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Hmmm. ASI’s can be in any stat and replaced with feats. I don’t believe the rules require or even expect a 20 in your attacking stat at any level of play.
Even if was true, there’s a good argument for saying a +2 sword takes the pressure off, allowing you to use those ASIs for feats or other elements of your character.
ASIs can be in any stats, but increasing your main stat first is optimization at such a basic level that I'm sure it's accounted for in the math. Feats do shake things up, but feats are an optional rule, so they aren't necessarily accounted for in the math (although they are such a popular part of the game that I'm sure a lot of thought went into them).
About a +2 weapon taking off some pressure, that would work if having a +2 sword didn't also stack with increasing your main stat, but it does. If having a +2 sword was the equivalent of a strength (or dex) modifier increase, with the modifier still capped to a +5 maximum, that would work.
The default assumption for 5e is "this adventure assumes that players have no magic items". It's spelled out in the DMG. Magic items are optional. And RotFM works fine like that. Scarcity is a major theme of the story. Regular non-magical gear is in short supply, never mind magic.
This phrasing gets trotted out all the time, and it's often misused.
What it means is the game doesn't require you to give out magic items in order to function on a basic design level. Why does it need to say that? Because 3e and 4e both did require magic items in order to function on a basic design level. 4e even had it scheduled so you got +1 at level 2-5, +2 at 6-10, +3 at 11-15, etc. in order to maintain your hit rate. A 30th level character in 4e with no magic items will hit in combat 10-15% of the time against equal CR and will, in turn, be hit in combat 80-90% of the time. That game requires magic items to function on a basic design level because the math is tuned tighter than a drum. Similarly, in 3e characters require magic weapons in order to overcome damage reduction which becomes pervasive at high level. You can't run 3e or especially 4e without it. That is all that it means.
What it does not mean is "it's okay to not give the PCs rewards". It certainly does not mean "it's desirable to not give the PCs magic items" or "magic items are a legacy feature of the game." It does not mean "a 12th level Fighter should feel happy with the mundane gear he bought in a shop at level 4 and an array of situational potions and scrolls." That is not what the game is trying to tell you. We know that because if you're playing the game straight as the DMG suggests, you're rolling on treasure tables that spit out permanent magic items with significant effects quite regularly. If you're in organized play, every adept/tier 2 character (level 5-10) gets up to 3 permanent magic items, and you can just choose to fill it with +1 items:
At Adept and higher rank, your character gain access to basic magic items—specifically bags of holding, +1 weapons, +1 shields, +1 rods of the pact keeper, and +1 wands of the war mage—and can choose as many of them as their Magic Item Limit permits. While they can’t be sold or traded, they can replace and be replaced by other items between sessions.
There are also magic rings on that list from factions. And when you hit level 11, that item limit goes to 6. At the very least, an 11th level Fighter could could take full plate +1, shield +1, longsword +1, longbow +1, ring of protection, and bag of holding. Adventurer's League calls that basic.
The point is: If you're using magic items as rewards, the designers very clearly think you're supposed to get a lot of magic items. They thought that in 2014 when they wrote the DMG. They think that now when they're writing Adventurer's League rules. Yes, Virginia, you're supposed to give out magic items.
All the phrase means is that magic items make you better. Magic items used to make you hit par. Now they make you better. The game is saying that you don't have to reward your players with magic items like you did historically, but you still need to reward players with something. If you're not giving out magic items, you should be giving out equivalent alternate rewards of some kind.
Your players are absolutely justified being frustrated if
they're 9 levels deep in a dungeon and they've found a wand of detect secrets, a wand of fireballs, one boot of elvenkind, a dozen potions and scrolls, and the only magic weapon they've even seen was a sword of sharpness (mathematically worse than a +1 longsword in 5e) that is embedded in the head of a green dragon who is besties with a 17th level archdruid that lives 500 feet away
Your wrong on the firstabsurd point. On the second... So did I. In every version(including 5e) you had:
"can I use this weapon/armor" ... This is a boring question not likely to excite players
"what AC bonus/damage die does it have" ... Bigger is almost always better until you look at other areas
does it work with my build/goals... should need no explaining
-In 2e you had speed factor, and meaningful distinction of b/p/s along with a awful lot of things you could stick +1 on a d20 roll or +5% o a d100 roll depending on your class.
-3.5 standardized a few things like when ability scores have & renamed a few others but mostly kept a lot of that while adding, crit range, crit modifier, added materials & alignment to the relevant spile of weapon choice weighting factors, added acp, asf, DR, resist pretty much added a bunch of skills & lots of other stuff that magic items that could give a player small +1 +2 or whatever & designed the system with the assumption that you would have +N attibute & +N weapons by various breakpoint levels allowing the gm more leeway to spread around nice magic treasure or correct mistakes in one area by spreading around treasure in some other area rather than simply denying it outright until the problem meets the curve. Body slots were a serious fleshed out thing(dmg288) which I believe may have been a step up from 2e's vague outline on that but pretty sure they both had them to some degree (rings at least).
I think this was also the version that introduced different bonus types (ie ennhancement natural profane divine etc) allowing you to stack bonuses to something with a different type but disallowing stacking of one type so +3 armor & +3 shield were both likely to have an enhancement bonus making the combined total enhancement bonus +3 rather than +6 even if the player somehow gets another +N enhancement bonus from a feat/prc/spell/etc the gm did not account for
-5e still has the handful of things every version has but removed weapon material/damage type from relevance unless the distinction is (nonmagical) B/P/S which players have almost. no control over. Crit range crit threat crit multiplier asf & acp were basically just removed. DR & resist were changed from flat numerical values to always 50% making it much too large for a minor item. skill bonuses were changed from static +N to double the proficiency bonus with expertise & (dis) advantage which are both significant boosts that throw off the curve to quite a degree & completely wreck it if players have lots of things with these. +N attribute items & the expectation that you would have various amounts of them at various breakpoints were tossed out in favor of attribute=19. Body slots were tossed out to bring the player magic item slot budget allowance down from ~15 to... 3. Left with nothing to limit stacking5e's decision to get rid of bonus types & allow stacking a GM who tries to buck the system & give out lots of smaller magic items needs to graft entire systems onto the 6e chassis and fight against a system that drew a line against it
The default assumption for 5e is "this adventure assumes that players have no magic items". It's spelled out in the DMG. Magic items are optional. And RotFM works fine like that. Scarcity is a major theme of the story. Regular non-magical gear is in short supply, never mind magic.
Pointngi at the "default assumption" as a way of defending the problem caused by trying to meet that design goal of 5e itself for a change doesn't really change the problem. The fact that players need some form of rewards like magic items & such along with the fact that a lot of gm's enjoy making them to give out & see used... that's been known for decades now. 5e may have been balanced around an absurd whiterom no magic items no feats baseline, but that's an absurd playstyle that very few tables use & rofm doesn't either because it does have magic items just they mostly consist of lots of smaller items that themselves need to exist within the overly tight 3 attunement slot budget & as a result feel lacking.
The +1 sword, iconic and all, could just be a +1 to damage, no effect on bounded accuracy. But yes, a +1 to attack rolls is no big deal on its own, I agree that the biggest effect of a simple +1 weapon is to trivialize some specific monsters. A +3, on the other hand, maybe on a two handed or ranged weapon...
And we’re not even talking about the ridiculous effect on bounded accuracy that stacking magic armor and shields can have.
My complaint against static magic plusses is twofold: not only they’re very powerful, enough to destroy the bounded accuracy premise the game is built upon (at higher levels), but they’re also hella boring and uncreative. “I found a magic sword!” “What does it do?” “It increases my DPR by 30%!”.
Don't forget the eventual extension of that as the game goes on "you finish casting detect magic and find a few weapons that [god I hope this lateral improvement I tried to tack on is interesting enough for someone to take so I don't need to give +2/+3/+dice]" "but is there a bonus? I cast identify" "+1" "Anyone need another +1 weapon?... chorus of nos & shrugs *gm dies a bit inside"
+1 items are a mechanical artifact. The game still feels like DnD without them. I'd be pretty happy to see a 6e where all magic weapons and armor have qualitative gimmicks instead of math.
shifting all f the +N bonuses 5e left out to different mechanical "qualitative gimmicks" would make life extremely difficult for a gm who needs to consider all currently in print classes races feats magic items, all possible to be printed items, & all personally created ones for ho they combine 2&3+ steps to avoid inadvertent punpun & locate city bomb type combos along with lesser but still deeply problematic combos
Okay... I’m gonna go out on a limb here and state it absolutely is acceptable not to give magic items and rewards like candy, if the campaign is improved by that. The two previous posters have misconstrued the word Need.
In a horror campaign like Rime, those who want to play up the Horror Aspects can and should very carefully select items to be appropriate to that aim. That may mean that the rewards players expect are not forthcoming. Maybe survival is its own reward. Maybe power comes at the cost of sanity or tainted knowledge. Perhaps the items that are found come with a cruel downside.
This is certainly a valid approach and to say DMs of 5e Need to give out magic items is frankly absurd, if the expectation hasn’t been established already.
Okay... I’m gonna go out on a limb here and state it absolutely is acceptable not to give magic items and rewards like candy, if the campaign is improved by that. The two previous posters have misconstrued the word Need.
In a horror campaign like Rime, those who want to play up the Horror Aspects can and should very carefully select items to be appropriate to that aim. That may mean that the rewards players expect are not forthcoming. Maybe survival is its own reward. Maybe power comes at the cost of sanity or tainted knowledge. Perhaps the items that are found come with a cruel downside.
This is certainly a valid approach and to say DMs of 5e Need to give out magic items is frankly absurd, if the expectation hasn’t been established already.
You realize that the AL doc that I excerpted in my post was, literally, the Adventurer's League Player's Guide for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden? That if you were to play RotFM in organized play, you'd be entitled to up to 3 basic permanent magic items at level 5? A five character party at level 5 just has 15 permanent magic items beginning with the first session the party is at level 5, with basic items covering the gaps.
I really can't agree with an assertion that the adventure as written is "how it's really supposed to be run" when WotC themselves are also explicitly telling you for this exact adventure that when you run it you should add up to a dozen magic items at level 5, and up to another dozen at level 11 on top of the items presented in the adventure itself.
Will the game break if you don't give out items? No. But it's disingenuous to take that and extend it to mean that no magic items is appropriate, intentional, ideal, expected, desirable, or in any way the default experience.
You realize that the AL doc that I excerpted in my post was, literally, the Adventurer's League Player's Guide for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden? That if you were to play RotFM in organized play, you'd be entitled to up to 3 basic permanent magic items at level 5? A five character party at level 5 just has 15 permanent magic items beginning with the first session the party is at level 5, with basic items covering the gaps.
I really can't agree with an assertion that the adventure as written is "how it's really supposed to be run" when WotC themselves are also explicitly telling you for this exact adventure that when you run it you should add up to a dozen magic items at level 5, and up to another dozen at level 11 on top of the items presented in the adventure itself.
Will the game break if you don't give out items? No. But it's disingenuous to take that and extend it to mean that no magic items is appropriate, intentional, ideal, expected, desirable, or in any way the default experience.
And here I thought this was a discussion about wanting to give them, and trying to come up with ideas for that, not a philosophical discussion about the design of 5e..........
If only there were a way to represent both goals. Perhaps some 12d chess champion adventure designer, or even a regular adventure designer/writer working on one of the few yearly HC adventures put out by the industry leading company could really stretch their capability. Maybe such a herculean feat would look something like the italicized bit here with some advice on how to play up the other aspects you reference while still balancing
/ad&d dmg115
Do you think that the primary target audience for HC adventures are "dm's "of extraordinary skill"? If not do you think that 5e somehow makes up the gap between the target audience of GMs & those of "extraordinary skill"?... Either way how do you think that AL is so unlucky that only GMs of eextraordinarly mediocre skill run AL & thus need all of that extra treasure baked into the AL rules for the season tiself?
@Zaukrie more criticism of wotc writing HC adventures with a significant chunk of the treasure in the AL season rules rather than the HC itself where said treasure is not even mentioned with a suggestion to the gm.
