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

[MichaelSomething]

I just hand our balanced magic items like the +6 magic sword that loses the +6 part for a minute if a spell is cast within 150 ft of it. That's a weapon no DM would mind handing out!

 

[CapnZapp]

Maybe magic items from the tiers lower than the characters current tier, can attune more briefly. Thus making these lower power items easier to swap.

The important point is "not at the same time", so as to avoid the christmas tree effect, layering, brokenness, and other problems that magic items have caused.

Sure, if you can bother with having two (or more) different sets of stats you switch between.

The important point is "not at the same time", so as to avoid the christmas tree effect, layering, brokenness, and other problems that magic items have caused.

Absolutely.

When I shot from the hip and suggested 10 attunement points (where a major attunement item now requires 3 of those points) my focus was squarely on a single set of stats - that the player makes a choice which items to attune to, and then sticks to that choice (for convenience or whatever reason).

You could even say you get 1 attunement point per character level, in order for an item that is overpowering at low level can be reasonably be attuned to together with other items by a high level character.

For instance, if one particularly powerful item cost, say, 7 attunement points that would mean

• that a level 1-6 character simply can't use that item
• a level 7-9 character can only attune to that item but almost nothing else
• a level 20 character can easily attune to both this item and perhaps two others no problem

 

[CapnZapp]

Bodyslots are flavorful.

I think the body slot boat has sailed. It simply doesn't seem like a good fit for 5E.

They might be flavorful, but they're also fiddly and arbitrary... and they solve next to nothing.

My personal opinion is that I don't mind if body slots remain associated with d20. There are other ways to solve the issues of stacking; in particular the solution of "is stacking really a problem in 5E? maybe do nothing is the best solution".

 

[James Gasik]

I've been working on this house rule for some time, waiting for my next turn in the DM chair.

Attunements: you can be attuned to a maximum of 1+proficiency bonus magic items.

Magic items do not require attunement to use, instead, items with attunement only allow access to their basic abilities without attunement.

For example, the Ravenaxe, an ancient Dwarven weapon that lusts for Drow blood, glows with scarlet faerie fire when Drow or half-Drow are within 60' of it, and inflicts an additional 2d6 fire damage to those foes.

However, when attuned to the Ravenaxe, the wielder gains resistance to fire (whether they are holding it or not). In addition, a successful critical hit casts flame strike directly on the target of the critical hit (catching the wielder and others nearby in the blast).

-

I got this idea from a cursed berserking axe that showed up Tales From the Yawning Portal, which, in addition to it's other "abilities", increases your hit point total by 5 if you are attuned to it.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think the body slot boat has sailed. It simply doesn't seem like a good fit for 5E.

They might be flavorful, but they're also fiddly and arbitrary... and they solve next to nothing.

My personal opinion is that I don't mind if body slots remain associated with d20. There are other ways to solve the issues of stacking; in particular the solution of "is stacking really a problem in 5E? maybe do nothing is the best solution".

I think your might be approaching things from a perspective of preserving all of the things 5e does to make using magic items create problems. The people I'm this thread talking about how wotc needs to do better I'm 2024 & how 2014 5e makes things difficult have been dealing with it for years.

We even have almost a decade of posts and discussions where people far beyond this thread ask for help dealing with it... Those discussions usually start with a gm presenting a problem like one of these

• "Any monsters a gm throws at their PCs are destroyed effortlessly" this one occasionally even comes in a form that expresses how the GM tried to kill their party and the party just shrugged it off looking for the next encounter without noticing
• The gm expresses how PC capabilities are so far in excess of monsters that they are so obviously unthreatened combat becomes a boring joke.
• The gm complains about it being too much work forcing all of the do clocks and filler needed to pad out the adventuring day enough to begin challenging their PCs.
• The GM can't figure out how to get their players to work together and the players don't see a need because they trounce anything any of fiat unleashed with ease
• The GM is frustrated about the difficulty they have in rewarding players and generating adventure incentive in the face of excessive doom clocks without overpowering PCs who have been above the game's power Budget since level 4.
• Many many more

The design of 2014 to present magic items themselves where the edition that tried to make magic items "always a boon" for whatever reason decided just about every magic item should be more powerful than it's 3.x counterpart is the problem that is in the way of what you've been discussing for the last few posts.

Fixing that magic item design requires the gm to nerf the items (or PCs) themselves and get the players to accept the nerfs. Once that has been done the GM still needs to start rebuilding all of monsters they use in order to challenge their PCs. Soon enough the GM in question comes to the realization that they need to add more rules to fight against the "always a boon" design in order limit magic items.

All of that tends to be a trial and error acid test for the gm with real players because the books and wotc themselves try to have it both ways while offering zero advice in either direction. what you don't see are threads fleshing out the acid test because there are too many variables to fix and an avalanche of "just do x" combined with "that problem is not relevant to[related problem" alongside supergm who never had any problems because of their nine year 5e gm big belt buckle just makes all of those problems go away in a way players easily accept.

Eventually we all need to admit that there are a lot of individual problems 5e creates for the gm wanting to use magic items. While those problems may be easy to individually fix in isolation they are all related and the way a gm chooses to fix them impacts many of the others. That level of intercommunication makes targeting of incorrectly assumed to be isolated problems just the start of someone's acid test.

 

[payn]

I really dug the PF2 playtest item that linked magic items to Charisma mod. You could have as many as your CHA mod minimum of 1. Made Charisma a more useful stat. Players went bananas though and killed it. Cha is apparently a favored dump stat of players.

 

[nevin]

easiest skills to make your character powerful in pathfinder are Bluff, and diplomacy. Chr based. That's why.

 

[payn]

easiest skills to make your character powerful in pathfinder are Bluff, and diplomacy. Chr based. That's why.

First I have heard of it. Cha #1 dump stat in PF easy.

 

[CapnZapp]

Eventually we all need to admit that there are a lot of individual problems 5e creates for the gm wanting to use magic items.

Sure absolutely.

And yes, I have only engaged with two rather specific issues: other than rational pricing the specific suggestion "bring back body slots". I am fully aware saying "that might not be the solution you're looking for" isn't actually a solution. It's only meant as a way to perhaps not spend energy better spent on other things.

If we discuss in general, I honestly don't think WotC is interested in providing much more detailed advice to DMs wanting to use magic items.

I don't defend that stance and I'm not saying it's right. I think WotC are perfectly content having the cake while also eating it; meaning in this instance they don't want to issue specific advice because a) that is a lot of work b) that opens them up to criticism and c) it can cause the customer base's perception of the game to move towards the "too complex for me" position.

Again, not defending this stance. The game absolutely is complex and addressing that complexity would be the intellectually honest thing to do. However, I believe WotC has decided they can live with this given the astounding influx of new customers. Whether they will realize in time that these new customers might expect more in 2024 than they did in 2014 is of course another question entirely.

I certainly am not holding my breath. If they only added (rational, utility-derived) prices for the magic items in the DMG (thereby setting a precedent for every subsequently published item), that's all I ask for personally. (I can even live with this price being expressed as a number from 1-20 rather than specific gold amounts so different GMs can feature different Big Mac indices in their various campaign worlds.)

 

[nevin]

Oh I'm sure we are the tiny majority. Most just deal with the warts and move on. Till some huge surge in internet fan based complaints generated by something like critical role I don't see any big change coming and then it'll be the logic of the masses which is just as likely to be a worse fix. Which is how we got to attunement, the majority of the gaming internet fell into a collective groupthink and here we are.