D&D (2024) DMG 5.5 - the return of bespoke magical items?

[Hussar]

The free time thing is a valid point though. If you look at a lot of the 5e adventure paths, it’s not unusual for the campaign to have very little downtime.

I just finished off Hoard of the Dragon Queen and there was virtually no down time. Lots of travel time but almost no downtime. We played the Giants AP and had almost no downtime. I remember that my character was trying to learn Giantish in downtime and we finished the campaign before I managed it. My current Phandalver campaign has had almost no downtime.

Rage of Demons, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihalation. Not a whole lot of downtime there.

 

[ezo]

Probably already mentioned but just in case:

For the people who don't like random magic item determination because you feel it gives the PC useless things, or items "not quite" what they want, I say this...

If a player really wants an item for their PC, quest for it.

IMO these crafting rules and the ones from 2014 are flawed, certainly, but they give you a base to work with if you can't accept them as they are.

I was fortunate to play in a campaign back in high school were a player had his Paladin PC travel to different sages and clerics, learn of the mystical things he would need, studied with dwarven masters to learn how to craft, and ultimately after months of play found what he need and crafted his own holy avenger! (If you don't know, in AD&D that is a BIG DEAL!).

Otherwise, yes, as others have said, "useless" magic items can be gifted to lords for favor, to henchment or allies, or whoever. They can be sold (if there is a market that is). Finally, I think such a concept of a "useless" magical item is only fostered in games where such items are more common. I find the thought pretty much alien given my own experiences.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Probably already mentioned but just in case:

For the people who don't like random magic item determination because you feel it gives the PC useless things, or items "not quite" what they want, I say this...

If a player really wants an item for their PC, quest for it.

IMO these crafting rules and the ones from 2014 are flawed, certainly, but they give you a base to work with if you can't accept them as they are.

I was fortunate to play in a campaign back in high school were a player had his Paladin PC travel to different sages and clerics, learn of the mystical things he would need, studied with dwarven masters to learn how to craft, and ultimately after months of play found what he need and crafted his own holy avenger! (If you don't know, in AD&D that is a BIG DEAL!).

Otherwise, yes, as others have said, "useless" magic items can be gifted to lords for favor, to henchment or allies, or whoever. They can be sold (if there is a market that is). Finally, I think such a concept of a "useless" magical item is only fostered in games where such items are more common. I find the thought pretty much alien given my own experiences.

Oh, for sure. I do a ton of this as well.

I'm just sayin', packing every other dungeon with a dozen genuinely pointless magic items, when they could've been anything else and still thematically appropriate, just seems kind of silly.

I'm not saying any of the outright ridiculous stuff ascribed to this position--such as the literal "an entire dwarven city with zero dwarven weapons", come on folks, at least TRY to attribute reasonableness--just that you absolutely can do a better balance than aggressively pushing stuff that won't get more than five seconds' attention before it gets tossed in the bag of holding as "unusually heavy coins."

 

[ezo]

AD&D is broken in a different way: you get more and more of those spell slots!

You say broken, I say perfect.

I think verisimilitude weighs far heavier for me as DM than it does for others.

It's pretty much top of my list, too.

And they scaled. At 20th level you had a 20d6 fireball. A 3rd level spell.

Yep. Still nothing compared to meteor swarm then, but viable.

You could upcast spells in 5E for free and it would be fine IMO.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You'll also note the point was 24 hours = 8 hours travel + 8 hour workday + 8 hour long rest. So, you can travel, craft, and rest all in the same day--no downtime needed. (To be clear, I'm not saying it makes much sense, but RAW it's possible.)

We don't have 2024 Warforrged yet, but back in 3.5 and 4e (I don't remember anyone playing one in 2014 5e) they could stay up and active doing stuff during there rests and the fluff even said they were crafting.

We do have elven Trance through... 4 hours of trance=8hrs of sleep. So elven sages can travel 6-10 hours (depending on need at the time) spend 4 hours before trance crafting, spend 4 hours before trance crafting, and that is 18-22 hours... 24 hours still allows for 6-2 hours for other things.

SO yeah, lets say I need 100 hours to make some items, scrolls and stuff... I can get 6-8 hours every day of travel (4 before trance 4 after) takes 13 travel days... lets say it's 6 days to a dungeon 6 days back... I did almost the whole 100 hours (96 of them) just in that travel... if we take a week off of adventuring this goes WAY up

a week in town. 7 24 hour days no fights no travel (unless you count from inn to bar or library) We take that 4 hour trance out leaving us 20 hours... we figure 2/3 of that time can be spent on crafting (12ish) and the other 8 hours eating cleaning up jokeing with friends, reading... That's 84 more hours of crafting...

Lets say there are 2 elves a human and a orc traveling together in the above scenario... and all can in some way help craft. travel+ time in city the elves give 180 hours each the orc and human are limited (need 8 hours sleep not 4 trance) so we will say with watch and set up/take down they can only do 2 hours per day each... so 12hr+12hrs each... and in down time they are more 'normal' and don't want to put in more then 8 hour days so 8*7=56 each... so two party members have contributed 80 hours each and two contributed 180 each so we have 520 hours... but this needs to be broken up into items not one big item since we can't have 4 people work on 1 (I think limit is you and 1 helper)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You say broken, I say perfect.

I mean, assuming you don't give two figs about whether non-casters get to meaningfully contribute at higher level, sure.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

so two party members have contributed 80 hours each and two contributed 180 each so we have 520 hours... but this needs to be broken up into items not one big item since we can't have 4 people work on 1 (I think limit is you and 1 helper)

So I started thinking what can we do with 'up to 520hours'
80 hours and 200 gp for uncommon items 40 hours and 50gp for common ones

we could in that time make 6 1/2 uncommon items if we had 1,400gp between us.
we could in that time make 13 common items if we had 650gp between us

more likely some combination... lets say 1 uncommon item for each player (4) so that is 320of those hours and 800gp then the rest as common... we have 200 hours left so that is 5 common for 250gp

1 adventure (travel from town to adventure, have adventure travel back rest for a week) that sounds pretty normal for say 4th- 6th level adventurers and we made 9 items it cost us 1,050gp

 

[tetrasodium]

We don't have 2024 Warforrged yet, but back in 3.5 and 4e (I don't remember anyone playing one in 2014 5e) they could stay up and active doing stuff during there rests and the fluff even said they were crafting.

We do have elven Trance through... 4 hours of trance=8hrs of sleep. So elven sages can travel 6-10 hours (depending on need at the time) spend 4 hours before trance crafting, spend 4 hours before trance crafting, and that is 18-22 hours... 24 hours still allows for 6-2 hours for other things.

SO yeah, lets say I need 100 hours to make some items, scrolls and stuff... I can get 6-8 hours every day of travel (4 before trance 4 after) takes 13 travel days... lets say it's 6 days to a dungeon 6 days back... I did almost the whole 100 hours (96 of them) just in that travel... if we take a week off of adventuring this goes WAY up

a week in town. 7 24 hour days no fights no travel (unless you count from inn to bar or library) We take that 4 hour trance out leaving us 20 hours... we figure 2/3 of that time can be spent on crafting (12ish) and the other 8 hours eating cleaning up jokeing with friends, reading... That's 84 more hours of crafting...

Lets say there are 2 elves a human and a orc traveling together in the above scenario... and all can in some way help craft. travel+ time in city the elves give 180 hours each the orc and human are limited (need 8 hours sleep not 4 trance) so we will say with watch and set up/take down they can only do 2 hours per day each... so 12hr+12hrs each... and in down time they are more 'normal' and don't want to put in more then 8 hour days so 8*7=56 each... so two party members have contributed 80 hours each and two contributed 180 each so we have 520 hours... but this needs to be broken up into items not one big item since we can't have 4 people work on 1 (I think limit is you and 1 helper)

I saw a few of them. Quite often they needed to spend that time repairing themselves because they didn't regenerate naturally like meat races and the repair spells(if any) were far more limited in availability than cure spells simply because of how vancian prep worked

 

[ezo]

I mean, assuming you don't give two figs about whether non-casters get to meaningfully contribute at higher level, sure.

And, yet, somehow, those non-casters always did IME, at least.

I've never given any credence to the whole LFQW garbage. I've never seen it actually happen or any non-caster felt their PC was no contributing in meaningful way.

But hey, that is just my experiences.

 

[DarkCrisis]

At the very least, the DM should be kicked for saying 'LOL' in real life.

LOL