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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Exactly. It is all about establishing a standard baseline assumption. ALL versions of D&D have had a baseline where the PCs get a steady stream of items. You can easily see that, even though AD&D had quite a bit more opaque math than 4e does (3e is intermediate). High level AD&D monsters have for instance super duper low AC. No fighter is going to hit such monsters without magic weapons and some sort of strength item without some really good luck (a baseline level 12 1e fighter is effectively +6 to-hit, he can hit AC10 on a 4 and thus AC -2 requires a 16, MANY top level monsters appropriate to 12th level have AC -2 or sometimes even better). The +N weapon needed to hit rule also clearly demonstrates that magic items were baseline assumptions in AD&D.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think we're reaching a consensus point, but I think the rules adjustment for 0 magic / low magic / high magic ought to be clearer, if not explicit.

I'm not convinced that saying "well, the game assumes a magic item +5, so I'll throw a Lvl-5 monster at them" is actually balanced. It's just eyeballing in a different way - I have no confidence that the math works out.

So I'd like to see some sort of rough estimate in the DMG that says "if your party has X amount of magic items, they are effectively +1 level for purposes of encounter design."

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

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.

My point still stands. In fact you brought up one of the arguments that lead to the Oberoni fallacy being formulated: Crit Immune creatures are not a problem for Rogues, because the DM doesn't have to use them.

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.

Pre-3.X characters, especially Fighters, had a lot more power than most people realize, even excluding followers, and pre-2e monsters were much weaker. Outside of the first couple of levels magic items did not factor into character power nearly as much.

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.

What I meant by "inadvertent" was the scale of the effect not that the effect itself existed. In other words the fact that magic items were a major determinant of character power instead of a medial determinant.

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.

And that is why I'm for a more planar, rather than linear, scale of designing and balancing monsters.

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.

Agreed.

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.

Superficially that is true. In actuality? Far from it. Those 5 levels grant the characters 5 levels worth of hp and abilities. A substantial bonus, often enough to significantly tilt the battle even more in the party's favor than it would be between equivalent level opposition.

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.

I would rather D&D Next not need a work around in order to accomplish no magic item campaigns.

 

[Sunseeker]

I never really felt that PCs NEEDED magical items. Now mind you a +X weapon with no special properties doesn't qualify as "magic" to me, just "really well made"(no, masterwork doesn't cut it). But magical items that do things, flaming longwords, ect... I never found those to be really necessary to any game I'd ever run. I think the issue is more on the DM's hands of what they want to run their players up against.

 

[Aenghus]

While I voted no in the poll, I have no problems with wish lists in D&D, and don't value mystery when it comes to magic items. I think that sort of mystery can never last, is highly subjective in appeal, and shouldn't be written in as the default.

I would prefer magic items not to add bonuses in the next edition, but have more interesting properties that don't modify system maths. I would prefer PCs to have powers not dependent on magic items, including non-casters. In previous editions of D&D non-casters became increasingly dependent on magic items to remain relevant, in some cases so much so that the magic item was more powerful than the person carrying it. I don't want to see that again.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

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.

No it's not. The Oberoni Fallacy gets used a lot for the wrong reasons. Throwing lower level monsters at a group is not a houserule therefore it doesn't fall under the Fallacy. The Fallacy only comes into effect if a rule is changed in order to keep a class in check.

 

[Mercule]

I never really felt that PCs NEEDED magical items. Now mind you a +X weapon with no special properties doesn't qualify as "magic" to me, just "really well made"(no, masterwork doesn't cut it). But magical items that do things, flaming longwords, ect... I never found those to be really necessary to any game I'd ever run. I think the issue is more on the DM's hands of what they want to run their players up against.

Eh, I'll even go so far as to say that +X weapons aren't any more NEEDED than silver, cold iron, etc. That's one thing I liked about DR over previous editions' immunity -- you always had a chance.

That said, DR is about the only "need" I want factored in. There shouldn't be an assumption of a +3 weapon at 9th level (or whatever). If DR against magic is kept as either magic or epic (or lesser v greater), there should be no reason to include the math.

Also, a +3 sword should always feel pretty awesome, not just "standard for my level". That's another argument for not forcing the math into things.

 

[BobTheNob]

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.

So, for instance, I could balance out a level 30 4e party without no magical equipment (and assuming we arent using inherent bonus's) by putting them up against level 24 opponents.

Hmmm, not sure how I of my group would feel about that.

 

[Sunseeker]

Eh, I'll even go so far as to say that +X weapons aren't any more NEEDED than silver, cold iron, etc. That's one thing I liked about DR over previous editions' immunity -- you always had a chance.

That said, DR is about the only "need" I want factored in. There shouldn't be an assumption of a +3 weapon at 9th level (or whatever). If DR against magic is kept as either magic or epic (or lesser v greater), there should be no reason to include the math.

Also, a +3 sword should always feel pretty awesome, not just "standard for my level". That's another argument for not forcing the math into things.

I don't think they're needed, I just don't categorize them as "magical". I tend to take a lot of effort to tailor my encounters to whatever specific output my party can currently do. I do TRY to kill them, but I always make whatever they're fighting reasonably beatable(provided they don't goof up).

I think the issue is really one that arises in a lot of these threads. I think at the root of it all people are asking where the responsibility should fall. Should I be able to take a monster out of the book and have my party fight it? Or should I have to fine-tune that monster in order to make it an appropriate fight for my party?

I put a lot of effort into creating monsters that are balanced against my party, so to me, magic items are only needed as far as I want my party to feel "cool". A +1 flaming longsword isn't going to break my games or be necessary because of how much time I take to ensure things are balanced for my party. It's going to be given out because I think it would be cool.


Personally, the good old fashioned "flaming *weapon*" is still one of the coolest weapons around.

 

[drothgery]

4th Edition made it more obvious how to dump the magic christmas tree effect (IMO), but it would've been a lot better if the core rules hadn't built into their expectations that players would be getting +X goodies regularly handed out in the first place. I really want players to care that they've just found a magical item, not act ho-hum because it doesn't fit exactly what they're going for and assume they can just pawn it off.

The thing is that if you want the classic D&D feel of fairly common magic items (any but the lowest-level characters will have magic weapons and armor) and you want +N weapons and armor to exist (and have effects similar to what they did in previous versions of the game) then you have to build the assumption that PCs will have them into the math behind system, and if you don't want DMs to just guess on when they should hand out +N items then you need some guidelines for that.

There are lots of RPGs where magic / exceptional equipment is far less important. But those games are not D&D.