D&D General 5e, the least magic item impacted edition?

[ad_hoc]

My group play tested the HELL out of 5e, and it was apparent early on the magic items were not necessary, but also unique. Gone were the 3e days where you have a bucket of +1 Longswords. Our first campaign for 5e was played with scarce magic items. I had a +1 Longsword that shed light like a torch. It was my one magic item until 3rd level when I got a holy mace that did +1d6 extra radiant against undead and fiends. The game worked great. We played until 9th level with scarce magic items. I never got rid of my two magic weapons, and even though I started as an Archery Fighter I eventually took TWF to complement my two magic weapons. It's pretty amazing, to be honest.

Our next campaign was played with high magic living through a Fiendish Apocalypse. All of us had lots of magic weapons, items, and armor, looted from corpses of dead heroes and villains. The DM wanted to see if we could play a Monty Hall game and how the system would handle it. All of had several legendary items and no room to attune more. The way the DM handled it was he increased the CR by 1 for each legendary item we had attuned as a group. To keep the Exp down but the CR up he'd sprinkle in a few extra Fiends for every encounter. The great part about 5e is low level monsters can still be effective, even against very high level PCs. That's a big departure from 3e where you can't field CR3 monsters against a 16th level party and expect anything out of them.

Wait, that's your idea of scarce items?

In my games players can get to 5th level without any permanent items depending on how the rolls go. In my current game the party is 4th level (almost 5th) and have a single magical robe among them. That's normal for us and I think 5e in general.

 

[Bolares]

Yes, that is fairly high and a lot of characters will have a fairly low Wisdom save. But compared to 1e/2e, you'd have been down for the encounter with the first save if you failed and not rolling each round. Also, in 5e, that spell or effect probably requires the caster to concentrate, so finding some character to hit them and force Constitution saves to maintain concentration becomes a key tactic.

I'm saying it's a really high DC because for a PC to have a 18 on their DC they would need a +5 in their spellcasting modifier and a +5 in proficience (at least 13th level). So for an NPC to have that high of a DC it would probably be a pretty big deal.

 

[amethal]

Yes, that is fairly high and a lot of characters will have a fairly low Wisdom save. But compared to 1e/2e, you'd have been down for the encounter with the first save if you failed and not rolling each round. Also, in 5e, that spell or effect probably requires the caster to concentrate, so finding some character to hit them and force Constitution saves to maintain concentration becomes a key tactic.

It was some sort of monster special ability, and there wasn't any concentration involved - although since this is our first 5th edition campaign the DM might have missed it.

 

[Bolares]

It was some sort of monster special ability, and there wasn't any concentration involved - although since this is our first 5th edition campaign the DM might have missed it.

Yeah, that's what I'm felling. Comming from 3.x, 4e and pathfinder, the first few games we really missed the correct AC, Spell DC, and DCs in general for 5e. Took us some games to adjust.

 

[Voadam]

AD&D and Basic felt like they had a bunch from modules, the ubiquity of +1 maces became a running joke in my campaign in the 80s. Magic or magic weapons were really needed to affect a large number of monsters (all but the least powerful undead, extraplanar things, golems), so magic weapons were key for fighters.

3e had its core tree slots (ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, magic weapon, magic armor, magic shield, ring of protection, cloak of resistance, stat item), crafting, and default magic item markets with incentives to get more lower powered items, which made it common for PCs to have lots of magic. With an expected wealth per level and a decent exponential cost for the power of items the combat math expectations pretty much assumed you had increasingly powerful items for the slots as you leveled.

4e made it fairly standard to have 4 items (magic attack item (weapon or focus), magic armor, protective neck item, +something neat) which is not a ton but had the complication of expecting bonuses to go up with level so either changing the items frequently or using rituals to upgrade your existing stuff. 4e also had the excellent option in DMG 2 to go with inherent bonuses and make the assumed plusses from the three main item categories (attack, AC, other defenses) inherent to characters and did not stack with item bonuses so that magic items were not necessary for baseline math and could be rare or just allow for weird non-math abilities.

 

[el-remmen]

This conversation has me thinking of this bit of the intro to the forthcoming fourth issue of my zine, HOW I RUN IT (subtitled "A Myriad of Magical Items"):

Magical items have long represented a contradiction in my approach to running D&D campaigns. On the one hand, I have had a bit of a reputation as a stingy DM who did not give out much magic but that at the same time, tends to give out magical items that are a bit involved and non-standard, perhaps slightly more powerful than the standard version they are based on, have a history connecting them to the lore of the setting, and occasionally having a drawback of some kind.

 

[AtomicPope]

Wait, that's your idea of scarce items?

In my games players can get to 5th level without any permanent items depending on how the rolls go. In my current game the party is 4th level (almost 5th) and have a single magical robe among them. That's normal for us and I think 5e in general.

If you just played the 5e Starter Set you'd have way more magic than that. You'd have magic armor, swords, mace, axe, The Glass Staff, and wands, just off the top of my head. The standard magic seems to be a 1 permanent magic item every 2 or 3 levels. I'd say getting half of that is scarce.

 

[ad_hoc]

If you just played the 5e Starter Set you'd have way more magic than that. You'd have magic armor, swords, mace, axe, The Glass Staff, and wands, just off the top of my head. The standard magic seems to be a 1 permanent magic item every 2 or 3 levels. I'd say getting half of that is scarce.

The treasure hoard tables have been broken down into what is average.

I haven't played the 5e starter set but I have played many other 5e adventures and it sounds like an extreme outlier.