D&D (2024) 2024 needs to end 2014's passive aggressive efforts to remove magic items & other elements from d&d

[The Sigil]

As to "running a world is easy" I think back to the most recent campaign I ran for players that were new to D&D. I set the game in Mystara and at one point the players had a two-hour-long conversation with an NPC merchant who had travelled the world and could give them very basic intel on several different countries. One of the players, after the conversation, looked at me and said, "wow, that was incredible, when you were playing the NPC it really felt like someone that had lived in the world and it didn't seem like you were just making stuff up!" I was only able to do that because I've been reading and re-reading and running and re-running Mystara for 40 years... of COURSE I knew the world like I lived there and of COURSE I could make it feel "real" - 40 years of experience thinking about a campaign world is not a luxury any of us could have had back in 1983. (I happened to use Mystara, but you could just as easily substitute "Greyhawk" or "Faerun" or any number of other published or homebrew settings).

 

[James Gasik]

As to "running a world is easy" I think back to the most recent campaign I ran for players that were new to D&D. I set the game in Mystara and at one point the players had a two-hour-long conversation with an NPC merchant who had travelled the world and could give them very basic intel on several different countries. One of the players, after the conversation, looked at me and said, "wow, that was incredible, when you were playing the NPC it really felt like someone that had lived in the world and it didn't seem like you were just making stuff up!" I was only able to do that because I've been reading and re-reading and running and re-running Mystara for 40 years... of COURSE I knew the world like I lived there and of COURSE I could make it feel "real" - 40 years of experience thinking about a campaign world is not a luxury any of us could have had back in 1983. (I happened to use Mystara, but you could just as easily substitute "Greyhawk" or "Faerun" or any number of other published or homebrew settings).

It makes me happy to know that Mystara hasn't been forgotten.

 

[The Sigil]

Anyway, all of this was a long way to answer the thread's original premise.

2024 isn't trying to remove magic items and other elements from D&D. Neither was 2014. Instead, it was trying to homogenize the experience across campaigns by making character abilities the focus of power instead of magic items. A side effect of that is magic items are de-emphasized. This is not a problem per se, the problem is that magic items are being de-emphasized beyond the point the OP likes.

To go back to my earlier driving example, some people think the level of magic in <insert edition here> is maniacal while others think it is idiotic... and the writers think it's just right. Since the "sweet spot" for magic items is subjective, there IS no right answer. You are upset because the level of magic "spice" in the recipe isn't the level of "spice" you want - but the amount you want almost certainly isn't the amount the guy next to you wants. No matter where the level is set, someone will complain it's too high ("a magical sword of any kind - even a +1 sword - should be a valuable heirloom, not something to be discarded after my next dungeon crawl when I find a +2 sword!") and someone will complain it's too low ("whaddya mean the goblins dropped copper pieces and not Mjolnir?").

 

[CapnZapp]

What's everyone's take on how the difference between no magic items and magic items in a party stacks up against optimized pcs vs. less optimized ones? Obviously it's going to depend on the magic items, but generally speaking, do you think optimized builds make more or less of a difference than access to magic items?

Haven't really thought about it, mostly because it hasn't been a thing in practice.

The problematic juxtaposition is instead between campaigns that use neither and those that use both.

 

[tetrasodium]

Anyway, all of this was a long way to answer the thread's original premise.

2024 isn't trying to remove magic items and other elements from D&D. Neither was 2014. Instead, it was trying to homogenize the experience across campaigns by making character abilities the focus of power instead of magic items. A side effect of that is magic items are de-emphasized. This is not a problem per se, the problem is that magic items are being de-emphasized beyond the point the OP likes.

To go back to my earlier driving example, some people think the level of magic in <insert edition here> is maniacal while others think it is idiotic... and the writers think it's just right. Since the "sweet spot" for magic items is subjective, there IS no right answer. You are upset because the level of magic "spice" in the recipe isn't the level of "spice" you want - but the amount you want almost certainly isn't the amount the guy next to you wants. No matter where the level is set, someone will complain it's too high ("a magical sword of any kind - even a +1 sword - should be a valuable heirloom, not something to be discarded after my next dungeon crawl when I find a +2 sword!") and someone will complain it's too low ("whaddya mean the goblins dropped copper pieces and not Mjolnir?").

Your baking analogy it's more apt to the problems caused by wotc's effort to "de-emphasize" magic items than you give it credit by talking only about spice. Magic items played a role in areas like balance between PCs & motivation that are structural rather than subjective like spice. Those structural elements are more akin to a leavening agent in baking than a spice.

The design of 5e is one where that structural component is "de-emphasized" as if it were simply a subjective element like spices. That might be a question of subjectivity had they also made an effort to replace those non-subjective elements with something else. The fact that they did not attempt to replace those non-subjective functions with something else and provided no guidance on doing so while claiming they were not needed the whole time wotc's own adventures were using them for some of those same non-subjective reasons is an issue that has been pointed out by others in this thread even beyond the OP.

 

[CapnZapp]

Your question in 321 was not unique, you just asked it in a way that wasn't trying to prove some point. It seems like you are noting how the answer points at the same general reasons and asking why I didn't give you an unrelated set of answers. Unless I'm not grasping the intended questions you asked in 321 I'm not sure why you would get a different set of answers.... Were you trying to ask a different question?

I was trying to subtly raise the possibility you are putting way too much faith in "body slots" as a solution. I wasn't keen on entering that part of the debate while the basic "does 5E stop working without magic items?" debate was still raging.

With that mostly settled, I can confess I don't see 5E has nearly the kind of stacking problem that motivates adding a formal body slot rules framework.

And TBH I didn't think body slots really solved any balance issues in 3E either. They were good minmaxing fun because they added texture; something to wrap your minmaxing around. But any gamer worth his salt weren't stopped by hyperspecific nonsense like "you can't benefit from both a medallion and a brooch at the same time" anyway. (Yes, I had to look that up)

But I feel that level of detail is inappropriate for 5E.

Insofar as three attunement slots feels overly crude and restrictive in 5E, I would encourage you and everyone to look for other solutions. With special emphasis on things that actually solve specific problems, rather than just decorates them (like detailed rules about how many rings you could wear would).


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Maybe take a page out of PF2 and go like this:

• you now have 10 attunement slots
• every existing major item now costs 3 attunement slots

So far you've basically blown up supply and demand three times (with a 1/3rd added for good measure).

But now you have design space to designate less awesome items to use only 2 or 1 attunement slots.

This way one character attunes to three major items while another attunes to ten individually less impressive items. This way you would attempt to mitigate a real problem with 5E; the fact that so very many cool and evocative items go by the wayside simply because you already have three majorly impactful items, and you can't attune to any more.

But maybe, just maybe, you'd be willing to give one of these up, if you could get the cool and evocative item PLUS something other as well?


(The comparison with PF2 basically ends at having 10 attunement points. In PF2 the rule is: you can only invest 10 items during any given day. 5E items are allowed much more variety in power, which is why the comparison ends here)

 

[Yaarel]

Maybe assume the presence of one attunement per tier. Thus, 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, and 17-20. At the highest tier, the character can have upto five attunable items. All magic items require attunement, except common level-0 ones.

Of course, all of these guidelines would be in the DMs Guide, and a DM can do whatever ones table is in the mood for. But the guideline is a "safe" expectation, as opposed to the complex random tables, and inconsistent adventures.

 

[Yaarel]

so very many cool and evocative items go by the wayside simply because you already have three majorly impactful items, and you can't attune to any more.

Characters can have many magic items. They cant use them all at the same time. They require rests to swap in new attunements.

 

[nevin]

I was trying to subtly raise the possibility you are putting way too much faith in "body slots" as a solution. I wasn't keen on entering that part of the debate while the basic "does 5E stop working without magic items?" debate was still raging.

With that mostly settled, I can confess I don't see 5E has nearly the kind of stacking problem that motivates adding a formal body slot rules framework.

And TBH I didn't think body slots really solved any balance issues in 3E either. They were good minmaxing fun because they added texture; something to wrap your minmaxing around. But any gamer worth his salt weren't stopped by hyperspecific nonsense like "you can't benefit from both a medallion and a brooch at the same time" anyway. (Yes, I had to look that up)

But I feel that level of detail is inappropriate for 5E.

Insofar as three attunement slots feels overly crude and restrictive in 5E, I would encourage you and everyone to look for other solutions. With special emphasis on things that actually solve specific problems, rather than just decorates them (like detailed rules about how many rings you could wear would).


---

Maybe take a page out of PF2 and go like this:

• you now have 10 attunement slots
• every existing major item now costs 3 attunement slots

So far you've basically blown up supply and demand three times (with a 1/3rd added for good measure).

But now you have design space to designate less awesome items to use only 2 or 1 attunement slots.

This way one character attunes to three major items while another attunes to ten individually less impressive items. This way you would attempt to mitigate a real problem with 5E; the fact that so very many cool and evocative items go by the wayside simply because you already have three majorly impactful items, and you can't attune to any more.

But maybe, just maybe, you'd be willing to give one of these up, if you could get the cool and evocative item PLUS something other as well?


(The comparison with PF2 basically ends at having 10 attunement points. In PF2 the rule is: you can only invest 10 items during any given day. 5E items are allowed much more variety in power, which is why the comparison ends here)

solutions that point out the issue players are complaining about and then give the illusion of letting them have what you aren't going to let them have, even if it's offering some gain in flexibility are probably DOA.

 

[nevin]

Characters can have many magic items. They cant use them all at the same time. They require rests to swap in new attunements.

which in reality means everything but the most impactful and useful are simply trash for the D&D landfill or actually gold that you don't call gold that is still useless in far too many 5e games.