D&D 5E Bounded Accuracy and Magic Item Scarcity

[lowkey13]

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[Gadget]

There is no question that magic items will increase the CR that your group can handle, depending on the potency and number of magic items. This will only increase as the characters rise in level; see the thread on these boards about a 7-8th level party being able to steam roll a CR 19 Balor. The fact is that the CR system and the monsters don't assume the presence of magic items, feats, or multi-classing, all of which can increase the overall power of a party if allowed in the game.

One solution I've heard (if this is indeed a problem at your table, not all groups are min/maxers), if you are coming from 1e and don't use feats, you can have magic items that grant the benefits of an appropriate feat, thus keeping the ++ of the items themselves down while still having 'cool' magic items to find and give out. Admittedly, this will increase the power level of the party over the base line, but could keep it lower than a game with magic Items plus feats.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You don't have to be super stingy with magic items at all. Just be careful of what items you place and don't go crazy on items that are rare, very rare,or legendary. The thing to realize about the default assumptions is that the game runs fine with very little to no magical items in the campaign. The default healing mechanics mean that potions of healing don't have to be lying around everywhere. The more magic you want to include, the more you will have to adjust things on the DM side to keep the challenge level equalized. Want to give out lots of magical toys? No problem, just remember that many encounters will be much easier by default unless you make adjustments.

I place lots of goodies in my campaigns but do a lot of prep work making sure encounters remain interesting for a party loaded with magic bling. 5E characters are MUCH tougher and loaded with abilities than their AD&D counterparts. If you want to include a good number of magic items without cranking up the overall effectiveness of the party too much then place utility, and fun items instead of loading them up with magic arms, armor, weapons, and protective items.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I like the 5e assumption a million times better than the 3e idea of having x amount of gear by y level. . 1e was somewhere in the middle in that you didn't need as much stuff to be usable at a certain level. I hate it when a PC is a sword/staff/etc with a meaningless PC attached to it. Most of the power should come from the character himself not his gear.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Prism]

I guess what I'm asking is this- have people had luck with both having magic items and not having crazy powerful monsters everywhere? And yes, we have agreed that there will be no feats and no multiclassing already, but still ... dang.

Yes we have some characters with a fair few items. It hasn't created a problem for us. We can probably tackle monsters a couple of CR higher than expected. Don't worry too much about the Balor issue - its more a problem with the balor than it is with all high level creatures.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I guess what I'm asking is this- have people had luck with both having magic items and not having crazy powerful monsters everywhere? And yes, we have agreed that there will be no feats and no multiclassing already, but still ... dang.

With the exception of the Girdle of Giant Strength, or any of the really high-end legendary items, magic items don't make the characters that much more powerful. Bounded Accuracy ensures that the difference between a +1 sword and a +3 sword is never so great as to drastically turn the tide of every battle. The issue with overcoming crazy powerful monsters is not directly influenced by the relative abundance of magical items - that all comes down to attrition, and the reality of one tough fight instead of the expectation for eight moderate fights.

Rather than worrying about making each fight tougher, I would counter an excess of magical items by including more encounters in the day. If a few charges from a wand are enough to beat two encounters, then the party with the wand should be in the same position if they face two more encounters in the day.

 

[jrowland]

For me, w.r.t. 5E, I look at magic as a "cool! new Shiney!" and not as a way for PCs to gain interesting, unique, (or necessary) power(s). If Its cool, and makes for a better story, drop it in. A +1 sword isn't going to change the game, and while boring as hell, you can litter the game with them if you want. Personally, the personalization table (at work, too lazy to look up etc) in the DMG is great. More that, less +X stuff. The Sword of Kings is way more interesting, even if its just a +1 sword. Even better, its the sword of the Forest Gnome King, and he who wields it is King of the Gnomes! And must produce an heir with the Gnome Queen (a matronly line seperate from the patronly line of sword wielders). Use it all you want, but gnomes everywhere will pester you to get back to the queen...

Also, go "techy". Take real-world items that are essentially "mundane" to us, and make it into a magic item: Little Blue Bird Statuettes that let you send 140 character messages to anyone else with a little birdie...that sort of thing.

 

[jgsugden]

I suggest following the guidelines. They give you advice on how often to hand out items and what types of items to hand out. The idea in 5E is to make magic items more "special". As a result, PCs can expect to find ~6 non-consumable magic items over 20 levels and half of those should be attuned items, on average. Some PCs in some groups might find only 5 per PC, others 8 per PC, but if you follow the advice in the books, you get an average of 6 over all games.

If you really want to add more items to the game, add more consumables, break items into multiple parts (instead of finding a flaming +2 sword the PCs could find a +1 sword, a gem that can be put into a sword handle that raises the plus from 1 to 2 and an Efretti spirit that will make a magic weapon of +2 bonus a flaming weapon). However, I find that once you pull away from the mentality of 4E that mandates magic items being found on a regular basis, the new system works very well to make all items seem importance and special.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

The minor property/quirk tables from the dmg help colour (and limit) magic weapons. I just rolled a mock up and created a Crossbow +1, made of unbreakable glass, and every time you fire it it sings a snatch of celestial music very loudly. Awesome item but maybe not usable in every instance (stealthy dungeon crawling for one).