D&D 5E Attunement

[Tony Vargas]

5e is meant to have less of a 'need' for magic items to balance encounters, but it does have very powerful magic items. That gives the DM some latitude to re-balance PCs by giving a weak PC a great item, for instance.

But, it's the DM's campaign, and if he wants it to be high-magic, there's nothing to stop him, least of all Attunement. The DM can dispense with attunement as a rule, or he can just give out items that don't require it - including removing the requirement from DMG items he uses as a starting point.

A high-magic campaign will mean balancing encounters higher, and either changing exp progression/awards, or enjoying a faster pace of leveling.

 

[clearstream]

Every session could result in finding a non-consumable magic item (it doesn't happen that often, but it could).

Why?

Because it's cool.

It's fun.

I play the game for fun, not for some other game designer's idea of fun. My idea.

I agree that it the possibility of finding magic items - and finding them - is fun. I would comment that while of course it's your game and your idea of fun, in posting to a forum you kind of are inviting other people to input their idea of fun. We can't really guess exactly what your idea of fun is without say some phenomenological inquiry so raising that as a bar kind of contradicts creating the thread Your OP doesn't read to me like one that is just stating an opinion but rather one which is inviting input.

Whatever the case, we're limitedly interested in etiquette over content. Do you know what you will implement? It'd be great if you could report back after a couple of months playtest!

 

[ThirdWizard]

What I've been doing is combining magic items together.

So instead of giving out a Sentinel Shield and a Pearl of Power, maybe give them out as one item. Or instead of a Medallion of Thought and a Ring of Mind Shielding, combine them into a single item.

Another thing is to give a slight power boost to something you think is too situational. Maybe the Brooch of Shielding also acts as a Wand +1 when they clasp it while casting spells. Or maybe it can also cast resist elements 1/day or something along those lines.

 

[keterys]

Merge a Brooch of Shielding with the ability to do the occasional shield spell and that'd spike right up in usefulness

 

[der_kluge]

Hey KarinsDad - it's been a long time.

I haven't read this whole thread, but like you, I A) love magic items and B) am also a bit concerned about the artificially low 3 item limit imposed. And I preface this by saying that I haven't even played a single game of 5E yet, and only got my books just a couple of weeks ago, I do have a possible suggestion that I think I might very well house rule myself.

The number of magic items a character can attune is limited to their proficiency bonus, i.e., +2 at level 1 to +6 starting at level 17.

 

[CapnZapp]

Again, just increasing the limit takes away the entire point of having it in the first place: forcing players to make hard choices.

So there's nothing wrong with your suggestion, only I have something even simpler: remove the attunement limit altogether. In practical play (unless you veritably drown your players in items) there should be little difference.

Or, you could try something that retains that element of "having to choose".

Upthread I suggested "if you switch out one powerful item, you get to attune to two less-powerful items". I'm sure there are more good ideas to be had

 

[der_kluge]

Again, just increasing the limit takes away the entire point of having it in the first place: forcing players to make hard choices.

So there's nothing wrong with your suggestion, only I have something even simpler: remove the attunement limit altogether. In practical play (unless you veritably drown your players in items) there should be little difference.

Or, you could try something that retains that element of "having to choose".

Upthread I suggested "if you switch out one powerful item, you get to attune to two less-powerful items". I'm sure there are more good ideas to be had

Well, maybe he doesn't want them to have to make hard choices?

I like the idea of scaling it with level, like proficiency, although +6 at level 20 is probably too high - most campaigns aren't going to go that far anyway. You could set it at proficiency -1. But that means that the first 4 levels have only 1 attuned item. And maybe that's OK.

 

[eryndel]

My only issue with scaling per level is that this scaling is kinda already there by default. If a level 4 character really isn't expecting to have more than two items, the attunement cap doesn't have a salient effect. If, by six, they might get there third item, but also their third attunement slot... all you've done is shifted the goal posts.

 

[der_kluge]

My only issue with scaling per level is that this scaling is kinda already there by default. If a level 4 character really isn't expecting to have more than two items, the attunement cap doesn't have a salient effect. If, by six, they might get there third item, but also their third attunement slot... all you've done is shifted the goal posts.

Not sure I get what you're saying. It's not really there by default. It's a flat 3 item limit, regardless of -anything-. So, there's no scaling whatsoever. While I agree with you that most characters won't have 3 items by the time you're level 4, so it's hardly a relevant problem. But having more than 3 items seems highly likely by the time they're in their teens. It's highly possibly that allowing as many as 6 by 17th level might, in fact, be too many. But limiting a 20th level character to 3 seems artificially too low in my mind.

All of this has everything to do with your campaign, of course, and how high (or low) magic you want it to be. But basing it (at least loosely) on proficiency seems like a reasonable starting point in my mind.

 

[CapnZapp]

He's asking why shift the goal posts?

The entire point of having an attunement limit is for the characters to actually run into it.

Either you like that, in which case it makes sense to not mess with the limit. Or you don't, in which case it makes sense to remove it altogether.

Now, as have been said several times already, if your campaign deviates significantly from the DMG expectations, then you could argue a case for actually changing the limit. If you know you hand out more than double the items, then yes, you might want to double the limit.

But wait. With the RAW limit, what you have to give up is your fourth most desired item.

With a doubled limit, you have to give up your seventh most desired item.

I postulate that this is not much of a limit, regardless of how many items you get.

Your seventh best item will simply always be a fairly crappy and non-essential item, compared to the six you keep. In other words, it won't be much of a hard choice.

This means that increasing the limit to six is probably a bad idea regardless of how much items you get. Or, it's not so much a bad limit, as it is an ineffective limit.

And so I reiterate: if you plan on increasing the limit to six, consider simply removing it instead.

If you really need to be able to attune to more than three items, at least have your players choose between one powerful item and two less powerful items. That is, keep the limit of three, but say that the limit is "three powerful items", but up to six less-powerful items if you prefer that instead.