D&D (2024) 2024 needs to end 2014's passive aggressive efforts to remove magic items & other elements from d&d

[CapnZapp]

2014 includes a lot of passive agressive design choices to place awkward hurdles in the way of using magic items as if there was an effort to pressure away from using them.

Yes, but body slots and encumbrance are definitely not big hurdles, I would say.

I don't care about encumbrance at all and it has never been any hurdle at all, ever. Sure I see the allure in the "ten torches deep" mindset, but it is ultimately not a good balancing factor. And if it isn't used as a balancing factor, then any rule will do.

Body slots were never an intelligent solution to the "you can't stack ten bonuses to claim +10 to your fraggalicious stat" (i.e. as a balancing factor). Yes, it was a solution, and thus better than no solution. But that is really all it was.

The real mountainous hurdle is... magic item pricing.

The only place for balanced thoughtful magic item pricing is right in the DMG and nowhere else. This is a real need, since it is as crucial to balance as class features. Anyone claiming this makes it obligatory can go where the sun don't shine. It's needed for all us who don't see "you can always sponsor an orphanage" as a credible reply to "what to do with all my gold". It can be safely ignored by the entire "I like no magic item economy" crowd. If you hand out items at random today, you are not missing the balancing factor today so you won't miss it tomorrow either. And you don't need the lack like we need the presence.

 

[Retreater]

I like magic items when...
1) There's story, character, and history involved.
2) They present interesting new options - such as boots of flying for the human fighter.
3) They can be used to unlock a mystery to defeat a situation. ("We need to discover the Blessed Blade of St. Athanasius to defeat the wight.")

I don't like magic items when they're assumed/required to make the math of a game to work.

 

[CapnZapp]

The reason for the disconnect between magic items and the rest of the game is, the math of the game engine is set without magic items. Any magic items make the player characters strictly better than the expected math. Thus magic items can be disruptive. The DM must prepare to handle the disruption if granting magic items.

Earlier editions set the math of the game engine with the assumption of magic items, which created a "christmas tree" where the magical adornments were more powerful than the character oneself, or a "conveyor belt" of required magic items while advancing.

Many players wanted to end this dependence on magic items. Thus 5e sets its math without them.

But, crucially, it offers poor support for those of us that are prepared to top up monsters to take magic items into account.

Yes, the ASSUMPTION of wealth and items was bad.

This still doesn't excuse the lack of rational magic item pricing for those who think allowing your PCs to purchase them for gold is both fun in of itself and fun because it solves the "gold worthless" problem.

The game should never have concluded "okay so now the math doesn't assume magic items; then it's okay to hang GMs out to dry for wanting internally consistent pricing!"

It galls me how WotC still hands out heaps of gold while pretending everyone can spend the gold just like before.

 

[CapnZapp]

In the context of 5e, there are as many magic items or as few, as the DM is willing to handle.

Items you find have never been the problem.

The problem is when you want to avoid the players feeling like items drop from a conveyor belt.

Being able to offer the players gold and then a magic item shoppe where they actually get a say in which items their characters equip is fun and interesting. And it puts back the desirability into gold, for all play styles.

But for this to work someone needs to do the hard work of putting price tags on items. That someone should absolutely be the game's publisher.

 

[CapnZapp]

Oh there's no doubt about the reason. The problem is the impact of wotc trying to have it both ways while forcefully pretending otherwise at every turn where one or the other is in the spotlight

Yes, what they want is to not have to do the hard work, and not have to assume responsibility for the prices they do come up with. While still pretending like gold is just as useful as before, in previous editions. And pretending play groups have never enjoyed agonizing over which item to spend your last hard-earned gold on, like their game was Lord of the Rings or something.

This is what I mean by having the cake and eating it too.

 

[CapnZapp]

It seems odd to say the developers are trying to remove magic items from the game while at the same time noting that they've devoted over 100 pages to them. One can dispute whether magic items should be a standardized part of level advancement or an orthogonal, campaign-dependent axis of progression, but describing the latter approach as an attempt to remove magic items is not an accurate representation of the developers' goals and statements.

Magic items should not be standardized part of level advancement, that's not what people like me are arguing.

If you by orthogonal, campaign-dependent axis of progression mean "sane magic item prices to make for a balanced gold outlet" then yes, that is what people like me are arguing.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Are you just declaring Badwrongfun to defend poor design rather than actually trying to defend the design itself on whatever merits it might have?

Your post was too long to read and respond to when you got the first sentence wrong. I will never declare someone else’s play style as bad/wrong/fun. I was simply stating my and my groups preference. We do not want magic items baked into the game as a requirement. An extra, absolutely. But a required part of the game no. However, that is our presence and I have no problem with people having different preferences.

My suggestion would be to basically leave things as they are and provide advice on how to modify things based on a groups “magic level.” So if you want to have a game with a bunch of magic items give guidance on how to adjust encounters / monsters to compensate (or not). But they default game I prefer to remain as is.

 

[tetrasodium]

@CapnZapp we could endlessly point fingers at things related to magic items in some way that we agree are bad while claiming some to be the critical missing piece of things all day . Talking about where in the chain a given piece belongs* doesn't really change the fact that the chain is far from being structurally sound. Regardless of where this or that fits in the chain it's hard not to agree that there are an awful lot of omissions repeatedly favoring a particular outcome even when a sidebar or variant could trivially provide a reversion to the current state were those omissions filled instead.

*I feel like we've even done that before and agree on a lot of related issues being unreasonable to different degrees for different reasons.

 

[Yaarel]

But, crucially, it offers poor support for those of us that are prepared to top up monsters to take magic items into account.

Yes, the ASSUMPTION of wealth and items was bad.

This still doesn't excuse the lack of rational magic item pricing for those who think allowing your PCs to purchase them for gold is both fun in of itself and fun because it solves the "gold worthless" problem.

The game should never have concluded "okay so now the math doesn't assume magic items; then it's okay to hang GMs out to dry for wanting internally consistent pricing!"

It galls me how WotC still hands out heaps of gold while pretending everyone can spend the gold just like before.

Using expected Wealth for any form of mechanical balance is a failure waiting to happen.

I would rather have the magic items assigned accurately to each TIER: 0, 1−4, 5−8, 9−12, 13−16, 17−20, 21−24, 25−28


For example.

Common items equate to the Background Tier 0. The DM can hand out these like candy. They are normally utilitarian or consummable like Healing Potion, and never involve a +1 to any d20 math.

The higher tiers help the DM get a better sense of how much power the DM is actually introducing into the math via these items.

Tiers 1−4 and 5−8 can grant +1, with increasing magical effects.

Tiers 9−12 and 13−16 can grant +2, likewise with increasing magical effects.

The shift from 5−8 to 9−12 includes improvements such as from occasional flight to always-on flight during 9−12.

Altho both tiers 9−12 and 13−16 grant +2, the shift in magical effects is pronounced, when moving from the highest powers of the Lord of the Rings genre into the Batman of the superhero genre.

Tiers 17−20 and 21−24 grant +3, and the highest spell slot effects and similar.

Anything 25−higher is an "Artifact".


The most important goal is to give the DM an ACCURATE sense of how much gaming power a magical item is worth.

With this actual value of a magic item, the DMs Guide can easily assign gp prices for items from each tier, for those DMs who want to make some items available thru noncombat purchases.

Likewise the tiers help the DM decide how to go about a player character crafting a magic item.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Are you just declaring Badwrongfun to defend poor design rather than actually trying to defend the design itself on whatever merits it might have? Even if fixing the examples of passive aggressive design noted above leads to an additional page in the character sheet and/or a core rulebook I think you will be fine

Spoiler: honest

A standard sheet of laser-printer paper of the usual thickness, either US "letter" size or international "A4" size, weighs 4.5 grams. That means 100 sheets weighs almost exactly one pound. One sheet is 0.16 of one ounce (28.35g); there are 6.3 sheets per ounce.

-source​

By your own admission it sounds like you wouldn't be using the character sheet s& completed rules sections much or at all. Having a section you don't use much or at all on the character sheet with fleshed out rules in the ruleset for people who do use them doesn't negatively impact you since you aren't using them much or at all. Not having them significantly impacts those who do need them.

You've done an excellent job of demonstrating just how petty & passive aggressive these roadblocks of omission come off

• Q:Should the PHB explain attunement & attunement slots so players will understand them & be able to reference the section if they gain an item that requires attunement?
  • A: No because @Uni-the-Unicorn! prefers to play low / no magic item D&D so they want that to remain.
• Q: Should a standard set of Body slots or similar be defined somewhere so that concepts like slot affinities and slot conflicts can be explained?
• A: No because @Uni-the-Unicorn! prefers to play low / no magic item D&D so they want that to remain.
• Q:Should the character sheet include a page that some groups can use to track magic items a character has on them & has chosen to equip or somehow keep active in a way relevant to the magic item?
  • A: No because @Uni-the-Unicorn! prefers to play low / no magic item D&D so they want that to remain.
• Q: Should there be actual rules of any sort for containers rather than just capacities?
  • A: No because @Uni-the-Unicorn! prefers to play low / no magic item D&D so they want that to remain
• Q:Should there be useful carry capacity rules that create interesting choices rather than two awful ones that do neither while discouraging their use?
  • A1: No because @Uni-the-Unicorn! prefers to play low / no magic item D&D so they want that to remain

I didn't expect such a clear example that simultaneously confirms fixing these omissions won't particularly impact them while showing the sort of petty & passive aggressive tone these kinds of omissions set for the hurdles they throw at a GM choosing to engage in what someone deemed to be BadWrongFun back in 2014

Ok I read your whole post and you come off as a bit of an @$$hole so I think we are done. Sorry I engaged in your thread and hope you are just having a bad day.