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

[CreamCloud0]

In my 35 years of experience, in at least 90% of campaigns a wizard PC would be delighted to craft a shield of shield for the party tanks. (in a few campaigns the castes are jerks. This is not the norm)

A subsection of martials would also be able to do this with ease - various gishes, even my psi warrior sage could have done it with but a little tweaking...

sure, but what happens when your group doesn't have a caster with the apropriate spell on their list? if my fighter wants healing word and the rest of the team is a rogue, a monk and a sorcerer, the way it's set up just feels like another way to passively reinforce caster supremacy as the people with the spells get to be the ones who create and dole out the magic items.

the requirements very easily could've been:
gold-scales with spell level
10 days downtime
apropriate tool proficiency and 'workshop' access for crafting
proficiency in arcana, religion or nature to imbue a spell from an arcane, divine or primal spell list respectively (which as previously mentioned i still think is slightly caster-biased due to them being the classes who naturally are more inclined to have access to those skills on their proficiency lists).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Earlier editions had very sufficient checks and balances for the "power" of casters compared to non-casters. Not that it's needed, really, since PCs don't often (and shouldn't IMO) go toe-to-toe against eachother. Otherwise, its a team activity and players should celebrate each other's moments instead of wondering "when's my turn!?"

The problem is not "yeah well MY dad character could beat up YOUR character!"

It is that two options are presented as being peers while actually being, to use the old phrase, "casters & caddies".

Just because the difference is not as extreme in some editions as it has been in others does not mean the difference is not there. The players are peers. The game presents the different class choices as being peers. They should be peers.

Peers are not 100% identical to one another. We aren't bees in a hive, we aren't clones, we have our different strengths and weaknesses. But when we form a peer group, we don't have one CEO and one VP alongside one janitor and one IT tech. "But the janitor performs critical maintenance and support, and the IT tech can fix ethernet issues that would prevent the CEO or VP from managing the company!" Doesn't even slightly mean that the first two are peers of the second two.

It's endlessly frustrating that people say (effectively) "well there is something useful they can do!" as though that were in any way a useful reply to "one set of options is actually in control, the other is just useful flunkies."

The fact that the meat shield can be fully replaced by an NPC with zero loss of functionality is pretty damning.

 

[tetrasodium]

sure, but what happens when your group doesn't have a caster with the apropriate spell on their list? if my fighter wants healing word and the rest of the team is a rogue, a monk and a sorcerer, the way it's set up just feels like another way to passively reinforce caster supremacy as the people with the spells get to be the ones who create and dole out the magic items.

the requirements very easily could've been:
gold-scales with spell level
10 days downtime
apropriate tool proficiency and 'workshop' access for crafting
proficiency in arcana, religion or nature to imbue a spell from an arcane, divine or primal spell list respectively (which as previously mentioned i still think is slightly caster-biased due to them being the classes who naturally are more inclined to have access to those skills on their proficiency lists).

What kind of game world do you play in where NPCs are so uncommon that you'd not even consider an option like working with the GM through an NPC?

If you did consider that but find that NPCs tend to be so universally hostile to PCs from kill some rats in the basement till saving the world from the BBEG it raises the question of why the players have their PCs so regularly acting in ways that spreads such a hostile world & why they can't maybe reform a bit or hitch their metaphorical wagon to NPCs who have goals in line with PC behavior then keep it hitched like that?

 

[Micah Sweet]

so mostly vendor trash then

I try not to think of my campaign as a video game, or as a backdrop that revolves around the PCs and their desires.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I find it best to make sure the players know they have little to no control over anything.

Just their PCs insofar as gameplay is concerned.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it would depend on the type of world you are creating. If it is a world where magic item creation is commonplace then denying the players is as you say not good. On the other hand if magic item creation is a lost magic art or is extremely difficult and not worth the effort, then that is the way the world works and PCs can know that fact.

Personally, I've never liked the idea of magic marts or item creation feats but some like them. It really is a game taste decision. It does vary the power level greatly though so you have to account for that upswing in power if players can freely create magic items.

Does the DMG talk about how PCs making magic items that perfectly suit their needs will alter mechanical power levels?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Seriously? You cannot think of anything that would reasonably mean spending seven weeks doing absolutely nothing productive isn't an option?

Magical events tied to the phase of the moon, the tides
Upcoming military attack the players are aware of and need to do something about
Disease, curse, or other malady that needs to be cured sooner rather than later
Ongoing political turmoil that could explode at any moment unless addressed
Resurrecting a party member or ally
Completing a job on time, so the party actually gets paid
Keeping a promise to someone important
Chasing down an enemy fleeing overland
Reaching a destination before the competition/Forces of Evil
Recruiting as many allies as possible as quickly as possible to deal with a looming threat

Like... I've been playing in a LMoP/Phandelver and Below game and there's been all of one time we had more than two days where we weren't doing anything particularly important. I'm sitting on a pile of cash fit for a wyrmling (something like 5k-6k gp equivalent, some in pp or ep, and that's not counting the gems and other "sell this for gp" loot), having had little to nothing to spend it on because we can't waste the several days it would take to go to Neverwinter.

It really, truly isn't that hard to make "literally almost two months" not actually a viable option. Heck, I can count on one hand the number of games I've played in where a continuous, uninterrupted span of 50 days was even remotely plausible, let alone something we actually did (which would be zero, I have never once played any game where the party thought that was a remotely good or even acceptable idea.)

It's much easier to carve out that time in a sandbox. Adventure path play is where this is a bigger problem IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

While I like making magic items, wouldn't it be easier to instruct DMs on giving out items the players want? Maybe even... asking the players what they want? Is there in there at all?

If catering to the PCs specific needs is an important part of your style of play, yes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Could the characters of LotR take fifty days off to make a magic item?

Could the characters of the recent D&D movie?

Could Xenophon have done so while on campaign with Cyrus?

Characters have lives full of adventure. They aren't normal. They don't live at the pace normal people live. They have that not-actually-Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Yes, if they were normal people leading normal lives, 50 continuous, uninterrupted days would be a cakewalk. Adventurers are not normal.

It really isn't that hard to find something that will interrupt the work for a couple days every few weeks, and that's enough to derail the work.

Those are (essentially) adventure paths. Not the only way to play a game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It can drop with the intention of being sold for its full gp costs, but I'm not going to act like it's treasure that means anything to the party.

Nor should you. But there's no in-setting demand that everything the PCs find is useful for them specifically. Quite the opposite IMO.