D&D General Edition Design Philosophies as Seen Through Magic Items

[bsss]

I love the depth of these comparisons in the OP. In particular, I could read 1e magic item descriptions all day, and think about all the fun things to do with them and steal them for my games in other systems. I miss the "what nonsense can I or the players cause with fish control? Let's find out!" Keeping bizarre items just in case they had a novel application down the road made them feel more important, too.

In 4e, to my recollection, the standard magic items were always very concise, essentially the base details of the item: type/slot, cost, effect, and a power if it had a power. Even more "just the game facts" than the 5e examples here. Where I think there was a lot more interesting stuff was in the artifacts, which had considerably more flavor and a concordance that captured what you needed to do to keep the item happy, and what happened when it decided it was done with you and left to go be discovered by some other adventurer. That stuff was top notch in 4e.

 

[Pamphylian]

It's true that the magic items in D&D have generally simplified in how they work and most of the 'gotcha' items are gone or much de-emphasized.
But I do find it somewhat interesting that the OP skips over 3e and 4e, the two editions with the most different approach to magic items of the whole D&D family. It's worth noting that 5e, in comparison to its two immediate predecessors, is D&D coming back around to items that are less modular-powerup friendly when it comes to character development and player-driven choices.

I mainly skipped 3e and 4e for lack of familiarity. So I'm basically interpolating a story from 1e (and presumably 2e) to 5e to 5.5e. The closest I have to experience in either 3e/4e is adapting a Pathfinder 1e adventure to Pathfinder 2e. If some one can fill in the design evolution gaps here, especially with examples, I would be most grateful!

The simplicity vs complexity aspect is something I didn't intend to emphasize, though there is clearly some of that. Though 5e does have some very complicated item stat blocks that rival anything in the 1e DMG, and when you get to character abilities 5e is arguably more complex across the board (even more so in say 5.5e/Pf2e), so in a sense the complexity is less important as a stand in for broader philosophy. I sort of think of simplicity vs complexity as more of an epiphenomena to the more representatively significant changes in concreteness vs abstraction of effects. I think you could have both simpler but more "concrete" effect style items, maybe many ODND/ B/X / OSR derivative items fall into this category.

 

[Pamphylian]

I love the depth of these comparisons in the OP. In particular, I could read 1e magic item descriptions all day, and think about all the fun things to do with them and steal them for my games in other systems. I miss the "what nonsense can I or the players cause with fish control? Let's find out!" Keeping bizarre items just in case they had a novel application down the road made them feel more important, too.

Yes! One of my very rough metrics for myself as a DM is something like "number of deranged schemes/out-of-the-box creative solutions/completely hopeless situations that get reverse-unoed" by players per session. Magic items (and the systems that support them) that encourage this, either in the hands of players or through the situation they create in enemy hands, without stealing thunder from the players' own creativity and problem solving are a precious resource for this.

In 4e, to my recollection, the standard magic items were always very concise, essentially the base details of the item: type/slot, cost, effect, and a power if it had a power. Even more "just the game facts" than the 5e examples here. Where I think there was a lot more interesting stuff was in the artifacts, which had considerably more flavor and a concordance that captured what you needed to do to keep the item happy, and what happened when it decided it was done with you and left to go be discovered by some other adventurer. That stuff was top notch in 4e.

I'll have to try 4e at some point just because of how counter it naively seems to my own ttrpg sensibilities. I'd surely at least learn a lot, and I'd be open to a revelation - I was wary of the arcane nature of 1e at one point as well, and I'm very glad I explored. I do enjoy Pathfinder 2e (which I've heard shares some things with 4e) as almost a combat encounter board game (less as a campaign), maybe 4e would be similar. In any case, the item upgradability/modularity that I understand 3e/4e to have is definitely a missing element in the above post, just because it is pretty muted in both 1e and 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

The OP points out nicely the (IMO rather sad) change in items over the editions. Worth noting the same type of chage has occurred with spells; quite a few once-risky spells (teleport, poly other, etc.) have had their risks either extremely reduced or removed altogether.

The overarching change is that fewer and fewer things have negative effects other than just causing hit point damage. 3e had quite a bit of save-or-die in both items and spells, but not as many things that had other nasty effects e.g. limb loss. 4e lost a lot of the save-or-die but still had spells and items that could cause damage to stats. Curses are almost a thing of the past now; the game allows the players-as-characters to be far more trusting.

The other thing that plays against funky effects at the design level is the strange desire in all the WotC editions to codify everything under pre-set "condition" keywords e.g. prone, stunned, grappled, etc. I don't think they have a keyword for "down a limb".

 

[Bae'zel]

Okay I'm definitely cross-referencing magic items in 5.5 with their AD&D counterparts. Whoo!

 

[Bae'zel]

The other thing that plays against funky effects at the design level is the strange desire in all the WotC editions to codify everything under pre-set "condition" keywords e.g. prone, stunned, grappled, etc. I don't think they have a keyword for "down a limb".

Part of the problem is the abstraction of HP. How can losing HP equate to an actual wound? I thought HP loss was luck, fate, destiny, magic etc...? Oops but what about poison and disease damage to HP when... losing HP doesn't actually mean you were actually stabbed or scratched?

That's why I house ruled that HP IS actual "meat points", and tracking it is for "active" use only. Your characters are in a fight that they're aware of (even if surprised). But out of combat "scenes', HP doesn't matter. That antagonist pointing a crossbow at your face in the tavern? You actually have to worry about that, narratively. Even if you have 100HP.

Removes that problem almost entirely. Lose a limb due to a Vorpal Sword or dragon bite? No more HP, you're bleeding out and will die without intervention.

 

[TwoSix]

The reduction of items with both immense powers and big drawbacks is a pretty confounding evolution to me. Both from a gameplay perspective (what is more fun than figuring out how to maximize the rewards and minimize the drawbacks of a weapon, or creatively turn a bane into a boon? What's funnier than a hilariously cursed item? The texture of games is that of risk and reward tradeoffs) and from a verisimilitude perspective (fiction, myth and even history are full of such things). There's a reason I mentioned the Chime of Hunger - what a delightful curse. The 5e DMG still has Major Boons and Detriments you can roll for artifacts, that is great, but the spirit of most of the magic items listed are much more pure boon than in 1e. You see it in other parts of the game too, even just from 5e to 5.5e, with the removal of the self-fireball from the Wild Magic Surge Table. In my opinion, it is almost always better (more interesting, more fun, more life like) to balance great reward and power with great risk, rather than simply diluting both risk and reward to give only items with muted, carefully delineated, numerical-only effects. Maybe you need those for video games for programming sanity, but with ttrpgs, we can imitate the weird, far reaching, and world reshaping magic of myth - why sell the medium short?

The general reason is that broader gaming culture (the type that plays primarily D&D and little else) has shifted into prioritizing player empowerment over the definition and visualizations of their character. At its core, the game isn't asking for players to accept radical, unasked for, changes to their characters.

 

[Stormonu]

In some of the oldest D&D adventures (mostly pre-AD&D, I believe), there were instances where attacks or traps would do limb damage/severing but as the game got more and more codified, that seemed to go away. All instances I remember seeing were codified in the module (or monster) and never in the core rules. I knew several tables who used the negative hit point system would often have characters returning from such states with grievous wounds or limb loss.

Likewise, a lot of systems separate Hit/Luck points from a smaller pool of Wound points (Palladium was where I remember first seeing it, SAGA Star Wars probably the best defined that I remember). Even D&D style video games have done this separation poorly - how many of of us have played the likes of Minecraft with half a dozen arrows stuck in the character as they continue to run around unimpeded? Bloodied is probably the best D&D has done to separate the luck/scratches a character receives vs. a telling blow, but even that is more abstract than it should be. Implementing such a system though would require a lot of deep changes and monster rewrites, I believe.

Personally, I don't ever equate hp loss to "meat", especially after Gygax's article on the subject.*

All the way to the early days of D&D, there have been magic items that hint at limb loss being possible - Vecna's hand/eye replacement, Teeth of Dahlver-Nah replacing your own, Vorpal and Sharpness swords cutting off limbs, etc.

While limb loss is certainly a downer, I would certainly like to see D&D embrace an optional system that accounts for the chance of such grievous wounds - opening up a host of options for mundane items, spells, magic items and more.

Actually having an in-game reason why your character is wearing an eyepatch or has a peg leg, players nodding sagely when such an injured NPC warns them about "look what the beast did to me!" and mean it I believe would enhance the simulation side of the game (and the fear of a similar loss).

Such loss need not be so grievous that players instantly retire a character that suffers such a loss, but they should have at least some mechanical effect - as well as be a badge of honor of just how tough such characters are to have taken such a wound and soldier on regardless.

In the end, I think that is a lot of what this whole thread is about - repercussions and effects that matter beyond a short dip in hit points or a short-term status condition.

*

Hit points are a combination of actual physical constitution, skill at the avoidance of taking real physical damage, luck and/or magical or divine factors. Ten points of damage dealt to a rhino indicated a considerable wound, while the same damage sustained by the 8th level fighter indicates a near miss, a slight wound, and a bit of luck used up, a bit of fatigue piling up against his or her skill at avoiding the fatal cut or thrust. So even when a hit is scored in melee combat, it is more often than not a grazing blow, a scratch, a mere light wound which would have been fatal (or nearly so) to a lesser mortal. If sufficient numbers of such wounds accrue to the character, however, stamina, skill, and luck will eventually run out, and an attack will strike home...

 

[Pamphylian]

The overarching change is that fewer and fewer things have negative effects other than just causing hit point damage. 3e had quite a bit of save-or-die in both items and spells, but not as many things that had other nasty effects e.g. limb loss. 4e lost a lot of the save-or-die but still had spells and items that could cause damage to stats. Curses are almost a thing of the past now; the game allows the players-as-characters to be far more trusting.

The other thing that plays against funky effects at the design level is the strange desire in all the WotC editions to codify everything under pre-set "condition" keywords e.g. prone, stunned, grappled, etc. I don't think they have a keyword for "down a limb".

Yeah, a lot of costs/risks have been removed from spells - e.g. lots of spells (haste, wish, restoration, gate, etc.) age the caster in 1e, I suppose also implying a system shock check. Raise Dead lowers Constitution etc. It is always nice when you see a 5e spell that still has a hint of risk/surprising consequence: Teleport can have mishaps, getting hit by Prismatic spray can send you to a random plane, Reincarnate can bring you back as a random race... nice to see little idiosyncracies nodding to Vancianism still lingering when many spells have had the rough edges and quirks sanded off.

The need to codify everything in a preset condition I think is a lot of my issue with 5e magic. Preset Conditions are great as an efficient, memorable way to package effects - used well, they can actually reduce the mental burden of abstractions and keep the focus in the game world. But I think they can degrade things when designers assume just about everything has to fit into one of the preset conditions, or (even worse), think of the condition first, and ignore whats going in world, or assume textual flavor has no bearing on the effect beyond the condition.

That's why I house ruled that HP IS actual "meat points", and tracking it is for "active" use only. Your characters are in a fight that they're aware of (even if surprised). But out of combat "scenes', HP doesn't matter. That antagonist pointing a crossbow at your face in the tavern? You actually have to worry about that, narratively. Even if you have 100HP.

Yeah, stuff like a crossbow in your face is tough to abstract with the 5e hp system as written. I usually assume hp are a mix of luck, fatigue, and superficial wounds - reading old records of premodern battles, you do hear of armored soldiers get hit with multiple arrows, be fatigued and lightly wounded, and be able to carry on fighting, but still need healing after battle. That's the sort of image I have in my head.

I think the crossbow situation and a lot of other pathologies of the hp abstraction are helped by alternate routes to death beyond the hp to zero -> death saves. 5e has Max hp reduction, disintegration, and ability score damage with the score going to zero instantly killing you, but these are relatively rare, and the first two still need to eat through hp. It's why the Strength drain of e.g. Shadows is so refreshing as a monster ability. I think the earlier edition Save or Die (from e.g. poison) effects represented this sort of routing around hp - even if you are beefy, the right poison doesn't care about your ability to not get hit. 3e (I believe) actually had a possibly 5e compatible way of implementing the crossbow to the face with the Coup de Grace, with some nice preconditions/risks:

I'd prefer to have something like this than contrive something like a super high damage crossbow bolt just for the occasion - as an abstraction that keeps hp in its proper place, this sort of thing would sit better with me.

While limb loss is certainly a downer, I would certainly like to see D&D embrace an optional system that accounts for the chance of such grievous wounds - opening up a host of options for mundane items, spells, magic items and more.

The 5e 2014 DMG at least (maybe 2024 too?) does have a nice optional lingering injuries table (with limb loss, eye loss, festering wounds, etc.), and they are pretty good as far as these things go - give some nice justification to the Restoration spell! But yeah, because it is optional, it becomes mainly a DM fiat sort of thing, the effects are almost never worked into spells/items/monsters.

I'm not actually a DM that is extremely into ultra punishing lingering effects all the time, but I do like that it broadens the scope of possible effects, and marries numerical changes to concrete effects. I think the ideal is having a good spread of durations across different effects - some lasting a round, some an encounter, some a 10 minute dungeon turn, some a day, some days, some weeks, etc to give different sorts of weight to consequences. But this really goes from hassle to making the campaign feel more alive when time (at multiple scales) matters, semi-regular downtime is expected, and there is an expectation that players have a stable of characters they can draw from when their character is out of commission for a few weeks - aspects of the game that have either less rule support or less of a play culture supporting them in the current edition.

 

[Clint_L]

Did 1e have a design philosophy? I’m not being facetious; they were inventing as they went along and mostly the underlying imperative was GG’s taste.

A lot of the differences that you cite are a result of WotC actually having a (somewhat) coherent design philosophy. For 5.5e, many of these changes are to make play more compatible with DDB.

Another element of 5e design is to minimize bespoke rules. And another is to make the game broadly accessible, trusting that players who prefer a more punishing game will adjust it themselves, as always.