D&D 5E Analysis of "Typical" Magic Item Distribution

[Lanefan]

Interesting analysis, [MENTION=3424]FireLance[/MENTION]

The end result seems very low, particularly if magic items have a chance of being destroyed during the run of play (which if they don't, they should); and really skimpy on the permanent items at low-mid levels - which is, let's face it, probably where the majority of play will occur based on the evidence from all prior editions.

Also, for the per-character breakdowns you're assuming a 4-character party. Big assumption, as some of us would run old-school 8-12 character parties in all likelihood, and either have to tweak to suit or have dirt-poor characters (and, in my case, annoyed players).

But the biggest non-factored variable in any analysis like this is, in my experience, character death. If a PC has got to level 10 and has acquired the expected magic, then dies, the party are almost certainly going to loot the corpse for its goodies. So now you've got an extra "character's worth" of magic in the party...plus whatever the replacement character comes in with. (and saying the replacement comes in with nothing is a bit harsh, unless you're starting all replacements at 1st-level; and even then there's a problem as her levels will catch up to the party's faster than her treasure will).

The inevitable result is that on average the long-term survivors are going to become much wealthier than the rookies, and stay that way unless your game allows for the possibility of magic item destruction and meltdown...which at least makes it a bit more random as to who can retain their wealth over time.

Which all means, unfortunately, that while this is an interesting numerical exercise it's really not going to stand up in the run of play.

Lan-"he who dies with the most toys can best afford revival"-efan

 

[SilverfireSage]

Apart from the usual caveat of "it depends on the game", this is a false dichotomy. The monsters encountered by the party can be selected both to present a good challenge and based on where they should exist logically (within the context of the game world). That said, the DM can always come up with some explanation for, say, why a manticore could be encountered somewhere other than its favored terrain (if the game even defines this in the first place).

This is optimistic, but unrealistic. There aren't enough monsters to cover that wide range of levels, and the entire point of this edition is being able to use monsters that aren't in the Correct CR. The challenge isn't always going to be perfect, but that's ok, because we're playing an RPG, not a video game. The game reflects the world, not perfect representation of it.

I realize that it is apparently not a popular opinion, but I did enjoy the greater precision and predictability of 4e. Not total predictability, of course - even I would find that dull, but a smaller range of potential outcomes. To me, it changed the gameplay by increasing the importance of tactical and strategic decision-making and reducing the importance of luck. It's probably fair to say that my ideal game would be one in which your decisions determine if you win, and luck determines how you win.

I apologize, but by that statement, a dice based RPG doesn't seem to be the ideal game for you. The point of the dice is to add in the very real element of chance, because people are not perfect and will not react the same way every time. Failure can happen even when you make the perfect decisions every time, and I'm sure you know all of this.

Frankly, I think that whether or not magic items appear to be "meaningless" is a matter of how they are presented. The difference is psychological, not mathematical. If I were to change the 4e CR guidelines based on 5e's philosophy, I would simply define CR as the level the PCs need to be to defeat the monsters without magic items. So, the previously-mentioned CR 12 monsters would now be CR 15 and a suitable challenge for a party of 15th-level PCs without magic items. Then, if the PCs happen to have +3 magic items, they are actually able to take on CR 18 monsters! (CR 15 under the old system.) This would make the magic items seem like they are making the PCs more powerful and providing them with an advantage, right?

Nope, it isn't psychological, thanks to the bounded accuracy. AC doesn't increase in a linear fashion, or really in any fashion in this game, so any increase in attack will be beneficial across all levels. Higher level creatures, excluding the Tarrasque and such, cap out at around a 19 AC. So a +1 bonus will be beneficial against all creatures, not just the correct CR. So instead of the previous system, where once you got a magic item you automatically started fighting higher CR creatures in order to match it, you now have an advantage across all levels. It becomes actually worthwhile to have a magic item, rather than just a key to unlock the gate to higher CR monsters.

If that is your philosophy, then I am sure that the 5e encounter guidelines are exactly what you deserve.

Maybe it's just the writing translating that wrong, but that seems a tad bit condescending. Perhaps you can actually address my point instead of brushing it off?

 

[FireLance]

This is optimistic, but unrealistic. There aren't enough monsters to cover that wide range of levels, and the entire point of this edition is being able to use monsters that aren't in the Correct CR. The challenge isn't always going to be perfect, but that's ok, because we're playing an RPG, not a video game. The game reflects the world, not perfect representation of it.

The number of new and variant monsters you can use in a game is limited only by your imagination. In addition, you can use the same monsters multiple times in different fights. I think a game in which you encounter each monster once and once only is even less realistic than one in which you encounter tougher and tougher monsters as you get more powerful.

As for using monsters of the "correct" CR, CR is just a tool to allow you to judge the relative difficulty of an encounter. There is nothing to stop you from making the encounters more or less challenging if you want. That said, if you consistently make the encounters less challenging, that may not suit the tastes of certain players (but more on this later).

I apologize, but by that statement, a dice based RPG doesn't seem to be the ideal game for you. The point of the dice is to add in the very real element of chance, because people are not perfect and will not react the same way every time. Failure can happen even when you make the perfect decisions every time, and I'm sure you know all of this.

I think it all boils down to how you use the dice. A bad roll could simply mean that you need to use Special Ability X to recover, and it takes you one round longer to activate Special Ability Y and win the fight.

Nope, it isn't psychological, thanks to the bounded accuracy. AC doesn't increase in a linear fashion, or really in any fashion in this game, so any increase in attack will be beneficial across all levels. Higher level creatures, excluding the Tarrasque and such, cap out at around a 19 AC. So a +1 bonus will be beneficial against all creatures, not just the correct CR. So instead of the previous system, where once you got a magic item you automatically started fighting higher CR creatures in order to match it, you now have an advantage across all levels. It becomes actually worthwhile to have a magic item, rather than just a key to unlock the gate to higher CR monsters.

Bounded accuracy is not the issue. The fact is, magic items make fights easier in any edition. The sleight of hand pulled by 5e is that the system tells you that even though the PCs have magic items, you should not change the number and toughness of the monsters they are expected to face. You can achieve the same effect in any edition. For example, using the revised 4e CR system above, if 15th-level PCs with magic items face CR 15 monsters (previously CR 12), the fight is going to be easier as well. The magic items only seem like a benefit because the encounter guidelines don't take them into account. Over time, the accumulation of magic items is going to make the recommended fights easier and easier, and unless you have players that aren't bored by easy fights, they are going to lose interest.

Maybe it's just the writing translating that wrong, but that seems a tad bit condescending. Perhaps you can actually address my point instead of brushing it off?

I was just making the point that if you don't expect much from the encounter guidelines, then you don't need more than what is currently available in 5e.

 

[SilverfireSage]

The number of new and variant monsters you can use in a game is limited only by your imagination. In addition, you can use the same monsters multiple times in different fights. I think a game in which you encounter each monster once and once only is even less realistic than one in which you encounter tougher and tougher monsters as you get more powerful.

I just said the exact opposite of that. These encounters allow you to use monsters at any level, regardless of the magic items the players are using. 4E only allows you to use those that are the perfect CR, because they are so powerful that the magic items are required.

As for using monsters of the "correct" CR, CR is just a tool to allow you to judge the relative difficulty of an encounter. There is nothing to stop you from making the encounters more or less challenging if you want. That said, if you consistently make the encounters less challenging, that may not suit the tastes of certain players (but more on this later).

"You can house rule it" Isnt a very good avenue for discussion. Of course you can house rule it. You can do that to anything. This is a discussion of the rules as they are.

I think it all boils down to how you use the dice. A bad roll could simply mean that you need to use Special Ability X to recover, and it takes you one round longer to activate Special Ability Y and win the fight.

That sort of removes the reason for dice, doesn't it? Dice offer the possibility of failure in the face of good odds. If the characters are always going to succeed and the dice are just offering setbacks, why not just play a game that eliminates random chance altogether?

Bounded accuracy is not the issue. The fact is, magic items make fights easier in any edition. The sleight of hand pulled by 5e is that the system tells you that even though the PCs have magic items, you should not change the number and toughness of the monsters they are expected to face. You can achieve the same effect in any edition. For example, using the revised 4e CR system above, if 15th-level PCs with magic items face CR 15 monsters (previously CR 12), the fight is going to be easier as well. The magic items only seem like a benefit because the encounter guidelines don't take them into account. Over time, the accumulation of magic items is going to make the recommended fights easier and easier, and unless you have players that aren't bored by easy fights, they are going to lose interest.

As I said before, if we're going to go by the houserules, there's not really any point in continuing this discussion.

Here is what it all boils down to: in previous editions, such as 3rd and 4th, magic items were expected. The was a certain amount of magic that the players had to have to progress through the game normally. 4th edition was the culmination of this, as some monsters had such large stats tht to defeat them without magic was impossible, regardless of the level of the PCs and their skill. 5E does away with this by eliminating the assumption that characters would gain magic items at all. This makes magic items mean something, as they are not just a gate to higher monsters, but an advantage overall, because the monsters were not created with the expectation that you would have magic items at all. That's the bottom line.

 

[keterys]

I just said the exact opposite of that. These encounters allow you to use monsters at any level, regardless of the magic items the players are using.

It's just that the horde of low level monsters will still be looking for 20s (or near 20s), even with bounded accuracy, when you roll out in your top defensive magic items, while they murder the groups who don't give lots of high magic. (Ex: Fighter in +3 Plate and +3 Shield with a Ring of Protection vs. one with +1 Plate and a normal shield)

And that's "Okay" because the system didn't try to account for it and only barely tried to stop it.

Similarly, it's "Okay" that Mines of Phandelver gives out exponentially more treasure than that table. I guess? It's certainly odd from an Organized Play perspective.

 

[FireLance]

Responding out of order for better flow.

That sort of removes the reason for dice, doesn't it? Dice offer the possibility of failure in the face of good odds. If the characters are always going to succeed and the dice are just offering setbacks, why not just play a game that eliminates random chance altogether?

Because the random setbacks help generate a different experience each time you play and this helps to keep the game interesting.

I just said the exact opposite of that. These encounters allow you to use monsters at any level, regardless of the magic items the players are using. 4E only allows you to use those that are the perfect CR, because they are so powerful that the magic items are required.

I think you are conflating bounded accuracy with encounter guidelines that do not take magic items into account. Bounded accuracy is what gives a 1st-level PC a non-trivial chance of hitting the Tarrasque, and conversely, a CR 1/2 orc a non-trivial chance of hitting a 20th-level PC. The encounter guidelines are what tell you that the 1st-level PC is likely to get squished by the Tarrasque, and that you are going to need something like 60 orcs to present a moderate challenge to a party of four 20th-level PCs.

The fact that the encounter guidelines do not take magic items into account means that 5e tells you that those 60 orcs are a moderate challenge for a party of four 20th-level PCs regardless of whether they have no magic items, or whether they have 9 or 10 uncommon permanent items, 5 or 6 rare permanent items, 5 very rare permanent items and 4 legendary permanent items between them.

As I said before, if we're going to go by the houserules, there's not really any point in continuing this discussion.

Here is what it all boils down to: in previous editions, such as 3rd and 4th, magic items were expected. The was a certain amount of magic that the players had to have to progress through the game normally. 4th edition was the culmination of this, as some monsters had such large stats tht to defeat them without magic was impossible, regardless of the level of the PCs and their skill. 5E does away with this by eliminating the assumption that characters would gain magic items at all. This makes magic items mean something, as they are not just a gate to higher monsters, but an advantage overall, because the monsters were not created with the expectation that you would have magic items at all. That's the bottom line.

It seems to me that this is a rather odd position for an advocate of 5e to take because the implications of following the rules as written seem to me to be much worse for 5e than for 4e. As mentioned, since the encounter guidelines do not take magic items into account, every magic item that you give to the PCs will make all subsequent fights easier. And if you keep handing out magic items, as mentioned before, over time, the accumulation of magic items is going to make the recommended fights easier and easier, and unless you have players that aren't bored by easy fights, they are going to lose interest.

On the other hand, it seems to me that the 4e system as written keeps things fresh and interesting for the players because the PCs get more powerful, the find new and better magic items, and the difficulty and challenge of the fights keep pace with what the PCs are capable of.

"You can house rule it" Isnt a very good avenue for discussion. Of course you can house rule it. You can do that to anything. This is a discussion of the rules as they are.

And for those of us who think that flexibility, adapatbility and ease of houseruling are key advantages in an RPG, I would just like to re-iterate the point that it is trivially easy to adapt the 4e encounter guidelines to re-create the 5e approach of ignoring magic items when determing what is an appropriate challenge for the PCs. The key failing of the 5e encounter guidelines, to me, is that they are not able to advise the DM on how to maintain the challenge level of his game (if he wants to) after he has started handing out magic items.

 

[pkt77242]

It's just that the horde of low level monsters will still be looking for 20s (or near 20s), even with bounded accuracy, when you roll out in your top defensive magic items, while they murder the groups who don't give lots of high magic. (Ex: Fighter in +3 Plate and +3 Shield with a Ring of Protection vs. one with +1 Plate and a normal shield)

And that's "Okay" because the system didn't try to account for it and only barely tried to stop it.

Similarly, it's "Okay" that Mines of Phandelver gives out exponentially more treasure than that table. I guess? It's certainly odd from an Organized Play perspective.

LMoP was most likely written before the treasure tables were created, so it is completely understandable that it doesn't conform to it.

 

[keterys]

5th edition claimed to be less about magic items then its showboat introductory adventure has folks walking out of it like a Christmas tree with a whole party having several permanent magic items each, a couple of which are fairly game altering.

It's an otherwise excellent adventure, and I'm not convinced that its magic item level isn't actually the correct level to play 5E at... but it definitely creates a logical disparity between what you say and what you do. And it certainly means that if monsters aren't balanced to account for both sides of the magic item spectrum (and AC can raise to the point where you need 20s to hit characters with lower level monsters) then it feels like a screwup of bounded accuracy.

Edit: It is perhaps worth note that the Belt of Giantkind and the Shield +3 are particularly good examples of the magic item system taking bounded accuracy out in back and shooting it.

 

[SilverfireSage]

5th edition claimed to be less about magic items then its showboat introductory adventure has folks walking out of it like a Christmas tree with a whole party having several permanent magic items each, a couple of which are fairly game altering.

As pkt77242 said above, LMoP was written way before the magic items were finalized. It also is more of a one off, and thus allows for more treasure than a party would typically have, presumably just to have some fun with handing out treasure.

It's an otherwise excellent adventure, and I'm not convinced that its magic item level isn't actually the correct level to play 5E at... but it definitely creates a logical disparity between what you say and what you do. And it certainly means that if monsters aren't balanced to account for both sides of the magic item spectrum (and AC can raise to the point where you need 20s to hit characters with lower level monsters) then it feels like a screwup of bounded accuracy.

That's.... that's the point. Magic items are supposed to screw up stuff; if they didn't, why bother having them be magic? Magic items are rare, special, even unique. If everything in the world becomes more powerful the second you pick up a +1 sword, what was the point of that sword? Say that a 20th level fighter has a 28 AC (18 from plate, +3 from magic, +2 from shield, +3 from magic shield, +1 from defender feature, +1 from ring of protection). This is theoretical maximum that a fighter would ever be able to get, or really, anyone would be able to get in the game. The lowest level CR creature that would be able to hit you on a 19 would be a 5CR, a Triceratops that has a +9 to hit. Now sure, you may think that this means bounded accuracy is broken because a Kobold can't hit you with lower than a 20, but let's compare this to other editions shall we?

In 4th edition, the highest maximum value (gleaned from the internet) seems to be a 52 AC. A 52!!! That's insane. What's the lowest CR that could hit that? Looking through the old MM, looks like... well frankly I can't find anything with a +33 on a quick glance, but only the most powerful dragons can hit that AC with less than a 20. 3.5 is... well it's broken. Just broken. However, this quick little thought study seems to indicate that even with massive, game breaking, horrendously powerful magic items, characters will be able to be taken down by anything down to a CR5 monster.

Edit: It is perhaps worth note that the Belt of Giantkind and the Shield +3 are particularly good examples of the magic item system taking bounded accuracy out in back and shooting it.

That's the nice thing about 5E. If you're that worried about magic items breaking bounded accuracy (which they don't) then don't give them any magic items. The game doesn't assume it, the characters will do just fine, everyone will be ok with it.

 

[keterys]

I'm not entirely convinced that bringing up old editions that didn't use bounded accuracy to show how improved things are is really the way to go. I guess it's like the democracy theory about how Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried.

Yes, 5th edition is the most bounded randomness of all the editions of D&D. That doesn't mean that its internal design covers the corner cases of 5+ unplanned for swings in hit or defense. Therefore, it either shouldn't have made such things possible (stop at Gauntlets of Ogre Power, don't have a 21-29 stat version for just one of the stats / don't have +3 armor _and_ +3 shields; shields can be magical without further +s, honest), or delivered appropriate and sufficient guidance in the relevant books for the effect of magic items.

People like getting magic items. There's nothing wrong with a Phandelver level of magic item awards; in fact an idle look at pretty much the entire history of D&D is that not only do people like getting magic treasure, adventures like _giving_ magic treasure. You're not going to find a lot of adventures that give out a single magic item only every 10 encounters or so, but that's exactly what the game is suggesting you do. It's disingenuous to balance a game around no magic items, suggest that folks keep to a drastically low number of magic items (remember that +1 sword you get at 4th level might be the only weapon your character gets ever), actually give out buckets of magic items, _then_ claim that balance problems from magic items are no big deal because the DM has to decide to give them out in the first place.