D&D (2024) Uncommon items - actually common?

[Micah Sweet]

The world in-universe is unaware of the rules used to construct the PCs.

I know. I saw that part of the 2024 DMG. It makes no sense to me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I know. I saw that part of the 2024 DMG. It makes no sense to me.

It's been part of the game for almost two decades now. I haven't seen it was actually part of the game at any point aside from 3e where it became a problem for a lot of people real fast.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's been part of the game for almost two decades now. I haven't seen it was actually part of the game at any point aside from 3e where it became a problem for a lot of people real fast.

It is much more in-your-face this iteration than it ever has been.

 

[Xetheral]

The description is quite clear. It's 2x2x4 and I don't see an exception, just a clarification of how much space that is in cubic feet.

You can ignore the text of course, most people do. I only point it out for purposes of discussion.

2x2x4 is 16 cubic feet, but the bag explictly holds 64 cubic feet. Whether it's an incorrect "clarification" or an exception, either way you can stuff 64 cubic feet into the bag, despite its interior dimensions being too small to hold that much volume.

 

[tetrasodium]

Maybe it's just because of the time change and feels later than it actually is, but I have NO idea what the heck you are even trying to say here.

So, I'll repeat myself to make my position simple: the concept of magic as "commonplace" in D&D ruins the game for me. The very fact a healing potion, which certainly is a very minor magical item, appears on the equipment list is ludicrous IMO. And now in 2024 we add minor spell scrolls as well.

In AD&D magic was more "required" (this creature needs a +1 weapon to hit, etc.), but even then the rules for crafting even a +1 weapon as much harder than in 5E. Bottomline: magic was not commonplace in the AD&D setting. Common to adventurers? Certainly, but the prices were so much higher (2000 gp for a +1 sword vs. 400 in 5E!). Plus in most AD&D games magical items were not so commonplace you're going to trip over a +1 sword or find one in every merchant store in every town.

5E implies magic is commonplace in a fashion AD&D never did. You FOUND items in AD&D 95+% of the times, you didn't create them or buy them generally. Crafting rules practically flip things on their head. You want a healing potion? 1 days work with an herbalism kit and 25 gp and whammo! healing potion.

Want a rare item in 2024? Simple enough with 50 days of work, a couple proficiencies, and 2000 gp.

Coupled with no chance of failure for crafting a magical item (you could easily fail in AD&D and have to begin all over!) in 5E and it is just that much easier to make magic "common".

It's real easy. You are taking aim at something that is effectively decorative rather than structurally functional.

I'm More than one occasion I've tried to encourage players to take fewer tests and move away from relying on yoyo healing by providing them with more and better quality healing potions only to see absolutely no change with players actually arguing to not use the potions "in case we need them more later“ no matter how many they have. Eotc needs to fix the mechanical issues that reverse course on all the reasons why readily available healing potions were no big deal in the past.

Don't want players to buy healing potions? Tell them none are available when they try to buy them... Barring edge cases groups* nothing will change in how the game plays.

* Ie groups with zero healing poor HP & low AC builds

 

[pemerton]

The world in-universe is unaware of the rules used to construct the PCs.

I know. I saw that part of the 2024 DMG. It makes no sense to me.

It's been part of the game for almost two decades now. I haven't seen it was actually part of the game at any point aside from 3e where it became a problem for a lot of people real fast.

Even in 3E your original post stands. I mean, part of the rules for constructing PCs are choose a race and a class for your character. But no one supposes that the inhabitants of the imaginary world are aware that some of their number owe their existence and nature to the choices of a player of a game!

 

[pemerton]

Once you say that a player's wizard dies and they can Come back into the campaign by replacing the dead wizard with a whole nother wizard, you kind of made a world where there are enough wizards to have at least the most minor scrolls for sale.

If my wizard can find scrolls and my wizard is not the only wizard in the world, Then there should be some places that have scrolls.

Unless the previous generations of spellcasters are all dead or left the area, There must be someone in the area able to do those actions.

D&D never had the assumption that most other magic users and spell casting priest were dead.

If your wizard died, you can reroll another one. Creating a new wizard or cleric was not some hard prestige ability. You just had to roll good on intelligence or wisdom.

That was the crux of the issue. People wanted to create settings that did not match the rules.

<snip>

Therefore there would be places that would have people able to create scrolls who might sell them.

If a player brings in a new PC who is a wizard or a cleric or whatever, it needn't follow that the (fictional) world is rife with such people. There are all sorts of possible backstories for such a character that don't involve them being just one of many.

And even if, for instance, the wizard was trained by a magical college, it doesn't follow that that magical college sells spells or scrolls to all comers.

The Wizard class was always designed around getting magical treasure. Magic scrolls and Spell books.

The Fighter class was always designed around getting magical treasure. Magic weapons that bypassed the monster armor.

To to play D&D without magic treasure you would have to change the assumptions of the game. The number one change would be that there would be increased spellcasters who could teach wizards new spells or cast magic weapon on fighter weapons.

<snip>

To kill the Dragon in the dungeon your fighter needed:

1. A magic weapon
2. A magic ally who can cast Magic Weapon
3. A magic oil or potion that turned his normal weapon into a magic weapon.

D&D since first edition defaulted to (1).
5e was the first to default to (2) or (3).

However since 5E said that a player can make a PC any class and is Not forced to play a class that was required to defeat any particular monster, magic hirelings on magic potions had to be sellable

In a world with 2014 5e dragons with resistance to nonmagical weapons, 2-10 dudes would need temporary or permanent magic weapons or they'd fail to kill the dragons and die

5e was written with the assumption that the setting would have magic in items and/or people.

Therefore the rich and powerful would be able to buy the magic that is in items or people.

Nobility and merchants will have the money to spend on the highest tech of the setting. And if you only offer magic items, every very rich person would have magic items.

<snip>

Nobles and major merchants having closets of common consumables and an uncommon magic item really livens up D&D setting with some logic.

So in AD&D (1st ed) a magic weapon is not required to kill a dragon.

But setting that aside, there are ways to acquire magic goods, and/or magic services, other than by purchasing them.

Your proposition about nobility, merchants and other "rich and powerful" assumes that there are large numbers of wizards etc ready to provide the nobles and major merchants with those things. But that's not simply a matter of "logic". It's a question of setting assumptions. And unlimited trade in magical goods and services isn't the only tenable assumption.

What strikes me more about the rarity of magical item is the lack of correlation between the magic item making rules and the prevalence of items.

<snip>

with a lack of mean for destroying items in current rules (outside of the odd "use the last charge and it stops working", but have we ever seen anyone do that?), civilization that are millions-year old, magical item creation rule that can be easy, the world should be drowned in common and uncommon magical item that have use for everyday folk. If I have a ruler and with a court wizard, AND the rule say that creating a continual light require an eye of a dragon or a crystal that is still reflecting the light of the Trees before the Sun was made, I probably expect to see a world where people use torches for lights in the city. If it's 200 gp and 10 days, my wizard will be tasked to create items each time he isn't working on something more urgent. At worst, it costs me 4,000 gp a year to progressively make my city impervious to fire hazard. Enspelled stone of cure light wound would turn my 30-years life expectancy peasants into 70+ live expectancy peasants overnight (well, over a tenday), resulting in a spectacular increase in population. And in a world were people are weath, I wouldn't hesitate to invest if I were the ruler. I'd also consider having my druid make jars of goodberries and progressively remove agriculture from my list of task my peasant should devote their time... (assuming 3 castings of goodberries a day, that's 30 persons fed for 200 gp... forever. To break even in a single year, one would need to value a goodberry meal at less than 2 cp (a squalid meal, and nothing in the spell description mention people living off goodberries being particularly unhappy -- if they replace an average meal, they break even in 22 days).

While I can close my eyes and think the price list doesn't exist, it's difficult to have people living in the world not using the rules.

Again, this is about setting assumptions, not "logic" - not all governments and rulers work in accordance with what Weber called "technical rationality".

Yeah, I know, I should think that the item creation rule are just for heroes and everyone else are just very bad wizards who can't replicate their uberness... because the alternative is that it's difficult when your PC wizards start saying "I'll spend my first 200 gp earned on a jar of goodberries, producing 9 gp worth of food each day, hire an underling at 1 gp a day to manage the stall and live a quasi-aristocratic life forever from the proceeds" and having nobody try to emulate him...

The solution to this is not to have PC wizards do that thing.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Yeah, the "wide magic" principle that Eberron pioneered really seems to have taken hold. Magic is pervasive, though not as cheap and omnipresent as technology is in the modern world. Instead of a world where kings have court archmages and peasants scrabble around like medieval farmers, the magic is spread a little more evenly.

An extended family pitching together to get a Prosthetic Limb or Ersatz Eye isn't impossible for the common folk. Rich kids running around showing off with their Masquerade Tattoos and Cloaks of Billowing makes sense. A well to do specialist having a single uncommon magic item related to their trade is fitting. And I'm okay with all that. It makes the fantasy world feel like a fantasy world, not Renfaire Earth with a few wizard towers dropped in randomly.

We think of dungeons and dragons as medieval fantasy but forgotten realms is much more like the early modern era, and I think that is a little bit more explicit in the 15th century DR. Especially for people who started with 5th edition, I definitely think that there's more of a Renaissance fantasy vibe going on, and the Renaissance was characterized by the rise of the urban, educated, skilled middle class rather than a mere division of peasants and noblemen.

Not only, implicitly, is there a middle class of magical artisans who are making these magic items, but it is also implied that there is a wealthy enough middle class to justify the production of these items on a large enough scale to make them widely available.

 

[Oofta]

2x2x4 is 16 cubic feet, but the bag explictly holds 64 cubic feet. Whether it's an incorrect "clarification" or an exception, either way you can stuff 64 cubic feet into the bag, despite its interior dimensions being too small to hold that much volume.

Yeah, I hadn't really thought it through. Not like I calculate square footage in my head on a regular basis.

In any case it doesn't really change much. I was only pointing out interior dimensions as an example of how I think it's basically impossible to figure out how magic would impact anything. The D&D world has only superficial similarity to the real world, especially when it comes to economic commerce.

Some high value goods might be shipped for a lower cost. Figuring out the impact? In a world with magic that only superficially resembles the real world? Not to mention that each campaign world is a little different? I have no clue and I don't think there's any easy way to figure it out because there are simply too many variables.

So end of the day all I can say is that the item cost by rarity is as good as any other system we come up with. Because every system will likely be FUBAR and based on unsupportable assumptions anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Even in 3E your original post stands. I mean, part of the rules for constructing PCs are choose a race and a class for your character. But no one supposes that the inhabitants of the imaginary world are aware that some of their number owe their existence and nature to the choices of a player of a game!

When I read that line, I always assume the choice is from the DMs list of allowable classes and races. They decide what's available first.