D&D 5E Frustrated with 5E magic items

[NotAYakk]

Because +2 armor breaks bonded accuracy. And cloak of invisibility is an at will 2nd lvl spell, that's why. You can't use magic item rarity for anything, as is well described in the document.

No, monsters can deal with +2 armor. Really.

And if you stack it with a +2 shield you end up with a PC that a bit hard to hit for low level monsters. Only if you stack every bonus, then it gets hard to hit, and even then crits and advantage make it imperfect.

And the Cloak of Invisibility is concentration-free greater invisibility with a 2 hours every 12 hours.

It is crazy good.

I mean, I'm not reading everything. I just literally just glanced at a few items, and found every single one of them was worse than the 5e prices.

I mean, maybe they fixed potion of invisibility and a flying broomstick.

 

[Odysseus]

I'm curious how other people have made the transition from more structured magic item and treasure editions like 3E and 4E over to a looser system like 5E.

So far I haven't settled on an approach.
I've tried finding/giving out a lot less money. Letting them buy whatever using sane magic prices. And I've tried a level tax. And I'm not really satisfied with any of those. So I'm probably headed towards a 3rd ed approach.

 

[werecorpse]

No, monsters can deal with +2 armor. Really.

And if you stack it with a +2 shield you end up with a PC that a bit hard to hit for low level monsters. Only if you stack every bonus, then it gets hard to hit, and even then crits and advantage make it imperfect.

And the Cloak of Invisibility is concentration-free greater invisibility with a 2 hours every 12 hours.

It is crazy good.

I mean, I'm not reading everything. I just literally just glanced at a few items, and found every single one of them was worse than the 5e prices.

I mean, maybe they fixed potion of invisibility and a flying broomstick.

Well that is good. Blackball calculated it as if it was just invisibility (not greater). FWIW I think he has got this wrong. But if you go by it being greater invis I suspect it would be valued at 200,000gp in his values

 

[NotAYakk]

Which is my point. See, the errors in the WotC list -- that flying items are valued seemlying randomly, and that consumables are often over priced -- is something I'm aware of.

That list? It has its own collection of serious problems. I mean, I checked "are shields cheaper than armor? No? Fail". Then I thought "ok, how about cloak of invisibility" and it was massively mispriced.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Hey, I'm actually playing in a 5e Red Hand of Doom. We just finished the first arc.

Our DM allows us to use some homebrew rules to upgrade our weapons and armor at the blacksmith, for a fee of course. That's where most of our gold went.

 

[werecorpse]

The value of an item assumes it is something able to be used effectively I don’t think a +1 shield should be valued at less than +1 armour on all occasions. For example a +1 shield is more valuable than +1 chainmail IMO because it has flexibility in that it can be combined with plate or half plate whereas +1 chainmail is worse AC than non magic full plate.

as I said I think it’s a more useful tool than provided by WOTC but is a decent guide only as haw to price items.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

The value of an item assumes it is something able to be used effectively I don’t think a +1 shield should be valued at less than +1 armour on all occasions. For example a +1 shield is more valuable than +1 chainmail IMO because it has flexibility in that it can be combined with plate or half plate whereas +1 chainmail is worse AC than non magic full plate.

as I said I think it’s a more useful tool than provided by WOTC but is a decent guide only as haw to price items.

Exactly. The only +1 armor that is under consideration is the top armors for light, medium and heavy armor. The rest shouldn't really cost more than a "normal, but the same AC" armor. The shield allows stacking, which is why is it rated the same as the armor. Additionally, the pricing assumes that items will be used at max effectiveness - which (of course) means, that a shield is not worth less because it requires proficiency - you based it on a user, that can take full advantage. Just like scrolls, staves, Holy Avengers and all the other magic items in the book. So that's kind of a strawman.

And yes, Cloak of Invisivility should have been based on a 4th lvl spell, which would put its price at 200.000.

 

[Flamestrike]

Personally, when it comes to magic arms and armor, I find the random minor properties works wonders. While +1 Scale Mail might be the same as Half Plate from an AC perspective, when you give it a property like 'elven made, weighs 1/5 as much' or 'floats on water' or 'keeps you warm in cold weather' it makes the world of difference (and it also really helps those magic items 'pop').

 

[NotAYakk]

And yes, Cloak of Invisivility should have been based on a 4th lvl spell, which would put its price at 200.000.

A concentration-free version of a 4th level spell, usable nearly at-will, that you'd want to stack with other effects. Oh, and activating/deactivating it is an object interaction (raise/lower hood).

It is a top tier legendary item.

The only reason it isn't ridiculously broken is blindsight/truesight on boss monsters at high level. Even then, on ranged PCs they can often just outrange those senses.

One of the core benefits of the shield styles in 5e is the RAW cheap and easier to get magic attunement free AC from a shield.

For this, you give up access to -5/+10 feats, which are massive contributions to damage, growing in importance and impact as you gain levels (as ATK outpaces monster AC, and advantage gets easier to get).

 

[Flamestrike]

A concentration-free version of a 4th level spell, usable nearly at-will, that you'd want to stack with other effects. Oh, and activating/deactivating it is an object interaction (raise/lower hood).

It is a top tier legendary item.

The only reason it isn't ridiculously broken is blindsight/truesight on boss monsters at high level. Even then, on ranged PCs they can often just outrange those senses.

Invisibility isnt anywhere near as broken now as it was in prior editions. Im not sure what makes this so crazy broken?

Like; Gloomstalker rangers are basically doing this vs all critters with darkvision from 3rd level, and that's breaking nothing.