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Once you get to higher levels, the first combat or two means PCs going absolutely nuclear. I think you need 3 to 5 combats to challenge lv 5 and above. They can handle the heat. If you do less, go way over CR

Yeah that’s legal, I could see a player regretting losing that

Ring of three wishes is a legendary item, OP stresses Very Rare magic items

Appreciate all the feedback guys, I now have what I need to get this campaign realllly poppin

Also,

If I specify "Very Rare Magic Item" it gives a parameter, and even arbitrary parameters can help. It also gets the players thinking I'm concerned in some way with game balance, and though it's true that I'm not, it gives the appearance of that. Someone else was going on about "why don't they...

It's not just destroying the items, its also destroying the formulas that make the items possible. The concept behind the item is wholly destroyed leaving no ability of making anything similar again.

The last part has been stated by previous posters already, but having a campaign arc and planned twists is not "the worst excesses of '80s-90's GM-plotted trad RPGs". One of the top selling D&D adventurers is the Curse of Strahd. Are there planned twists there? Is Balder's Gate: Ascent into...

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I’ve got some bad news for you about every adventure ever written that isn’t a straight up dungeon crawl or open world hex crawl. The dmg painstakingly describes writing campaign arcs—I never said that this is a closed world: in fact, I said there’s plenty of other action (determined as time...

They can still play as the ghosts

I’d consider allowing players return as ghosts, holding the broken pieces of their Very Rare magic items as a testament to what they died over, a visible reminder of unfinished business. Ironically, if they kill the BBEG later, he will rest easy, moving to the afterlife since his goal is complete

The PCs will be destroyed but there is still a campaign world full of vibrant NPCs that can do anything they set their hearts to (provided that it isn’t recovering, re-creating, or otherwise using the players Very Rare magic items)

This was covered in the OP, the characters who refuse are instantly disintegrated

That’s a great area for development! One idea is that the BBEG was an adventurer once, a BBGG. But then, his family was murdered by a Very Rare Magic Item. When he finds out there’s a whole party of people with items like that ironically pursuing the adventuring life that killed those he loved...

The BBEG is invulnerable during the first combat, as his hand is on the disintegration wand and he makes it clear that not only is he protected by powerful magic, he’ll reduce everyone to ashes if they attack outright. This is later remedied when the find him around lv 4, fat and happy, no...

Healing Potions aren’t a Very Rare magic item so it would be a strange choice. I’d wonder why you went with that, but would probably allow it even though it specifically goes against the earlier stated constraints. As a DM, I think it’s generous to make allowances from time to time to earn the...

Want to clarify something after reading the last two comments (this is a lecture, this is ice cream they can’t have). It’s not just a twist where they can’t “eat their ice cream”. It’s that they chose one specific flavor and that flavor becomes impossible to reproduce, ever. Let me give an...