D&D 5E Magic Items in the campaign

[Herr der Qual]

So, I am understanding of the reasons but unhappy about WotC's solution to magic item saturation. The lack of magic shops has been distinctly felt in my group, honestly I could care less about the +2 longsword or +1 chain mail. I miss having a Robe of Useful Items or a Handy Haversack. I am planning on starting a new campaign as DM and was wondering if you as players or DM's have similar feelings.

I am planning on addressing the issue as such:
- Magical arms and armour are not made anymore the secret to their construction was lost.
- Wonderous Items that do not fall into the previous category are available in most places with scant selection the smaller the population center.
- Potions, Scrolls and Wands have a very active and competative market.
- Rings and Rods treated like Wonderous items, however the availability of rings will be slightly better than rods and available in the same shops that deal in wonderous items rods less available and in places that deal in potions, scrolls and wands.
- Prices are taken directly from PF.

 

[Quartz]

I am planning on addressing the issue as such:
- Magical arms and armour are not made anymore the secret to their construction was lost.

Does that not significantly disadvantage the combat-types?

 

[Herr der Qual]

They can still be found in the world but the need for a magic weapon is far less felt than it was in previous editions. So I don't feel like I will be creating a disadvantageous position for the tanks. But selling the weapons and armour due to their rarity can be extremely profitable.

 

[Paraxis]

How I do things in 5e.

- No items that set ability scores to a certain number.
- Every magic weapon, shield, and armor is +1. (Most also have another special ability to make them feel magical). There do exist a rare few artifact/legendary items that might break this rule but that is high level campaign guy's problem.
- You can purchase consumable magic items like dusts, scrolls, potions, and oils with a range of 50-250 gp each.
- You can purchase other items as I see fit with a base cost of 2000+, use a combination of pathfinder prices and 2e's Encyclopedia Magica as the basis
- Most importantly, I give out little treasure in gold/gems because there is not much to spend it on, but do ask for wish lists from my players, what kind of items do they want to see, what kind of stuff do they want their character to be able to do, and then add those types of items into my game for them to find.

 

[Herr der Qual]

I like that system, I feel like this is a trickier balance than in previous systems but that by saying less is more it has given greater freedom for the GM to have a happy group.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I get why you're disappointed, but I'm in the opposite corner. I love the fact that magic items aren't commodities to be bought and sold, and I love that there's no guarantee of getting a specific item. (I always hated the notion of character builds that relied on getting a certain item by a certain level.)

That said, I do believe the DM should take player preferences somewhat into account. I won't do a wish list, but if (for instance) I know that a particular player is an axe-based fighter, I'll make sure there's some sort of cool axe to be found at some point. If I know that another player prefers the weirder wondrous items over more useful stuff, I'll be sure to throw some her way. It's a question of knowing your players and keeping them satisfied without picking items off a specific menu.

I also actually like the fact that not all magic weapons/armor have a +X modifier anymore, but that's just another personal taste thing.

What I do wish we had was a list of magic items by type, then further subdivided by rarity. Weapons, wondrous items, etc. I just don't have time to put one together myself, like I did with the monsters and spells.

I'm also not crazy about the fact that magic items are only found randomly in hoards, never on individuals. But that's an easy enough DM tweak.

 

[Herr der Qual]

See, I haven't DMed with the 5E system yet, I was finishing a different campaign on another system before I was willing to take on another campaign, but I have played 5E and the inability to buy say a Folding Boat or Hewards Handy Haversack kinda bums me out, like the handy haversack in the old games was always the first magic item I saved up for, it's just so darn handy! It's the random stuff, that provides a cool utility that saves me space/encumbrance or makes it easier for my character to go into a dungeon prepared (in the groups I play with, no matter who is DMing there are always lots of puzzles and traps) Ropes of climbing and Robes of Useful Items are always handy! and It's more these things, the more common and not-so-game-changing equipment that I want to make available to the players in my campaign.

Also, breakdown of items by type, rarity etc, I'm starting work on that right now.

 

[Heavy3p0]

So, I am understanding of the reasons but unhappy about WotC's solution to magic item saturation. The lack of magic shops has been distinctly felt in my group, honestly I could care less about the +2 longsword or +1 chain mail. I miss having a Robe of Useful Items or a Handy Haversack. I am planning on starting a new campaign as DM and was wondering if you as players or DM's have similar feelings.

I am planning on addressing the issue as such:
- Magical arms and armour are not made anymore the secret to their construction was lost.
- Wonderous Items that do not fall into the previous category are available in most places with scant selection the smaller the population center.
- Potions, Scrolls and Wands have a very active and competative market.
- Rings and Rods treated like Wonderous items, however the availability of rings will be slightly better than rods and available in the same shops that deal in wonderous items rods less available and in places that deal in potions, scrolls and wands.
- Prices are taken directly from PF.

Personally I like how they have chosen to handle magic items in 5th. In the game i am running now they group hasn't received any magic beyond a handful of potions and they don't seem to care (if they even noticed, i had to remind them twice that they had unidentified potions in their inventories). But thats one of the great things about PNP games, if you want magic shops in your game you are free to add magic shops! As to your list of how you plan to implement magic, i think you have a bunch of good ideas there. The competitively priced consumables and increased rarity and cost for the more permanent magic items sounds pretty solid to me. Do you plan to have any item the players want to be readily available or will shops have random and changing inventories?

 

[Herr der Qual]

Do you plan to have any item the players want to be readily available or will shops have random and changing inventories?

I plan on making a short (now complete) list of all the items by rarity, then making a random roll chart for the number of items and which items they have in stock at any random village (the die rolled for quantity/rarity) determined by size of the town/city. I will make sure I post these resources when done so anyone who wants to can use them.

 

[Fralex]

I just mentioned in another thread that I used the rules for selling magic items to create rules for finding and buying them. It's very easy! Just replace "buyer" with "seller" each time it's mentioned, take the final table you roll on to see how good a deal you're getting, and reverse the order the results are listed in! Then adjust which sellers would now be considered "shady" (the guy selling you a magic item 90% off is gonna be pretty sketchy).

I tried it out, and managed to find a shady seller offering a Wand of Magic Detection for a tenth of the base price. I decided the reason it was so cheap was it had the "Quirk: Makes an irritating noise whenever it's used" and when that didn't seem like enough of a downside I looked at the table for artifact Minor Detrimental Properties and decided that when not fully charged nobody in a 500-foot radius can rest due to a pervasive hum just outside human hearing, except for the closest creature. I haven't revealed this yet. This will be fun.

Also, there does exist a PDF that lists all the magic items by rarity somewhere on the WotC website. It doesn't separate them by type, though.