D&D 5E Magic items in D&D Next: Remove them as PC dependant?

[howandwhy99]

A character can strip down and put everything they own in a barrel and kick it overboard, then sail on into the wide blue yonder ...but it's going to cost them.

The very last thing I want is magic items / treasure / equipment as meaningless in D&D Next.

However, I definitely would not want them to be made meaningless in another way by requiring equipment by level either.

Let these be separate, but let them have value. If we dump all our magic items on the NPC lackey, he should be kickass powerful even though he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn normally and has 2 hit points.

 

[Mokona]

It seems almost funny. 93% of votes want PCs to be independent of including items in their "build".

WotC says, "One of our goals in 4th Edition was to reduce characters’ reliance on magic items." - Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Magic Item Slots)

WotC also says, "We’ve been saying for a long time that we wanted magic items in 4th Edition to take up a smaller portion of a typical character’s array of options than in previous editions." - Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Excerpts: You and Your Magic Items)

In my opinion they completely failed to deliver. Why is it so hard to design a game where PCs aren't dependent on magic items? Somehow 4th edition is even worse than 3rd/v.3.5 when it comes to "christmas trees" of magic items. I've seen warlock builds that were completely ineffective until they release some broken piece of warlock equipment. Then they had to go back and neuter that piece of equipment; starting the equipment treadmill all over again for the poor, weak striker class that never quite measured up.

 

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

A definite no here - but only because I don't think there should be an assumption of what items a PC should have at a specific level.

My original 1e/C&S mix campaign had comparatively few magic items. Indeed all of them were referenced and separately identified - my notebooks would note what the item was and where it was. After a while my index cards for the PCs or NPCs would also list the items they had.

A +1 weapon was a definite find but by mid level most people had something useful other than a scroll or potion (which were relatively more common). This all worked well. If they found a monster that was only affected by magic weapons they had recourse to what they had and used their casters. The really powerful items were usually a mixed blessing because they usually had flaws, their own drivers etc.

Regards

Edward

 

[FireLance]

It seems almost funny. 93% of votes want PCs to be independent of including items in their "build".

WotC says, "One of our goals in 4th Edition was to reduce characters’ reliance on magic items." - Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Magic Item Slots)

WotC also says, "We’ve been saying for a long time that we wanted magic items in 4th Edition to take up a smaller portion of a typical character’s array of options than in previous editions." - Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Excerpts: You and Your Magic Items)

In my opinion they completely failed to deliver.

Well, you have to understand the context. In late-3e, WotC identified what came to be known as the "big six" magic items which almost every character had or wanted (see here), namely:

• Magic weapon
• Magic armor & shield
• Ring of protection
• Cloak of resistance
• Amulet of natural armor
• Ability-score boosters

If you separate armor and shield, and take into consideration that some characters would want to boost more than one ability score, the "big six" might actually be seven, eight or more individual items.

4e narrowed down that "big six" into three, as stated in the first article: weapon, armor, and neck slot, and you don't even need those if you use the inherent bonus rule.

Why is it so hard to design a game where PCs aren't dependent on magic items? Somehow 4th edition is even worse than 3rd/v.3.5 when it comes to "christmas trees" of magic items.

Again with that word "dependant". A 3e or 4e PC doesn't "need" level-appropriate magic items. However, if he has them, he has the standard chance to overcome a level-appropriate challenge. If he doesn't have them, then one or two things could occur:

1. He could try to take on a level-appropriate challenge, but it will be harder (though seldom impossible).

2. He could take on lower-level challenges instead, as appropriate to his lower level of gear.

In neither case does the game or the campaign need to come to a screeching halt. Come on, people, I appreciate that not every one of you has gone through the Basic/1e/2e experience of eyeballing monster strength relative to that of the PCs when deciding on the encounters to put in an adventure, but surely adjusting your monster mix to the PCs' overall level of ability isn't that hard?

I've seen warlock builds that were completely ineffective until they release some broken piece of warlock equipment. Then they had to go back and neuter that piece of equipment; starting the equipment treadmill all over again for the poor, weak striker class that never quite measured up.

"Completely ineffective" compared to what? If the definition of "completely ineffective" is dealing a few points of damage less per round, I think the 4e team did an excellent job.

 

[Yora]

• Magic weapon
• Magic armor & shield
• Ring of protection
• Cloak of resistance
• Amulet of natural armor
• Ability-score boosters

And they are all just bigger numbers. So instead you could just reduce the numbers of enemies, and get rid of the whole stuff.

 

[FireLance]

And they are all just bigger numbers. So instead you could just reduce the numbers of enemies, and get rid of the whole stuff.

Exactly, which has been my point all along. No PC in any edition of D&D is "dependant" on magic items since the DM can always select appropriate challenges.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I try to look at things economically. One of the problems of 3rd Edition was that PCs could make their own equipment, specifically disposable equipment such as potions/wands/scrolls, giving them access to whatever they needed whenever they needed it (with poor balance on the cost of said items). In 4th Edition you can make items, but you need a specific component whose value is indeterminate, because it's not clear where it comes from. Magic items should be challenging to construct, else there is little incentive to seek them in dungeons - specific components rather than generic dust would be my preference.

I would also like to see an option for items to get better according to use. Rather than award a character with a new sword with a better plus or power, why not reward them by having their existing sword develop a better power? I don't know how challenging this would be to balance and keep track of.

Something to definitely reduce is the scope of boni that can be gained from a magic item. A +1 sword that only gives a bonus to damage, for instance, maintains math balance. This way +5 sword is still awesome, but not necessary to compete. Depending on what skill system is used, it might be best to avoid +x to skill roll boni too, instead modifying how the skill is resolved - for instance a sash of healing makes binding wounds a minor action, or magic lockpicks alert you if the door/chest is trapped and give you a chance to disarm it.

 

[Mattachine]

It isn't easy to 'fix' though, lol. If items are significant, then they will be significant because they have powerful effects of some kind. Otherwise they are insignificant. If they have powerful effects then the game must assume some degree or other of magic item use. Once it does that they are effectively required because not having them makes the characters weaker in some significant way. Likewise if items are insignificant, then it doesn't matter of course, you can assume whatever availability you want, it won't really matter much.

You can make items HIGHLY situational and thus basically plot devices of course. Then they can be powerful but they are also assumed (but only for specific situations). That could be a perfectly fun situation. OTOH it breaks heavily from D&D tradition.

It is is easy to "fix", using your suggestion--situational items, or limited/minor effect items.

That would break from D&D traditions (except low level AD&D and OD&D), and I would be so happy!

The DMG could easily provide a paragraph or two about games that use more magic items and more powerful magic items, but having a default with less powerful items would be easier to build off of than the default Christmas tree.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Exactly, which has been my point all along. No PC in any edition of D&D is "dependant" on magic items since the DM can always select appropriate challenges.

Isn't this a variation of the Oberoni fallacy? "Characters are dependent on magic items" is the proposed problem and "use appropriate(lower level) challenges" is the rule 0 reason it isn't a problem.

Common understanding holds "magic item dependance" to refer to the tendency of the 3.X and 4e editions of D&D to inadvertently use the growing bonuses of magical items as a major determining factor in a character's ability to succeed against equal level challenges.

In 4e, where characters are expected to have a +1 magic item bonus per 5/levels to hit, damage, ac and defenses, at level 25 a character will hit at least 2 times more often and be hit at least 2/3 less often if he is equipped with level appropriate magic items than if he was using non-magical gear.

Also "Inherent Bonuses" are not a lack of magical item bonuses. They are just a relocation and refluffing of those bonuses.

 

[FireLance]

Isn't this a variation of the Oberoni fallacy? "Characters are dependent on magic items" is the proposed problem and "use appropriate(lower level) challenges" is the rule 0 reason it isn't a problem.

Only if you think that you need a houserule to allow PCs to encounter challenges of different levels, or for a DM to adjust the challenges he puts in his game based on the PCs in the party. It's really no different from a DM (in 3e) putting no traps in a dungeon if there are no rogues in the party or having too many encounters with undead, constructs and elementals if there are.

The only reason this has not been an issue in 2e and earlier editions is that the rules provided only vague guidelines for what was an appropriate challenge. If the DM was designing an adventure for a party of PCs with fewer or less powerful magic items, he should pick less powerful monsters. Alternatively (for more sandbox games), the players were expected to exercise some judgement and avoid fights with monsters that they were not equipped to handle.

Common understanding holds "magic item dependance" to refer to the tendency of the 3.X and 4e editions of D&D to inadvertently use the growing bonuses of magical items as a major determining factor in a character's ability to succeed against equal level challenges.

I would argue that it isn't "inadvertent", though. I'm fairly sure that the intention in 3e, which was further refined in 4e, was that the PCs in a typical game would be on the receiving end of a stream of gradually more powerful magic items. Based on this assumption, you could get an idea of what a "typical" party would be capable of, and hence, the power of the monsters they would normally be able to defeat.

You could take the other approach and assume that PCs don't ever get magic items. However, if monsters are "balanced" on this assumption, then DMs who do hand out magic items will find that equal-level challenges become cakewalks for his PCs. You then need to put in guidelines to tell the DM that if the PCs have such-and-such a level of power from their magic items, they should be considered so many levels higher than their actual level for the purpose of determining what would be a "normally" challenging encounter. It really boils down to the same thing in terms of math, as mentioned, no different from using THAC0 vs BAB or saving throw modifiers vs static non-AC defenses.

If there was an error made by the design team, (IMO) in was in assuming that the "steady stream of magic items" playstyle would be more popular than the others, and in not giving guidelines for how to run games and estimate what would be a good challenge if the wealth by level guidelines (or whatever) were not followed.

In 4e, where characters are expected to have a +1 magic item bonus per 5/levels to hit, damage, ac and defenses, at level 25 a character will hit at least 2 times more often and be hit at least 2/3 less often if he is equipped with level appropriate magic items than if he was using non-magical gear.

So we're talking about the PCs having attacks and defenses about 5 points lower than they would normally be expected to have? Just send them against monsters 5 levels lower than they are. As mentioned, it's really easy in 4e.

Also "Inherent Bonuses" are not a lack of magical item bonuses. They are just a relocation and refluffing of those bonuses.

Call them what you want, but if you want to run appropriately challenging encounters and don't want to bother with subtraction, they do the job with minimum fuss.