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

[Agamon]

I'm with Kinak that stat replacing items just screws with the system and character creation setup in undesirable ways. The sad thing is that while I can just not give them out in home games I DM, they're already warping the metagame: an amulet of health was in one of the Gen Con adventures, and it generated a lot of discussion over the magic item policy, its balance, who most "deserved" the item - mathematically speaking, organized play's retraining rules ("so if I find this before 5th level I can retrain my Con to an 8-10?"), and how much people could get for the item on ebay.

So, that's a thing. I can't wait to see if organized play starts regularly pickpocketing people's necklaces before combat. Cause, hey, that's fun, right?

FR has eBay in OP? I see. I'm glad I'm a country mile away from that.

The AL needs to conform to the rules, not vice versa. Sounds like some hiccups need to be sorted out for OP.

 

[Dausuul]

So, attunement seems to drastically reduce rarity / increase acceptability of strong items (see Bracers of Defense), which I'm good with in theory, but suspect will turn in practice. Essentially, it only works if there are 3+ strong permanent magic items _per party member_. So it doesn't work at all at low level, nor does it work in lower magic campaigns. Strange.

4+, actually. If you have 3, you still aren't affected by the attunement limit.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm with Kinak that stat replacing items just screws with the system and character creation setup in undesirable ways. The sad thing is that while I can just not give them out in home games I DM, they're already warping the metagame: an amulet of health was in one of the Gen Con adventures, and it generated a lot of discussion over the magic item policy, its balance, who most "deserved" the item - mathematically speaking, organized play's retraining rules ("so if I find this before 5th level I can retrain my Con to an 8-10?"), and how much people could get for the item on ebay.

Ebay? We are talking about a fictional piece of treasure in a role playing game right? To anyone who would purchase such an item for real money may I direct you to my online store stocked with hundreds of +5 vorpal swords to make YOUR character the best of the best! Only $29.95 USD each. Click BUY IT NOW within the next 10 minutes and get a free bag of holding with your order while supplies last!!

 

[TwoSix]

Fixed ability score magic items are just horrible, they invalidate character choices, they don't help the characters they should, just horrible.

I think the point I bolded is a point that's worthy of discussion. 5e flips the paradigm of stat boosting items from 3e. In 3e, you gave gauntlets of ogre power to the warrior types. In 5e, you give them to the wizard to give him some melee options, as they're useless to the warriors.

To generalize further, in 3e (and also 4e) magic items existed to enhance your specialization, and support your character build. In 5e, magic items are best at enhancing weaknesses and making characters more well-rounded, and can diminish the efficacy of certain build options. (Say, putting a stat boost into Strength that becomes unnecessary when the gauntlets are worn.

I think that speaks to a general division in playstyles, actually. Does the game exist to demonstrate and challenge various build options (as in 3e and 4e), or does the character build exist only to be modified and molded by play within the game (as is a stronger feature of OSR style games)?

I think the relative strength of class features and magical items would speak as to which playstyle is preferred. Strong class features and weaker magic items make character build paramount, while weaker class features but strong magic items favor the "build through play" approach.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think if your players have "learned" to put a low value in one of their primary stats because they assume they will get an ability boosting magic item, that's less on them and more on you as the DM. You're the DM. That means it's your decision whether or not to give these items out like candy. Frankly, I find it baffling that a player would put a low score for strength as a non-DEX based fighter-type class assuming they would get gauntlets later on. How many levels are they going to trudge through as a horrible STR based warrior with low strength hoping to find one?

That's metagaming, and pretty dumb to boot. These items don't break choices at all, because you shouldn't be assuming you'll get one.

*Edit* Oh, and go ahead and recon your CON back to 8-10, and then spend the rest of your gaming career hoping to high heaven that it doesn't get stolen or destoyed. Boy, wouldn't you feel the fool

 

[Agamon]

If people are suggesting that these items give a bonus instead, the ability score cap still causes a problem for those with high ability scores and makes the item less useful for those lower score.

If they are suggesting that these things should allow PCs to push past the cap...that way lies madness. The cap should not be a glass ceiling but a titanium one.

 

[Kinak]

The 2x4 was figurative!! It is after all only a game.

No worries. Even figurative 2x4s don't fly with my group, but I know you didn't mean any offense and none is taken.

I think player choices in actual play, are more important than anything including build choices. Thinking too much about what could have been back in character creation is a waste of valuable game time. In theory a player should just play with a 10 in everything because an item might show up and invalidate having a higher score.

Focusing on what the players ARE doing in the game instead of what the characters CAN do in a mechanical sense makes this a non-issue.

I agree 100% on this. Focus on the player's ongoing choices is key.

That said, with mechanical build choices being presented, I think players have a reasonable expectation that those choices will also be respected by the system. Otherwise, why are they being asked to make them?

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[billd91]

Ebay? We are talking about a fictional piece of treasure in a role playing game right? To anyone who would purchase such an item for real money may I direct you to my online store stocked with hundreds of +5 vorpal swords to make YOUR character the best of the best! Only $29.95 USD each. Click BUY IT NOW within the next 10 minutes and get a free bag of holding with your order while supplies last!!

A fictional item, yes. But since this would be for organized play, I'm guessing there's some kind of certificate system involved that imposes some level of scarcity in the campaign.

As an aside, Paizo ran a charity auction for PF Society boons at Gen Con. Each boon is unique for the 6th year. One went for over $600. For that money, the player gets to generate the only android PC in the campaign. As long as there is real scarcity and it's something people want, substantial money can be raised.

 

[keterys]

Ebay? We are talking about a fictional piece of treasure in a role playing game right? To anyone who would purchase such an item for real money may I direct you to my online store stocked with hundreds of +5 vorpal swords to make YOUR character the best of the best! Only $29.95 USD each. Click BUY IT NOW within the next 10 minutes and get a free bag of holding with your order while supplies last!!

Sadly, we are talking about a real life piece of paper certifying the bearer the possession of a fictional piece of treasure.

And there are absolutely people who are willing to pay money for that kind of thing. See past treatment of special convention (or even particular table) only rewards for Living City, Living Greyhawk, etc. Much like people in all sorts of freemium games pay a premium for extra treasure or XP.

Anyhow, personally I'd have preferred if such an item existed (Con = 19) that it was very rare, making it self-select its way out of typical PC gear lists, early adventures and low magic settings.

 

[keterys]

Doesn't low-level/low-magic already have a check on power, namely NOT MANY ITEMS TO BEGIN WITH? I mean, whats to worry about 1-2 items per character anyway?

Attunement fixes the Christmas Tree problem of wearing All Six Stat Boosters, Boots of Speed, Cloak of Displacement, Ring of Protection, Etc. You pick three. This allows them to be more useful overall.

It definitely curtails the very high level and high magic ends of the spectrum. I'm just concerned it actually makes things worse for early levels and low magic, by making powerful magic _more common_ if a DM uses rarity.

Ie,
Uncommon
+1 weapon
Bracers of Defense (+3 AC, requires attunement)
Amulet of Health (19 Con, requires attunement)

Rare
+1 armor

The two attunement items are wildly out of comparison to the two basic +1s, I'd think.