D&D 5E (2024) A Magic Item Every Encounter or Two? Plus Other Thoughts

[Zardnaar]

So the 5.5 DMG does have guidelines for magic items. Depending on DM its almost one every encounter or two. Note a lot are common items but still.

In the 2024 starter set they use a random item deck of cards. Every cave seems to be 2 or 3 encounters and 1-2 items and various other ways to get them.

My group popped +1 full plate in the goblin cave. RAW 1 rare item can drop level 1-4. I've been used to such items dropping since the 90s and 3E and 5E adventures have similar ones.

A lot of the Adventures of Faerun mini adventures often have them as well.

I'm handing out less thanAD&D and BG3 but probably more than ENworld would. Fairly close to DMG guidelines. Sometimes I do drop a legendary tier two.

Magical weapons usually go +1 ir 2, extra dice of damage, very rare or legendary towards the end. If a legendary drops early (eg lvl 7) there's no upgrade.

Common items and generic +1 items are available to buy but not in unlimited quantity. I dont generally track potions of healing. You can't buy clockwork amulet en masse. +1 weapons, wands of warmage, amulet of devotion, +1 shields are generic types.

Vendors sell curated lists of items. They might have 3 eg 2 uncommon items (not +1), 1 rare. They won't be generic +1 items however. Vendors can be found in surprising places.

Very rares and above generally need to be found. A lot of items are from older editions or BG3. Rule of thumb conversion is upgrade items rarity by 1 if a weapon has an ability. A +1 shocking weapon from 3E functions the same but its rare. Probably wont require attunement as theres better ones at that rarity. A minor upgrade might require attunement eg +1 keen shocking weapon. A ×2 version would be very rare.

Similar deal with 4E items. Compare to existing items go from there. Minor ability no attunement. Medium ability attunement. Major item kick it up a rarity.

So thats where I am atm. Trying to avoid the following.

1. Magic item Christmas tree.

2. Magic item supermarkets.

3. Excessive min/maxing.

4. Boosting exploration and social. Eg finding vendors, convincing them to sell. Contacts and sidequests.

5. Guaranteeing basic items are available.

6. Avoiding stacking abuse with non attunement items. No you cant buy 10 clockwork amulet.

7. Magic item supermarkets in essence obsolete 90% of magic items and heavily incentive to internet theory craft. Had enough of that in 3E.

Anyway your thoughts on frequency, power levels etc of items?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Seems fine.
What is the size of the party that these are being shared amongst?
Are these items effectively random/whatever the module specifies, or do you "target" items to the characters in the party? (Either by wish lists or your own choice.)

 

[Zardnaar]

Seems fine.
What is the size of the party that these are being shared amongst?
Are these items effectively random/whatever the module specifies, or do you "target" items to the characters in the party? (Either by wish lists or your own choice.)

If its an older module I tend to carry one item through.
Eg a noc fighter with various magic items might become an npc veteran warrior or gladiator equipped with magic armor or weapon.

Players dont givevmeveish list. They wouldn't know what they are.

I try and drop significant upgrades fairly quickly across the board. Ex barbarian gets a +d6 weapon. Next session or 3 similar weapons might drop for everyone else.

I try not to funnel the best wespons for the best styles. Ranged and great weapon for 5.0 or great weapon and dual wielding 5.5.

Classes thst benefit a lot from items eg rogue:thief might not get the ideal item but ill try and give them a wand of magic missiles or whatever.

If a player chose a smaller weapon eg spear vs longsword a "better" weapon might drop. Im not giving a barbarian a vicious weapon anytime soon sword and board might get one.

I might be more generous if someone picked a weaker class. Eg rogue or ranger.

 

[Moving Pictures]

So the 5.5 DMG does have guidelines for magic items. Depending on DM its almost one every encounter or two. Note a lot are common items but still.

Still ridiculous. Who is making this stuff? Why?

Nobody thinks about magic as an economic force. It should take a crapton of time/labour/money/magic to make something like a freaking +2 sword.

The rarer items are, the more valued they become when found.

 

[aco175]

Adventure League has an item each adventure- and the whole party can take it. So, does that make 5 items each adventure?

I tend to give out too many items myself. By level 5 I think each PC has a cool item such as a weapon that also does something or a cloak or rarely armor.

 

[Zardnaar]

Still ridiculous. Who is making this stuff? Why?

Nobody thinks about magic as an economic force. It should take a crapton of time/labour/money/magic to make something like a freaking +2 sword.

The rarer items are, the more valued they become when found.

They've never been that rare in D&D.

Practically a tropes by now.

 

[Silam]

Still ridiculous. Who is making this stuff? Why?

Nobody thinks about magic as an economic force. It should take a crapton of time/labour/money/magic to make something like a freaking +2 sword.

The rarer items are, the more valued they become when found.

Although it is more subtle than in some other TTRPGs, D&D 5e is still very much a game where PCs and NPCs/monsters are not on a level playing field…

If a NPC had the amount of magic items a PC usually has, then a PC killing that NPC and looting them would result roughly in the PC doubling their stash of items overnight, which obviously makes no sense. And so in most adventures most enemies are naked and even BBEGs have very few items.

There is no economic force making any sense here… for it to make sense, there would need to be certain factors injected or tweaked in the environment… such as:

- Magic items could be so valuable that they are often stolen. (It wouldn’t matter as much that you are getting so many if you regularly lost them all and had to start from scratch)

- Magic items could have an expiry date. Obviously, consumables are already this way, but it could be extended to other types… a +2 sword becomes +1 after a month… and a +1 becomes non-magical after a year. By the time you get to +3, it’s so fleeting that it’s almost equivalent to upcasting Magic Weapon. Something like that.

- Magic items are permanent if left undisturbed but can be used as "fuel" for certain industrial activities. A mythal providing large scale protection for a city against invaders needs a magic weapon sacrificed every day or it starts weakening. So the city is protected, but it needs to be constantly crafting new magic weapons only to break even on sacrificing them back to the mythal. If there is a surplus those magic weapons can be sold or given to adventurers, but if production comes up short, some citizens may need to be taxed of their family heirlooms in order to keep the mythal up and running.

- Another example of an industrial activity might be transferring magic across items. You found a +3 longsword but you wish it were a greatsword? No problem! The magic can be transferred but it is a lossy process, so the +3 longsword becomes a +2 greatsword. Might still be worth it for a given character but the end result is the magic item stock is constantly eroding (just like cheap IKEA furniture can only survive a handful of moves before it falls apart).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

My ideal distribution of magic items is very much informed by AD&D, which gives out more than current D&D recommends. That being said, what you propose depends on the size of your group, I think. Throwing out a magic item (including potions and common items) every other encounter plays a lot differently for a group of three than it does a group of five.

 

[ECMO3]

Last time I calculated level 20 was about 30 2014 "adventuring days". In other words if you ran normal difficulty encounters at a clip of 6-7 a day it would take around 30 days to get enough XP for level 20 ..... so that is on the order of 200 encounters.

In 2024 the party should find 100 magic items by level 20. So if the 200 encounters math is still accurate then finding 1 magic item every 2 encounters is exactly where you should be. Since the party won't find all the magic items the DM places, the DM should "overstock" and actually place more than 1 item every 2 encounters.

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

Still ridiculous. Who is making this stuff? Why?

Nobody thinks about magic as an economic force. It should take a crapton of time/labour/money/magic to make something like a freaking +2 sword.

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