D&D 5E Magic Item Slots in D&D Next

[steeldragons]

Living Campaigns are official play. They use the RAW. "Common sense" is useless. You have to make actual RULES, or people will say "Well if my halfling wears halfling-sized magic slippers of weightlessness she should be able to wear half-orc-sized boots of fire protection over those, with room to spare." and so forth.

And the DMs who can't say no ARE a big deal. They're a very vocal part of the community, and they do have some influence. See: Bag of Rats.

Ok...I don't know what "Bag of Rats" is...but fine.

The DMs that can't say no, again, are not the fault or problem of the rules. That is the DM not being able to say no. Talk to them. Strengthen their confidence or their...I don't know what [that isn't grandma unfriendly].

"NO" is not a dirty word...in life or,especially, D&D. And if you have the "stuff" to DM a game...then you should have the "stuff" to say "No." imho.

It is about having FUN. If having fun, for you and your group, means that you never say no to your players. Then, bully. Have a great time.

As to the halfling with the half-orc boots, say magic items shrink or grow to fit their wearers (that goes for weapons too)...that's all the "rules" need to say.

Bang. Easy.

As for the "Living Games" I have no experience with that/those.

Then, I would guess, the DM says "these be the [house/living games] rules". But the core books are certainly not responsible or to blame for what happens in "Living games".

Offer the options. You don't need the game/books to say how many and where your magic items are. Your DM does.

--sd

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I think the 3rd edition slots were a reasonable attempt to codify common sense. They simply clarified what items reasonably couldn't be worn together. This setup works particularly well for organized play. In the game rules, it should be explicitly stated that for home games the slots are merely suggestions, and the DM is encouraged to use common sense.

Part of me misses the concept that multiple magic items in proximity could have unusual side effects. Under this option, I probably would reduce the body regions as mentioned above: Head, Body, Arms, Legs. You can have multiple items in a region, if doing so makes sense, but there's a percentage chance that any two items will conflict. Certain items, like rings or amulets, never conflict.

 

[Dausuul]

I voted "condense," but what I mean by that is:

You can wear whatever you can wear. That means you can have a total number of weapons and shields equal to your number of hands (that means two for all you non-thri-kreen out there). You can have as many necklaces and amulets as you can fit on your neck without strangling. You can stack magic rings until the cows come home, although past a certain point the inability to move your fingers will be a problem. You might be able to get gauntlets on over gloves, that's up to the DM. No, you can't wear two suits of plate armor at the same time, what the heck are you thinking?

The way I see it, slots are a necessity when the game design requires a constant stream of magic items pouring in on the PCs. That forces the game to impose artificial limits to keep players from piling on every item they find. If DMs can limit the magic item supply at the source, it ceases to be a concern.

Now, I can see a more formalized system being necessary for organized play. But I prefer to have that be optional. Slots make me feel like I'm playing Diablo.

 

[Incenjucar]

Ok...I don't know what "Bag of Rats" is...but fine.

Long story short, some people in 3E were so unable to stick to common sense that they had to write a section about it in the 4E books, though they call it "sack of rats."

 

[Mattachine]

The bag of rats is example is to use a bag of rats as a mean to trigger abilities that function when you hit or kill a creature--you would simply carry around a bag of harmless animals to get an otherwise difficult to attain effect.

In 4e, there is a paragraph discussing that combat related abilities that create special effects only matter when dealing with credible threats . . . and the DM has the duty to make common sense rulings.

In any case, removing stacking rules from the game--meaning, no stacking--make a lot of these worries go away.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I've never liked slots, not even back in AD&D. They've always felt very gamist, even before I had a word to explain why I didn't like them. They do solve the Christmas tree problem though, where PCs are carrying around hundreds of items to get high cumulative bonuses. A solution to this problem that I like better is to simply make bonuses not stack, so only the highest single bonus counts.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I want real magic items in the real world. Then we could just duplicate how they actually worked.

 

[Rune]

The Lord of the Rings is quite low magic from a D&D perspective, but still had a weapon for everyone, cloaks, a magic light, a suit of armor, probably a horn, a crystal ball, and I hear even a ring

The Hobbit, on the other hand, makes mention of "a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered" given to the Old Took by Gandalf.

 

[StarFyre]

there should be no limits. let the players and dm do whatever they enjoy

pretty much what we do now.

Sanjay

 

[I'm A Banana]

If the DM is in control of handing out magic items, you don't need slots.

The function of slots is to limit the stacking of bonuses.

If the DM supplies that function instead, you don't need slots.

There's no reason to keep slots if they don't have a function to fulfill.

So I'm advocating for no slots.