D&D 5E The Decrease in Desire for Magic in D&D

[James Gasik]

Sure, everyone is different. In most published adventures, you would get a fair number of magical items, but most were lower powered until you got to the 10+ level adventures, and even then the bulk of items were medium powered instead of high powered.


LOL Wow! For my groups, that is an incredible amount of magic items at level 7! Was this AD&D or 3E?

IME, the Bracers AC 9, Knife +2 (nice...), Brooch, potions, and then ONE wand and ONE scroll would be more likely, if that. The custom Ring of a constant Shield spell makes the Bracers redundant and is a very powerful item IMO. (AC 4/2 vs. missiles IIRC?).


No, that scenario sounds reasonable. I had something different in mind from your other post so thanks for the clarifcation!


Totally.

2nd edition campaign, the ring is from an old adventure series, UK 2 and UK 3; basically there's these two minor artifacts, one was created with the sole purpose to destroy the other. If you manage it, they both leave pieces of each other, which are magic items in their own right.

The knife is a funny story, actually, we had gone on this adventure, House of Cards, from Dungeon #19. I was actually too low level for the adventure, as it was something like 9-12; because I was a Wizard and I only got to play a couple times a month with my friends (they all lived in the same area and could game more often), I was only 6th level, but since it was the only character I had in the campaign, the DM allowed me to join the group. This adventure involves The Deck of Many Things, and it has doors where the keyhole is covered by an unknown card from the Deck, which had to be removed (drawn) to go through a door. So we were taking turns, and it wasn't even my turn, when someone drew the Key card (gain a magical weapon and a treasure map).

The DM randomly rolled a +2 weapon, and everyone was excited...until it proved to be a lousy knife.

Amusingly, I was proficient in knives- as a Wizard, my weapon attacks were about pointless anyways, and I've always felt people should at least carry knives on their person, so I took it as a pure style choice, even though I could just as easily have used a dart or a superior in all respects dagger.

So when my friend was like "ugh, a knife? who takes proficiency in that?", he got two responses, lol. The Fighter, who had taken the Blades weapon group (Complete Fighter's Handbook), and my Wizard. The Fighter took it, dubiously, because "lol +2 weapon", and we continued. Later in the adventure, however, we lost the Fighter to the Void card, and we had to divide their stuff among the group to carry it around, so I ended up with the knife in my inventory.

The Fighter was revived by the group one weekend I couldn't come out, and then died before I could run into him again. When I asked the player if he had family or if his next character could inherit the knife, he told me to keep it; he had switched to playing a Ranger/Cleric (one of the more dubious multiclass options in AD&D) and dual wielded maces.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If those are bracers AC 9, it has to be AD&D; 3e was the switch to ascending AC.

True, unless they were cursed bracers MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

 

[James Gasik]

Indeed, but there's a few other considerations here:

--- those items you refer to are items rather than inherent abilities, meaning the DM can easily choose not to include them
--- because they are items, not everyone will have one - sure one archer might have a Quiver of Ehlonna* but not every archer will. Removal of arrow tracking has the same effect as giving a Q of E to everyone.
--- in 1e and 2e items were far easier to destroy, often making them a less-than-permanent solution

* - I'm assuming this is the quiver that never runs out of ammo, I don't think I've ever seen one in play as either DM or player.

For items, this is true. For abilities, not so much; nor for spells now that players get to choose them rather than have to rely on random luck and-or finding them in the field.

To be (potentially) able to, yes. To automatically have it happen, no. There's a big difference.

OK, I'll plead guilty to that. High level play tends to get a bit too supers-y for me; with the threshold being both fuzzy and variable by class and-or campaign.

The issue isn't teleporting out of dungeons, but being able to safely teleport in to them. That's where it can get broken, as 3e's scry-buff-teleport nonsense pointed out to the n'th degree.

An in-progress example of how a single high-level character can go right over the top:

In the 1e-variant game I play in, my current character is an 11th-level MU with a hella good spell repertoire. Region's lighting is never better than deep twilight, visibility maybe half a mile at best even with night-sight. We're up against a fleet of about 15 ships*, 9 at sea and the rest either in or just leaving port. We have our own ship, but just the one. The rest of the party sank two ships and disabled one while fleeing on our ship. I cast poly-self and took off as a seagull, and singlehandedly sank one ship and disabled another four...all without casting a single AoE damage spell. I'm now ashore near their base port (about 10 miles from the action at sea), acting as a James-Bond-like agent behind enemy lines, and next session - unless I either get very unlucky or (far more likely!) do something stupid - given a few days that entire navy could be at my mercy.

Fun? Hell yeah! Broken? Very much so - one character acting alone is making a mockery of naval warfare.

* - mostly Mary-Rose/Spanish-Armada era galleons with some same-era corvettes sprinkled in, all packing between 2 and 6 cannons each. Our ship is a small 2-gunner, a galleon I think.

I have a similar experience with making a mockery of naval warfare- in my friend's Skulls and Shackles game, I made a Druid with an archetype that allows me to turn into a small elemental at level 4, but at the cost of animal forms. During a big battle, I turned into a water elemental, swam under the enemy flagship, and cast repel wood. The DM ruled that I shoved the ship 60' straight up into the air (which I had hoped for, but wasn't sure he would), after which I switched to air elemental form, and flew up, with the ship being repelled away from me the whole time.

You can guess how that ended.

I've often wondered how classic ships even work in D&D, with the plethora of sea monsters one can encounter who can easily sink a ship, let alone how trivial magic can wreak total havoc to a wooden galleon. You'd think other designs would necessarily be implemented...

 

[TwoSix]

True, unless they were cursed bracers MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Totally fair.

Although to be incredibly, boorishly pedantic, 3e never used flat AC statements as a method of calculation, armor bonuses were always stated in terms of a bonus/malus. So cursed armor bracers would have been bracers of armor -1.

Again, I'm being excruciatingly pedantic over a trivial issue; but it's my birthday and I'm allowing myself this one-time indulgence.

 

[James Gasik]

Just want to make a note about "magic items being destroyed easily"; according to the 2e DMG, even if you fail your saving throw, and the DM rules that a particular effect could damage your items, magical items get their own saving throw afterwards, with bonuses based on the power of the item.

Add onto this the many ways a character could get a bonus to saving throws from magic armor (yes, check the PHB), rings, cloaks, scarabs of protection, luckstones, etc., etc., at a certain point, there's not a huge chance of failing a save to begin with.

My Wizard actually did fall prey to fireball once, and only survived due to my defensive adjustment from Dexterity and the +2 saving throw bonus I had against evocation and enchantment spells from my specialty (Elven Dualist from the Cormanthor book).

Relevant text on magic items saves for the curious:

 

[James Gasik]

I took the time to text my old DM about those Bracers; it turns out they aren't magical at all (which I had forgotten) but were a custom piece of equipment- the Complete Fighter's Handbook has rules for Samurai armor, which includes a pair of armored sleeves that can be worn under a tunic called kote, a pair of which function like a buckler. They were added to the campaign, and he told me he saw no reason my wizard couldn't use them. As they are redundant with the 2e Shield spell, I forgot all about it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Just want to make a note about "magic items being destroyed easily"; according to the 2e DMG, even if you fail your saving throw, and the DM rules that a particular effect could damage your items, magical items get their own saving throw afterwards, with bonuses based on the power of the item.

Add onto this the many ways a character could get a bonus to saving throws from magic armor (yes, check the PHB), rings, cloaks, scarabs of protection, luckstones, etc., etc., at a certain point, there's not a huge chance of failing a save to begin with.

My Wizard actually did fall prey to fireball once, and only survived due to my defensive adjustment from Dexterity and the +2 saving throw bonus I had against evocation and enchantment spells from my specialty (Elven Dualist from the Cormanthor book).

Relevant text on magic items saves for the curious:
View attachment 262545

Here's the info from AD&D 1E DMG. I still remember the cringes I would see when a player failed a save vs. Disintegrate. First the PC goes poof and then so does about 90% of their stuff LOL!

 

[Thomas Shey]

These two statements seem contradictory. It cannot be new if it was already baked in. Rarity doesn't matter for the same reason that "balancing" classes (races etc.) by making them really fragile early on but incredible powerhouses later doesn't matter: anyone who sticks with the game long enough will (a) get better at playing and thus mitigate those weaknesses, and (b) try enough times such that eventually they get lucky. Law of large numbers and all that.

This is particularly on the nose when you consider how much magical treasure a party could accumulate over time given the slow levelling in the OD&D and AD&D days. Admittedly a lot of it was low level "junk" magic (you only need so damn many +1 swords) but enough rolls on all those tables and things just flat out popped up unless a GM deliberately avoided them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've often wondered how classic ships even work in D&D, with the plethora of sea monsters one can encounter who can easily sink a ship, let alone how trivial magic can wreak total havoc to a wooden galleon. You'd think other designs would necessarily be implemented...

Its the same problem that conventional castles and other fortifications have, just a bit more obvious.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've often wondered how classic ships even work in D&D, with the plethora of sea monsters one can encounter who can easily sink a ship, let alone how trivial magic can wreak total havoc to a wooden galleon. You'd think other designs would necessarily be implemented...

I'd figure they'd put something alchemical into the pitch they treat the wood with.