D&D (2024) DMG 5.5 - the return of bespoke magical items?

[James Gasik]

Important question... why is the PC incapable of a specialized craftsperson or even a PC with a class that gives relevantly adjacent enchantment knowledge?

Different individuals have different skills. I know how to and have made some fairly impressive pastries in my life, but the results look like a five year old tried if I compare them to the last at the little bakery down the street who spent time in France working at a literal Michelin star place at some point in the past

A f1 driver might know how to fix an engine and might even have some idea of how they work with a vehicle's transmission fuel pump and so on... But the folks who design and maintain those things are on a whole different level to the point where the most that driver could do to help is stay out of the way and stick to reporting observations because the driver practices driving while the f1mechanic & engineer practice bleeding edge race car tech.

If you don't want the NPC armorer going off to do the adventure instead of hiring the PCs it's probably a good idea to assume that the armor has a different set of specialized skills not gained through killing monsters



Sure, too bad that you wrote it in using the guidance from a book titled "Medium Conduit runic Circles Sbe Qhzzvrf (va Uvtu Qenpbavp)" and needed to use a whole bunch of super expensive ultra rare components normally needed in extreme moderation when enchanting ultra high end object oriented distributed artifact grade glyphs normally used with dragon parts and it's going to burn out if you aren't careful. There's a reason those widely publicized runes are taught to apprentices & used to make things like self warming mittens or shipping crates with the usual slight durability bump & weight reduction. The mittens will probably wear out in a winter or two & the boxes can't be reused.

Spoiler

Where did you even find that book? Nobody has spoken High Draconic for several thousand years

Reminds me of a book I read once, "The Misenchanted Sword", where a wizard had to make do with whatever he had laying around to enchant a weapon, and in the dark, used the wrong component for a major spell!

 

[MGibster]

Back when I played 1st and 2nd edition AD&D, I remember all to well the frustration of finding a cool magic item that my character wasn't optimized to use. Yeah, that's a really cool longsword, but my character specializes in the warhammer. As a DM, I want my players to find useful magic items for their characters so they can have some fun. I do have some mixed feelings about purchasing/creating magic items.

1. I find crafting to be incredibly dull in pretty much every single game I've ever played. Some people love it, but I play these games to adventure not to sit around and grind out items.
2. "Magic Shops" are fine, you need something to spend all that gold on in D&D these days, but I'd make them rare, confining them to big cities.
3. Some players love crafting items. I don't see why I can't work in some way for them to craft magic items.
4. I'd like magic items to remain somewhat special. A +1 longsword is boring, but the sword of Krog Mandoon is cool

As to the issue of time to craft items, I imagine there'd be plenty of downtime in real life. Depending on the climate of your campaign, there might be months out of the year where adventuring just isn't practical or it's exceedingly unpleasant. If you're in a high altitude mountainous region like Silverton, Colorado, you're probably not doing a lot of traveling during the winter months as the snowfall leaves you cut off from much of the world. If you're in an area with a monsoon season you might wait until it's over before you start to travel.

 

[Distracted DM]

Back when I played 1st and 2nd edition AD&D, I remember all to well the frustration of finding a cool magic item that my character wasn't optimized to use. Yeah, that's a really cool longsword, but my character specializes in the warhammer. As a DM, I want my players to find useful magic items for their characters so they can have some fun. I do have some mixed feelings about purchasing/creating magic items.

1. I find crafting to be incredibly dull in pretty much every single game I've ever played. Some people love it, but I play these games to adventure not to sit around and grind out items.
2. "Magic Shops" are fine, you need something to spend all that gold on in D&D these days, but I'd make them rare, confining them to big cities.
3. Some players love crafting items. I don't see why I can't work in some way for them to craft magic items.
4. I'd like magic items to remain somewhat special. A +1 longsword is boring, but the sword of Krog Mandoon is cool

As to the issue of time to craft items, I imagine there'd be plenty of downtime in real life. Depending on the climate of your campaign, there might be months out of the year where adventuring just isn't practical or it's exceedingly unpleasant. If you're in a high altitude mountainous region like Silverton, Colorado, you're probably not doing a lot of traveling during the winter months as the snowfall leaves you cut off from much of the world. If you're in an area with a monsoon season you might wait until it's over before you start to travel.

We weren't cool enough to have the book that added weapon specializations :'D

 

[Scribe]

As long as the party as a whole is "getting stuff done", that's all that matters - isn't it?

Yes, but what if I need to be the star? /s

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes, but what if I need to be the star? /s

Wasn't that already accomplished by choosing 5e instead of something else?

 

[Scribe]

Wasn't that already accomplished by choosing 5e instead of something else?

If the rumours are to be believed, I have to play a caster though.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Alternatively, you could actually design a game where each person is an important team member, from the word go. Then, there wouldn't be any relegating people to just being bodyguards of the ones who actually get stuff done. Well, unless they actively seek that out, of course, but I'd hardly call that "relegating," would you?

You know, the phrase "team member" applies some semblance of roles within a team. Pick your term: cavalry, scout, cataphract, archer, pikeman, artillierist, engineer, striker, tank, controller; roles are a thing in teams. It's not like anyone's asking a fighter not to fight, just to fight where it does the most good. For the team.

It's also much different in 5e than 1e. Compared to 1e, 5e casters are far from glass cannons.

Rather than warriors having 3x-4x a caster's HP, 5e warriors have more like 2x caster hp. So not glass, maybe tin.

By the same token, 5e Casters are much less cannons than 1e casters. At all levels, 5e casters are less lethal, whether you are talking magic missiles vs kobolds, fireballs vs trolls, or anything vs dragons. They are also less able to unleash a rain of destruction, having far fewer high level spell slots and no automatic spell scaling. So not cannons, maybe ballistas.

Conversely, 5e casters have cantrips and more spell flexibility so while each 5e spell is less impactful, 5e casters are able to have some impact all the time as cantrips are so much more damaging than a dart or dagger. The highs are less high, the lows are less low.

Which means 5 warriors contribute a greater percent of combat power than 1e and are not required to be "meat shields" standing 5ft in front of a caster at all time.

 

[tetrasodium]

If the rumours are to be believed, I have to play a caster though.

Weirdly every time I decided to humor the guy complaining that he didn't do enough damage to keep up and tracked damage by PC he tended to far exceed the next PC in damage and wotc has even admitted that the old monster/encounter math was so badly undertuned that they had to update it. Usually that guy in the lead was also the PC swinging a magic weapon multiple times per turn too

 

[kigmatzomat]

Agreed. 5E casters can do bulk amounts of damage a few times a day, but that "bulk" is across multiple targets via AoEs (28hp x 6 foes in a fireball). Spells don't clear rooms like in 1e.

Warriors tend to do more damage per round vs single targets (3x attacks @ 20hp ea) which is better at strategically taking out targets. It is less total damage than fireball but warriors do that almost every round of almost every fight while casters have those rounds of throwing 15hp cantrips to drag down their average.

The "star" bit is a valid factor though. Warriors don't get as many opportunities to shine as casters or even rogues. 5E weapon crits are not as impressive as they just double dice and there's no more multiplying strength bonuses or x4 weapon multipliers.

 

[ezo]

Weirdly every time I decided to humor the guy complaining that he didn't do enough damage to keep up and tracked damage by PC he tended to far exceed the next PC in damage and wotc has even admitted that the old monster/encounter math was so badly undertuned that they had to update it. Usually that guy in the lead was also the PC swinging a magic weapon multiple times per turn too

I've usually found the rogues dealing the most damage consistantly.