D&D 5E Magic Items, and what it says about the editions

[JonnyP71]

In AD&D (and b/x), magic items are everywhere.

Anyway, just an observation, and when converting TSR modules to 5e, I'm finding I'm eliminating most of the items.

I recently ran X2 Castle Amber in 5E for my group, and the module itself presented me with an easy get-out-clause. I left most of the magic items in, plus most of the treasure, they were swimming in the stuff..... but about halfway through the players starting commenting 'Hang on, there's a lot of stuff in here... he's not going to let us keep it is he?'

I wasn't. X2 is set on another plane... when the curse was lifted on the chateau every item they had taken disintegrated along with the house. I did however give them each a gift from Stephen Amber - some valuable gemstones and a magic item each of my choice. They didn't mind one bit - they are all adults and accepted the reasoning - they realised the adventure was essentially one huge fight/magic/treasure fest written for a different age of gaming. Most importantly they loved it.

My main change/gripe however with 5E - wands and staves recharging at dawn. Clearly it's meant to be in line with class powers recharging on a short/long rest. I've dropped that completely - when they're gone they're gone - though they can pay for a Mage to recharge them if they wish - which is expensive and time-consuming.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

My main change/gripe however with 5E - wands and staves recharging at dawn. Clearly it's meant to be in line with class powers recharging on a short/long rest. I've dropped that completely - when they're gone they're gone - though they can pay for a Mage to recharge them if they wish - which is expensive and time-consuming.

I admit that I rather like that change, because otherwise you never actually USE your wands/rods/staves since they are too precious. A Wand of Fireballs that functions on a regular basis is more fun than a Wand of theoretical Fireballs that always stays in your backpack. You never want to put smart play and fun play at odds with each other if you can avoid it.

The recharge rate is rather high though. It wouldn't bother me if the rate were per-week or per-full moon instead of per-dawn. That would keep the Staff of the Magi's absorption power more relevant too.

 

[rabindranath72]

My main change/gripe however with 5E - wands and staves recharging at dawn. Clearly it's meant to be in line with class powers recharging on a short/long rest. I've dropped that completely - when they're gone they're gone - though they can pay for a Mage to recharge them if they wish - which is expensive and time-consuming.

I agree; it makes wands and staves too reliable. If you don't know whether you are going to lose your Wand of Fireballs, you try to be conservative in its use. In general, 5e seems to put less emphasis on resource management. I do realise though that some people enjoy it, some other don't.

 

[Aenghus]

AD&D tended to be extremely random when it came to magic items. While there was a preponderance of scrolls, potions and +1 swords when randomly generating treasure, there was always a small chance of rolling up a powerful item even at low level. Some DMs would just reroll to remove the outliers, others let them in. Given the sometimes primitive state of roleplaying in the 80's at many tables, a powerful magic item might be the most distinctive feature of a PC. Gauntlets of Ogre Power or a Helm of Brilliance for instance, definitely provide a power bump.

Now admittedly a lottery winning PC might be obliterated in the very next room by a death trap, but at the same time the odds of survival improved for PCs lucky enough to pick up something powerful and useful, and the lucky players possibly took less risks and more care about survival subsequently. Survival to higher level generally meant accumulating a list of magic items, and while many were very situational, some would be powerful unless the DM prevented them from being placed in the first place, or was running a low magic item game.

I found 2e increased PC power through increased options, and there were less powerful items available at lower level. Some of this might be due to more experienced DMs getting better at establishing a power curve for their games. Powerful magic items still existed in the books and might turn up, but expectations of roleplaying rose at many tables (IMO) and PCs were getting more distinct (sometimes snowflakey). Fantasy novels treated magic items as plot devices rather than tools, but RPGs allowed both options by default unless prevented, and players varied in their attitudes. It also produced the idea of PCs without magic items at all, though that was a very narrow niche confined to specific builds/kits of classes like monk and druid (possibly cleric and paladin as well, my memory fails me)

3e made magic items expected and the massive power boost from complex suites of particular magic items and class abilities rewarded such system mastery more than ever before. It made expectations much more transparent and reduced the variance between different game tables. While 3e increased PC numbers, it also bloated monster hit points, and made damage spells obsolete except for a few builds. Magic items changed a lot and were in general less powerful, though a bunch of powerful magic items were still in the rules almost unchanged. I found 3e the most individualistic edition, PCs could be designed to do practically everything themselves. Some liked this, others including myself didn't.

4e changed a vast amount of things, and made class power the most significant part of a PC by design. To do so they nerfed magic items hard, dropping or changing a bunch of the top tier items. While there were some magic item tricks to leverage individual PC power, the payoffs paled in comparison to 3e. Magic items continued to be a part of standard character generation past 1st level, with an expected number of magic items. IMO the most significant power bumps in 4e come from PC teamwork and synergy.

Because magic items are less important in 4e, they are easier to leave out without totally changing the game. magic item games. The total design of magic items in 4e was probably one of the misses, as they nerfed them too hard and made them boring in a number of cases. There were too many obvious placeholder entries in the lists that few players would ever want to get. Still, the reduction of resistances in monsters, particularly monsters resistant to normal weapons made low/no magic item games more viable. The idea of inherent bonuses to PCs replacing most magic items was introduced as an option in DMG2 (I think) and helped fix the math of low/no magic item games. It was possible to have a no magic all martial party with a warlord as a healer in 4e and run a conventional game without massive houseruling.

5e tries to make magic items optional, by reducing bonuses with bounded accuracy and not have an expected number of magic items by level. Some magic items will still grant a power boost to their bearers, meaning DMs will have to either accept such PCs have an easier time with encounters or tweak the opposition to raise back the difficulty. There are arguments for and against either opinion, different tables will come to different conclusions.

 

[Orius]

I'm a long time AD&D player, playing it from 1981 to 2012, skipping 3e (for the most part) and 4e completely before 5e came out. Each edition that I've played, seems to have a focus on magic items that reinforces a certain playstyle beneficial to that edition's design.

In AD&D (and b/x), magic items are everywhere. And the overwhelming majority of them are +1 weapons, potions of healing, and items that grant invisibility. That seems to reinforce three things that are very important in TSR D&D: PCs are fragile compared to later editions and need healing (since natural healing is pretty much non existent unless you want to hole up at the Hyatt for a couple weeks), many monsters had monster immunity to non magical weapons (not resistance like later editions), and finding ways around monsters was just as important as actually fighting them.

with my limited time playing 3e (only about 50 sessions or so), it seems that edition is designed around magic items being required, and weapons turned up to 11. What I mean by that is a ton of magic weapons not only gave bonuses, but they all seemed to have additional elemental damage added as well. Combat seemed to resemble a fireworks show, with everyone having a weapon that added acid, fire, cold, or lightning damage lol. That seems to reinforce 3e's design of sharply increased numbers bloat and magic item dependence

I think 3e isn't so much about requiring magic, but dropping the pretense AD&D had about limiting magic items while publishing modules that were loaded down with them. Most of the games I ran, the players tend to be diligent about searching the dungeon and they have a magic item return much greater than every 1 in 3. It's less Monty Haul on my part than it is not being a dick about things and making searching as inconvenient as possible. If the players take the time to search, I see little reason to jerk them around. I usually don't just strip out stuff I don't want unless I feel it's gratuitous (and this usually tends to be lots of low end +1 stuff that the players don't need and aren't going to use).

The idea that 3e requires certain magic items to be effective seems to be a player POV, particularly from the charoping crowd. Early D&D had little in the way of character improvement besides the magic itself, but later editions add more abilities that magic is less necessary for improvement.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think 3e isn't so much about requiring magic, but dropping the pretense AD&D had about limiting magic items while publishing modules that were loaded down with them. Most of the games I ran, the players tend to be diligent about searching the dungeon and they have a magic item return much greater than every 1 in 3. It's less Monty Haul on my part than it is not being a dick about things and making searching as inconvenient as possible. If the players take the time to search, I see little reason to jerk them around. I usually don't just strip out stuff I don't want unless I feel it's gratuitous (and this usually tends to be lots of low end +1 stuff that the players don't need and aren't going to use).

The idea that 3e requires certain magic items to be effective seems to be a player POV, particularly from the charoping crowd. Early D&D had little in the way of character improvement besides the magic itself, but later editions add more abilities that magic is less necessary for improvement.

I thought 3e started the whole magic item christmas tree thing, where you even had a rule about how much magic every PC should have by level. Or am I mistaken on that? 3e certainly had the fireworks show magic weapons

 

[Croesus]

I thought 3e started the whole magic item christmas tree thing, where you even had a rule about how much magic every PC should have by level. Or am I mistaken on that? 3e certainly had the fireworks show magic weapons

3E did indeed have the "Christmas tree" effect. The designers assumed certain amounts of magic in the game. The addition of feats allowing characters to create magic items, including the most important ones, ensured that many by-the-book campaigns had lots of magic items. That said, I agree with Orius - most characters worked just fine in 3.x whether or not magic items were prevalent.

1E, on the other hand, had a real split between design and expectations. On multiple occasions, Gygax made clear his disdain for "Monty Haul" campaigns, emphasizing that players should "earn" their rewards and not simply be given a bunch of stuff and levels. The modules rarely fit this ideal, even the ones written by Gygax. Perhaps the assumption was that the characters would only find a fraction of the treasure in a module. Or the modules were seen as one-offs, for a convention and not part of a long-term campaign. Whatever the reason, 1E tended to have lots of magic.

 

[The_Gneech]

My players feel the loss of random magical treasure in 5e. So for my next campaign I'm designing the world around magic treasure - and the PCs will discover a mysterious book that acts as their shopping list - this magic item is in this dungeon here. (It's more complicated than that, of course.)

I plan to limit the available items to those that require attunement - I think it might be interesting to see a group decide from week to week which three items they'll need.

One of my players really, REALLY misses 3.x/PF style magic shops and the magic item economy. I really, REALLY don't. -.- I'm trying to find a way to resolve this. I've always hated that past editions (going all the way back) tended to make your gear more important than your own abilities, and that's one of the reasons I love 5E.

-The Gneech

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Personally, I REALLY like the Living Greyhawk 3rd Edition method for handling magic items. You had basic items that were available to anyone (assuming you had earned enough coin to buy them), and by running different modules you had access to favors that could give you limited access to the rarer magic items or materials. And since XP/GP was homogenized per module, the power scaling was controlled very well. It lacked a lot of the flavor and elegance of home games, but for something easily digestible it worked very well.

 

[CapnZapp]

I know there are monsters who have resistance in 5e, but I would caution treating them like monsters with immunity in other editions and feeling like you need to make sure the PCs have magic weapons. Why? Because if the monster has immunity and the party has no magic weapons, that monsters will stick around forever and eventually kill the party.

This completely shortchanges the party spellcasters.

There is nothing wrong with having an encounter where the fighters cannot hurt the foe and basically act like literal meatbags, while the wizard whittles it down using cantrips.

Alternatively, a save or suck spell that allows the party to flee.

Alternatively, a Magic Weapon spell that does allow regular combat to proceed.

etc...