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How come BBEG coming out never have magic weapons or items?
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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7486988" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>Not in so many words, no. I <em>think</em> it says something about magic item distribution is completely up to you as the DM, and that magic items are meant as rewards that make the players noticeably stronger. Probably. I don’t know, the 5e DMG is a hot mess.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Good news, you don’t have to compensate for Feats, multiclassing, or magic items that don’t give flat statistical bonuses. They are (theoretically) balanced due to the way they interact with ability score increases. They are optional not because they’re more <em>powerful</em> than the baseline, but because they’re more <em>complex</em> than the baseline. You should also be aware that the more options are available to players, the greater the potential gap between the power of players with different levels of system mastery. That gap is not going to break your game. It’s just not. But there are a few first order optimal strategies that may put players who are aware of them at a slight advantage compared to players who are not. This is a very different issue than the +x magic item math issue.</p><p></p><p></p><p>You shouldn’t need to do a thing to compensate for Feats or +0 flaming swords. The game is designed to account for their existence out of the box. If you give a PC a +1 flaming sword, that PC will hit 5% more often than the game expects them to. This isn’t necessarily something you need to do anything about. A PC with a +1 weapon <em>should</em> hit 5% more often, that’s the point of the +1. If you give out a lot of such items, you could end up in a situation where the encounter building guidelines no longer work, because the CR guidelines are meant to tell you how to challenge characters at baseline, and your party is above the baseline. But if you’re the one who has been handing these items out, you should have a pretty good idea how much above that baseline they are. Build slightly more difficult encounters to compensate.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don’t know what to tell you, man. According to the people who made D&D 5e, the CR math is balanced against a party with no magic items, Feats are balanced against Ability Score Increases, and multiclassing is balanced against single-classed characters. Based on my own experience, this is more or less accurate. You believe whatever you want to believe.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7486988, member: 6779196"] Not in so many words, no. I [i]think[/i] it says something about magic item distribution is completely up to you as the DM, and that magic items are meant as rewards that make the players noticeably stronger. Probably. I don’t know, the 5e DMG is a hot mess. Good news, you don’t have to compensate for Feats, multiclassing, or magic items that don’t give flat statistical bonuses. They are (theoretically) balanced due to the way they interact with ability score increases. They are optional not because they’re more [i]powerful[/i] than the baseline, but because they’re more [i]complex[/i] than the baseline. You should also be aware that the more options are available to players, the greater the potential gap between the power of players with different levels of system mastery. That gap is not going to break your game. It’s just not. But there are a few first order optimal strategies that may put players who are aware of them at a slight advantage compared to players who are not. This is a very different issue than the +x magic item math issue. You shouldn’t need to do a thing to compensate for Feats or +0 flaming swords. The game is designed to account for their existence out of the box. If you give a PC a +1 flaming sword, that PC will hit 5% more often than the game expects them to. This isn’t necessarily something you need to do anything about. A PC with a +1 weapon [i]should[/i] hit 5% more often, that’s the point of the +1. If you give out a lot of such items, you could end up in a situation where the encounter building guidelines no longer work, because the CR guidelines are meant to tell you how to challenge characters at baseline, and your party is above the baseline. But if you’re the one who has been handing these items out, you should have a pretty good idea how much above that baseline they are. Build slightly more difficult encounters to compensate. I don’t know what to tell you, man. According to the people who made D&D 5e, the CR math is balanced against a party with no magic items, Feats are balanced against Ability Score Increases, and multiclassing is balanced against single-classed characters. Based on my own experience, this is more or less accurate. You believe whatever you want to believe. [/QUOTE]
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How come BBEG coming out never have magic weapons or items?
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