D&D 5E L&L for 5/12

[DEFCON 1]

avoid the curse and not benefit from the item, or attune to the item even though it is cursed.

Which I think is absolutely awesome from a roleplaying point-of-view. Combining a Girdle of Giant Strength with a Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity (for example) so that the player gets to decide whether or not they want to make that massive character change in order to gain the additional power. As opposed to just forcing a character to change gender as a "gotcha" for putting on a magic item without checking it out first.

You're more likely to see a player embrace the roleplaying (rather than get annoyed from it or just pretend that it never happened) from the former situation rather than the latter, in my opinion.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Which I think is absolutely awesome from a roleplaying point-of-view. Combining a Girdle of Giant Strength with a Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity (for example) so that the player gets to decide whether or not they want to make that massive character change in order to gain the additional power. As opposed to just forcing a character to change gender as a "gotcha" for putting on a magic item without checking it out first.

You're more likely to see a player embrace the roleplaying (rather than get annoyed from it or just pretend that it never happened) from the former situation rather than the latter, in my opinion.

Totally in agreement. This is something that having magic items as optional can explicitly benefit from: if you DON'T want your version of Conan to have to don a skirt and be called the "babebarian," no skin off of anyone's nose, you just don't get the STR bonus. Totally not an issue. There's no pressure to make "reasonable" curses or "well balanced" trade offs, because the option to just say "Nope! Not doin' that!" is always there, and the bonus being raw benefit means that there's always an incentive to do it anyway.

A DM who like the the gotcha items can, of course, have the item initiate the attunement process...which is kind of hilarious in a "you wake up from your nap and you find yourself with a bloody dagger in your hand, covered in blood, and no idea how that happened" kind of way.

 

[SkidAce]

The main thing I got from the article is that cursed items won't be the "gotcha!" items of previous editions, but will rather be useful items with a drawback, so the player will be faced with a choice: avoid the curse and not benefit from the item, or attune to the item even though it is cursed.

I might just like having the players face that dilemma.

 

[The Black Ranger]

The main thing I got from the article is that cursed items won't be the "gotcha!" items of previous editions, but will rather be useful items with a drawback, so the player will be faced with a choice: avoid the curse and not benefit from the item, or attune to the item even though it is cursed.

We never suffered from the "gotcha" thing because previous editions made it really easy to identify a cursed item.

 

[Klaus]

We never suffered from the "gotcha" thing because previous editions made it really easy to identify a cursed item.

Really easy, as in spending a 100 gp pearl to identify a single item?

 

[Li Shenron]

Really easy, as in spending a 100 gp pearl to identify a single item?

Typical problem of D&D in the internet era:

- Identify in 3.0 starts as "8 hours to identify ONE property, costs 100gp"
- then masses of players say it's too hard and demand it becomes easier
- and therefore Identify in 3.5 becomes "1 hour to identify ALL properties, costs 100gp"
- (don't know how 4e handled it)
- then 5e playtest essentially removes the gp cost, because some people are annoyed
- then finally the official 5e Identify also reveals drawbacks and will probably also reduce casting time to 1 round

It's the "we don't want to bother" effect: lots of players who detest one element of the game and demand to diminish it to the point it's almost automatically bypassed. Then complain that it's so easy and boring, and maybe it can be removed from the game completely.

 

[The Black Ranger]

Typical problem of D&D in the internet era:

- Identify in 3.0 starts as "8 hours to identify ONE property, costs 100gp"
- then masses of players say it's too hard and demand it becomes easier
- and therefore Identify in 3.5 becomes "1 hour to identify ALL properties, costs 100gp"
- (don't know how 4e handled it)
- then 5e playtest essentially removes the gp cost, because some people are annoyed
- then finally the official 5e Identify also reveals drawbacks and will probably also reduce casting time to 1 round

It's the "we don't want to bother" effect: lots of players who detest one element of the game and demand to diminish it to the point it's almost automatically bypassed. Then complain that it's so easy and boring, and maybe it can be removed from the game completely.

Ding ding!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Typical problem of D&D in the internet era:

- Identify in 3.0 starts as "8 hours to identify ONE property, costs 100gp"
- then masses of players say it's too hard and demand it becomes easier
- and therefore Identify in 3.5 becomes "1 hour to identify ALL properties, costs 100gp"
- (don't know how 4e handled it)
- then 5e playtest essentially removes the gp cost, because some people are annoyed
- then finally the official 5e Identify also reveals drawbacks and will probably also reduce casting time to 1 round

It's the "we don't want to bother" effect: lots of players who detest one element of the game and demand to diminish it to the point it's almost automatically bypassed. Then complain that it's so easy and boring, and maybe it can be removed from the game completely.

I'm not even sure how this is a "problem" in a real sense, can you explain?

Identify has always been boring-as-all-hell. I've played since 1989 and no-one ever got excited about Identify, rather, it was a chore. It going away is not a bad thing. I'm sure there will be option rules to bring back the chores for those who need them, but I don't think the default situation should be "needless chores yay!".

 

[an_idol_mind]

Typical problem of D&D in the internet era:

- Identify in 3.0 starts as "8 hours to identify ONE property, costs 100gp"
- then masses of players say it's too hard and demand it becomes easier
- and therefore Identify in 3.5 becomes "1 hour to identify ALL properties, costs 100gp"
- (don't know how 4e handled it)
- then 5e playtest essentially removes the gp cost, because some people are annoyed
- then finally the official 5e Identify also reveals drawbacks and will probably also reduce casting time to 1 round

It's the "we don't want to bother" effect: lots of players who detest one element of the game and demand to diminish it to the point it's almost automatically bypassed. Then complain that it's so easy and boring, and maybe it can be removed from the game completely.

I don't really see this as a problem. Actually, I see this as a textbook example of how new editions are supposed to work, with a dull portion of the game receiving consistent improvement edition after edition.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm not even sure how this is a "problem" in a real sense, can you explain?

Identify has always been boring-as-all-hell. I've played since 1989 and no-one ever got excited about Identify, rather, it was a chore. It going away is not a bad thing. I'm sure there will be option rules to bring back the chores for those who need them, but I don't think the default situation should be "needless chores yay!".

I think the main purpose Identify served(at least for our group in 2e) was to move the dealing with loot from a dungeon to the end instead of constantly interrupting the dungeon to deal with the loot you found.

So, if you found a magic ring of some sort, rather than risk it being cursed or randomly attempting to activating it hoping you could figure out its command word, we would put it in a sack and deal with it when we had enough spell slots to casts Identify on every item we found. Which generally meant when the dungeon was over and we could distribute loot.

When 4e came out and said you could identify one magic item each short rest, there was no longer a need for an Identify spell. However, it meant that there was a large discussion every time a magic item was found. Immediately everyone wanted to rest so they could know what the item was. Then, once the item was known, then began the discussion of who gets the item. Often, I'd have to ask "You guys are sitting around having this conversation right here? You pick up the sword and start saying 'I use long swords so I think I should use it', 'I use long swords too and mine is only +3, I could use a +4!'?"

I have a feeling that now that short rests are an hour, I'm still going to have to deal with groups immediately wanting to rest for an hour in the dungeon each time they pick up an item. I hate parties taking hour long rests in a dungeon. Then again, when I try to stop them the result is always the same:

"We rest for an hour in this room?"
"Really? Right here, there's a door on the opposite side and you don't even know who or what is beyond it."
"Yeah, we barricade it with the table in the room. We know what's behind us...everything is dead back there."
"Ok...fine, after 5 minutes, bashing begins at the door, they burst it inwards, roll for initiative."
"We kick their butts, just a bunch of Orcs...no big deal."
"Ok, you win the fight, what do you do now?"
"We go back to resting, we didn't finish identifying the item we found."
"Really? Again? You were attacked the last time."
"Yeah, but I assume everyone who was within earshot has already shown up, we should be fine now."
"About 10 minutes later, a patrol happens upon you. Roll for initiative."
"We beat them too, just some more Orcs."
"Sigh...I guess I shouldn't ask but what are you doing now?"
"We continue our rest of course..."

On an unrelated note, I can't remember which editions, but I think 2e and 3e both said that "some items can hide their true properties, even from an identify spell". Most cursed items said "This item appears to be X". I've never assumed that Identify could determine if a cursed item was cursed.