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

[Horwath]

I like magic items, and would like magic item creation rules and magic item pricing. I don't think the design choices were "passive aggressive" but I get wanting a different take on them.

I would also not say passive aggressive, but weird and inconsistent.

saying that magic items are optional and then putting them in every adventure in 5E, starting with first in 2014.

 

[Horwath]

The original sin of D&D with magic items was the invention of the "+1 weapon." This is not an interesting concept, it's a math fix masquerading as treasure. No one ever wrote a story about the wonders of a +1 weapon. It's a problem when players want magic items not because they're interesting, but because they're needed to make your character viable.
5e made the correct choice to make magic items non-necessary for progression, but they still kept those +X items around, so I do feel they could still do a lot more to make magic items interesting, and give much better guidance for creating, selling, and buying them.

I get +1 weapon 100% and even if not interesting they are OK to have. It's simply a better weapon without any complications. It just does it's job better than a stock weapon would.
But, in bounded accuracy model, that +X attack and AC can throw that out of bounds.
better solution is +Xd6 damage instead of +X attack and damage. and armors give 3 DR for every +X AC bonus.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

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. Magic items have always been a pretty core part of d&d gameplay for various reasons & the DMG once even included a few pages about their importance to gameplay with a good chunk of chapter10 even beyond the rather clear & uncertain insight into human nature described on pg115. Despite multiple new editions & a wildly different set of mechanics that section is still largely 100% accurate to what was released in 2014. It's been said many many* times how magic items are not required or needed for PCs in 5e by design with no indications of being outright in either direction since 2014.

No matter how often someone at wotc says otherwise magic items are clearly an obviously a core pillar of d&d, just a quick page count shows just how true that is/ It's odd for an unneeded optional feature to consume 92 pages of the DMG 12 pages of XgE 19 pages of TcoE 7 from GGtR 6 in Theros & countless pages of the various hardcover adventure books. Without even counting eberron's rising from the last war or Spelljammer's magic item pages in even a single adventure that combines to a page count of magic item related content that is edging in on something close to some of the hard cover adventures themselves (especially if you subtract the title page, various publishing legaleese &OGL pages, index & what are often charitably dubbed an "appendix"),

As shown above magic items are obviously magic items are not a discardable "optional" pillar of d&d and yet there are a wide range of rather odd choices that 2014 5e implemented that do little more than hamstring the GM in their use as what seems to be a primary goal.

Spoiler: Here are a few

• Starting with one thing that 5e did add (attunement & attunement slots). These are split across DMG136 & 138. The word attune or attunement cal also be found on PHB pg50 66 80 8192 178 &246 &252 & 266 & 271, none of those actually explain attunement & the only ones referencing magic items that require attunement are spells that can do something noteworthy with it. There's no reason to detail what they do here in this post since anyone reading this forum almost certainly knows what attunement:yes magic items & attunement slots are. The people who don'tknow what magic item attunement is should be obvious from the fact that at no point in the PHB is it actually described in any way.
  • The passive aggressive hurdles thrown in the GM's way continue from there to the character sheet itself (wotc pdf download link). After nearly a decade wotc has still not taken steps to correct the fact that nowhere on the character sheet is there a place players can write down what they are attuned to where their GM could hypothetically glance at with the extremely reasonable "let ne see your sheet(s) for a second Bob" type overview. The omission appears deliberate at this point given that none of the ease of releasing a new PDF & the fact that none of the setting & adventure books tried to correct it with an updated sheet like page 286 of the Magic Item Compendium did in 2007 with this second problem.
• The 2007 Magic item sheet wasn't built for attunement since it predated the 2014 5e publication by several years, but it demonstrates an additional passive aggressive roadblock. I wanted to be sure if 4e included a magic item sheet or not rather than just going with my vague memories of minimal experience & found several attempts to update it (like this) but 2014 5e DMG 141 provides a pretty significant passive aggressive roadblock thrown in the way of updating such a sheet to 5e in the "multiple items of the same kind" section. Although body slots are implied to exist & there have been at least two entirely different sets of them, at no point do any of the 5e books actually list them or describe their use like 3.5 pg288 does masterfully on page 288 in the slot affinities sidebar.

It may not have been perfect originally in the 3.5 PHB but at least the 2006(?) revised character sheet added sections for possessions on/not on person, & magic items worn with spaces marked out for item, location & weight. None of those are represented in the 5e character sheets. Digital distribution & at the table use of PDF editing digital devices back then was nowhere near as simple as it is today, but it demonstrates an additional passive aggressive hurdle thrown at the GM in the 2014 rulebooks in how it treats & omits parts of encumbrance.

Not only are body slot locations left undefined by the ruleset of 2014-today, so too are key details of how actually carrying stuff works. Container capacities are found on phb153, but on no page of any 5e book is it explained how they work. Obviously without body slots being defined those containers can't be restricted to specific body slots to the joy of every GM who has tried to require container use only to crash into debates over why ## strength should allow Bob's PC to wear multiple backpacks 4 sacks & 47 pouches plus a two handed weapon or sword & board. If the container omission were limited to that we could point to the dmg141 entry to limit that kind of situation, but the GM is already treading on thin ice just by trying to require container use given that nowhere does it really say that a PC needs to use them or more importantly how they work. Do items in a container count against encumbrance? If so is it full or partial weight after weight distribution of backpacks & such? How many of a given container type can a player wear on their PC?... Nobody knows the answer to any of those because the rules for those containers don't exist& the closest you can find to rules related to them is on PHB190 where the sidebar helpfully shoots the GM's case to require container use by eliminating any costs & risks to interacting with them in combat. Sure PHB176 has some rules related to carrying capacity but those too shoot the GM's case to require containers, unlike past versions where such rules created meaningful choices, these ones either make every effort to ensure they will never matter or will always matter in an annoying way without actually creating meaningful choices that differentiate one build from another that chose differently.



*I'm not watching through hours & hours of Wotc folks to find videos that happen to mention it but seem to recall Crawford mentioning it as recently as the last couple months.

No, it needs to go harder.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

What about the genre? Because that's what keeps getting maligned and taken away.

Yes, all those fantasy stories where the main character has dozens of magic items, where he discards his sword every second chapter because he finds a better one, that's certainly the "genre" alright.

 

[Minigiant]

not really, partially at best.

number treadmill was too much and magic weapons we not that interesting as you usually only had one extra property pass the +X bonus.
5E did better to halve that +6 to +3 max bonus.
Now +X needs to be removed of capped at +1 max.

4e had it right. The math was off as usual because D&D fans back then were addicted to +1s and loot.

5e had a different numbers and formula. It's math was better.

Base 5e states that it expects once divided up a level 20 PC has 4.5 permanent magic items. Of which you only got 1 very rare and 1 legendary. So that's only 1 +3 item. 2 if you traded your legendary with an ally's very rare. And that's only for weapons. Armor is a rarity higher.

Tier 1 there is no magic items expectation barring potions and scrolls.
Tier 2 you get uncommons like +1 weapons, and +0 armor
Tier 3 you get rares like +2 weapons and +1 armor
Tier 4 you get very rares and above.+3 weapons and +2 armor.

Capes and cloaks would run on the weapon track. Tier -1 to all saves, Tier -2 to all saves and AC, or Tier +1 to one save.

At level 19 you get access to legendaries +3 armor.

Not not every item would be a +x item. But that's when you'd be expected to get them in base D&D. And that's when monsters would have them.

No magic tables would just get masterwork (+1), greatmasterwork (+2), and grandmasterwork (+3) items that required to magic to craft.

WOTC just plays toooo much into the "You need magic to make special items".

NO!

Dwarves and Elves and master smiths can make generic +X items in base D&D.

The whole idea that you can't make plus X weapons and armor without casting magic weapon on it seems to me as extreme fringe idea few hold.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I have no problem with magic items. 5e provides so many built in choices—at least for some classes—I find I don’t care about them quite as much.

All of that said doesn’t the DM make the call? I am in one campaign in which we have several each. (Hell I have two pairs of boots!) and another in which I don’t even have a +1 weapon. Some scrolls and potions I think is about it…

I don’t understand the conspiratorial talk. What’s the big secret here? It’s not 3e or 4e?

I like items to be treated as special and not a commodity. That is a feature to me and I guess a bug to others. But I don’t ascribe evil motives to it. Choices are on a continuum. Here we have a campaign with none. Over here items are like Kleenex. Choose a spot on the curve that suits you. None of the choices are a crime.

 

[Horwath]

WOTC just plays toooo much into the "You need magic to make special items".

NO!

Dwarves and Elves and master smiths can make generic +X items in base D&D.

The whole idea that you can't make plus X weapons and armor without casting magic weapon on it seems to me as extreme fringe idea few hold.

Agree that Magic weapon should not be only requirement for crafting magical weapons.

Maybe steel magic weapons and armors need the steel to be melted by firebreathing dragon.

small for common items
medium for uncommon items
large for rare,
huge for very rare
gargantuan for legendary

 

[tetrasodium]

I have no problem with magic items. 5e provides so many built in choices—at least for some classes—I find I don’t care about them quite as much.

All of that said doesn’t the DM make the call? I am in one campaign in which we have several each. (Hell I have two pairs of boots!) and another in which I don’t even have a +1 weapon. Some scrolls and potions I think is about it…

I don’t understand the conspiratorial talk. What’s the big secret here? It’s not 3e or 4e?

I like items to be treated as special and not a commodity. That is a feature to me and I guess a bug to others. But I don’t ascribe evil motives to it. Choices are on a continuum. Here we have a campaign with none. Over here items are like Kleenex. Choose a spot on the curve that suits you. None of the choices are a crime.

"Why doesn't the dm make the call?" is a very different topic...

• How does that relate to obvious failures like the PHB not actually including a section to explain attunement & the character sheet not even including an area for recording magic items or current attunement?
• How does that relate to the way that system leans on the implied existence of body slots on dmg141 & elsewhere while not actually naming them or including anywhere on the sheet for them?
• How does that relate to a complete lack of rules for containers other than their capacity?

The trouble described in the OP is obvious & glaring omissions that do little beyond potentially saving someone from saying "we aren't going to use $specificSubsystem/rule this game" not a lack of choices.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Count me as one that is pretty satisfied with 5e magic items. I am not a fan of the plussed items and would wish them gone. I am also happy that they are not needed. I am also a big fan of the attunement system but I really do not see what is stopping DM from changing up the number of attunement slots.
I really like the Badlur's Gate 3 thing of adding properties and actions to a magic weapon. Like longswords with the finesse property or with extra actions or bonus action once per long rest.
Obviously on can have more of these in a computer game where the tracking and management is being done by the application. At the table one would want to go somewhat easy on the extra actions or risk inducing analysis paralysis as well as issues with tracking usage.

 

[Kalmi]

I get +1 weapon 100% and even if not interesting they are OK to have. It's simply a better weapon without any complications. It just does it's job better than a stock weapon would.
But, in bounded accuracy model, that +X attack and AC can throw that out of bounds.
better solution is +Xd6 damage instead of +X attack and damage. and armors give 3 DR for every +X AC bonus.

I don't have a problem with a +1 bonus by itself, it would obviously be silly to oppose on principle attack bonuses. But that's not really magical in any way to me, by itself. It should be a side benefit to the primary magic of the weapon, IMO. Also, I think it needs to be limited to +1 with how tight the math is for 5e. One player getting a +3 weapon can absolutely imbalance the game.