D&D 5E A single +1 armor for a level 10 party

Just look at what organized play did. AL essentially re-opened the magic item shop.

So even the official OP doesn't follow those official guidelines

Not just the AL. The official hardcovers, even the 'stingy' ones like Tomb of Annihilation, hand out way, waaaay more magical items than the DMG and Xanathar's assumes.

'5E D&D is a low-magic item game' is simply not a paradigm the official designers for the game adhere to.
 

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I find these sorts of questions become more easily answered the less generic you make an item.

So, does it sound reasonable that the party has only found a single set of armor +1? Not really.

Does it sound reasonable that the party has only recovered the famed Bloody Mail of Yggrasil the Indestructible (which is a suit of armor +1)? Sure.
 

The 5e rules have done a great job of keeping the cool factor focused on the heroes rather than their gear. But it truly does "feel" stingy after prior editions. I try to give a minor permanent magic item (occasionally with a nifty history) to every PC within the first 3-4 levels, so they have the satisfaction of looking at their sheet and seeing that they have a cool magic item (it sounds dumb, but it does matter).
 

My experience has been that if you give out too many magic items, your characters forget about them. I don't know how many times players forgot they had a potion that would solve a particular problem on them.
 

Not quite. I don't play the HCs, buy it's still fairly difficult to get a decent magic item, and fairly easy to get one that does absolutely nothing for your character (wind fan). And it still couunts against yoir total. Put a new player at the table, and you almost have 0 chance of getting that +1 weapon you have been needing. You need to find a Fei Chen's to get anything specific usually.
Not since you can just buy them from your faction. As soon as those guidelines came out my lvl 10 and 11 each just bought a +1 plate and a +1 weapon. As there is little to no other stuff worth spending gold and downtime on, it was easily affordable. My level 10 even bought a cloak of protection for good meassure.

And the weapon and cloak (or the item the other factions offer instead of the cloak) are very, very cheap in my opinion, the only thing a little expensive was the +1 armor, but even that is nothing that a typcial level 10 character could not easily afford with his accumulated gold and DT

Neither of those characters ever played in anything but a DDEX or DDAL, no HC
 
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I don't use that table, but it sounds right to me. My players would freak out, though. (I think Pathfinder taught us all some bad habits/expectations.)
 

I do give out more items than the books would suggest. My group's campaigns tend to end around level 10-11. Last group tended to have 4-5 items each with all but one of them having +1 items. I think the fighter got +2 weapon on the last adventure. I also give out a few minor items like a mug that fills with beer a few times a day or a bedroll that floats off the ground a few inches. These do not count towards the limit the PCs had. I did give out a suit of +1 chain armor that the cleric took, but the fighter at the time already had basic plats and shield for an AC20. When I gave out a ring of protection I thought the mage may get it, but the fighter got it and made him even tougher to hit.
 


Not since you can just buy them from your faction. As soon as those guidelines came out my lvl 10 and 11 each just bought a +1 plate and a +1 weapon. As there is little to no other stuff worth spending gold and downtime on, it was easily affordable. My level 10 even bought a cloak of protection for good meassure.

And the weapon and cloak (or the item the other factions offer instead of the cloak) are very, very cheap in my opinion, the only thing a little expensive was the +1 armor, but even that is nothing that a typcial level 10 character could not easily afford with his accumulated gold and DT

Neither of those characters ever played in anything but a DDEX or DDAL, no HC

See, I always have trouble with that. You have to be Rank 3 with your faction to gain that benefit. That requires a secret mission. With the drop in/out nature of my play availability, I often get double the Renown I need and double the level before I stumble onto one of those.

I almost bought a +1 weapon for my bard at a Fai Chen's this past weekend just to have a magic weapon. But I only had 50 DTD and I was concerned I was high enough level (6) that something nasty would happen to me that I would need spellcasting services for and wouldn't be able to afford if I did, so I passed. Sure enough, I got that weird Hulberg lycanthropy. But I also was able to get the flame tongue longsword from the adventure, so that worked well (and the DM said I could ignore the lycanthropy since the only way to cure it was to play Part 3 of the series, which I wasn't going to be doing).
 

But you need only a single Mission. If you play a mod with a Mission you are almost guaranteed to complete it along the way. It's harder to fail them than to complete them.

And if you play only AL mods, it's very unlikely you don't have at least one by the time you're level 10.

If it would require rank 4 (aka 3 missions) that would be a barrier, but 1 Mission usually comes quickly.

So you either habe to be particulary unlucky orplay HC instead oft AL mods to not get to rank 3
 

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