D&D 5E Overpowered Items and GM Expectations

[Fauchard1520]

You don't necessarily need magic items in 5e. Mearls famously explained that mess way back in 2012. But with the math behind the system assuming that you receive only the specific abilities and bonuses granted by your character class and race, any little boost in power goes a long way towards tipping the power balance. That's why you don't hand out +3 weapons like they're candy to starting-level PCs.

But suppose that you actually want to go ham with the magic items? You want to hand out uber-powerful world-shaking artifacts and give the party the chance to play with them. How do you calibrate your expectations as a GM? Is there anything beyond "expect the unexpected" or "see how they do and then recalibrate your encounter design?" Basically, I'm asking how to prepare for a party wielding an Orb of Dragonkind of a Deck of Many Things. Is it possible to run a reasonable game with these things in play? Or will they always upset game balance beyond repair?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I think the first issue is what kind of story or game do you want to play? Do you want something superheroic and let the party just stomp through waves and waves of mobs? Go for it. I personally feel that if you're going to give those kind of items out - which I have no problem with - you should definitely make the party fight tougher things for challenges. Let them shine. Let them punch way above their weight.

You have to think about what it will mean for your game world. To put it in Marvel terms, are you playing Avengers-level powers, or are you playing Spiderman level stuff? Because Spiderman with Mjolnir could wreck some stuff, but it might get boring either for you or the players. YMMV

 

[BacchusNL]

Some items (and you pretty much named 2 of the biggest offenders already) are also a lot more problematic then others. If the bonusses are powerful but fairly straight forward DPS then you can always manage your monster HP/ AC accordingly, other items just create pure chaos or situations where you can't deny a player godlike power (because that's literaly what some items do)

 

[ccs]

Well, before you go handing out that Deck of Many Things, you should take some time & consider how you're going to deal with each card/effect.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Well, before you go handing out that Deck of Many Things, you should take some time & consider how you're going to deal with each card/effect.

I see what you did there.

 

[ccs]

I see what you did there.

 

[practicalm]

The way magic items work in most D&D games is that they work at the same level no matter how powerful the wielder is.
The One Ring is powerful in the hands of a powerful being not as much when worn by a hobbit burglar

The idea of magic items that scale isn't new, but if more of them worked like that some balance would be achieved.
I definitely think charges should not replenish for free but have to be charged up with spell slots. Though that just shortens the work day and then puts rest periods to do item recharging.
Or make recharging a quest. You want that fireball wand recharged go get some fresh red dragon blood. Though that just begs for a service to be started for some entrepreneurial adventurers.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My approach to handing out artifacts is:
1. Don't let them be world-endingly powerful, just dangerous or special. World-ending MacGuffins feel coercive. Things that the party can clearly see how they have a specific, dangerous use or which do something you really don't want falling in the wrong hands.
2. Don't give the players complete and functional artifacts. Something incomplete or non-functional drives interest in making it useful, leading to new quests and new revelations. It may also let the player shape the artifact's direction or function.

In the game I run, most artifacts are symbols as well as tools, and symbols have real power. Symbolic victories change the nature and direction of the world, and symbolic items can fundamentally alter attitudes and behaviors. Many of these tools also have great practical power; for example, the Heart of the Sirocco (a grapefruit-sized powerfully-enchanated, wind-aspected raw emerald) has allowed the Sultana to make the trade-winds around the main city always favorable, and now that the party has given her the Storm's Eye (similar in size, but more "solid geode"-like, and lightning-aspected), she implicitly has the ability to control the weather for the region. The Sultana is a smart and generally benevolent ruler, however, so she uses these powers carefully and sparingly, knowing that neither magic nor the elemental spirits are forces to be trifled with.

But, though "weather control" is definitely a special and potentially-dangerous power, the symbolic power she now holds over elemental things? Yeah, that will be a HUGE deal for political relations with Jinnistan, the genie "nation" in the elemental otherworld (Al-Akirah). The Sultana has effectively made herself (and, implicitly, her descendants) a power equal to the likes of millennia-old genie-rajahs. That's a huge friggin' deal. Suddenly, the fact that she is a highly eligible bachelorette will go from "interesting, with the potential for surprises" to "something every sultana and princeling has on their mind," once it becomes common knowledge that she has this power. (Both the party and the Sultana have been very careful to keep these things under wraps.)

Symbols raise armies, change religions, slay vast and terrible spirits, transform fiends, and resurrect nations. All without needing to be more than a particularly fancy stick with a sharp bit on the end, or a rock that controls the wind. Never doubt the power of a symbol in the right place, at the right time.

(The fancy stick is actually a living acacia branch, its symbolism linking druidry to the heavens as well as the earth.)

 

[Krachek]

I see the deck in play once, 1 dead, 2 missing, the two remaining characters including mine got nice boost.
the dm admit it was a personal phantasm to run it since long ago.
it took long to recover but it was a nice firework.

otherwise a +3 sword wont help a first level to kill a hill giant or a troll.
but magic item should get pc the feeling they got more powerful, if the dm balance back everything what is the point to give powerful item. It Make me remember of 4Ed, +30 to hit, but still need at least 10 to make a hit.

 

[Dragonsbane]

Although I would never give those items out, let's say I did. They would need to be taken off the bodies of bad buys, usually head villains. Then perhaps up the CR of your typical foes, perhaps get ready for running around on the planes?

Orb of dragonkind might be usable, but the Deck... get ready for your game to change on a draw ie character death, players taken somewhere far, death arrives, etc