D&D 5E Bounded Accuracy and Magic Item Scarcity

[Nebulous]

Hmmm.... I'm seeing a lot of interesting suggestions, but many seem to run along the lines of, "Just pump up the difficulty of the monsters." I also don't like it when players are just items attached to a PC, but I'm not sure that was my question.

Let me try again- someone mentioned the Balrog.... Balor thread. I remember that well! From my experience, though, that's a bad thing (if it works for you, though....). 7th level characters shouldn't be fighting Balors- because then, what do you have to look forward to?

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.

Is there a link for that Balor thread? What exactly did the DM give the party to make a CR 19 beatable? Such as handing out vorpal weapons and defenders and +3 plate?

 

[Nebulous]

Personally, as a DM, I like using Feats, and I like giving PCs magic items. I have used magic items sparingly so far in 5e, and they have no weapons that give them a plus to hit, they're mostly utility magic. They DO have magic arrows that do nice bonus elemental damage.

The PCs "oomph" is tied into their class abilities. That sorceress, wow, she can dish out damage like nobody else. She did over 70 points of damage with Chromatic Orb last night. It was an encounter changer. But she can only do that very limited nova-bursts.

But yeah, to balance Monsters going forward, instead of just making fights longer with more enemies, I think I'm going to use an equivalent Feat system for the monsters, most of it I cribbed from 13th Age. It's really simple, you just pick an appropriate power and layer it over the monster. Or pick two. They're flavorful enough and useful enough to make them interesting. Such as the ogre whirlwind attack that hits everyone around, does damage, and knocks them back 10 feet. He can use it twice an encounter. Or a monster with Brutal Attack that can reroll a missed attack, or Big Bully that does double damage against Bloodied opponents. For me, it's fun and spices up combat, it just takes a little work to add it to the monster statblock.

 

[Hussar]

Is there a link for that Balor thread? What exactly did the DM give the party to make a CR 19 beatable? Such as handing out vorpal weapons and defenders and +3 plate?

Well, it was nine 7th level characters for one. For two, the encounter, apparently, lacked a lot of tactical level elements - no pits, no ledges, the balor stood in one place - which made the encounter easier, and, by the end of the encounter, something like 6 of the 9 characters were dead.

Sounded like a pretty decent result to me.

 

[bgbarcus]

I'm in the same boat having come from B/X and AD&D 1e play. The first thing I did was stop handing out any weapon with more than a +1 before 5th level. I replaced that with a variety of consumable magic items like arrows and potions. I also use more magic items with special features that are not directly combat bonuses.

I also kept my old scroll rules, each scroll is either useful for learning a spell or contains the power for casting the spell. No scrolls in my game can be used both ways and characters can use casting scrolls regardless of the spell level without risk of failure (as long as the spell is in a list their class(es) can cast from). That means I can give out plenty of scrolls as high value consumable magic items. They can give the party access to spells they would not otherwise have. And hoarding scrolls until they can be copied into a spellbook doesn't work because the casting scrolls can't be copied.

The end result as been that my party has a nice selection of magic items without forcing me to go nuts with boosting monsters to compensate.

 

[Iosue]

Well, it was nine 7th level characters for one. For two, the encounter, apparently, lacked a lot of tactical level elements - no pits, no ledges, the balor stood in one place - which made the encounter easier, and, by the end of the encounter, something like 6 of the 9 characters were dead.

Sounded like a pretty decent result to me.

6 and 4, not 9 and 6, but basically this. The balor is designed to be a medium challenge for a group of four Level 19 characters, and thus a harder, but not unbeatable, challenge for a group of four lower level characters. But each character beyond four increases their effectiveness exponentially. That's the system working as intended.

 

[Nebulous]

I have an interesting way of determining 5e placement of magic. And I use this all the time. If the PCs are exploring an area that MIGHT reasonably have magic, I give it a percentage chance of having magic. 10%. 20%. I also use this for just more mundane but potentially valuable items. I assign a percentage chance based on what I think is reasonable for where they are (and WHO they just killed!!!) and roll with it from there.

I really do keep in mind not giving them ANY magic items that give bonuses to AC or Pluses to hit as they don't need that all in 5e, they're already good to go. Which is hard change from the past 4 editions, I know. I give them more utility stuff, potions and what not.

Scrolls...I haven't even tapped into that yet. that might be trickier. Sheesh.

 

[Nebulous]

Well, it was nine 7th level characters for one. For two, the encounter, apparently, lacked a lot of tactical level elements - no pits, no ledges, the balor stood in one place - which made the encounter easier, and, by the end of the encounter, something like 6 of the 9 characters were dead.

Sounded like a pretty decent result to me.

That's not a steamroll at all like I thought. That's not even balanced in any way. I mean, if 3 of them survived, maybe that IS accurate! But did they have all the feats and extra magic and all of that? Or were they base characters?

 

[hawkeyefan]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?467443-CRs-and-what-is-going-on

There's a link. I don't think that it's an example that should really be sited as evidence that something is wrong with the game or with CR in particular. There are several factors that played into it.

I liked the earlier example of granting some feat abilities with magic items. I think for anyone used to dolling out a good number of magic items, I think the focus needs to be on consumables and utility items. I would also suggest creating items that assist with downtime activities or story based needs. Granting too many mechanical bonuses would easily unbalance things, so go with non-mechanical items.

Personally, I've always preferred to be stingy with items. I feel like a magic item should be a big deal, not just standard gear. My 7th level group of 5 has about 8 magic items among them, only 2 of which are weapons, and no armor. I have given some scrolls and potions to make up for that.

Oh and a spelljammer. That's what I mean by story based items.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry, yup, I got the second fight he talked about where he added 4 powerful NPC's mixed up. My bad.

But, in any case, when 2/3rds of your party drops, that's not a steamroll.

 

[Li Shenron]

On the other hand, because of bounded accuracy, there doesn't seem to be a large range for magic items to operate in 5e. There is also, of course, the attunenment factor. This is *more* than made up for by character's innate abilities as they grow in level, from what I've seen.

I don't think bounded accuracy and magic item scarcity are related.

For bounded accuracy, all that matters is that magic items (or any other stuff) do not provide excessively high bonuses on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks and AC (basically on everything that uses a d20 for a success/failure roll or defends against such roll).

If you flood your world with magic items, but none of them grants a bonus higher than +1 (or those who do are balanced with restrictions such as limited uses), you are still nor breaking bounded accuracy.