D&D 5E Attunement Overload: What Level?

[Werebat]

At what level have you seen parties typically begin to have to deal with "attunement overload" -- the situation where the party has so many magic items that require attunement that it cannot possibly have all of them attuned at the same time?

I ran Out of the Abyss until the end of the 1st act. Then, to get the PCs from level 6 to level 8, I ran a 5E conversion of The Gates of Firestorm Peak before starting Act II. Had a lot of fun, but the PCs are now 8th level and have so many attunement-required items that some are laying fallow.

Not sure that this is a BAD thing, just wondering how typical it is.

 

[akr71]

In my HotDQ campaign the characters just reached level 6 and I believe they only have 1 'requires attunement' item each and those are items that I added to the adventure myself. However, I find that HotDQ rather light on magic items anyway, so perhaps that is not a good comparison.

The campaign we ran before that had the party at level 10. I think they had to start making some tough choices about attunement around level 8 or so.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

We ran LMoP into Out of the Abyss. Our DM has allowed us to buy magic consumables for gp, but has also allowed us to trade for permanent magic items when we have interesting things to trade. Our paladin hit the limit first around 6th or 7th level. My wizard hit the cap soon after since I get most of the spellcaster stuff.

My wizard is currently about halfway between 9th and 10th level with the following magic item loadout:
-staff of defense (LMoP)
-wand of magic missiles (LMoP, no attunement required)
-Blood Spell Gem (OotA, not currently attuned)
-Stonespeaker Crystal (OotA)
-Cloak of Displacement (traded for)
-Sending Stones (crafted during down time)

My character is now the only character original character left so I have the most items, but some of the others are close behind. We have a lot of stuff, but it hasn't unbalanced things noticeably since we aren't the most tactical minded players.

 

[CapnZapp]

No major issues here - lvl 16.

Sure they have more three items each on average, but no overload ie problem.

This is because they don't have more than three truly worthwhile items each.

Ditching a brooch of shielding is quick n easy.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Werebat]

Just wondering if I had handed out too much magic, too fast. If the entire party having 3 attuned items by level 8 is normal, I should be good.

 

[aco175]

I reached the limit around level 7-8. We have been discussing upping the limit, but have not reached an agreement. It may not be a problem to simply do away with them all together and leave the control up to the DM. We also thought about the base 3 plus 1 every 4 levels.

I may give out too much magic, like in 2e and 3e. Well, maybe not that much.

 

[Croesus]

I reached the limit around level 7-8. We have been discussing upping the limit, but have not reached an agreement.

That's about the same level I started seeing issues too, and I was very stingy with magic items during the characters' early levels.

One of my beefs with the attunement system is it's not consistent. One wand might require attunement, but another - just as useful - doesn't. Many permanent items require attunement, but many don't. Why the differences?

I'm considering moving to a somewhat different system, based loosely on runes from Forged in Magic, Reforged. In this homebrew system, every permanent item requires one or more runes to power it. A basic magical sword would be one rune, the staff of defense from LMoP might be two, a Well of the Worlds would be three. Characters would be able to attune items with runes up to half their character level, rounded up. So a 9th level rogue could attune items with a total of up to 5 runes. That makes it easier to attune multiple minor items, but major items will take up a lot of the available slots.

Still haven't worked out the math yet, but it seems more promising than the current attunement assignments in the DMG, which seem rather random.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Running Out of the Abyss as well, we started to hit the need to make decisions about attuned items at around 8th-10th level, though not with everyone. Most are only one or two items above the limit, if they've hit it yet.

 

[Tormyr]

I find that you run into attunement overload faster with high magic settings and conversions from earlier editions (at least with 3.5). My 5e conversion of Age of Worms had the party swimming in magic items by level (and the campaign still works even at level 20), but I have also been running a Storm King's Thunder game since the beginning of the year and have handed out almost zero magic items with the party at level 6. That game has been running well as well. I really have not had a problem with either high magic or low magic campaigns.

 

[CapnZapp]

At what level have you seen parties typically begin to have to deal with "attunement overload" -- the situation where the party has so many magic items that require attunement that it cannot possibly have all of them attuned at the same time?

That in itself is not a bug, it's supposed to be a feature.

To be a problem, a player must have acquired more than three items of comparable strength and that it feels appropriate that all four (five etc) should be useable at the same time.

This simply does not happen very much if you run published modules - they have considerably less loot than either the random DMG tables yield or what prev-edition modules give out.

---

In all the cases where the fourth item is clearly inferior to the other three it's an obvious solution to simply drop the weaker item. In all cases where the player agrees it might be a bit too much to be allowed all four powerful items at the same time, the rules work as intended.

I would say any houserule should aim for the remaining situations: such as when a character have brought along a family heirloom since perhaps level 1, and now at mid- to high level, that item can no longer compete for one of the three attunement slots. In this case the restriction is in the way of the story, and there is a real issue.

My suggestion is to allow a player to "split" one attunement slot into two low-power slot halves. That is, instead of attuning to one item of any power, you can use that slot to attune to two items of sufficiently lower power (as determined by player and GM).

Hint: Things that give universal bonuses (such as +1 to attacks, AC, saves etc) should never be considered "lesser", unless a very good reason (such as "using it is part of my identity" of family heirlooms above). The fact the bonus is "only" +1 instead of +2 or +3 is oterhwise not a good reason to allow it. Lesser items are items like Brooch of Shielding and Boots of Jumping that target low-level game effects (at higher levels Magic Missiles cease to be an issue, and people prefer flight/levitation/teleportation over mundane jumps and climbs). Another lesser item could be something that provides resistance to fire only, when other items start providing multiple benefits: resistance to A, B and C; or both resistance and +1 to AC for instance.

A player can then choose between attuning to 3 major items, or 6 minor items, or any combination thereof.