D&D General The limiting drawback of character customization

[Hriston]

Except the part in my OP where I specifically stated it started in 1e. Yeah, except that part....

Well, there you’re talking about weapon specialization and specifically mention UA, which wasn’t until 1985. My point was that weapon proficiency already made this an issue in AD&D starting in 1978.

 

[Lanefan]

They find what they find. I use 1e-style weapon proficiencies and non-prof penalties.

Sometimes, if a really amazing weapon comes up and nobody's proficient with it, a Fighter will claim it anyway and stow it away until reaching a level where a new proficiency is gained (4th, 7th, 10th...), then take proficiency in that weapon.

If I'm running a canned module, I'll almost always just use whatever treasure it has (unless I'm converting a 4e module, in which case I have to get creative). If I'm running my own and want to randomize things, or if I'm determining what happens to be on the market in some town or other when they want to go shopping, I've a whacking great spreadsheet that generates random items (many of which most certainly did not exist in original 1e!) a whole lot faster than rolling dice.

 

[Li Shenron]

We tend to agree that more customization is a good thing. More choices. Well, I’ve noticed one area where it’s actually more limiting: treasure. Which is no small part of the game

Back in the day, if you were a fighter, it didn’t matter what magic item you found. Axe? Mace? Pole arm? You used it without a second thought because you were equally skilled in all weapons and armor

since 3e however, I’ve seen a lot of players over the years complain that the magic item they found didn’t fit what they specialized in (started in 1e with UA, but really started seeing it in 3e as a frequent complaint vs a rare one). It seems a strong correlation that the more specialized you could become, the more this became an issue. The common answer seems to be “as the DM, just change the magic item type to what the PC wants”. I get it, but that never sat right with me. It counters the living world concept. I.e., the world and everything in it doesn’t cater or change to player desires, but acts independently.

so do you as a DM change items to be what the player wants, or do you keep them as is and the players decide what to do with them, sell them, use them, etc? As mentioned, I keep them as is. I find it also as a way to balance against specializations. After all, the point of a specialization is to better at a few things, but take the drawbacks of not being as good all around. If you cater to the specialized player, essentially removing the drawbacks, that leads to feeling like the PC is OP, or too good compared to the players who chose not to specialize. IMO anyway.

I keep them as-is.

I like generating treasure randomly, or just use whatever is in a published adventure (which is in fact random with relation to the PC group).

I generally think the 3 typical ways of acquiring equipment (find, buy, craft) are best balanced with each other if you let "find" be random, have "buy" partially random (you can choose what to buy, but can't have everything for sale) and more expensive, and "craft" to require some character build investment (e.g. a feat).

 

[R_J_K75]

I dont customize treasure except if I give my players a magic item at PC creation. Otherwise it makes no sense that the players just "randomly" happen to find everything they want. I always got a kick out of 4E where it said to let the players make a magical item Christmas list to help the DM create treasure parcels.

Just thinking about it gets me angry, Im unleashing a pack of Disenchanters on my players on Friday, how dare they want magic items!

 

[Coroc]

I keep them as-is.

I like generating treasure randomly, or just use whatever is in a published adventure (which is in fact random with relation to the PC group).

I generally think the 3 typical ways of acquiring equipment (find, buy, craft) are best balanced with each other if you let "find" be random, have "buy" partially random (you can choose what to buy, but can't have everything for sale) and more expensive, and "craft" to require some character build investment (e.g. a feat).

I hate what official adventures tend to include, especially since I mod mainly 2e stuff, you just cannot give out all the mounty haul treasure hills they include without seriously distorting your game and 5e as a whole.

So I sprinkle magic treasure as being rare, but always useful. You cannot buy magic items other than consumables in the campaign I dm atm, but sometimes a crafter will make you an item of your choice e.g. some +1 weapon or +1 armor as a reward.
If the player himself wants to craft something, he needs to find the material for it. One of my PC (a gnome mage) has collected brass parts over the course of three adventures, so now he got his self crafted Robochicken, which acts a bit like a NPC companion has some limited combat ability in the form of a 1d4 fire breath, but does act out free willed and pretty chaotic, sometimes trying to ignite stuff
Some would say that this is to powerful, but for me it is an endless source of fun and puns, plus I can use it as a Deus ex Machina device if needed.

 

[R_J_K75]

Some would say that this is to powerful, but for me it is an endless source of fun and puns, plus I can use it as a Deus ex Machina device if needed.

Id definitely have it go off the rails every so often, say have it lay a 1d4 exploding egg at a very inopportune time.

 

[Coroc]

Id definitely have it go off the rails every so often, say have it lay a 1d4 exploding egg at a very inopportune time.

Yeah definitely yesss ! that idea makes me cringe. haha!

 

[R_J_K75]

Yeah definitely yesss ! that idea makes me cringe. haha!

Lets us know how this goes, Id love to hear the hilarity that ensues.

 

[Coroc]

Lets us know how this goes, Id love to hear the hilarity that ensues.

I will, but it may take a while.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I keep them as-is.

I like generating treasure randomly, or just use whatever is in a published adventure (which is in fact random with relation to the PC group).

I generally think the 3 typical ways of acquiring equipment (find, buy, craft) are best balanced with each other if you let "find" be random, have "buy" partially random (you can choose what to buy, but can't have everything for sale) and more expensive, and "craft" to require some character build investment (e.g. a feat).

Craft requiring a Feat is basically the Wizard or whoever getting screwed over so the rest of the group can have stuff. It would make far more sense to force investment in some sort of "group project", probably in terms of cash and downtime (and adventures?) building a lab/forge to make items than to mechanically steal from a single PC.

That's actually a good example of how in many games there aren't three options - there's only find.

I have to admit I am super-skeptical of all the "I don't customize at all!" people. I strongly suspect that in 9/10 cases if I looked at the sheets of the PCs in your groups, many would have exactly the items they might want.

Personally in 5E I use a mix of random and heavily customised (including building new items). This seems to work very well. People don't get entitled but they often find cool or surprising things.