D&D 5E (2024) Indirectly Buffing Rogues, Rangers, Monks Via Magic Items?

[THEMNGMNT]

The issue with this is it is usually player-focused, not class or character focused. Some players may feel slighted by this.

For me, it's character-focused.

 

[Horwath]

What hinders other, better, classes from just taking the items from these classes? Why should the melee Ranger get a good sword, and not the fighter with more attacks and better survivability?



Sure its not always possible (like fist fighter monk, or no fighter/paladin/barbarian which uses the same type of weapons), but overall in general, it would be a waste to give the worse class the better weapon in a party.

you can always make class specific weapons.

IE:
Hunter's bow
rare, requires attunement by a ranger
+1 Longbow,

while attuned to this bow, Hunter's mark does not require Concentration, you can still only have one HM on a single target.
HM deals +2d6 damage instead of +1d6.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is basically what I do in every campaign and system. I watch to see which characters are dominant and which are not. The ones that are struggling get magic items to bring them up to parity. The other characters...don't.

I mean...wouldn't it be better if you just....didn't have to do that? Like if most characters were all clearly in the same ballpark pretty much all of the time?

 

[humble minion]

I mean...wouldn't it be better if you just....didn't have to do that? Like if most characters were all clearly in the same ballpark pretty much all of the time?

Yes, it would. But it'd also be better if there was world peace and I had a million dollar a year job as cocktail tester and once-a-week DM on Bikini Model Island, but that's not going to happen either. Imbalance, of a degree, it just a fact of life when you write a ruleset. No system is perfectly balanced unless all PCs are carbon copies of each other. There's always going to be choices that are mechanically less or more optimal than others, or at least more optimal for the type of game that the DM runs (I've run no less than two PCs recently that were nicely optimised for sneaky urban campaigns, which became an issue when they ended up playing in wilderness crawls...)

So it's a legit question, I think. I know it's something I'm dealing with in my campaign at the moment. One PC is feeling his first three levels of alchemist artificer were an underpowered mistake (and I'm finding it hard to disagree) and I'm allowing him to in-story re-spec as a single-class wizard. And I'm having a lot of trouble deciding what to do with the PC who is playing a warlord from Kibblestasty's homebrews. It's not a class that relies on dealing damage itself, it's all about magnifying the abilities of others, leveraging Help, handing out extra attacks etc. We're at level 5 now and the warlord is struggling a little to do damage (giving the raging barbarian/fighter an extra attack or letting the warlock scoot out of combat without provoking an AoO is nice, of course), and I'm trying to work out what sort of magic item would help out and give them a few more hero moments, but it's not easy. I gave out some custom +1 studded leather with some special abilities with this in mind, but that was immediately snapped up by the bladedancer, as would be any magic rapier I put in treasure. The warlock would have first dibs on any Charisma item. The PC isn't proficient in shields and even if I gave out a good shield, the PCs would probably decide it'd be better with the fighter. It feels like any item I put in treasure with the idea of boosting the warlord into comparative parity will more likely end up in the hands of one of the other PCs and make the inequity problem worse.

 

[Zardnaar]

Barbarian ended up with a shocking greataxe (+1 weapon, +1d6 lightning). Adventure had it and im not a fan of screwing over PCs unless the items really bonkers.

I'll fast track similar gear for the others.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Magic items have the same issue as feats do - unless you literally put class restrictions on them, then any one that Fighter, Rogue or Monk could take is much better to be taken by a melee-focused caster who is already more powerful and may just be outright broken with it.

And second issue is the "christmas tree" effect. You end up with heroes decorated had to toe in magical gear and it no longer feel like they're actually the ones winning the fight, the items do everything for them. It's like why I hate and despise Batman - he doesn't win because he earned the victory, he wins with his wallet. I don't want to play that, especially as a Monk, and one of 5e's strengths was supposed to be that you were not supposed to be reliant on magic items the way 3e made you.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I mean...wouldn't it be better if you just....didn't have to do that? Like if most characters were all clearly in the same ballpark pretty much all of the time?

Yes. But I almost never see that. It's a combination of unbalanced classes plus system mastery. I have a few players who are always looking for the exploit and a few players who don't make character decisions based on numbers. But every player notices, eventually, when one player is dominant in combat and another player is barely effective.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes. But I almost never see that. It's a combination of unbalanced classes plus system mastery. I have a few players who are always looking for the exploit and a few players who don't make character decisions based on numbers. But every player notices, eventually, when one player is dominant in combat and another player is barely effective.

We had a roue fet a bit deflated because a Berzerker jut its peak (lvl 3-5). Didn't help he got 3/crits in one round or was making 3 or 3 attacks lvl 4/5 sometimes.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes. But I almost never see that. It's a combination of unbalanced classes plus system mastery. I have a few players who are always looking for the exploit and a few players who don't make character decisions based on numbers. But every player notices, eventually, when one player is dominant in combat and another player is barely effective.

I was trying to point out that this is a weakness of 5e's design that was intentionally put there, and which could have been designed in a different way, such that this wasn't actually required literally every single game.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I gave out some custom +1 studded leather with some special abilities with this in mind, but that was immediately snapped up by the bladedancer, as would be any magic rapier I put in treasure. The warlock would have first dibs on any Charisma item. The PC isn't proficient in shields and even if I gave out a good shield, the PCs would probably decide it'd be better with the fighter. It feels like any item I put in treasure with the idea of boosting the warlord into comparative parity will more likely end up in the hands of one of the other PCs and make the inequity problem worse.

This is where you just say "Hey, this one's for the warlord" to the group. Or make the item warlord only. Its ok to tip the scales with loot.