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

[drothgery]

I disagree on pretty much every count.
First off, it may be your experience that the "classic D&D feel" is for fairly common magic items. But what that means is pretty much defined by your DM and your early experiences gaming in it. My classic D&D experiences never involved my characters becoming walking trinket repositories.

But I'll bet all but the lowest-level melee characters always had magic weapons and armor. And that's still -- by almost any non-D&D inspired baseline -- fairly common magic items.

And I don't know how you can disagree that if +N weapons and defensive items exist, the math of the system has to take them into account, unless you just don't care if the game is balanced or not.

 

[airwalkrr]

I think this is pretty much a no-brainer and it is really sad that through two entire editions WotC has failed to recognize this. Magic items are a vital part of the game, but they should be "magical" in nature, not commonplace, expected, and vital to character builds. A player should feel grateful for having found and EARNED a magic item. A player should feel lucky to have the magic item. A player should cherish and value the magic item as a true treasure. One thing the player should not do with a true magic item is toss it on the pile of treasure and say "okay, we're gonna sell that in the next town."

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I want to focus on the PC vs PC overshadow issue. I just want to say, from my group's experience, that this varies from person to person and I don't think it's something that a game should be built around, 4th edition for example. The guys in my group don't care if everyone does the same amount of damage as long as "they" feel they are contributing to the game in some kind of way then everything is good. That's the whole reason why 4th edition felt real "samey" if that makes any sense. If they brought combat down and made it even with non-combat then I think we would be in great shape. I personally like what my character can do, not how much damage it can inflict. Our group defines "contribution" as a PC doing anything to help the group no matter how big or how small it is whether it's in combat or non-combat.

Back to magic items: I can a +x to hit and damage as being one kind of special property on a weapon, maybe like a Longsword of Accuracy etc...
By going this route, it will be easier for a DM to adjust his monsters accordingly.

 

[M.Weasel]

Seems like, if they keep something like CR/EL, and they keep something like item levels/costs/whatever, then it would be, well... not straightforward, but doable to present a default low-magic version, and then magic-item-quantity templates that layer on top of that and affect the effective party/character level.

For example, a default group has no magic items and its effective party level = the group's average character level. A low-magic group and has 1000 GP/value points/whatever worth of magic items per level (for some specific magic item valuation system), and a +1 to effective party level. A medium-magic group might have 3000/level of magic items, and their effective party level is two higher. A high-magic group might have 5000/level and a +4 to effective party level. Obviously the exact numbers and valuation system and such would have to be carefully designed, but the at-table application of this seems like it would be pretty simple.

 

[Sunseeker]

Seems like, if they keep something like CR/EL, and they keep something like item levels/costs/whatever, then it would be, well... not straightforward, but doable to present a default low-magic version, and then magic-item-quantity templates that layer on top of that and affect the effective party/character level.

For example, a default group has no magic items and its effective party level = the group's average character level. A low-magic group and has 1000 GP/value points/whatever worth of magic items per level (for some specific magic item valuation system), and a +1 to effective party level. A medium-magic group might have 3000/level of magic items, and their effective party level is two higher. A high-magic group might have 5000/level and a +4 to effective party level. Obviously the exact numbers and valuation system and such would have to be carefully designed, but the at-table application of this seems like it would be pretty simple.

You know, no matter how many CR/EL systems I've played through, I've never really found one that actually works. Honestly if you want to measure your party's power, throw something at them, track how well they do, and adjust. A pack of wolves before dropping the bandits on them, a couple snakes before the lizard-folk, ect... If the party tears through them, amp it up, if they almost bite the dust, tune it down.

No amount of mathematical computations can truly account for dice randomness and player skill.

 

[Mattachine]

My current homebrew games has almost no magic. It is 4e (heavily modified), and I "turn down" the monsters, rather than "turning up" the players. Luckily, 4e math for monsters makes it easy, and the players don't have to do anything (not even inherent bonuses).

Aside from that, most campaigns I have run in AD&D, 2e, 3X, and 4e were "standard": I used standard D&D modules, used standard treasure tables (whether AD&D random or 4e proscribed), and let characters make items as described in that version of the game. All of them had way more magic than I was happy about as a DM, and PC power was heavily dependent on items . . . unless you were a high level caster. My players liked getting magic items, but we all had laughs when +1 swords or +2 protection rings became merely trinkets to be sold.

 

[tlantl]

Are we still talking about the difference of a couple of points of damage per round and a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls here? I'm all for balance, but throwing around words like "overshadowed", "failed patch" and "so far behind" makes me think that the focus is on the theoretical mathematics instead of the actual play experience at the table, or that the knowledge of the lack of exact mathematical equivalence is tainting the play experience at the table.

For me it isn't the actual plusses of the item, it's the amount of treasure each plus represents. the couple of points equates to thousands and hundreds of thousands of gold coins.

As I see it the treasure by level inflation is the real culprit. Each plus on an item sends the price or gold piece value ever higher. Adjusting challenge ratings is reasonably easy when a group has higher than average or lower than average gear, but having the players expecting to be able to pick and choose the items they prefer from established outlets ie. magic marts, causes problems in game and goes against the way I've played D&D for years.

I don't want to find a chart in the DMG telling me that a fourteenth level character should receive 18,000 in treasure for each encounter they are in. There ain't that much gold on the planet. There sure ain't going to be that much coin in the lair of a beetle the size of a small village. (another pet peeve of mine).

 

[Recidivism]

But I'll bet all but the lowest-level melee characters always had magic weapons and armor. And that's still -- by almost any non-D&D inspired baseline -- fairly common magic items.

My early D&D gaming experiences never involved characters getting beyond 4th-5th level due to the mortality in earlier editions ... So I suppose that depends on whether you consider that "the lowest-level" or not. It was certainly never the case that everyone had magic weapons and armor. You were lucky if you were a fighter to be able to save up enough for non-magical Plate.

Frankly I don't recall if earlier editions had wealth progression charts or not -- But even if they did, we never played with them. 3rd Edition was the first edition where I started paying attention to the rules on that, and it looked pretty silly guaranteeing players at higher levels millions of gold pieces and assuming that players could find or purchase their choice of magic item as if there were factories churning out the stuff to spec. 3.5 and 4th Edition simplified the impact of magic items, but still didn't do anything to the unbelievable mismatch in rarity between games that people want to run and the core rules.

And I don't know how you can disagree that if +N weapons and defensive items exist, the math of the system has to take them into account, unless you just don't care if the game is balanced or not.

I've never said I didn't think the system shouldn't take them into account. Merely that the baseline game rules shouldn't assume players have magic items. I don't want to run games entirely without magic items either, but I do want magic items to remain rare and prized, not pawned away for some extra gold to buy a wish list item. It's a lot easier to start from an assumption of 0 and add your desired rarity of items than it is to start from an assumption formula of Level / X - Y + Z , subtract the end result from half the printed values in the game, then add back in what you, as a DM, feel is appropriate.

 

[TwoSix]

Magic items should fall into 3 categories.

1) Common and consumable. (Potions)
2) Frequent use, infrequent utility. 1/day do something cool. (Bags of holding, bag of tricks)
3) Powerful, often wearable, and RARE. Roughly 1 strong item every 3-4 levels.

 

[drothgery]

Frankly I don't recall if earlier editions had wealth progression charts or not -- But even if they did, we never played with them. 3rd Edition was the first edition where I started paying attention to the rules on that, and it looked pretty silly guaranteeing players at higher levels millions of gold pieces and assuming that players could find or purchase their choice of magic item as if there were factories churning out the stuff to spec. 3.5 and 4th Edition simplified the impact of magic items, but still didn't do anything to the unbelievable mismatch in rarity between games that people want to run and the core rules.

There weren't any explicit charts in 2e. But going by what was certainly implied -- by the treasure tables, treasure in published adventures, and that large swaths of the Monster Manual required +N weapons to hit -- 3e actually toned things down a little (and 4e a lot).