D&D 5E Magic Items, and what it says about the editions

[Orius]

TSR D&D did not have a "wealth by level" table that 3e had. So while magic items were plenty (as I said in my OP), 3e made it official, and with it, the implications that you were to have X amount of magic items per level built into the core game. TSR D&D did not have that. If you created a 7th level PC/NPC in AD&D, there wasn't a rule or assumption that you would give them a defined list of treasure. It as all up to what the DM felt was appropriate to that campaign. For example, whenever we'd create new PCs, regardless of level, we NEVER started with magic items. Ever. those were found or given to you by other party members who already had them. 3e brought this coversation:

DM: "We're starting at level 6 for this campaign."
Plyer: "Here's my PC."
DM: "We're not starting with magic items."
Player: "It's in the rules. Right there. I get this many magic items."
DM: "But in this campaign, no one starts with magic items."
Player "It's in the rules. you're a horrible DM who is punishing me."


Yes, I've seen that conversation.

My point was that 3e dropped the denial that was in AD&D about making magic rare while packing modules chock full of magic items and building worlds loaded down with high-level wizards (hello, Forgotten Realms). The rules about wealth per level are there as a guideline for the DM in developing the campaign, not a tool for PC entitlement, that's why the rules are in the DMG in the first place. Monsters and other challenges do assume a certain amount of wealth/magic power, and that's the baseline WotC used in their own published modules. A DM is perfectly free to give out less, but then has to be sure that the PC are able to overcome whatever challenges he gives them, but then doesn't that go without saying regardless of edition?

As for that conversation, that weasely little rules lawyer was cherry picking rules. First he forgets Rule 0: Check with the DM (3e rules lawyers LOVE ignoring that one). Second, he glosses over the parts in the DMG which talk about starting magic items for levels over 1, in particular: "You're free to limit characters to what items they can choose, just as if you were assigning them to treasure hoards in the game." I read that as "No magic items if the DM damn well pleases (see Rule 0)".

Why is it that the grognard crowd thinks that 3e goes out of its way to cripple the DM? I ran 3e with an iron fist forged in the fires of AD&D, and I never let the players (particularly the rules lawyers) get away with the entitlement mentality.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

In 1e, magic items very much made up what a character was, and could do. To a certain extent, this was random- you didn't know if your Fighter was going to have a Frostbrand, or a flametongue, or a dancing sword, or a +3 sword, or Blackrazor, ..

5e gives characters so many abilities, and so many choices, that characters play just fine even without a single magic item.

In contrast to 1e, I suppose you could say that. Compared to 4e, 3e, and later 2e, though, not so much, no. What 5e does do is remove magic items from the expectation of character growth with level. In 3e & 4e, wealth/level and make/buy made magic items just another tool of character customization (in 4e, one of the less significant ones). In 5e, magic items are back in the hands of the DM, so if your character is Tom of the Flametongue or Dick of the Frostbrand or Harry the puppet of Blackrazor is very much up to the DM.

Players can design out their character's choices (including feats, multiclassing, and so on) all the way to 20th level (although that is usually a theoretical exercise). Magic items are just a frill- an added ribbon. The character is defined not by the treasure, but by the choices.

That was more the case between 1e and 5e. In 5e, magic items make you 'just better,' breaking bounded accuracy and giving you abilities and flavor you couldn't acquire otherwise, in that it's very much a return to classic game.

Why is it that the grognard crowd thinks that 3e goes out of its way to cripple the DM?

3e goes out of its way, very briefly, to acknowledge that the DM could tinker with it, if he really wanted to, by explicitly stating Rule 0. Then forgets about it, and presents as a game with rules for everything, tons of player options, and (as you point out) a fairly clear set of assumptions about advancement - it could be politely described as 'player empowering.'

The impression that 3e was player-entitling, though, really is more a function of the community attitude of it's day, which was decidedly RAW-obsessed and dismissive of DM rulings and house rules.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Why is it that the grognard crowd thinks that 3e goes out of its way to cripple the DM? I ran 3e with an iron fist forged in the fires of AD&D, and I never let the players (particularly the rules lawyers) get away with the entitlement mentality.

Maybe because it's one of THE most frequent reasons used by people to justify why they like 3e (and especially 4e) because the "DM empowerment/rulings" method from TSR D&D is the devil to them, and 3e and 4e gave the players the ability to do what they want regardless of what the DM wants because it was hard coded right there in the rules. The design of those editions was to intentionally remove as much DM rulings as possible, for better or for worse (depending on a person's preferred playstyle). Seriously, you can't tell me that you've never heard this argument. It's all over the place. Heck, the outcry against 5e when it was revealed that 5e was going back to rulings over rules was palpable and you'd think the D&D community had a collective aneurysm. Even just a few days ago in that multiclass thread (albeit now deleted), we had people say there needed to be rules to protect the players from the DM, and to allow players to do what they want.

So yeah, when you make it an official rule where PCs get X amount of magic items per level, you have players assume they get those because the book tells them they do. In TSR days, you did not make that assumption, regardless of how many items were actually in the adventures. That's a significant difference. Those are not mutually exclusive things.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Maybe because it's one of THE most frequent reasons used by people to justify why they like 3e (and especially 4e) because the "DM empowerment/rulings" method from TSR D&D is the devil to them, and 3e and 4e gave the players the ability to do what they want regardless of what the DM wants because it was hard coded right there in the rules.

No RPG could deliver player entitlement "regardless of what the DM wants," no. But the attitude surrounding 3e put RAW on a pedestal and dismissed 'house rules,' while the clarity and relative balance of 4e didn't give DMs a lot of impetus to overrule or mod it (and some to avoid doing so, for fear of 'breaking' it). (Also, 3e and 4e were both subject to a lot of grognard criticism and 'but you can change that' - "Oberoni" - was never accepted as a defense.)

5e has neither issue. It doesn't provide exhaustive player choice or rules, doesn't foster RAW-uber-alles attitudes, and it does constantly require DM rulings, and practically begs to be customized, folded, spindled, mutilated, and generally 'fixed' by the DM.

But the player-entitled editions did have their saving graces from the DM side of the screen, too. 4e was simple and easy to run, with encounter guidelines that actually worked (!?!), rules that were clear/consistent, and player options that weren't too game-breaking. 3e offered up all the same options players had to the DM and his monsters/NPCs (monsters were essentially NPCs, and NPCs essentially DM-run PCs), and then some, so was as open to optimizing fun on the DM side as on the entitled player side - as a side bonus, that universality of PC-defining mechanics attitude fostered a 'PCs aren't special' style of play that some found particularly immersive, and worked well for PvP and adversarial DMing styles, as well.

The design of those editions was to intentionally remove as much DM rulings as possible, for better or for worse (depending on a person's preferred playstyle).

I'm not sure it was intentional in 3e. Cook insisted that the rewarding of system mastery was intentional in and I can see how that could dovetail with minimizing the need for DM rulings. None the less, 3e was not written in so exacting a style of jargon as to completely eliminate 'RaI' - indeed, the hallowed RaW was more of a community consensus interpretation than literally /as written/, since, as written (in English) the rules were often quite ambiguous.

Heck, the outcry against 5e when it was revealed that 5e was going back to rulings over rules was palpable and you'd think the D&D community had a collective aneurysm.

I felt like it was more jubilation than outrcy.

I didn't think they could actually pull it off, but I was, once again, pleasantly surprised.

But, all that said...

So yeah, when you make it an official rule where PCs get X amount of magic items per level, you have players assume they get those because the book tells them they do. In TSR days, you did not make that assumption, regardless of how many items were actually in the adventures. That's a significant difference.

Yep, that's still the bottom line. 3.x presented an enormous wealth of player options, and a clear progression with continued play, DMs often curtailed them - WotC only, Core only, E6 - but they were the most appealing thing about the edition. 5e is completely different, it appeals directly to the DM (especially us long-time DMs) with a return to the enormous freedom of the classic game.

 

[Dualazi]

This completely shortchanges the party spellcasters.

There is nothing wrong with having an encounter where the fighters cannot hurt the foe and basically act like literal meatbags, while the wizard whittles it down using cantrips.

Alternatively, a save or suck spell that allows the party to flee.

Alternatively, a Magic Weapon spell that does allow regular combat to proceed.

etc...

This is such a ridiculous statement I don’t even know where to begin, especially with your clarifications of intent down the thread. “dying for the important members of the team” is not and never will be a legitimate role in the group, which is exactly what your meat shield excuses are. The only time this would be even remotely acceptable game design is when the caster is also occasionally faced with encounters where they are spectacularly neutered and unable to contribute other than soaking damage or being bait.

And you know what? Earlier editions tried that. They failed in amazing fashion, since composing a spellbook to deal with such things was trivial. By some analyses, antimagic fields in 3^rd ed were actually more dangerous to a fighter than a wizard, because he was so reliant on gear that no longer functioned.

In fact, if we ignore the existence of cantrips for a second, the "special need" for a fight only the fighters can win is inherently much less than what I discuss above, a fight only the spellcasters can win.

Why? Because you can see EVERY fight as a fight the fighters win by the default.

It is only when and if the spellcasters CHOOSE to cast any spells a regular fight against kobolds or dragons become a fight winnable by the spellcasters.

In contrast, the fighters have access to their pointy sticks all the time, all day long. So a monster immune to their weapons will be a much larger diversion and challenge the party in much different ways. Than the reverse: a fight only the fighters can win can be EVERY fight where the casters simply decide to not cast any spells.

Highly theoretical, I know. But still

In earlier editions this was basically never the case, due to a much less stringent requirement on encounters per day for balance reasons, coupled with much more impactful spells. HP was more constrained, so spells like fireball could clear an encounter on its own more or less, and if you look at save or suck spells in 3^rd edition you could easily ‘end’ an encounter right off the bat. Both of these in combination with how many spells a wizard gets per level and by midgame a wizard could definitely contribute in almost every combat encounter.

In my opinion the “fighter can always fight” argument has always been disingenuous; it’s true in the technical sense but the number of games where it really becomes a consistent advantage are very small I suspect, and that’s discounting the whole 5 minute workday discussion, which has been covered in great detail elsewhere.

 

[Tony Vargas]

“dying for the important members of the team” is not and never will be a legitimate role in the group...

Poor Boromir will be so disappointed.

In my opinion the “fighter can always fight” argument has always been disingenuous; it’s true in the technical sense but the number of games where it really becomes a consistent advantage are very small I suspect.

I can't say I've ever seen it come up outside the lowest levels (say 1st-3rd in most editions). Of course, AEDU in 4e and cantrips in 5e have made it moot.

 

[CapnZapp]

Poor Boromir will be so disappointed.

Ah, don't mind [MENTION=6855537]Dualazi[/MENTION], he was just trying to troll me.

(It was he who misrepresented me by his quote "dying for the important members of the team" which he made up himself. A quote more accurate to my position would be something like "taking a beating - but certainly not necessarily dying - for the other, equally important, members of the team".)

Cheers

 

[Sacrosanct]

In earlier editions this was basically never the case, .

You keep saying "in earlier editions" and then talk about 3e. You do realize there was 25 YEARS of D&D before 3e, right? And in those 25 years, what he says could be, and often was, true*. So you're incorrect here with this statement.

I guess I must be old, because when I hear "earlier editions" I tend to think of TSR era, and not 3 or 4e. I guess it's like my kid talking about music from the 2000s as "classic"...




*For example, a 1st level magic user only had one spell (and clerics had none!), and that one spell was most often charm person or sleep. Once that was cast, guess who did most of the fighting? Yep, the fighters. While the MUs either had their charmed henchmen fight, or uses sling stones from range.

 

[Aenghus]

Ah, don't mind [MENTION=6855537]Dualazi[/MENTION], he was just trying to troll me.

(It was he who misrepresented me by his quote "dying for the important members of the team" which he made up himself. A quote more accurate to my position would be something like "taking a beating - but certainly not necessarily dying - for the other, equally important, members of the team".)

Cheers

I have noticed that many DMs are willing to tolerate a situation where high hit point PCs take a beating to protect the squishy low hit point characters behind them, but fewer tolerate a status quo where all the PCs are unhittable due to high AC or magic. Beating on tanks in D&D tends to be ineffectual until they go down due to the lack of death spirals or wound penalties in the standard game, but given the lack of other ways of defending vulnerable PCs in most editions of the game, there's a tacit agreement where the DM mostly has the monsters beat on the fighter line, and limit attacks on squishies to player mistakes and rare tactically astute enemies.

The DM relentlessly going after the squishy characters is super effective in many editions, but the DMs job isn't to win at all costs, it's to produce an entertaining game with enough versimilitude to satisfy the participants(the latter factor varying hugely from group to group).

While rare, some players actually enjoy tanking, drawing enough attacks from the rest of the party to take the pressure off them while not being KOed themselves. In some editions a healer can keep the tank propped up, in others combat healing is less optimal so the tank has to be more conservative, and can still be healed up after combat.