I agree completely, I wasn't saying that players were required to have them. The "need" was intended as no longer needing a mountain of them to tip the scales into monty haul as described on 2e dmg pg115 because one or two plus all of what's been stapled to the PCs themselves can cause those problems. From what I recall the 2e dmg had a few pages about working with players to design & quest for/craft custom magic items & such though & ad&d 2e by modern standards is still pretty "early d&d"
You're assuming they know the level of the monsters, they shouldn't. Again, it takes a CR5 ogre or hill giant reskinned to an orc to challenge a 1st level party. You're not awarding 1800 xp for beating that thing to a 1st-level group. Or you shouldn't be. A "deadly" 1st-level encounter is worth 100 xp per PC. So when they (a 1st-level party) face a deadly encounter (a reskinned CR5 monster), that's what they get (100 XP per character). The designers screwed up and set the bar laughably low.
The DM becomes adversarial once they try to win. Once they think of the players as the enemy, as an opponent to be beaten, it's over.
The PC cannot level without the DM's permission. The DM controls XP. The players cannot simply declare that they've now leveled. That's not how it works. The PCs level at a rate determined by the DM. Milestones, story-based leveling, or XP awarded...it's all up to the DM, not the players. The players cannot say, "I don't care what your homebrew world is, I'm playing X race and Y class, so there." The DM is more than likely going to show that player the door.
Still are. And still are completely controlled by the DM.
No, they don't.
Yes, it is. Only the DM awards magic items. Only the DM awards XP. The DM can veto races, classes, subclasses, etc. If the DM doesn't want something in their game, it's gone. If the DM uses a different XP chart, they do. If the DM homebrews races and classes, they're in. There's no aspect of the game that isn't under the DM's control except for the actions of the PCs once the game starts, short of domination magic.
Agreed.
The flat sides of the hex are supposed to be the top and bottom...not the left and right.
Hex??? What am I, a warlock?
Yes, several posts have asserted this. @Hussar does the best job of it above, but that argument is "well, I could increase party power by giving out magic items and then decrease it later by destroying them." 5e doesn't use that method, but offers much the same abilities through much more open and functional encounter math so that the GM can better balance things. Also, open math allows for better monster creation understanding. The tools moved, they didn't become less. Sure, you can't yo-yo magic items at a whim as GM, but the need you're citing for doing so is provided by other tools. If you can't adjust, the problem isn't in the tools, but that you want to play older edition with newer edition. They are different games and do things differently. Expecting the same tools to address problems that have moved seems contraindicated.
This is an odd argument. One, the GM's friend didn't stack for multiple instances. Two, bonus types wasn't a GM's tool, it's was an annoying system development of 3.x, which was entirely player facing and gameable by players -- not GMs. So the GM's friend (and not bonus types) are the thing for comparison. GM's friend was a small, often pointless addition to 3.x. This is because the skill check was most likely either going to crush the DC because it was focused or be so far from it because it wasn't focused that +2 wouldn't help. I ran entire games of 3.x where I didn't even bother using it because it didn't really matter. Dis/advantage usually matters, or matters much more often than the GM's friend of 3.x ever did. It does it differently, and the complaint it's either there or not has some validity, but not in showcasing that it isn't a new, effective tool for the GM. It is an effective tool, and one I find far more useful than the GM's friend (again, because quite often the GM's friend just did not matter at all).
If the GM isn't following the expectation of the game, then the GM is not playing the game as presented. This is always open -- you can make stuff up and go against expectation in any game. Why this is considered a strength of prior editions I'm not sure -- "hey, Bob, just ignore stuff and do your own thing!" "Thanks, Fred, this makes this edition so much better now that I'm ignoring things. It's the bestest at doing things because I ignore it and do what I want." "I know, Bob, such good design!"
Well, yes and no. Since much of what would normally have come to a PC as a magic item is now built straight into the class, it's far more predictable but, also, it's now on the player side. It's not like you can tell that warlock character, "Oh, sorry, you don't get an invocation this level because I'm trying to rein in the power level of the party". The character turns Level X and gets Y power ups.
But, there are other ways as well - so many other classes gain spells that allow flight, as opposed to only Magic Users once upon a time. In AD&D, I could give a necklace of fireballs out and a cleric could drop fireball. Now, depending on which Domain I have, I might actually be able to CAST fireball.
It's easy to give power to the PCs. Less easy to take it away.Well, yes and no. Since much of what would normally have come to a PC as a magic item is now built straight into the class, it's far more predictable but, also, it's now on the player side. It's not like you can tell that warlock character, "Oh, sorry, you don't get an invocation this level because I'm trying to rein in the power level of the party". The character turns Level X and gets Y power ups.
But, the point being, it's different. I'm not arguing more or less, but, it's undeniable that it has shifted. I could drop boots of flying (for example) in an AD&D game if I wanted characters to have easy access to flight. In 5e, there are classes that gain various movement types just for being that class.
Granted too, this really depended on the classes being played. Obviously a 6th level AD&D Druid could gain flight. Funnily enough, you need 8th level to do it in 5e.
So on and so forth. As a tool for shifting balance, granting magic items are somewhat less useful in 5e since so many of the classes gain access to spells/powers and many of them are not class specific in the way they were before. Where a Ring of Invisiblity or an Elven Cloak in AD&D could be a huge power up, it's a lot less in 5e because so many classes other than wizard can now straight up cast Invisibilty or Pass Without a Trace.
And that's not counting what you might get from Feats or Racial abilities too.
Totally agree there.
