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

[Vaalingrade]

LOL

Luckily, enworld isn't real life.

 

[Lanefan]

Genuine question: Do your players really keep a notepad of all the items they've gotten and make comparisons between distributions, such that they'll call you out for failing to live up to the distributions you've previously had?

They don't make the comparisons you speak of (at least not to my knowledge) but items received are well-recorded; first on a party treasury list during the adventure and then on individual character sheets once that treasury has been divided back in town.

As DM I insist on this, as there's nothing worse than trying to figure out by memory what became of a 2-handed sword that passed through a party six real-world years ago but no-one's sure whether it was kept (and by who) or sold, and for some reason right now they really need a magical 2-handed sword.

And I sometimes do hear about it, 99% in jest of course, if the overall treasury value for an adventure seems a bit lacking.

Because I couldn't run a game for folks like that, even though I do very much care about world consistency. I just think world consistency is only one virtue, not THE end-all, be-all. I'd rather have a game that is exciting and fun and engaging even if it accepts some suspension of disbelief than a game that scrupulously counts every penny and second and inch and shows you all of its receipts no matter the cost to the actual experience of play.

Without a reasonable level of bookkeeping, unscrupulous characters - and I've seen this happen - can quickly end up with far more treasure than would be their share.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Published linear adventure paths don't play well with downtime, as you say; and that's somewhat by design: the intent is that the group plows through the AP almost in isolation of the rest of the setting and then starts over with another AP in a different (irrelevant) setting.

Downtime is when the PCs get to interact with the non-adventuring parts of the setting, and as the AP authors don't want to have to write up the whole setting they instead make sure there's some plot-provided pressure on the PCs to keep at it and not take downtime.

IMO that's a bug in AP play rather than a feature.

 

[Lanefan]

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

The non-casters' contribution is to keep those spindly casters a) protected and b) upright.

Remember, in 1e a typical mage didn't have a Con bonus and was only rolling d4 per level for hit points; meaning that by 9th level the average, rounding up, would be a mighty 23 h.p. Couple that with their spells being automatically interrupted on taking ANY damage or even on just being jostled and yeah, the non-casters had a job to do.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The non-casters' contribution is to keep those spindly casters a) protected and b) upright.

what if I don't want to be someone else's bodyguard but do want to stab fools?

 

[clearstream]

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)

Some limits in the text are

Must have proficiency Arcana + relevant tool
Must have the relevant spell prepared
25% chance materials aren't available in cities, 75% elsewhere, may check once each week (some take "DM determines" to imply a fiat, but I believe the text more accurately implies "DM determines" by rolling for it.)
Enspelled items require attunement.

d6 casts per day seems okay for dungeon-crawls and official material run to script. Most likely I'd prefer that to be over a week (or 0-1 per day perhaps).

 

[Lanefan]

what if I don't want to be someone else's bodyguard but do want to stab fools?

Then go stab fools. But if you do, don't be surprised when your artillery support doesn't materialize because the casters are getting swarmed...

 

[Seramus]

to suggest that adventuring parties usually have MASSIVE time gaps where absolutely-gorram-nothing happens, and that's just...not true in my experience.

Agreed. I've made an intentional effort to include more downtime in my games, but I naturally lean towards fast paced story arcs that happen over the course of a week or two per arc. And when I do include downtime opportunities, it's usually just a week unless I'm doing a big time skip after a major arc concludes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Then go stab fools. But if you do, don't be surprised when your artillery support doesn't materialize because the casters are getting swarmed...

Then no, I really don't have any viable means of contributing. It's either do something not fun to me or the DM punishes someone else for me trying to have fun.

 

[TwoSix]

I think verisimilitude weighs far heavier for me as DM than it does for others. I drop Cleric items on occasion because there are clerics in the world. I'm not bending the game around the characters. It's a world. If player in my game ran in two of my campaigns and one had a cleric and one didn't and I did what some have suggested then my game would lack verisimilitude. The player would be like, "wow we got a lot of cleric items this campaign but none dropped last campaign". I'm sure for many it wouldn't matter but I work at it.

Same argument for the idea that the PCs could not get two months of downtime, almost always. There are rare exceptions but never so consistently as to be a way of curtailing magic item creation. It would be so obvious to me and my players that I was messing with them. If you create worlds so in flux that a group never gets a rest ever, fine, but that isn't the fantasy I'm going for. I want fantasy elements but realistic behavior given those fantasy elements.

And of course this is why certain mechanics like plot coupons (hero points etc... or martial daily powers) are so onerous to me.

While I don't value verisimilitude in the same way you do, I am a stickler for framing site-based exploration as realistically as possible.

If there's biological monsters, the players can find their food source, their water source, their resting places, scat and refuse, etc. If it's a site where people used to live, you'll find bedquarters, living areas, items of leisure and distraction, their bathrooms, etc.

Magic items found via site exploration will be the types of magic items that the previous inhabitants would have logically had. Not everything, of course, because people living realistically will also occasionally collect random stuff serendipitously, just like the PCs do.