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

I never said I was eager to. I said that it is completely possible to do so. (As a matter of fact, I hate this fact!) Hence: BEING a meatshield and nothing else isn't a peer contribution to the group. You're a footsoldier, a caddy, a consumable resource to your caster "allies."


But that's not what the actual rules give you. The actual rules give you meatshield and...that's about it. That is, and has always been, my problem with this proposal. You aren't an equal participant. You're a footman to the Actually Important People.

And that sucks. Nobody should be forced to do that. If they want to do that and nothing else, more power to them! But we shouldn't make everyone be stuck that way just because some people like playing that way.
Taken together these make me laugh, in that Lanefan the character has a very long history of seeing his arcane-caster "allies" as little more than expendable resources and has a Wizardslayer longsword to back that up. :)

That, and rules be damned he ain't no footman.

Besides - and to use an argument L-the-character would never make as he's nobody's hero - isn't defending the weak supposed to be exactly what a hero does?
 

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You are conflating a character and a role, they are not the same thing, your character might be nuanced and multifaceted and contain much consideration about what actions they want to perform at any moment but the role of meatshield is not and does not, their methods and actions are about as simple and predictable as a brick.
Only if you play them like bricks. :)
 

This is always the case for all possible games, period.

People who hate roleplaying and mathematics will hate D&D. It is not possible to make something that looks and smells and quacks like D&D but which contains absolutely zero RP and absolutely zero math. You can maybe eliminate one side or the other without issue, but if you eliminate both, there isn't anything left.
OK, let's assume we've cut it to the subset of people who a) like fantasy roleplaying in whatever form or stance and b) are willing to do (and can handle) some simple arithmetic. (added: and c) are looking for a rules structure to abstract those things which cannot be roleplayed)

That's still a lot of people. Tens of millions at least, if WotC is to be believed (and in this case I do believe them).

My point is that this group en masse should now be the target audience for our big-tent RPG and that subdividing that potential audience further is counterproductive. Instead, we should try to identify what sub-divisions or sub-groups are likely to exist among that en-masse potential audience and then design one game that can more or less accommodate ideally all of them and in practice as many as it can.

And maybe this turns out not to be possible, but can be done with two adjacent and compatible versions of the same game (which is where I personally think we're at right now; with 5e being one version and an as-yet-hypothetical grittier OSR-like version being the other).
Hence, the best choice is to build a baseline that would be hard for an ordinary rando to make, but which a designer can make easily, and then implement as much as possible robust, front-and-center opt-in stuff to enable various adjacent approaches. You will never--never--enable all possible approaches. A game that enables all possible approaches has no rules.
In absolute terms this is true, as one possible approach is in fact "completely freeform without rules".

But in useful terms as designers it's also pointless, as no matter what we design they ain't gonna buy it nor use it; they're eliminated from our target audience as not being in the 'c)' group noted above.
A system that is inherently unbalanced cannot be turned into one that is balanced by mere effort of will on the part of its users. That's my point here. This is a one-way thing. Adding balance where it doesn't exist is a Herculean effort. Eliminating balance where it is present is trivial. Achieving good asymmetrical balance is a difficult task for a designer, and a near-impossible one for the end user.
I see them as being the same degree of difficulty. Designing a system (or kitbashing an existing system) is what it is, and balance is but one of many factors deserving of consideration. It might not even be the most important factor.
A cup of wine added to a barrel of sewage produces a barrel of sewage. A cup of sewage added to a barrel of wine produces a barrel of sewage. You can't have a barrel of wine unless you start with one. That's my point here. (Edit: Please, forgive the implication of the "sewage" term. That's simply the standard form of this phrase. I am absolutely not trying to say or imply anything about anyone's preferred style, period. If you prefer, "a quart of alcohol in bowl of juice produces a spiked punch. A quart of juice in a gallon of alcohol produces spiked punch." Or perhaps the idea that you can easily add salt to a soup that hasn't been salted enough, but you cannot take away salt from a soup that has been salted too much. Insert any spice there, really--you can add, but you can't subtract.)
Thing is, I'm not adding wine to sewage or sewage to wine. Ideally I've already designed away the sewage before even getting to this point. Now I'm adding wine to beer or beer to wine: the resulting drink might be awful, or it might be good enough, or it might be better than either of its initial components; but I won't know until I do it and taste the result. The analagous stage of RPG design here would be looking at all the other RPG designs out there and seeing if there's anything worth copying or reskinning.

Or for even finer tuning, I could have two barrels of different wine - say one a sparking white and another a vintage red - and try mixing them together in different ratios to see if any such mixture is an overall improvement. The design-stage analogy here would be taking a finished or near-finished system and trying some kitbashes.
Some things, you really do have to start on one end of the scale, and give people tools, advice, and examples for how to move to the other end. That's not special pleading, nor a judgment against any style or preference. It is simply how reality is: creating symmetry is difficult, while creating asymmetry is easy; disorder is easily achieved (indeed, it is the most common state of affairs), while order must be imposed with effort; there are always many more ways for a structure to be unreliable than there are ways for it to be reliable.
The bolded bit here and the bolded bit further up don't quite mesh. If balance = symmetry then "good asymmetrical balance" in theory can't exist.
 

Thing is, I'm not adding wine to sewage or sewage to wine. Ideally I've already designed away the sewage before even getting to this point. Now I'm adding wine to beer or beer to wine: the resulting drink might be awful, or it might be good enough, or it might be better than either of its initial components; but I won't know until I do it and taste the result. The analagous stage of RPG design here would be looking at all the other RPG designs out there and seeing if there's anything worth copying or reskinning.

Or for even finer tuning, I could have two barrels of different wine - say one a sparking white and another a vintage red - and try mixing them together in different ratios to see if any such mixture is an overall improvement. The design-stage analogy here would be taking a finished or near-finished system and trying some kitbashes.

The bolded bit here and the bolded bit further up don't quite mesh. If balance = symmetry then "good asymmetrical balance" in theory can't exist.
There's a lot of talk about adding wine to things & none of them good... I wanted to give an example of something good that obviously uses wine
Basic
Fancy
Special Occasion Fancy


@EzekielRaiden It seems like your biggest problem with martials is that you've decided that they are incapable of doing anything but acting as a nameless faceless sidekick for casters & prove that to be true by describing that as the only way someone could possibly play a martial.

Reading your posts on this tangent reminds me of a few players I've seen hear the houserules & mechanics★ changes then come to the table carrying a tree spike after agreeing to them. It doesn't really matter if they did it fully intending to carry on ignoring those rules or if they simply can't comprehend any other way but eventually they always seem to crash into the consequences of completely ignoring the fundamental changes & make an effort at rallying the group to force a revision back to stock RAW.


★ ie death at zero & resting changes that would require changes to risk assessment & resource burn from players. Small things with significant changes
 

That, and rules be damned he ain't no footman.
Okay. Great. You have been able to overcome that limitation.

Most other people are not so lucky. Many other people get very little more than what the rules permit them, and whatever they do get is seen as the DM being massively, supremely generous.

Wouldn't it be better to, y'know, not NEED that? So that that generosity were exactly what those DMs see it as, and not the necessary leg up?

Wouldn't it be better that Lanefan the Fighter not need a named, wizard-slaying sword to keep up?

Like, for real here. Your argument boils down to, "I'm having fun. I got cool items. Because my experience was good, it is impossible that there could be a problem here." That's not a valid rebuttal to the claim. It never has been, and it never will be.
 

My point is that this group en masse should now be the target audience for our big-tent RPG and that subdividing that potential audience further is counterproductive. Instead, we should try to identify what sub-divisions or sub-groups are likely to exist among that en-masse potential audience and then design one game that can more or less accommodate ideally all of them and in practice as many as it can.
Nothing can achieve that. Nothing. It's not possible to design a game that is truly achieving every single goal that every single subgroup wants on an equal footing. Something must be the starting point, or all you have is "numbers matter?? I guess??? And...you talk about them??????" That's not a rule system. That's not a guideline. It isn't even a suggestion. It's the barest glimmer of an idea.

And maybe this turns out not to be possible, but can be done with two adjacent and compatible versions of the same game (which is where I personally think we're at right now; with 5e being one version and an as-yet-hypothetical grittier OSR-like version being the other).
In other words, leaving 4e fans completely in the dust, rejecting anything they want as utterly verboten.

You're not making a very good case for "big tent" here. You're making a case for "my tent, go find your own tent."

I'm making a case for "there has to be a first tentpole, but we can make sure the overall tent covers a lot more ground."

I see them as being the same degree of difficulty. Designing a system (or kitbashing an existing system) is what it is, and balance is but one of many factors deserving of consideration. It might not even be the most important factor.
They are not the same degree of difficulty. Period. Otherwise we wouldn't see the massive, MASSIVE proliferation of absolutely craptacular house-rules, homebrew, and 3PP. Designing things well is hard. Designing things poorly is extremely easy.

Thing is, I'm not adding wine to sewage or sewage to wine.
Yes you are. That's my point here.

Balance is difficult to achieve. Well, balance that's actually fun is difficult to achieve; I was assuming we both recognized that trivialized "no choices matter because everything is literally identical" balance was as bad as having zero balance at all.

Ideally I've already designed away the sewage before even getting to this point.
That's my point. The game hasn't done that yet.

You are presuming from the start that my argument is simply false. But given the continuing complaints about caster/martial balance across 5.0's run--where people, IIRC including you yourself, swore up and down that there was absolutely no problem whatsoever--only for 5.5e to come along and buff martial characters...

I hope you can see why I reject this "ideally" as a simply false assumption. As a result, the entire paragraph that follows is moot; it depends on an assumption that is false, and IMO 5.5e directly demonstrates that it was already false with 5.0, and could still be false with 5.5e. We have yet to see it go through its paces properly, though, so it is hard to know exactly where it will land. It will certainly be better than 5.0, what with the Fighting Style and Weapon Mastery changes that are (for once) genuinely locked in for martial-focused characters and not for casters. (As much as I wish I could get them on my Warlock...I'm glad that it frustrates me that I can't. That means martial characters finally have a something that is special to them that casters would love to have but can't get without some real, mechanical sacrifices.)

The bolded bit here and the bolded bit further up don't quite mesh. If balance = symmetry then "good asymmetrical balance" in theory can't exist.
Sure they do. I was using real-world examples. They're talking about different things. But since I need to clarify...

If you take, say, two copies each of n distinct objects and randomly throw them into a box, what is the probability that they land in the box in a symmetrical pattern? I think you'd agree the answer is "effectively 0." The possible number of asymmetric states is extremely high. However, even if they are arranged spatially asymmetrically, it is also possible that you could still end up with equal weight on one side as you have on the other--meaning, even though the collection is not symmetrical in one sense, it would still be "balanced" in another sense.

Spatial symmetry is a difficult property to create without carefully trying for it, and adding even small elements can break that symmetry very easily. Do you disagree with this assertion?

Chaos and disorder, aka high entropy, is the natural state of things, unless work is done to arrange them nicely. Do you disagree with this assertion?

Creating a balanced system--and especially creating "asymmetrical balance," which is when two things use different structures but achieve measurably pretty-close-to-equivalent value/utility--is extraordinarily difficult. The much more likely states are either dull, trivial "balance" which is either offering no choice at all, or offering an illusory choice where the different options are in fact identical other than possibly a change of name. If you agree with both of the previous assertions, I don't understand why you wouldn't agree with this assertion.
 

@EzekielRaiden It seems like your biggest problem with martials is that you've decided that they are incapable of doing anything but acting as a nameless faceless sidekick for casters & prove that to be true by describing that as the only way someone could possibly play a martial.
It is not the only way someone could play them. It is the only thing that the rules actually give benefit to.

I want the rules to make it beneficial--useful, engaging, exciting--to do other things as a martial character. To be the cunning tactician that exploits enemy weaknesses and acts as a massive force-multiplier for her allies. To be the invisible blade that cuts the thread of life silently and is then gone. To leverage the weight of historical knowledge (one of the most important components of a proper military education, e.g. attending a military academy) to outsmart and outwit his enemies. To be the mystic adept whose esoteries are combat, and whose combat is esoteric knowledge put to action.

Reading your posts on this tangent reminds me of a few players I've seen hear the houserules & mechanics★ changes then come to the table carrying a tree spike after agreeing to them. It doesn't really matter if they did it fully intending to carry on ignoring those rules or if they simply can't comprehend any other way but eventually they always seem to crash into the consequences of completely ignoring the fundamental changes & make an effort at rallying the group to force a revision back to stock RAW.


★ ie death at zero & resting changes that would require changes to risk assessment & resource burn from players. Small things with significant changes
I have no idea why what I'm saying would make you think that. Nor do I see how it is relevant to the discussion at hand. I feel like I'm missing something rather important, because this sounds like a serious and worthwhile topic of discussion. I just...I literally don't understand how this is in any way like what I've been talking about.
 

Okay. Great. You have been able to overcome that limitation.

Most other people are not so lucky. Many other people get very little more than what the rules permit them, and whatever they do get is seen as the DM being massively, supremely generous.

Wouldn't it be better to, y'know, not NEED that? So that that generosity were exactly what those DMs see it as, and not the necessary leg up?

Wouldn't it be better that Lanefan the Fighter not need a named, wizard-slaying sword to keep up?
The casters have fancy-Dan items as well; it's not like the sword itself is all that big a deal, it's just one more item in a company full of neat cool items. The threat that sword represents and how I use both the threat and the weapon, however, have now and then in the past become a rather big deal indeed. :)
Like, for real here. Your argument boils down to, "I'm having fun. I got cool items. Because my experience was good, it is impossible that there could be a problem here." That's not a valid rebuttal to the claim. It never has been, and it never will be.
My IMO highly valid rebuttal is that the experience is exactly as good as you make it.

If you've already decided that playing a Fighter isn't going to be fun then it isn't going to be fun for you. I prefer the opposite approach: I decide it's going to be fun and then set out to make it so.
 

My IMO highly valid rebuttal is that the experience is exactly as good as you make it.
Why should the Fighter have to work harder to make the experience good? Shouldn't every class have an equal degree of expectation of having to work to get a good experience out of it?

If you've already decided that playing a Fighter isn't going to be fun then it isn't going to be fun for you. I prefer the opposite approach: I decide it's going to be fun and then set out to make it so.
I have not decided that at all. I want the Fighter to be awesome! That's why I'm so disappointed when it isn't.
 

Nothing can achieve that. Nothing. It's not possible to design a game that is truly achieving every single goal that every single subgroup wants on an equal footing. Something must be the starting point, or all you have is "numbers matter?? I guess??? And...you talk about them??????" That's not a rule system. That's not a guideline. It isn't even a suggestion. It's the barest glimmer of an idea.
The starting point ever since about 1974 has been to build on-with-around that which came before.
In other words, leaving 4e fans completely in the dust, rejecting anything they want as utterly verboten.
How so? From my viewpoint 4e and 5e share a lot more similarities than differences; in design philosophy, intent, and intended playstyle if maybe not in precise mechanics.
They are not the same degree of difficulty. Period. Otherwise we wouldn't see the massive, MASSIVE proliferation of absolutely craptacular house-rules, homebrew, and 3PP. Designing things well is hard. Designing things poorly is extremely easy.
For many, being able to admit when trial and error has come up "error" is the hard part.

Designing things at all is hard. Once you've got over that hump, "well" and "poorly" take IME about the same amount of effort. :)

I'll caveat that, however, by saying "well" does not by any means equal "perfect", 'cause we ain't gonna get that on any scale larger than a single DM designing for a single consistent and known-well group.
Yes you are. That's my point here.

Balance is difficult to achieve. Well, balance that's actually fun is difficult to achieve; I was assuming we both recognized that trivialized "no choices matter because everything is literally identical" balance was as bad as having zero balance at all.
Agreed to the latter: everything being identical isn't the goal. That said, balance isn't the holy grail of game design and treating it as if it is means all the other factors - playability, long-term engagement, short-term appeal, relative simplicity or complexity, fun, etc. - get given short shrift.

Balance is just one factor among many, and there's many different ways of both defining and achieving it.
That's my point. The game hasn't done that yet.

You are presuming from the start that my argument is simply false. But given the continuing complaints about caster/martial balance across 5.0's run--where people, IIRC including you yourself, swore up and down that there was absolutely no problem whatsoever--only for 5.5e to come along and buff martial characters...

I hope you can see why I reject this "ideally" as a simply false assumption. As a result, the entire paragraph that follows is moot; it depends on an assumption that is false, and IMO 5.5e directly demonstrates that it was already false with 5.0, and could still be false with 5.5e. We have yet to see it go through its paces properly, though, so it is hard to know exactly where it will land. It will certainly be better than 5.0, what with the Fighting Style and Weapon Mastery changes that are (for once) genuinely locked in for martial-focused characters and not for casters. (As much as I wish I could get them on my Warlock...I'm glad that it frustrates me that I can't. That means martial characters finally have a something that is special to them that casters would love to have but can't get without some real, mechanical sacrifices.)
The problem IMO isn't that martials are too weak, it's that casters have been made too strong by the slow steady removal of all the restrictions they used to have in the BX-1e era.

Playing a caster, particularly in combat, IMO should be a mix of great satisfaction when your spells work and immense frustration when they don't; with "don't" happening a fair percentage of the time unless the caster is very cautious, and with unpredictable consequences following. In other words: high risk, high reward. 1e got this right other than not having potentially unpredictable consequences.

Martials, on the other hand, are little energizer bunnies that reliably just keep on going.
Sure they do. I was using real-world examples. They're talking about different things. But since I need to clarify...

If you take, say, two copies each of n distinct objects and randomly throw them into a box, what is the probability that they land in the box in a symmetrical pattern? I think you'd agree the answer is "effectively 0." The possible number of asymmetric states is extremely high. However, even if they are arranged spatially asymmetrically, it is also possible that you could still end up with equal weight on one side as you have on the other--meaning, even though the collection is not symmetrical in one sense, it would still be "balanced" in another sense.
What if I don't care how they fall as long as they all end up in the box instead of one or two ending up on the floor? I ask because in this analogy I suspect their all being in the box would be good enough for me, with further fine-tuning not required.
Spatial symmetry is a difficult property to create without carefully trying for it, and adding even small elements can break that symmetry very easily. Do you disagree with this assertion?
No.

Do I think that when converted to game design, even trying to achieve that sort of spatial symmetry is overkill? Yes.
Chaos and disorder, aka high entropy, is the natural state of things, unless work is done to arrange them nicely. Do you disagree with this assertion?
No.

Must all, or even most, chaos and disorder be designed out of an RPG? Again no.
Creating a balanced system--and especially creating "asymmetrical balance," which is when two things use different structures but achieve measurably pretty-close-to-equivalent value/utility--is extraordinarily difficult. The much more likely states are either dull, trivial "balance" which is either offering no choice at all, or offering an illusory choice where the different options are in fact identical other than possibly a change of name. If you agree with both of the previous assertions, I don't understand why you wouldn't agree with this assertion.
I agree that balance that offers no choice at all is pointless. I also agree that balance that offers merely an illusory choice is pointless.

But balance can and does take many forms. In post elsewhere I've outlined some of them: short-term balance, long-term balance, party-vs-opposition balance, character-vs-character balance, spotlight balance*, wealth balance, etc. Nailing down any one of these is almost certain to mess with some others; the trick is to not nail any of them down but instead get each of them vaguely in the ballpark and then stop trying.

* - by far the least important from a design perspective; spotlight balance will always sort itself out at the table no matter what the game says, and my preference is that the players are fighting for that spotlight like hungry dogs fighting for a piece of meat.
 

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