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

[tetrasodium]

Why are you assuming this is a problem, if I may ask?

Have you ever considered this might be much less of a problem in 5E than in, say 3E?

Thanks for giving me a way to clear this up without the endless reinterpretation loop while also answering this. This becomes a severe problem in 5e once the GM wants or needs to step away from 5e's no magic items assumptions. There's no question that 5e's PC:Monster math assumptions of 5e are designed so that magic items are "always a boon"*, that causes a lot of problems still being discussed If the campaign is expected to last beyond a short one shot or something & the GM wants to use magic items for things like player/pc incentive to adventure take risks narrowing PC: PC CharOp disparity & so on they need rules to support the GM there once again. Now with 5e's "always a boon" design it will quickly require the GM to start making changes because the system provides no room for that use a second or third time without the GM reworking numbers somewhere to offset gains.

The first set of those changes will be to monsters & potentially areas like the DC ladder. The second set comes when the gm realizes that the players act logically & start minmaxing stacking into an arms race that the GM has no hope of countering long term without insane mudflation or putting in some form of limitation capable of forcing old items out like body slot conflicts.

Both 3.x & 5e have a section that covers that second goal, but they are wildly different. I quoted the 3.x one in 312 & 5e's in 275. The big difference between the two RAW is that one is written to support the GM where they most need the rule to support them while the other is written to get in the GM's way while providing no useful support even as it encourages players to engage in an endless debate over minced words like 302 & 309.

The problem resulting from that difference in support from the rules is that the 3.x version's low bar to say no to a player required the player to proactively make a good case for why they feel they deserve this exception before the GM ends that hopeful effort simply by pointing at the rule & the ease of forcing the GM to shoulder a high burden of explaining why the hopeful reinterpretation of "common sense" and any stray halfquoted utterance from the GM do not create an exception for the items in question in a rule intended to limit scenarios like a player wanting to do that very thing.

*Wotc has said they aren't required many times & xge136 literally says it.

 

[Minigiant]

I would have agreed if you didn't make it appear 5E was just another edition.

Assuming we can agree 5E really is different from previous editions I can agree to the above.

In previous editions "no items" would have borked the game, but it really doesn't actually break 5E.

It's a matter of degrees.

5e without magic items borks less than previous editions. But it still borked without magic items.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Serious question: does booming blade or gfb count as a magical weapon attack?

I am thinking through the arguments about the need for magical weapons.

My lower magic party has not had an issue BUT my cleric uses GFB/BB. He is an arcana cleric.

In my other party I let others claim magic items and rely on my improved pact weapon.

All of that said, both of the options I mention are for the character in question only, so no sharing GFB I realize.

We usually switch parties around level 10 or 11…so not really high level play. That is another factor. How big of a deal are lack of magic weapons at low to mid levels?

 

[CreamCloud0]

Serious question: does booming blade or gfb count as a magical weapon attack?

I am thinking through the arguments about the need for magical weapons.

My lower magic party has not had an issue BUT my cleric uses GFB/BB. He is an arcana cleric.

In my other party I let others claim magic items and rely on my improved pact weapon.

All of that said, both of the options I mention are for the character in question only, so no sharing GFB I realize.

We usually switch parties around level 10 or 11…so not really high level play. That is another factor. How big of a deal are lack of magic weapons at low to mid levels?

personally they don't read to me like they're making a magical weapon attack, given that they both state 'deal weapon attack normal effects, and X'

Spoiler: BB/GFB official descriptions

You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. On a hit, the target suffers the weapon attack’s normal effects and then becomes sheathed in booming energy until the start of your next turn. If the target willingly moves 5 feet or more before then, the target takes 1d8 thunder damage, and the spell ends.
At Higher Levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 thunder damage to the target on a hit, and the damage the target takes for moving increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level (2d8 and 3d8) and again at 17th level (3d8 and 4d8).
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You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. On a hit, the target suffers the weapon attack’s normal effects, and you can cause green fire to leap from the target to a different creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of it. The second creature takes fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
At Higher Levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 fire damage to the target on a hit, and the fire damage to the second creature increases to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level (2d8 and 2d8) and 17th level (3d8 and 3d8).

 

[tetrasodium]

Serious question: does booming blade or gfb count as a magical weapon attack?

I am thinking through the arguments about the need for magical weapons.

My lower magic party has not had an issue BUT my cleric uses GFB/BB. He is an arcana cleric.

In my other party I let others claim magic items and rely on my improved pact weapon.

All of that said, both of the options I mention are for the character in question only, so no sharing GFB I realize.

We usually switch parties around level 10 or 11…so not really high level play. That is another factor. How big of a deal are lack of magic weapons at low to mid levels?

I'd much prefer having the option of using a more nuanced subsystem I don't have to homebrew than "I have any magic weapon" and resistance alone. But looks like no those don't count based on this tweet

 

[CapnZapp]

5e without magic items borks less than previous editions.

Thank you. I realize this is as far as we're likely to get (do "bork" here stand for "become unfun for me" or actually "become non-functional in general"?), so I'll take it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks for giving me a way to clear this up without the endless reinterpretation loop while also answering this. This becomes a severe problem in 5e once the GM wants or needs to step away from 5e's no magic items assumptions. There's no question that 5e's PC:Monster math assumptions of 5e are designed so that magic items are "always a boon"*, that causes a lot of problems still being discussed If the campaign is expected to last beyond a short one shot or something & the GM wants to use magic items for things like player/pc incentive to adventure take risks narrowing PC: PC CharOp disparity & so on they need rules to support the GM there once again. Now with 5e's "always a boon" design it will quickly require the GM to start making changes because the system provides no room for that use a second or third time without the GM reworking numbers somewhere to offset gains.

The first set of those changes will be to monsters & potentially areas like the DC ladder. The second set comes when the gm realizes that the players act logically & start minmaxing stacking into an arms race that the GM has no hope of countering long term without insane mudflation or putting in some form of limitation capable of forcing old items out like body slot conflicts.

Stopping you right there before you go into the whole body slot discussion. (I don't see how rigorous body slot rules help 5E myself, but you're free to just port the exact 3E definitions over if you like)

Yes, WotC is both eating and having the cake here. They both hand out items (because that's popular with players) and pretend this is only a "boon" (so they don't have to assume responsibility for maintaining balance).

Other than that I'm thinking you're not discussing things directly relevant to the fact it was me you quoted?

 

[CreamCloud0]

even if they just made nonmagic-resistance bypassing masterwork weapons a standard part of the base assumptions for characters to buy/obtain that would be a huge benefit for making the game balance work as actually intended

i'm also of the opinion that more magic items could be assumed and it wouldn't break anything so long as you didn't put bonuses on them or included the ones that give advantages to saves and such, a flametongue longsword that deals +2d6 fire damage or even just deals flat fire damage is far less impactful than a +2 longsword, these kinds of magic items would be IMO preferable especially as magic items have always been used in DnD to supliment martial's utility and a +2 to hit doesn't really impact their utility.

 

[nevin]

That's what I'm saying.

Unless you ban 50-75% of the content, official 5e as printed doesn't work without magic items. But magic items themselves warp the game so you are using a tool that gives you more work as a DM to offset some of the extra work the base game gives.

no see I prefer to think of it as crafting. You add a piece or a few pieces and then you observe and adjust like a wood carver, add a bit of glue or wood here, take a bit away here. for me that is one of the fun parts of DM'ing. Otherwise I'm just pulling encounters out of a book and rolling dice with everyone else not even wanting to win because then the game ends. It's the crafting feel of DM'ing that way that keeps me engaged.

 

[the Jester]

What's everyone's take on how the difference between no magic items and magic items in a party stacks up against optimized pcs vs. less optimized ones? Obviously it's going to depend on the magic items, but generally speaking, do you think optimized builds make more or less of a difference than access to magic items?