D&D 5E What is balance to you, and why do you care (or don't)?

[HammerMan]

new game idea

a pact of the tomb infernal lock, a wizard bladesinger, a rogue (assassin) and a cleric of Twilight all find +1 leather of fire resit and a wand of fire balls... the want must go to the inrernal lock or bladesinger... but what about the leather armor? they can all wear it... and with that wand in game that fire resist looks real good

Oh no. The bald singer wizard gets the wand and the cleric gets the armor. Why aren’t ther rules for rogues to get more items?

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah unless you make very certain an item is only usable to a given character or specifically gifted to/earned by them in game, if you find magic items in some old ruin, the party will figure out on their own how they are divvied up.

My take is not to worry about "balance" but just give items to the person they would be more useful for. This usually means I have less items than other characters, but if I'm a Wizard, I'm not going to say Bracers of Defense should go to me over the Monk. Ironically, this actually happened in a game I was in where a Broom of Flying came up.

I suggested it go to the Fighter, but he "didn't want to look like a sissy riding a broom", lol. So it went to the party's archer instead.

Then we got into a fight with some flying enemies and the Fighter was annoyed he couldn't use his Sunblade and had to switch to his non-magical bow "God, my damage sucks now!".

While it's true that magic items were used to balance classes in older editions, and could be used to balance them now, I think putting them back in the DMG instead of allowing them to remain player-facing sunk that ship.

People may not like "magic marts", but with no ability to determine what items they are going to want/need, it's now solely up to the DM to figure out how to use them, and they are given basically no guidelines other than-

Item rarities, like these things are MtG cards, and "make sure you don't someone have more than 3 cool items, that might wreck your game!", which is a truly ridiculous rule.

Limiting how many optional things your character might acquire when it's entirely up to the DM to determine how many of these optional things are even available to you? Come on, now.

That makes as much sense as the 2e Paladin not being allowed to own more than 10 magic items ever, and having a class ability to allow him to use a Holy Sword he might never even see in play.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Only if you don't give out any magic items.

Don't the Main Characters (ie casters) also get magic items?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Imagine how unbalanced that game is if the hex blade gets the shield the valor bard the sword and the priest the wand…

Why aren’t there rules for fighters to get more items?!?!?!?!?!?

Oh no. The bald singer wizard gets the wand and the cleric gets the armor. Why aren’t ther rules for rogues to get more items?

i know someone forgot to write that fighters get dibs

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah unless you make very certain an item is only usable to a given character or specifically gifted to/earned by them in game, if you find magic items in some old ruin, the party will figure out on their own how they are divvied up.

My take is not to worry about "balance" but just give items to the person they would be more useful for. This usually means I have less items than other characters, but if I'm a Wizard, I'm not going to say Bracers of Defense should go to me over the Monk. Ironically, this actually happened in a game I was in where a Broom of Flying came up.

yup and when making choices in real life we rarely worry if we 'balance' with our friends, so we don't give something that helps with coding to the worst person at coding you give it to the best so they are better. When you are RPing with 5 players and 1 of you gets a bigger boost out of an item you give it to them (in my expecence) unless someone requests "Come on guys please my character sucks" and most people who want to be tough fighters DON'T want to have to ask "may I please have a power boost to keep up"

I suggested it go to the Fighter, but he "didn't want to look like a sissy riding a broom", lol. So it went to the party's archer instead.

Then we got into a fight with some flying enemies and the Fighter was annoyed he couldn't use his Sunblade and had to switch to his non-magical bow "God, my damage sucks now!".

yup... but if he had a class feature that said "at level 5 his boots turn into boots of flying" that would have worked

or the 4e answer... make an attack against the creatures will def, if you hit target is pulled up to his movement to adjacent to you and you deal 1w

While it's true that magic items were used to balance classes in older editions, and could be used to balance them now, I think putting them back in the DMG instead of allowing them to remain player-facing sunk that ship.

I have had to explain to new players why there warlock can't use a wand of cure wounds...becuse nothing player facing is about magic items

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Don't the Main Characters (ie casters) also get magic items?

hey be careful you said the quite part that gary wanted to hide out loud

 

[billd91]

potions were never fighter friendly... potions anyone can use (heck most weapons and armor anyone prof could use) but wands, rods, staff, scroll... those all locked behind casters only

So? They were also much rarer than weapons and armor. Who cared if they were caster only? 2 in 5 magic items found were off the weapons and armor tables - most of which magic users couldn't use - at all. Clerics could use armor, but their spells choices were a lot more limited in 1e/2e days. By comparison, 1 in 20 magic items were off the rods/staves/wands list and the chances of getting those important bracers of armor were vanishingly low - for random treasure.
People often fail to realize how integrated AD&D design actually could be in some areas.

 

[ECMO3]

or if you give items, and the party splits them evenly so they all have them...

again you get a +1 sword, what gives the fighter a claim over the hexblade?

now if you put a wand of hex or a scroll of haste those would go to the caster... cause the fighter can't use them, but what makes the sword go to the fighter over the melee caster?

a party of 4 5th level adventurers a weapon master fighter a war cleric a valor bard and a Hex blade.
party finds 3 items. a +1 sword a +1 shield and a wand of cure wounds....

so only 2 party memebers can use the wand, so either cleric or bard gets it. the sword and shield though, what makes the fighter get it over the others? remember they all make 2 melee attacks they all get into melee and 3 of them have cantrips and 3rd level spells and 2 of those have 1st and 2nd level spells too

Ironically with most of the fighter builds I see on this board it would go to the Hexblade because the fighters are built mostly with GWM and PAM which would make it not work very well in their hands.

 

[billd91]

I actually argued in another thread to take the artificer infusions and bonus attunement slots and graft them on to the 5e fighter and I got shouted down that fighters can't make magic items and fighters shouldn't have more items

I think infusions would be kind of out of focus, from an archetypal point of view, but who cares if some people criticized fighters having more items?It's not a bad solution.
People criticize anything and everything. Everyone's got an opinion, not all of which are good...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So? They were also much rarer than weapons and armor.

so anyone prof in armor or weapons could use them... and as the edition went on (over the last 30 years) more and more casters got prof... and at least in 2e it wasn't 0 casters.

Who cared if they were caster only? 1 in 4 magic items found were off the weapons and armor tables

and those can go to a cleric a rogue a paladin or a fighter... that doesn't balance fighter

- most of which magic users couldn't use - at all. Clerics could use armor, but their spells choices were a lot more limited in 1e/2e days.

please replace all 1/2e with 22-25 years ago (a quater of a century) and even then gods of war let clerics use longswords

By comparison, 1 in 20 magic items were off the rods/staves/wands list and the chances of getting those important bracers of armor were vanishingly low - for random treasure.

1 in 20 items are increases only casters can use but 1 in 4 items increase anyone prof (and some casters can be...and more and more are each year for 30ish years)

People often fail to realize how integrated AD&D design actually could be in some areas.

I started in 2e... I admit 3e broke 2e in half (and 4e more then fixed it and made it best... see thread about how I was always playing 4e) but 5e went more back to 3e... you know the broken one.