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

[tetrasodium]

I disagree with the premise


You do not need body slots to figure out where a helmet, gloves and chest armor go...

That's an absurd example, nobody would claim or suspect that a helmet or pair of gloves are capable of being worn as chest armor.

You do need something if you want to use that something to limit stacking of magic items not physically worn in a different location. It's telling that you choose helmet gloves and chest armor rather than something less clear cut like say... Any of these

• Amulet, Brooch, Medallion, Necklace, Periapt, Scarab
• Headband, helmet
• Cloak, Cape, Mantle
• Etc

Once upon a time you could use bonus types to limit stacking as well or instead if body slots and similar were not the right tool for a particular use case... Except those are not an option either because 5e removes those as well.

that all sounds like the same item to me... hand out magic items, make encounters slightly harder, done. Pretty sure you also complain about how unreliable CR is, so you are not losing anything that way

They are individual issues related to a complicated problem. You can see proof of that in the way they interact differently with your overly simplified solution.

that makes no sense, if the magic item affects your DC roll in some form, then it influences the check. The DC ladder has nothing to do with that, unless you want something so insanely hard that it can only be done with that one specific magic item that gives a +10 to that one specific scenario. At that point, forget about DCs and just say the item is required, because that is what it is, whether you hide that behind a DC or not

Ithe part you are overlooking is where the impact on the check from magic items causes the DC ladder to lsg behind PC skills. Given how that happens even without magic items influencing skills it only accelerates the problem to add magic items to checks

 

[CapnZapp]

Like when the people who want to paint the game as 'too easy' do it too, conveniently forgetting the existence of crap like ghouls and how terrible in combat healing is to the point that it itself contributes to the fallacy of 'pop up healing'?

I'm not entirely sure of your point?

Are you, or are you not, complaining about 5th Edition being too hard?

Myself I argued it is (far from) too hard, but I wasn't trying to set up a highly specific example to "prove" my point. I'm just flat out getting the vibe (from playing and discussing) people don't feel the game is very hard at all, and that an encounter the game math calls "deadly" is in fact often bordering on trivial.

There are a few highly specific combos that make a combat much harder, but that's (very) far from the baseline.

(Of course there a loads of groups where nobody is concerned with efficiency and DPS, but I'm chiefly assuming the most valid complaint would come from people who do care about this stuff, as in "we tried creating a minmaxed party and we still get our behinds handed to us".)

 

[CapnZapp]

PC are supposed to have glaring weaknesses. However the punishment for having a weakness should not be a spiral if focused on and every PC has 4 of them.

And that is the question.

Is D&D supposed to devolve into rocket tag. Because if you turn off the optional rules, it's rocket tag.

I have a hard time believing feats and magic items save the game from rocket tag.

In fact, I am firmly convinced it is these very optional rules that, in the hands of a competent minmaxer, turn the game into rocket tag.

Rocket tag where the heroes win, that is; routinely trouncing even the most absurdly overstuffed combat encounters (compared to the rulebook guidelines)

Am I wrong?

 

[CapnZapp]

even if magic items aren't 'required to be effective' i feel like a masterwork '+0' weapon is for any martial character past 5th level, because you can't assume you'll be having a caster using magic weapon on your fighter's greatsword

But... in a campaign where you the level 17 fighter is functionally worthless with your non-magic weapon... Magic Weapon might be the best spell in the game.

So why isn't your wizard casting it?

I'm assuming he likes dealing with the enemies all by himself, in which case: why are you fighters sticking around? Go find someone that wants to play D&D as a team activity!

 

[CapnZapp]

Show me evidence this is a common issue.

I feel you both have points:

I absolutely think you can play a low magic campaign and.. have few issues even though you're not the world's most experienced DM.

I also absolutely think that if you do like handing out gold, and your players prefer to purchase "powerups" for that money (instead of building orphanages etc)... then WotC left out this entire playstyle in the cold when they gave no (useful) guidelines for what things should cost.

I can say both "magic items aren't needed" and "magic items are super cool" in the same sentence.

It's not that they owe us magic item pricing because the game breaks if you can't purchase magic items. It's that purchasing magic items is great fun for a lot of us, and having rational magic item pricing is essential to this enjoyment.

 

[CapnZapp]

Ive experienced it twice. Seen it at least.


Most of the nonmagical official monsters are boring as heck. There's no official rewards that means anything once you take out magic items. And if you do throw in a magical monster or a tough noncombat obstacle, you'll quickly realize that the characters were designed to be extremely narrow and rigid without magic.

This forces low or no magic campaigns to need on iffy or unreliably of 3PP product market.

And this is because of 2 things. D&D has a history of being a higher magic game. And there are many definitions of low magic. So WOTC hallway supporting it doesn't work.

Mingiant: please consider switching from claiming "magic items are required" to "I hate the game without magic items". You should find that you can proceed to the next phase of your argument much faster

 

[tetrasodium]

But... in a campaign where you the level 17 fighter is functionally worthless with your non-magic weapon... Magic Weapon might be the best spell in the game.

So why isn't your wizard casting it?

I'm assuming he likes dealing with the enemies all by himself, in which case: why are you fighters sticking around? Go find someone that wants to play D&D as a team activity!

I would imagine that you will find the answer in the magic weapon spell page. Specifically the part where it is a concentration spell once designed for self buffing gish types who feel cool buffing their own weapon even if they are not also able to buff the weapon of a second or third PC. Casting magic weapon makes old school shadowrun hackers and heal bot builds look like spotlight hogs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Wouldn't it be nice to not need to solve it? Or to find out the hard way, if you're just starting out as a DM?

Sure. But (general) you aren't going to get that by just posting your issues here.

Now if all (general) you are hoping to accomplish is just spending a bit of your day venting online, then thumbs up! Very good! I do that all the time myself (like I'm doing right now). But I also go into it knowing full well my venting is not actually going to solve anything. So hopefully all of (general) you have your eyes just as open to that fact. Because if anyone actually thinks they can change the course of WotC's development from here on EN World... (general) you better be prepared for disappointment. The only real and usable solution to be gained from the boards here are suggestions of third-parties who have already created solutions that you might be able to purchase/pick up/borrow... or submit your own solutions to either get some feedback or offer them up to be borrowed by others themselves.

 

[CreamCloud0]

But... in a campaign where you the level 17 fighter is functionally worthless with your non-magic weapon... Magic Weapon might be the best spell in the game.

So why isn't your wizard casting it?

I'm assuming he likes dealing with the enemies all by himself, in which case: why are you fighters sticking around? Go find someone that wants to play D&D as a team activity!

you can still be working as a team, but that doesn't mean the casters should be perpetually obligated to act as an enabler to the martials by casting magic weapon every fight, plus only one caster can concentrate on the spell per one martial (barring a niche application of the twinned spell metamagic), and if they're casting magic weapon they can't be concentrating on any one of the other concentration spells that exist that would otherwise be far more effective than making the martial reach their intended base effectiveness.

 

[Mistwell]

I feel you both have points:

I absolutely think you can play a low magic campaign and.. have few issues even though you're not the world's most experienced DM.

I also absolutely think that if you do like handing out gold, and your players prefer to purchase "powerups" for that money (instead of building orphanages etc)... then WotC left out this entire playstyle in the cold when they gave no (useful) guidelines for what things should cost.

I can say both "magic items aren't needed" and "magic items are super cool" in the same sentence.

It's not that they owe us magic item pricing because the game breaks if you can't purchase magic items. It's that purchasing magic items is great fun for a lot of us, and having rational magic item pricing is essential to this enjoyment.

But everything you just said has nothing to do with the issue I'm speaking to. It's a completely different topic. I agree with you about purchasing and crafting magic items and have said so. That has zero to do with the claim that it's a common problem that new players go into games with zero spellcasters and zero magic items against creatures which routinely take advantage of that lack of magic unexpectedly. That scenario just isn't a common problem. And no amount of dancing around and trying to change the topic to something else will make that a common problem, which was the claim made that I responded to.