D&D (2024) DM's no longer getting crits on PC's

[Bill Zebub]

And why do we even have attunement slots,

Gamist reasons.

1. Prevent Christmas-tree syndrome
2. Alleviate arguments over loot
3. Introduce another interesting decision-making point ("which 3 of these 5 items do I want to be attuned to")

And I'm ok with purely gamist reasons. A lot of mechanics in D&D (and most/all RPGs) are purely gamist.

 

[James Gasik]

Christmas-tree syndrome can only exist if the DM gives out a significant amount of magic items.

Arguments over loot will exist regardless of the existence of attunement.

The decision-making point will, again, only exist if the DM gives out a significant amount of magic items.

 

[tetrasodium]

Christmas-tree syndrome can only exist if the DM gives out a significant amount of magic items.

Arguments over loot will exist regardless of the existence of attunement.

The decision-making point will, again, only exist if the DM gives out a significant amount of magic items.

Worse the switch from body slots to attune only instead of adding attune to the other prevents the gm from resisting mechanically meaningful Christmas tree syndrome with slot conflicts. I was never too concerned if a pc had a bunch of stuff adding slightly to tertiary & edge case stuff compared to if they had a bunch of stuff adding to one laser focused role.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Christmas-tree syndrome can only exist if the DM gives out a significant amount of magic items.

Sure, but finding magic items is fun. To achieve a result roughly equivalent to attunement by limiting how many are found means they'll have to be pretty rare.

Arguments over loot will exist regardless of the existence of attunement.

I didn't say eliminate I said alleviate. Still, not my best argument. I'll cede that point.

The decision-making point will, again, only exist if the DM gives out a significant amount of magic items.

I hope the DM does. Getting magic items is fun. Choosing which 3 are the best (at any given time) is fun.

 

[Bill Zebub]

P.S. I'm not trying to persuade anybody to like attunement. Just explaining why I do. I like giving out magic items, and my players like getting them. I don't like christmas tree syndrome.

 

[Lanefan]

You hit the key point quite early on in your post:

Let's examine the traditional reason adventurers go on adventures- to face dangerous challenges and collect fat loot.

Dungeons were presented as multi-level affairs that became more deadly as you descended to the lower floors, but the increased risk granted increased reward. Actual experience points from monsters were insufficient to level you up save for very slowly, so you actually earned xp for treasures hauled up from the depths (in addition to the occasional sweet magic item to give your character more options and power).

By 3e, however, it was noted that designing monsters around unknown variables like ability scores and magic items was difficult- who could say what a character could have, and when they should have it?

It's the bolded bit right here; which put another way says "By 3e, people (in particular, those people charged with designing the game) started over-thinking this stuff and trying to fine-tune the game's math and restrain its variables to a far-too-great degree."

You then quite rightly go on to note the follow-on issues this caused around magic items and values in each edition.

So at this point, treasure was the fuel to let you acquire magical items, which became a separate "xp track" of their own- in addition to what your levels got you, you could funnel gold acquired into purchasing items. At low levels this was your plate armor and masterwork swords, but eventually this led into utility items, consumables, and eventually bonuses to attack, damage, AC, and saves.

Unfortunately, despite multiple efforts, 3e's attempt to make item creation a fundamental part of the game led to busted and overpriced items. 4e decided to continue with the process of turning treasure into power, but took a more conservative approach to magic items, and removed custom item creation from the equation.

The other error both 3e and 4e made was to tie item pricing to a rigid formula rather than pricing each different item independently, leading to some inanely over- and under-priced items in both editions. The pricing in 1e and 2e wasn't perfect, but at least these was a sense that someone had tried to evaluate each item based on what it was and what it could do.

(And yes, there are suggested gold piece costs for magic items in the DMG, but they are ludicrous, based on rarity, making a magic potion cost the same as adamantine armor or a cloak of displacement- in fact, using those costs, adamantine full plate is cheaper than actual full plate, lol).

Another rigidly formulaic approach, only using a different base variable (rarity); and, as you note, coming up with similarly inane results.

 

[Lanefan]

Gamist reasons.

1. Prevent Christmas-tree syndrome
2. Alleviate arguments over loot
3. Introduce another interesting decision-making point ("which 3 of these 5 items do I want to be attuned to")

And I'm ok with purely gamist reasons. A lot of mechanics in D&D (and most/all RPGs) are purely gamist.

1. Christmas tree syndrome - only a problem if a) too much magic is given out and-or b) items can't be destroyed (IMO another very big error in 3e-4e-5e design).

2. Alleviate arguments over loot - why? If the characters would argue over treasure division, let 'em argue.

3. Introduce another decision point - OK, I can get behind this one to a point; decision points are usually good things. That said, there's better ways of doing it than this - an easy-to-implement one would be to make magic a bit unstable in the continued presence of other magic, such that for each magic item carried above N* every item carried has a small but cumulative chance each Y*-time of becoming disenchanted...or worse e.g. going off with a wild magic surge or similar.

* - where N is an arbitrary number of items set by the DM - could be 3, could be 5, could be 51, whatever - and Y is the frequency at which these checks are made, be it daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but finding magic items is fun. To achieve a result roughly equivalent to attunement by limiting how many are found means they'll have to be pretty rare.

I hope the DM does. Getting magic items is fun. Choosing which 3 are the best (at any given time) is fun.

Agreed; except in 5e there's a great big sword-of-Damocles question hanging over the whole arrangement: what can you usefully do with the rest of your items that aren't in your top three?

You can't by RAW sell them or - incredibly - trade them for other items. You could give them away, I guess, or just hang them over your fireplace or store them somewhere; or sacrifice them to the deities (but as they by RAW have no value, what's the point of that?), but none of those options are much fun.

 

[James Gasik]

Agreed; except in 5e there's a great big sword-of-Damocles question hanging over the whole arrangement: what can you usefully do with the rest of your items that aren't in your top three?

You can't by RAW sell them or - incredibly - trade them for other items. You could give them away, I guess, or just hang them over your fireplace or store them somewhere; or sacrifice them to the deities (but as they by RAW have no value, what's the point of that?), but none of those options are much fun.

Also, changing attunements does take an hour, so it's not like you can often go "oh hey, the dragon's lair is an underground lake, can I have a short rest to put on my ring of swimming?"

What generally happens in my experience is that players pick the best three items to attune to, and the rest just take up space on your character sheet (this was, granted in AL games, or I might have loaned some out or even given them away).

 

[Bill Zebub]

Also, changing attunements does take an hour, so it's not like you can often go "oh hey, the dragon's lair is an underground lake, can I have a short rest to put on my ring of swimming?"

Ummm….why not?