Declaring magic items "optional" while simultaneously taking so many steps in other aspects of the system design to ensure that the bar to acquire them is well below what could be considered a mere triviality does not support the idea that any serious consideration should be given to the plight of fighters at a table that has decided not to use magic items at all. Quite a few taking part in the Fighter pity party want to redefine "optional" as something closer to "not recommended" or "forbidden" while pairing it with things like quantum spellbooks and quantum spell prep casters rather than simply admitting that a wizard pc is limited by the rules that define the spellbook& prep lists.
Calling it a "pity party" is rather more nasty than necessary for the conversation, don't you think? That doesn't seem to be conducive to actually getting people on board with your position.
Further, as noted in my previous post, I did everything I could to
avoid the "quantum spellbook" problem, taking up much less than half of the minimum spells known for a 13th level Wizard and precisely a third of their spells prepared. Unlike what TheSword implied with their response, I wasn't expecting these things to be used in consecutive initial rounds of a combat, because yes, that would be Pretty Dumb. My point was that they're excellent defensive choices, for a Wizard actually concerned with "keeping up" with Fighters in terms of defenses. Plus, all the spells I suggested are
good spells, ones recommended by guides (
shield, misty step, fly, etc.)
Fly and
misty step even have non-combat utility.
The designers said repeatedly during the playtest of 5e that magic items were supposed to be fully optional, something that many--including myself--balked at over the years. And people continued to insist that it was true, that the DM did not ever need to give out magic items
ever, for
any reason, no matter what,
period. Now, again, perhaps that belief is mistaken. But it's more than a little disingenuous to argue that the text
truly supports the idea that magic items were always intended to be present for most if not all groups, when the text
explicitly says that isn't the case, as
you yourself quoted with the screenshot of that page from Xanathar's.
Again: it is entirely possible that the developers are simply
wrong to say that, or that the text contradicts itself, or that the statement is an Obi-Wan-style truth "from a certain point of view," etc. You can, quite easily, argue any of those things and probably more that I'm not considering. But it is explicit, in the text and from the designers' lips, that magic items were
intended to be optional, without any explicit caveats or reservations. To pretend that the text literally, actually claims otherwise is to blatantly ignore the actual words on the page. Whether those actual words are
correct is absolutely a subject of (furious!) debate, but they're there, and to pretend like they aren't is playing sillybuggers.
