D&D (2024) Wrapping up first 2-20 2024 campaign this week, some of my thoughts

[mamba]

I was hoping for more specifics.

they made classes more flexible, giving them the upper hand in more situations, Weapon Masteries raised the melee power significantly

There is not really one thing to point to and say ‘this is why’, it is the aggregate

 

[Zardnaar]

Again I am curious. Did your DM just not sense that there were too many magic items and change things up?

I'm the DM lol. It's not my game with the 10 rings.

I sell mostly curated list and +1 items.

They've bought +1 wands, rods, swords whatever and the curated ones are dmg or BG3 ones. Level 7.

There's 1 legendary they found. I don't sell them.

They might be able to buy 1 ring maybe even 1 each. They wouldn't find 10.

I'm experimenting with limited magic item sales.

 

[mamba]

And that statement kind of undersells the loads and loads of great advice

I was not talking about the book as a whole, I was talking about the magic item crafting rules.

There is good advice in the DMG, the magic item crafting and prices I consider actively bad and detrimental advice however. There is not really one way I would ever use them

 

[dave2008]

I think he followed the guidance in the adventure and this is the first campaign for him using 2024 rules.

Also while it seems to be a lot, and it certainly feels like a lot playing in game, I don't think it is actually an abnormally large amount based on the guidance in the DMG. The DMG says 100 magic items for 18th level party, including 11 Legendary and 19 Very Rare. I don't think we actually have that many. We probably have more Rare than designed, but I think overall we are still in the ballpark for what is recommended.

We have 5 in our party, my PC currently has 2 Legendary items and 3 Very Rare items and I think that is about average for the party.

You mentioned each person had 10 magic rings though. That is abnormal. Also, the 2024 DMG specifically says:

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Are Magic Items Necessary?
The D&D game assumes that magic items appear sporadically and that they are a boon unless an item bears a curse. Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items, which means that having a magic item makes a character more powerful or versatile than a generic character of the same level. As DM, you never have to worry about awarding magic items just so the characters can keep up with the campaign’s threats. Magic items are truly prizes—desirable but not necessary.

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So if characters and monsters are built to face each other without magic items, and the PCs have a bunch of magic items, then the DM must account for that. I don't run published adventures, but if they are just using stock monsters then the DM absolutely needs to account for the PC magic items.

 

[dave2008]

yeah, that is all fine, but then they make it so easy to craft stuff that this notion is undermined quite a bit

But crafting and magic items are options under the DMs control. If they choose to buff the PCs, they should buff the adversaries as well. At least that is my opinion

 

[dave2008]

Read the new DMG suggestions for magic items?

At higher levels it's close to bg3.

I'm doing a bg3.5 campaign seling curated lists and uncommon items so it's not as bad as his situation.
. At level 18 having a legendary item or 2 each, several very rare and a few rares is expected.

Yes, I read the 2024 DMG:

Are Magic Items Necessary?

The D&D game assumes that magic items appear sporadically and that they are a boon unless an item bears a curse. Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items, which means that having a magic item makes a character more powerful or versatile than a generic character of the same level. As DM, you never have to worry about awarding magic items just so the characters can keep up with the campaign’s threats. Magic items are truly prizes—desirable but not necessary.

 

[DarkCrisis]

"I gave my players a nuclear missile and they used it to take out the BBE in one round from 50 miles away, why is 2024 so broken?"

I think 5E and 5.5E is to easy for the players but I come from official adventures and try to play the game RAW more or less and even I can tell you that giving them 100 magic items of their choice is just going to exacerbate the issue.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, I read the 2024 DMG:

Are Magic Items Necessary?

The D&D game assumes that magic items appear sporadically and that they are a boon unless an item bears a curse. Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items, which means that having a magic item makes a character more powerful or versatile than a generic character of the same level. As DM, you never have to worry about awarding magic items just so the characters can keep up with the campaign’s threats. Magic items are truly prizes—desirable but not necessary.

Aware but it's not saying hand out 0. Official adventures are full of them LMoP has around 13 iirc. Legendary ones turning up around level 7.

Said DMG also includes guidelines about how many to add.

I think open market buy whatever you like in whatever quantities you like is a mistake though which was what was going on there.

I've had 1 OP item that wasn't meant to hang around long term and the other one didn't hang around long term.

 

[Bomberooski]

Aware but it's not saying hand out 0. Official adventures are full of them LMoP has around 13 iirc. Legendary ones turning up around level 7.

Daid DMG also includes guidelines about how many to add.

I think open market buy whatever you like in whatever quantities you like is a mistake though which was what was going on there.

I've had 1 OP item that wasn't meant to hang around long term and the other one didn't hang around long term.

So at what point do you say “Oh. The PC’s are more powerful than the monsters in this module (or at a normal CR for your party), I should probably really bump them up and see what happens?”

 

[Chaltab]

Any magic weapon that adds 2 dice worth of damage to every hit is a mistake. Learned that the hard way in my game when I let the artificer loot a black ice longbow from a dead eladrin archer.

Luckily he was an artificer and not a ranger or a dex fighter.