides what is acquired.
[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION] says upthreat that "people take more satisfaction in things they've worked hard for". Even if we allow that playing a hobby game can count as "working hard" - which is at least open to question - does anyone think that earning levels in 4e play - which is, per the rules, a necessary condition of triggering treasure parcel placement - is not hard work in the relevant sense? I've seen no evidence to suggest that playing 5e demands more from a player per unit of time spent playing the game. And questing for a specific item, in a GM-placement player-sandbox design, is still just playing the game, and thus - unless there is a problem with the GM - still just as interesting and fun-inducing.

Great, you like the +x treadmill. I don't. I hate the fact my PCs sell quirky or interesting side items so they can invest in the next magical plus to AC, saves or attacks. Even when you give out an item they can use, they often sell it because "I don't need a +2 longsword, so I'll take the 4,150 gp and put it toward making my +1 cold iron longsword flaming".

So no, I'm not talking about giving a party a +1 greataxe when no one uses one, but I am tired if seeing all but a scant few items sold to fund another +1 to some number or every rogue over 10th level wearing celestial chain.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Great, you like the +x treadmill. I don't. I hate the fact my PCs sell quirky or interesting side items so they can invest in the next magical plus to AC, saves or attacks. Even when you give out an item they can use, they often sell it because "I don't need a +2 longsword, so I'll take the 4,150 gp and put it toward making my +1 cold iron longsword flaming".

So no, I'm not talking about giving a party a +1 greataxe when no one uses one, but I am tired if seeing all but a scant few items sold to fund another +1 to some number or every rogue over 10th level wearing celestial chain.

Hold up, dude. You just accused him of "liking the +1 treadmill", when in the post you're quoting, he talks about removing +X magic items from the game entirely. Can you explain that, or do you want to edit?

Further, as we're discussing 5E, by and large, why are you bringing up "selling X to fund Y", which is, AFAIK, not present in 5E? That seems to have nothing to do with what he is saying. I get that you dislike it, but it doesn't seem to make much sense as a response to his post.