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

[ExploderWizard]

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

I see mechanical build choices existing for the sake of variety rather than a mini game to be "won" on its own.

So build choices made to realize a character concept remain valid no matter what the party finds in it's adventures.

I also hope the DMG addresses the issue of magic item destruction. In my games it can often be easy come easy go. Magic items can be lost or destroyed, new items found, etc. Think of magical items as goodies rather than the core of your character and when they are lost or broken it won't be the end of the world.

In the classic 81 movie Clash of the Titans, Perseus begins his adventure with a magical helm, shield, & sword. The hazards of adventuring cause his helm to be lost in the swamp, and his shield melted by Medusa's blood.
Two out three permanent magic items consumed in a single adventure!!! Does he cry foul and demand that the gods give him back his stuff?

Nope. He keeps trucking on doing his thing. The gods send him a magical owl anyway.

Even artifacts can be lost or destroyed although it may be harder to do so.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The fact that low con is so much more dangerous than low anything else aside, I just don't want my players to feel dumb because they put a decent score into something and got a sweet magical item later.

Maybe nobody else has ever had that problem, I honestly don't know. But it was pretty consistent back in my 2nd Edition days and I'm really not excited to see that mechanic back.

Cheers!
Kinak

There are two big problems with this, as I see it:

1) In 2E days, most groups rolled stats, they didn't elaborately buy them, so this whole "WASTED RESOURCES!" thing is a bit of a red herring if you want to discuss "the lessons of 2E". Indeed even post-2E it seems sketchy to focus on this so tightly.

2) The PARTY finds a magic item, not "a specific PC".

The second one is a big deal and I've seen this precise thing happen in 2E - the party find Gauntlets of Ogre power - now they have a choice - give it to the 18/76 Fighter (significant gain going to what was it, 19 STR, or 18/00?), or give to the other main "hitter", in this party, a Speciality Priest of Someoneorother, for a much bigger gain. Either way it's a win.

If the Fighter already had 19+ STR, it's simple - the SP gets it. That's STILL a win for the party! No-one's resources are being "wasted".

Same with any of these items. Already got 15 CON, going up to 19 with this Amulet? WIN. If you don't think it's a win, someone else in the party will bloody want it! The party still wins!

So yeah, no, the lesson of 2E is that the party wins, not that your resources were "wasted".

 

[BryonD]

Think about that for a sec. It is WAY beyond theorycraft, it is pure metagame crybabying at the worst possible level.

Confession time:
Back in the 2E days I had completely lost interest in D&D in favor of other games.
However, one group I frequently played with strongly preferred D&D.
So I ended up in a 2E game. I rolled a fighter with a STR of like 10 or 12.
I was doing EXACTLY this metagame ploy of "I'll get gauntlets".
Now, in my defense, I didn't point this out to anyone. I played my character smart and constructively. I contributed to fun for the group.

When the inevitable gauntlets showed up. I took them and quietly did a happy dance in my head because I had succeeded in my stealth protest.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Confession time:
Back in the 2E days I had completely lost interest in D&D in favor of other games.
However, one group I frequently played with strongly preferred D&D.
So I ended up in a 2E game. I rolled a fighter with a STR of like 10 or 12.
I was doing EXACTLY this metagame ploy of "I'll get gauntlets".
Now, in my defense, I didn't point this out to anyone. I played my character smart and constructively. I contributed to fun for the group.

When the inevitable gauntlets showed up. I took them and quietly did a happy dance in my head because I had succeeded in my stealth protest.

Did your group use a point buy or something? If the stats were actually rolled then you got what you got.

 

[BryonD]

Did your group use a point buy or something? If the stats were actually rolled then you got what you got.

I'm pretty sure it was 4d6 arrange as desired.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm pretty sure it was 4d6 arrange as desired.

OK then, so you could place your stats as you desired but had little control over what you got to work with in the first place. Thus your build resources could be much greater or lesser than those of the other players.

I can think of several reasons to put my only high rolled stat into another score besides STR as a fighter. CON is tempting because at the end of the day it's all about the hit points man!!

If I were envisioning a Mongol skirmisher type of fighter then I might go with DEX to be better with a bow.

 

[Kinak]

I also hope the DMG addresses the issue of magic item destruction. In my games it can often be easy come easy go. Magic items can be lost or destroyed, new items found, etc. Think of magical items as goodies rather than the core of your character and when they are lost or broken it won't be the end of the world.

I think there's a good game in there, but I'm not sure how items like this fit into it.

The attunement limit, frankly, implies a game with a lot of permanent items. Over twenty years of DMing, including several high-level campaigns, I've only run one campaign where that limit would have come into play.

But it's possible the DMG will have rules for magic item destruction. It certainly would be a change from the "not even rust monsters destroy stuff" approach of 4e.

1) In 2E days, most groups rolled stats, they didn't elaborately buy them, so this whole "WASTED RESOURCES!" thing is a bit of a red herring if you want to discuss "the lessons of 2E". Indeed even post-2E it seems sketchy to focus on this so tightly.

I know some groups rolled without assigning their stats, but that was never us.

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.

2) The PARTY finds a magic item, not "a specific PC".

I don't think the process of deciding who should get the item makes it cause any less of a problem.

Especially with the amulet of health; it really should go to the person with the lowest Con. I know for my players, it wouldn't take long for them to realize that the person with the lowest Con just got bumped up to near the top because they had the lowest Con.

It's not going to warp how they build their characters, but I have it admit it feels totally backwards.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Sacrosanct]

The attunement limit, frankly, implies a game with a lot of permanent items. Over twenty years of DMing, including several high-level campaigns, I've only run one campaign where that limit would have come into play.

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.

 

[sidonunspa]

I think the kicker here is the "three" attunement slots. If these items require attunement, it is very very hard to give up one of three magic items you can have to randomly increase a stat you maybe only sort of use.

THIS.. this all day long...

you have 3 slots.. only three...

at low levels it may be a given.. but once you get to higher levels.. other attuned items start looking real good.

 

[BryonD]

OK then, so you could place your stats as you desired but had little control over what you got to work with in the first place. Thus your build resources could be much greater or lesser than those of the other players.

I can think of several reasons to put my only high rolled stat into another score besides STR as a fighter. CON is tempting because at the end of the day it's all about the hit points man!!

If I were envisioning a Mongol skirmisher type of fighter then I might go with DEX to be better with a bow.

Sure, but honestly, you are giving me too much credit on this one.
As I said, it was good-natured and I kept everything fun for the group.
But in this one case I was pure meta-gaming / abusing this "feature".