D&D 5E (2014) DMG - breaking bounded accuracy already?

[Falling Icicle]

Magic items are optional, you aren't supposed to use them unless you are willing to put in the extra work for a rebalanced game.

People keep saying this, but it just isn't the reality of the game. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of D&D games use magic items. I would think that D&D campaigns that don't use any magic items at all would be in the very tiny minority. I think that when the designers said that the game was built without magic items as an assumed part of the math, they meant that, unlike 3.x and 4e, characters don't need a certain number of magic items at their level just to keep up with the game's math, not that they expected a no-magic-item game to be the default assumption.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Consider the issue of a high level PC creating the items...

Which is also an option rule, which the DM has to choose to allow. And it's entirely in the DM's hands what sorts of ingredients--and thus what sorts of quests--are necessary to make it.

Plus, we're talking 50,000 gp and 2,000 days of effort each time.

I'm still not really worried about game balance repercussions.

 

[Gradine]

Consider the issue of a high level PC creating the items...

These are legendary items, right? I'd think the time and cost requirements be prohibitive to PCs crafting them. If you even allow crafting magic items in the first place.

And to correct the above post, legendary items are 500,000 good and 20,000 days, which works out to about 55 years. Don't think that's happening.

 

[Fralex]

The question then becomes why almost every lich that's more than a few centuries old doesn't have an Int score in the high 20's or even 30's.

Well, the books are hard to find. Even with an indefinite lifespan, there's still a limited number of books. Probably not all lichens are lucky enough to find them.

 

[Falling Icicle]

It is stated that the Maximum ability score caps at 30. It is impossible to go higher then that. (The Tome does not state that, but the ability scores themselves do.)

I'm not sure about that. PHB p. 173 states that "Adventurers can have scores as high as 20, and monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30." However, specific beats general, and the description of the tome states that "your Intelligence score increases by 2, as does your maximum for that score."

 

[Falling Icicle]

These are legendary items, right?.

They're very rare, not legendary.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'd have thought "legendary," as well, but no, I looked it up. They're very rare. Hence my math, above.

 

[Leatherhead]

People keep saying this, but it just isn't the reality of the game. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of D&D games use magic items. I would think that D&D campaigns that don't use any magic items at all would be in the very tiny minority. I think that when the designers said that the game was built without magic items as an assumed part of the math, they meant that, unlike 3.x and 4e, characters don't need a certain number of magic items at their level just to keep up with the game's math, not that they expected a no-magic-item game to be the default assumption.

Healing potions are considered magic. And not all magic weapons or armor give a +n bonus.

It's not that they expected a "no-magic-item" style world to be the default, they simply chose to build the game around the lowest common denominator, because it is much easier to add things and account for them than it is to subtract things and rebalance.

 

[Gradine]

They're very rare, not legendary.

Whoops, was looking at the wrong tome. ><

 

[transtemporal]

It's not just a 22 strength it could be a 40 strength if you got your hands on 20 books, because it increases the maximum.

Classic. Yes, I guess the PCs will just call up the local Mobile Tome Library right? I'm sure DMs will allow one of those in their campaign.