D&D 5E Rise of Tiamat Supplement is online

[Kaychsea]

It's only counterintuitive if you take 3e as cannon, which was only true in 3e. If you take it at face value (the 1e stance) it does what it says on the tin. It gives you the strength of a Hill Giant (other giants are available). So a strength 20 fighter won't get any appreciable benefit. If it was a belt/amulet/wooly sock of Fire Giant strength he would.
Just as a wizard with 20 in won't get any benefit from the item (can't remember which one) that raises your intelligence to 19. Does that mean they shouldn't aspire to it? Someone in the party will appreciate the raise.
Part of this is the design decision that human maximum is 20 in any stat, which in turn is to limit non magical enhanced stat based bonuses to +5. Self gimping your design in the hoipe fo getting hold of something like this in the future seems really daft IMO.
In any case it's a very glass half full look at the situation.

 

[Beleriphon]

Vanilla +1 items don't, but more rare stuff do.

True, the Plate Armor of Lightning Resistance requires attunement, and it doesn't have a bonus to AC, it just provides lightning resistance. Mind you since the supplements includes young and adult blue dragons that might be a good thing.

 

[CapnZapp]

Do you expect wizards to not boost their INT just in case they pick up an item that does the heavy lifting for them? Bards? Just how poor do they expect to be at their chosen role until they pick up the magufin that is going to save them all those stat point/feats? And if they are that bad at their job who is to say they are the one who will get it?

Sorry what?

I was saying that even if you, or I, have no problem with items that set your attributes to specific numbers, there exists a significant such group, and for them these items are a real problem as explained previously.

You don't need to have a problem with this for that problem to exist.

But for the subset of players that do feel it is a problem, what you discuss is exactly the problem. Yes, they will boost the INT.

And when the item comes along, that becomes a problem, because at that time, they would have been better off not taking those INT boosts.

They would have been better off taking a gamble, which is exactly the complaint here.

Do note that the INT boosting item in question does not actually need to arrive for this to be a problem. The problem is that the game's underlying structure provides a sometimes substantial advantage to those who goes against expectations, those who gamble on the meta structure of adventures.

All of this would go away if there were an optional rule for retraining that this subset of players could use. All others (not feeling the issue to be a problem) could safely ignore the whole thing.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's only counterintuitive if you take 3e as cannon, which was only true in 3e. If you take it at face value (the 1e stance) it does what it says on the tin. It gives you the strength of a Hill Giant (other giants are available). So a strength 20 fighter won't get any appreciable benefit. If it was a belt/amulet/wooly sock of Fire Giant strength he would.

But you can't create a strength 20 character.

The complaint isn't about strength 20 characters not being able to take advantage of items who give you Strength 20, the complaint is about strength 16 characters putting two stat boosts into strength getting zero benefit from these boosts after finding the item, while the gambler, the player who instead puts his boosts into Con (or Cha, or whatever).

Both characters end up with Strength 20.

But the gambler also enjoys the benefits of two ability boosts.

That is the complaint.

Any solution needs to make sure that a single magic item can't instantly render a series of ability boosts functionally worthless. Either that, or the rules could allow retrains when that happens - which would, I presume, also satisfy those who see this as a huge problem.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So a PC spends his respec point and suddenly forgets half of his old knowledge? That's too metagamey even for me and I wouldn't allow it at my table, but this has never been an issue.

But to each his own. Hopefully the DMG has some guidelines for this kind of thing, its easy enough to house rule in any event.

 

[Wolfskin]

If I were to houserule these stat-boosting items, I'd do the following: "[Item] of [Noun] gives you a bonus of +1 to your [Ability Score] rolls. You can only benefit from one such item at a time."

The purpose behind not having buff items is something I agree with, (i.e. stacking bonuses like crazy up to 9000) even if the implementation is potentially problematic for some players.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

If I were to houserule these stat-boosting items, I'd do the following: "[Item] of [Noun] gives you a bonus of +1 to your [Ability Score] rolls. You can only benefit from one such item at a time."

The purpose behind not having buff items is something I agree with, (i.e. stacking bonuses like crazy up to 9000) even if the implementation is potentially problematic for some players.

Yep, I'm glad they went this way. Its a different design philosophy than some players are used to but I welcome it along with the bounded accuracy thingy.

 

[JesterOC]

Getting mad at this is like getting mad at finding a girdle of Goblin strength and complaining that you wasted your points you bothered to put into strength since you could have left it at 8.

If you are strength 20 and find Gauntlets of Ogre power, you can mock them and treat them as unworthy of your great strength just as you would a Girdle of Goblin strength.

 

[jadrax]

I am so putting a 'girdle of goblin strength' in my next game.

 

[Kaychsea]

The complaint isn't about strength 20 characters not being able to take advantage of items who give you Strength 20, the complaint is about strength 16 characters putting two stat boosts into strength getting zero benefit from these boosts after finding the item, while the gambler, the player who instead puts his boosts into Con (or Cha, or whatever).

Both characters end up with Strength 20.

But the gambler also enjoys the benefits of two ability boosts.

That is the complaint.

Any solution needs to make sure that a single magic item can't instantly render a series of ability boosts functionally worthless. Either that, or the rules could allow retrains when that happens - which would, I presume, also satisfy those who see this as a huge problem.

I understand what you are saying I just don't agree with it, mostly because for how many levels does the gambler have a really crummy fighter? But the obvious solution, if that really is a problem, is don't do that.

The really straight down the line no fault, no foul way of dealing with the problem is make it not exist. These things do not darken your gaming table and it all goes away. No respec oddities, because if you let people respec because they've found an item that makes their previous choices non-optimal, why stop at Stat bonuses? Allow people to swap in the Polearm Master feat when they find a to die for halberd for instance.
Or are you horrified that it might be going on somewhere else and need to eliminate all badwrongfun?