D&D 5E Rime of the Frostmaiden magic items

[Markh3rd]

Has anyone else noticed how the adventure heavily favors casters with it's magic items? Martial characters get very little if you run the game as is. 2 magic weapons in the entire book. A +2 trident, or a cursed greataxe....wow.

Now in home games this is easily fixed, but if you run the game under AL hardcover rules, your martial characters will feel pretty left out.

So why the imbalance?

 

[jasper]

What about the armour? And other wonderous items. Plus the adventure goes to about low tier 3.

 

[Markh3rd]

Mithral chain mail only. No shields.
There is an amulet of health, cloak of protection, and luckstone they could use. For archers there is a quiver of ehlonna but no magic bows. It's very sparse for martials.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think it comes down more to wotc not having internalized the advice in the ad&d dmg about awarding treasure & balancing the needs of the players in the ad&d dmg treasure & magical items chapter. That and they are populating the HC treasure tables so as not to disappoint or confuse AL players with

Spoiler: this S10 AL stuff that may or may not still be valid

But are still unwilling to put in magic item shops or guidance to shore up the treasure tables for less experienced non-AL GMs who might not feel comfortable doing that without a sturdy enough guiderope
Ignoring potions, gold, gold equivalent itemsnonmagical trash, & npc gives you yyy coins for simplicity

Spoiler: the full list

• Pg58 boots of the hinterlands
• Pg67 cauldron of plenty
• Pg70 Maybe a spellbook
• 78 cursed perl of power & +1 wand of the warmage
• Pg92 Spellbook
• Pg94 /ring of warmth
• Pg99 a cursed psi crystal
• Pg118 Amulet of Health
• Pg119 Blessing of the morning lord (gain 10temp hp each day at dawn)
• Pg123 hook of fisher's delight
• Pg126 scroll of knock certain to excite nobody this far into ch2
• Pg129 scroll of remove curse, quiver of ehlonna, mithral chain mail, fake wand that shed's light pr continual flame (ie a magic torch oooOOOoooo)
• Phb134
  Spoiler: six laser rifles

  I kid you not
  

  

  
  

  
• Pg137 eyes of minute seeing, helm of telepathy, 140 horn of blasting
• Pg149 scroll of invsibility
• Pg153 scroll of lesser restoration "or some other 1st or 2nd level druid spell"
• Pg169 cloak of protection, elemental gem(?),
• Pg183 Hat of diguise
• Pg184 Cloak of elvenkind with strings
• Pg204 an alchemy jug & ""impressive but worthless" shield made of white dragon scale
• Pg206 an egg that will hatch a silver dragon wyrmling in 3d10 days, scroll of cure mass wounds
• Pg208 Berserker Axe
• Pg212 codicil of white (a spellbook with 1 spell &some attune effects)
• Pg218 Bag of holding. Ring of the ram
• Pg223 Mantle of spell resistance, cursed staff of charming
• Pg225 Remhoraz egg
• Pg226 Thermal cube, a spellbook
• Pg227 a supernatural gift
• Pg238 stone of good luck
• Pg242 scroll of secret chest plane shift & wall of ice
• Pg247 necklace of fireball
• Pg249 an abracadabrus, Pg252 scroll of the comet
• Pg254 staff of power(magic quarterstaff+more), spellbook, scroll of tarrasque summoning, spellbook
• Pg257 bag of beans
• Pg??? staff of frost
• Pg??? Bracers of defense & wand of magic missile

There is a lot of "neat stuff" & even a few magic items. Scrolls are generally of questionable spellbook value & spelbook availability is about right (remember they do nothing until the wizard spends time & gold to scribe one or more spells from them) With that said... For equipment like weapons armor & wands for more than one caster in a party they do a fairly poor job depending on how much value you put in the maybe cool laser rifles.

My suspicion is that WotC is running into the imposible task of creating interesting magic items for the PCs to rely on without wrenching the power scale up in a system designed to remove every subjective dial from weapons & armor that might allow room for cool & interesting magic items that aren't too monty haul. In past editions you would see things like +1/+2/+4 attrib/skill items or weapons & armor with neat features like a different crit range/crit multiplier asf/acp/etc among other things but 5e has only attune slots & is lacking something like the body slots of the past so had to rely on a few supernatural gifts that will probably not feel very rewarding at the table even if they are nice.

 

[loverdrive]

Isn't magical casino from Xanathar a part of AL?

 

[tetrasodium]

Isn't magical casino from Xanathar a part of AL?

Not everyone runs AL & I'm not running it this season because covid so can't say.

 

[loverdrive]

Not everyone runs AL & I'm not running it this season because covid so can't say.

Well, in the starting post a concern about AL was voiced

 

[Zardnaar]

My theory is a lot of classes are magical so they toned down magical loot.

 

[tetrasodium]

My theory is a lot of classes are magical so they toned down magical loot.

I think its more that the environment plays a big factor and you cant attack the cold or a snowstorm

Edit: in some ways the diverse collection of neat but not combat power shifting stuff is similar to the kind of stuff I like to sprinkle about liberally.

 

[jasper]

Has anyone else noticed how the adventure heavily favors casters with it's magic items? Martial characters get very little if you run the game as is. 2 magic weapons in the entire book. A +2 trident, or a cursed greataxe....wow.

Now in home games this is easily fixed, but if you run the game under AL hardcover rules, your martial characters will feel pretty left out.

So why the imbalance?

Sorry. I missed the Adventure League rules but renown magic items you gain access at Tier 2 stands. So your martial classes automatically have access to loot.