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

Emerikol

Legend
Seriously? You cannot think of anything that would reasonably mean spending seven weeks doing absolutely nothing productive isn't an option?

Magical events tied to the phase of the moon, the tides
Upcoming military attack the players are aware of and need to do something about
Disease, curse, or other malady that needs to be cured sooner rather than later
Ongoing political turmoil that could explode at any moment unless addressed
Resurrecting a party member or ally
Completing a job on time, so the party actually gets paid
Keeping a promise to someone important
Chasing down an enemy fleeing overland
Reaching a destination before the competition/Forces of Evil
Recruiting as many allies as possible as quickly as possible to deal with a looming threat
I can think of all those things. If you are having those things happen so often that they can't get two months downtime, no matter how civilized a land they go to to get that rest is ridiculous.

Like... I've been playing in a LMoP/Phandelver and Below game and there's been all of one time we had more than two days where we weren't doing anything particularly important. I'm sitting on a pile of cash fit for a wyrmling (something like 5k-6k gp equivalent, some in pp or ep, and that's not counting the gems and other "sell this for gp" loot), having had little to nothing to spend it on because we can't waste the several days it would take to go to Neverwinter.
Your group has chosen to stay busy. If they had no choice then you aren't running the sandbox OSR style game I'm running.

It really, truly isn't that hard to make "literally almost two months" not actually a viable option. Heck, I can count on one hand the number of games I've played in where a continuous, uninterrupted span of 50 days was even remotely plausible, let alone something we actually did (which would be zero, I have never once played any game where the party thought that was a remotely good or even acceptable idea.)
It would be impossible on a repeated basis and me still believe the game makes sense. Now if you want to contrive an entire world specifically designed to do that such as a world that is breaking apart or where magic storms rage across the landscape then sure. I'm talking about a typical D&D campaign setting. In Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, it would be ridiculously easy to rent rooms, build a lab, and do experiments almost indefinitely in many cities. My players seek adventure. The vast majority of people live uneventful lives.
 

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nevin

Hero
It's kind of hard to forcibly keep the group busy 24/7. I could suggest an adventure and the group could say "We are going to take a few months so the wizard can craft this item. The rest of us will be doing X, Y, and Z until then." Now as DM you can thrust an adventure upon them but I don't see how you can make that an ongoing practice. People have downtime if they are extraordinarily rich and want to take it.
DEpends on the game. If you are facing the destruction of all that you love from multiple fronts then you may not have downtime. Ive played a multiyear caMpaign like that. I wouldnt run one like that but its not hard to put players in situations where time off is bad things for all the people who need thier heros. In Some ways its easier for DM who doesnt have to deal with any creation or crafting rules.
 

Emerikol

Legend
DEpends on the game. If you are facing the destruction of all that you love from multiple fronts then you may not have downtime. Ive played a multiyear caMpaign like that. I wouldnt run one like that but its not hard to put players in situations where time off is bad things for all the people who need thier heros. In Some ways its easier for DM who doesnt have to deal with any creation or crafting rules.
yes and I addressed that above. We are talking about solutions for the typical D&D campaign where taking two months off is not a big deal. It's fine to say you can't rest in a dungeon as that is very believable depending on the dungeon. In the most civilized city of a vast empire where the "frontier" is five hundred miles away? No. I refused to believe it is impossible for most people to take two months off if they are very wealthy.
 


ezo

Get off my lawn!
No. I refused to believe it is impossible for most people to take two months off if they are very wealthy.
I refuse to believe it if they have a couple hundred gold lol, let alone very weathy!

In my games I have downtime a lot. Most winters adventures are limited, as PCs would rather enjoy the fruits of their labors instead of traveling during freezing snow storms, etc. For example...

In my current game, the PCs had nearly 5 winter months in the mountains with the dwarves and one of them helped the dwarves craft adamantine splint armor, using admantine they recovered from a deserted ancient temple they helped recover for the dwarves. During this downtime, our half-drow rogue used some underdark mushrooms he bought (syphoning his cash!) to make more drow sleep poison for his hand crossbow. And so on.

Adventures can certainly interrupt downtime, and that should be the norm, not the exception IMO. If you have calamity after calamity going on in your game world, without anyone getting time to draw a breath and refocus, the world has bigger issues... and I would say, as a player in such a game, let some other adventurers handle it, we aren't the only ones. ;)
 

tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
Seriously? You cannot think of anything that would reasonably mean spending seven weeks doing absolutely nothing productive isn't an option?

Magical events tied to the phase of the moon, the tides
Upcoming military attack the players are aware of and need to do something about
Disease, curse, or other malady that needs to be cured sooner rather than later
Ongoing political turmoil that could explode at any moment unless addressed
Resurrecting a party member or ally
Completing a job on time, so the party actually gets paid
Keeping a promise to someone important
Chasing down an enemy fleeing overland
Reaching a destination before the competition/Forces of Evil
Recruiting as many allies as possible as quickly as possible to deal with a looming threat

Like... I've been playing in a LMoP/Phandelver and Below game and there's been all of one time we had more than two days where we weren't doing anything particularly important. I'm sitting on a pile of cash fit for a wyrmling (something like 5k-6k gp equivalent, some in pp or ep, and that's not counting the gems and other "sell this for gp" loot), having had little to nothing to spend it on because we can't waste the several days it would take to go to Neverwinter.

It really, truly isn't that hard to make "literally almost two months" not actually a viable option. Heck, I can count on one hand the number of games I've played in where a continuous, uninterrupted span of 50 days was even remotely plausible, let alone something we actually did (which would be zero, I have never once played any game where the party thought that was a remotely good or even acceptable idea.)
Put it in real world terms. Charlie Francis Ivan & Jeanne all hit the west coast☆ of Florida in 2004 over a similar period of time & that was freakishly unusual in the extreme. People really underestimate how huge florida is when it comes to hurricanes hitting the state somewhere.
The critical part is that the next 240ish months since then were not filled with that same level of rapid fire devastation for that region of florida's west coast. If the pace of storms hitting that region over a couple months continued, nobody would live therewithin a year or two & it would be soured clear by now. What you are suggesting far exceeds that sort of improbability & veers into territory where statements like "Yea they probably made a bad choice building a city in the caldera of an active volcano where those toxic fumes would kill people every time the wind shifted"

☆Directly or after crossing from the east coast they hit the same general area.
 

the Jester

Legend
so mostly vendor trash then :p
That's one perspective. Another is that you end up with items that encourage creative use and interesting options for pcs that wouldn't otherwise have them. It's potent when your fighter has a magic weapon and armor and shield, sure, but it's cool when they have a set of boots of speed, a rope of climbing, and a backpack of infinite food.
 



Emerikol

Legend
It's cool when you actually get the cool items and not, say a holy symbol in a group with no cleric, weapons no one can use or one use consumables no one ever wants to 'waste'.
I think you should mix it up as DM. I'm not against dropping something for a class on occasion but you shouldn't never drop a cleric item even if there are no clerics in your group. Clerics are common and they make items so it seems illogical none would ever drop.
 

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