D&D 5E How is 5th edition in respects to magic item creation?

[CapnZapp]

That link is actually a perfect example of the problems with 3e magic item design.

"Here's a weapon blessed by the gods It's a unique item with a history and special lineage... but any 9th level caster can just churn it out."

There's Forge's Clamor http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/blades/html/gondforgesclamor.html
Which is a +1 thundering shortsword with a hilt that acts as a bag of holding. But for the price of the sword, you could just buy a +1 thundering shortsword and TWO regular bags of holding.

And Death's Judgement http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/blades/html/kelemvordeathsjudgement.html
Originally used by a level 17 cleric fighter despite being vastly undervalued for a character of that level. Given it's undead bane property through a story moment, when in play it'd mostly be done in a camp somewhere as the party wizard threw gp at the item until it became more magical.
And, again, it replicates the abilities of another item (yawn) but does so at increased cost.


It's frankly amazing how many items in that blog break his RPG Superstar design advice:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lhvc?Wondrous-Item-Autoreject-Advice

Because there's a hard formula to stick to, the rules encourage you to basically combine magical effects and create cookie cutter items. Because creating your own unique powers to items isn't possible, as there's no associated math.
It's like a random loot generator in a videogame (Diablo or Borderlands) where it takes a list of abilities and throws them randomly into a single item. It discourages creativity in creating magical items and encourages min-maxing.

You keep confusing two entirely different things.

I have never asked you to change opinions, or stop saying what you think works for you.

I am, however, asking you to stop perpetuating the idea that the info in the DMG is actually useful for anyone asking about magic item prices, economies or creation.

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[Ancalagon]

There's NOTHING to spend your tens of thousands of gold on in 5th edition, unless you take a break from saving the world from Tiamat or Acererak to do downtime, and I can't even begin to THINK how many years of wining and dining you need to spend.

Erm...

Real estate? I mean there is a few pages in the DMG devoted to that.

Buy a ship, hire sailors, load it with merchandise and set sail to Yoon-Suin, hoping to make a killing with spices and silk you bring back?

Buy your way into nobility?

All these things, and more, are possible in 5e! (and in 3e too but as someone mentioned, that means you aren't getting the latest stat +6 doodad...)

 

[Ancalagon]

I am, however, asking you to stop perpetuating the idea that the info in the DMG is actually useful for anyone asking about magic item prices, economies or creation.

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It's useful to me.

Therefore, you leave me no choice but to nicely ask you to stop perpetuating the idea that you speak for me.

 

[Jester David]

Had a long post written here but, eff it, just not worth the hassle of arguing with someone who just wants to spend all their time crapping on 5th Edition and calling Wizards of the Coast liars...
Life is stressful enough without constant negativity bringing me down. I have enough trouble battling my regular bouts of depression without outside assistance.


I will say that there was never been a downtime free version of D&D.

Even in 3e crafting magic items took a long time. And getting back to town to buy the mandated magical items was a huge annoying time sink.
I remember the awkwardness of the last four or five levels of my Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords campaign, where the party had several level's worth of treasure and were nearing the endgame of facing the Runelord, but had to stop adventuring to teleport back to Magnimar to spend a couple weeks crafting and adding the next tier of +s to their gear.

At least in 5e you can just bank treasure until after you save the world. You don't *need* to take that break.


There's such easy potential for fixes as well.

Want magical item stores? Bam! In the game. Set base magic item prices in the middle of the scale and have vendors charge +/- 1d100% for each item.
Want crafting but don't like the long crafting times in the DMG? Bam! Changed. It's now a tenth the time.
Like the mathematical formula for making magical items in 3e? Bam! Just use that table and the treasure tables from 3e.
Want players to regularly craft and keep gaining new gear? Bam! Remove the proficiency bonuses gained after level 1, so the magical pluses are required.

 

[Staffan]

So no, don't claim 5e has a magic item economy, because what it does have makes no sense and can't be used to actually make or buy or price items in any practical sense.

Here's the thing: 3e didn't have a functional magic item economy either. It had a detailed one, and it's easy to confuse detailed with functional - someone clearly spent a lot of time on it, so it has to work, right?

Wrong. 3e makes a whole lot of really strange assumptions when it comes to items. One is that the time of an archmage is equally valuable to that of a journeyman - pay a 17th level wizard 62,500 gp to spend 125 days making a ring of djinni calling (plus an equal amount in materials), or pay a 3rd level neophyte 500 gp to spend one day making a cloak of resistance +1 (again, plus an equal amount in materials) - either one charges 500 gp per day for their work. Another is that the market price of an item is directly related to the creation cost, and not to its utility. For example, the 13,000 gp lyre of building produces 180 gp (or more) worth of work in one hour, with no limit other than random chance (and human endurance) on how many hours you can keep playing it. As another example, the helm of underwater action is given roughly the same price as a cloak of resistance +5, but I don't know a single PC that wouldn't rather have the cloak.

The economy of 3e breaks down in other ways too, not related to magic items. For example, by the rules there should be about 22 000 galleys for sale in Waterdeep at any given time (5 times as many in the summer) - not to mention the 33 billion chickens. And the rules for traps say that a simple 10 foot pit trap costs 600 gp and takes 45 weeks to make. There are fairly detailed rules giving each of those numbers, but being detailed doesn't make them good. IMO, having a detailed and thus seemingly "fair" system that gives outrageous results such as these is worse than not having a system at all.

 

[CapnZapp]

Erm...

Real estate? I mean there is a few pages in the DMG devoted to that.

Buy a ship, hire sailors, load it with merchandise and set sail to Yoon-Suin, hoping to make a killing with spices and silk you bring back?

Buy your way into nobility?

All these things, and more, are possible in 5e! (and in 3e too but as someone mentioned, that means you aren't getting the latest stat +6 doodad...)

I am talking "uptime" or whatever you want to call the opposite of downtime.

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[CapnZapp]

Here's the thing: 3e didn't have a functional magic item economy either. It had a detailed one, and it's easy to confuse detailed with functional - someone clearly spent a lot of time on it, so it has to work, right?

Wrong. 3e makes a whole lot of really strange assumptions when it comes to items. One is that the time of an archmage is equally valuable to that of a journeyman - pay a 17th level wizard 62,500 gp to spend 125 days making a ring of djinni calling (plus an equal amount in materials), or pay a 3rd level neophyte 500 gp to spend one day making a cloak of resistance +1 (again, plus an equal amount in materials) - either one charges 500 gp per day for their work. Another is that the market price of an item is directly related to the creation cost, and not to its utility. For example, the 13,000 gp lyre of building produces 180 gp (or more) worth of work in one hour, with no limit other than random chance (and human endurance) on how many hours you can keep playing it. As another example, the helm of underwater action is given roughly the same price as a cloak of resistance +5, but I don't know a single PC that wouldn't rather have the cloak.

The economy of 3e breaks down in other ways too, not related to magic items. For example, by the rules there should be about 22 000 galleys for sale in Waterdeep at any given time (5 times as many in the summer) - not to mention the 33 billion chickens. And the rules for traps say that a simple 10 foot pit trap costs 600 gp and takes 45 weeks to make. There are fairly detailed rules giving each of those numbers, but being detailed doesn't make them good. IMO, having a detailed and thus seemingly "fair" system that gives outrageous results such as these is worse than not having a system at all.

Thank you.

I shall endeavor to use *detailed* in my further correspondence with you.

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[Ancalagon]

not to mention the 33 billion chickens.

That's an adventure seed right there!

Can you defeat... the CHICKENMANCER?!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miomuSGoPzI

BEWARE HIS ENDLESS HORDES!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vPm7f-NAiw

 

[schnee]

Good finding, yes it is that way BUT:

The plate armor is AC19 a real high renaissance plate armor, nice things do cost a bit.

I got this little special rule on my table: Casting stat needs to be 10+spell level.

I do control the party wealth to steer things, ATM the party is 4 pc level 5, if they put their silver together they can maybe buy 1 scroll of wish.

Theoretically you can buy war machines in my campaign they will do 4d10 to 16d20 in their path and in an impact radius depending on their size (and cost 5k to 80k silver), also orcs in my campaign are organized like landsknechte with pike formations and crossbow archers and reinforced by tanar'ri of any possible sort etc., so you might hit or down a few with your meteor storm but not all.

So you have house-ruled the hell out of the game, assumptions about cost/value can't carry over to tables that are more by-the-book, so you have nothing to say that matters to other people. Got it.

And in 5 E wish is a risky thing you might want to read the description in the PHB, the mage out for destruction better buys a scroll of meteor storm right away.

Where did you get the idea that I thought a Wish would only be used for destruction? It's a Wish. It's a 'get out of dead' card, mass teleport, cure any disease, etcetera in one scroll-sized package. Maybe you should start thinking in terms other than damage, it's a very small-minded way of approaching the game.

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=16728]schnee[/MENTION]Concerning the OPs question of pricing for magic, and my most simple houserule to just use silver instead of gold with about the same numbers the PHB gives for items, i do not see your point in me not providing useful ideas. I just put price tags on items not being defined in the PHB, call that heavy houseruling if you want to, for me it is a thing a 12 year old could easily understand and recombine.Just take my pricing system for scrolls e.g. and insert gold again and you got something balanced compatible with the PHB RAW pricing.I also refered to your other post in which the wish spell was in line with damaging effect scrolls, but my thinking was rather than buy these scrolls eventually one would get the idea to hoard wish spells, which of course are more useful for other things than damaging effects, but could be used for These as well in an emergency.