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

[Zardnaar]

It doesn't matter. If they use them and don't increase monster difficulty, they are borking the game balance.

And yes, I expect the vast majority of tables use them.

There's no built in game balance expectation in 5E.

 

[Older Beholder]

I love D&D. All the adventures are fun. I would say overall this one was below average for the ones we played, in part because of the end of game lack of challenge, but also the story is not that great. But it still was fun and it was neat to try out the new 2024 PC abilities at all levels.

I'm glad you're still enjoying it despite the issues.
Thanks for all the feedback, it's always interesting to hear about other peoples campaigns. Hopefully your next Dark Sun themed game solves some of the problems you had in this one. Looking forward to hearing about it at some point in the future.

 

[Maxperson]

You missed the part the DM doesn't have to hand them out. Not don't put them in. You don't have to hand out comvat related ones. Coul be all healing potions for example.

4E has the treadmill effect. There's no underlying mathematical equation.

I didn't miss anything. See where it says, " Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items."? End of story right there. That's the baseline assumption of 5.5e.

Hand them out. Don't hand them out. Hand them out like candy. Be stingy with them. None of that matters. The baseline does not change.

Stop fixating on whether they get handed out or not. That is not the issue. The issue is that balance is disrupted from the very first potion handed out and just get more and more out of whack the more magic items you give. You either adjust the monsters or they get their collective rears handed to them by the PCs.

 

[Zardnaar]

I didn't miss anything. See where it says, " Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items."? End of story right there. That's the baseline assumption of 5.5e.

Hand them out. Don't hand them out. Hand them out like candy. Be stingy with them. None of that matters. The baseline does not change.

Stop fixating on whether they get handed out or not. That is not the issue. The issue is that balance is disrupted from the very first potion handed out and just get more and more out of whack the more magic items you give. You either adjust the monsters or they get their collective rears handed to them by the PCs.

You don't adjust the monsters though. That's part of not required. They also don't tell you what to hand out.

You could hand out a heap of non combat ones or healing potions.

There's no expectation on the math or balance if the game is main point. Adjusting monsters is purely your opinion.

Seems clear they don't want to redo the treadmill effect which is what happens if you do.

 

[Maxperson]

You don't adjust the monsters though. That's part of not required. They also don't tell you what to hand out.

You could hand out a heap of non combat ones or healing potions.

There's no expectation on the math or balance if the game is main point. Adjusting monsters is purely your opinion.

There is only one way you can be correct, and that's if the designers are flat out lying to us about how they balance monsters vs. PCs.

Is this a lie? " Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items."

If it's not a lie, then you are wrong about the baseline balance. It's crystal clear that they are saying that magic items are not included in the balance.

 

[Maxperson]

There's no expectation on the math or balance if the game is main point. Adjusting monsters is purely your opinion.

Oh, and that's not an opinion.

It's a fact that they do not balance monsters and PCs with magic items in mind.
Since that is a fact, then it is also a fact that if you hand out magic items to the PCs, you are unbalancing encounters in favor of the PCs.
Since it is a fact that PCs with magic items are unbalanced compared to the monsters, it is also fact that if you do not adjust the monsters to compensate, the fights will be easier for the PCs to win.

There is no opinion there. Opinion would be whether or not I think magic items should be handed out. I do. That's my opinion.

 

[Zardnaar]

There is only one way you can be correct, and that's if the designers are flat out lying to us about how they balance monsters vs. PCs.

Is this a lie? " Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items."

If it's not a lie, then you are wrong about the baseline balance. It's crystal clear that they are saying that magic items are not included in the balance.

Once again it's not saying font hand them out. Also it's not saying you don't include them either.

All it's saying is they're not required.

Monsters being to easy isn't a magic item problem. 4E had same problem. They've removed all the things that made them scary and inflated numbers won't make up for that.

Magic item combos have existed in every edion. What's going on here is ECMO3 group had specific ones en masses.

If they had generic +2 items it's not much of an upgrade.

Magic items are an art form not a science in every edition.

 

[Maxperson]

If they had generic +2 items it's not much of an upgrade.

It's a huge upgrade. Once you get a magic weapon, all of a sudden you are doing double damage to monsters with resistance. It turns a challenging encounter into a cake walk.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's a huge upgrade. Once you get a magic weapon, all of a sudden you are doing double damage to monsters with resistance. It turns a challenging encounter into a cake walk.

Maybe they should use the old AD&D system. With cantrips and spells like magic weapon or cantrips like shillagh bypassing resistance is trivial.

Bring back old school energy drain but make it exhaustion instead.

Moar hitpoints doesn't really work and that's what they have been doing since 3.0.

If I knew it was a no magic game I would just pick spellcasters or build with that expectation.

 

[EthanSental]

That's close to 20 rare items btw. 10 rings snd a vicious weapon each.

We did testing at 12 and some pcs had staff of power. I think an eldritch knight had one as well.

For stress testing looked at DMG and they could have a very rare, 2 rares and 4 uncommen. Half of the uncomment or commens were consumables.

Missed the rings and vicious weapons. Attunement slots were an issue. Generic +1 or 2 shields and armor were chosen often.

It’s fun to see different tables and how they game, not from a bad wrong fun perspective but what they enjoy, then add a joke to it….reading Zard’s some had staffs of power and maybe the EK, it feels like a butcher shop, I’d like to buy another staff of power…sorry bud, fresh out, come see me early next week, we should have more in