D&D 5E Starter Set: Excerpt 6

[Agamon]

An actual example item that needs attunement would have been nice. Maybe in a later release, and if not, there's always the actual launch on the 15th. (3rd for some people.)

3rd for everyone. You don't need to get the Starter from a WPN store on the 3rd to access it.

Edit: Ah, forgot that magic items won't be in Basic right away.

There are examples in the playtest. One of my player's PC has a Ring of Wizardry, which is attuned.

 

[barasawa]

Magic Item sizing

If spells really emulate racial abilities I don't like that either Spells and items should make you better at something (as in give a bonus to your existing ability or skill). The Gauntlets of Ogre power simply make your strength score irrelevant.



I don't think it's going to work that way...

I'm pretty sure they'll say that magic items of apparel resize to fit wearer unless it says otherwise in the description. That's pretty much an old standard in D&D from way back. Otherwise you get either lots of rolling to see in an item is even wearable by a character, or you have yet another pile of notes for each character detail what size they wear for shoes, hats/helms/ pants, boots, belts, shirts, gloves, etc.
It's easier for everyone if they just magically fit.

Useless anecdote. Had a game where they didn't 'just fit', so everyone had sizes to be checked. Over half the time when we found something good, nobody could use it. That was back when you couldn't just buy/sell/trade magic items. Definite pain in the donkey, and bad feelings all around.

Basically, awarding the party magic items they can't use is like a bully teasing you.

 

[barasawa]

Jumping & Flying

...
Boots of Striding & Springing: I think they're cool. The enhanced jumping means you can long jump a number of feet equal to STR x3 and high jump a number of feet isual to 3x (3+ STR mod) with them. Because it doesn't say you can move beyond your speed, you will still be limited by it though because jumping says you must ''simply deduct the distance of each part of your move from your speed until your speed is used up or until you are done moving.'' (How To Play pg. 09)
...
Potion of Flying: Good enought, but i think it doesn't make sense to fall a minute after it wears off and think that you should fall immediatly instead.

Boots of Striding & Springing: I'm going to guess that jumping those long distances with magic boots will be treated as an alternate form of movement. I vaguely remember that there was a section on how to handling multiple movement modes. So the jumping is a greater distance than they could normally move. No biggie, after all, if their ground movement was less than 30' it just got magically enhanced too, so saying the magical jumping is beyond their old limit is not a stretch. Besides, if they had a move of 30', and any strength score of 10 or higher, you know, average or better, limiting their jumping to their normal movement totally wipes out the triple jumping. (Assuming the distance is still STRx3 feet.)

Potion of Flying: This is an obvious no instant death when the GM springs an unexpected end of duration on you thing. Your flying potion is sputtering out, and you are losing altitude. Reach the ground with your movement before 1 minute is up, or else you'll fall the remaining altitude and take appropriate falling damage. It's a don't blame the GM for your own stupidity thing. Something kind of needed since the GM is in control of time expenditure, not the players. My advice, don't fly too high if you don't have to.

Now obviously, these are just my opinions, and I haven't seen the final version of the rules, so feel free to discuss.

 

[Henry]

YYYYYYESSS!
Gauntlets of Ogre Power back to being as they should, and not just "Gauntlets of 'meh, a little better power'". Been wanting that back ever since year 2000.

 

[MerricB]

Or grab a copy of the 1e DMG. There were tables in there for scent, taste, and color I believe. (Not specifically geared toward potions but they were used for that easily enough.)

Appendix K: Describing Magical Substances is the section in question.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

So rust monsters can no longer eat magical armor?

Apparently not. But it's fine for rust monsters to eat magic weapons!

Cheers!

 

[Henry]

Is there a reason for a character with an 18 strength to use the gauntlets?

Is there some other benefit that a 19 has over an 18 that makes it a good item or is it really just for characters in the 16 range?




side not ogres always look like they're stronger than their strength score suggests.

If you have an 18 strength you're already strong as an ogre, so no need for them. Gamism or no gamism, having those "absolute" stat items in the game just made it feel more like the myths I grew up with, like Thor's strength doubling belt, whereas the only people I ever saw in 3e bother with strength boosting items were the ones who already had prodigious strength.

 

[thalmin]

An actual example item that needs attunement would have been nice. Maybe in a later release, and if not, there's always the actual launch on the 15th. (3rd for some people.)

There could easily be some within the adventure.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you have an 18 strength you're already strong as an ogre, so no need for them. Gamism or no gamism, having those "absolute" stat items in the game just made it feel more like the myths I grew up with, like Thor's strength doubling belt, whereas the only people I ever saw in 3e bother with strength boosting items were the ones who already had prodigious strength.

Er... er... Henry... you've described an entirely relative item (even it's name calls it's relative nature out!) which obviously more useful to stronger people (vastly so) as being similar to absolute items which are expressly less useful to stronger people.

Bad example, maybe? Because it really seems like Thor is rolling more 3E-style than 2E-style there. Even if someone like Loki stole Thor's belt, it seems unlikely that he'd be as strong as un-belted Thor, because strength-doubling and all that (pretty sure Loki is less than half Thor's strength naked).

For me, I like the absolute items because, as a DM, you know what you're giving them, no more, no less, and because they were fun in 2E. So I don't really disagree with liking them. I just think that's a really odd example.

Elsewhere people mentioned that items boosting stuff other than strength were "just symmetry", and not found in myths/legends, and I don't think that's actually true. It's just that D&D's conception of strength matches up very well with the mythical conception, and the way the word is used, whereas all it's other stats don't really match up so precisely - agility and dexterity tend to be separate concepts (speed is often separate from both, too). You see plenty of mythical stuff that made people tougher, or prettier, or more attractive/beguiling (often this is treated in a negative way and associated with women, I think it's safe to say there's a strong element of a very gendered, very patriarchal society behind a lot of that), or even more wise. It's not always an item, of course (Odin gained wisdom from his quasi-crucifixion), but it easily could be. I do think D&D is kind of "missing a trick" by not having more rewards like Odin's crucifixion - you could have a sort of "one-use item" in the form of a magic tree or whatever (obviously, I wouldn't go that literal, but still). Early editions had the books of stat increasing, but they were a little dull. You could also make them raise a stat to a fixed point - maybe the Odintree grants you a fixed 18 WIS or whatever.

 

[Henry]

Er... er... Henry... you've described an entirely relative item (even it's name calls it's relative nature out!) which obviously more useful to stronger people (vastly so) as being similar to absolute items which are expressly less useful to stronger people.

Bad example, maybe? Because it really seems like Thor is rolling more 3E-style than 2E-style there. Even if someone like Loki stole Thor's belt, it seems unlikely that he'd be as strong as un-belted Thor, because strength-doubling and all that (pretty sure Loki is less than half Thor's strength naked).

...except that I'm pretty sure Thor ain't rolling around with a 6 STR to get doubled to 12.

OK, agreed, not best example. I could have sworn I remember reading some versions where it said it made him strong as a giant, but I could be conflating this with my age 10 memories of AD&D girdles of Giant Strength. And I'll admit that part of my desire for absolute stat items, and potion miscibility rules if they return, is nostalgia, and memories of a lot of fun with those items. One of the star magic items from my old 2nd edition campaigns was a "circlet of might" dedicated to the troll god Vaprak, which one time only, per wearer, gave its user a 25 strength (highest available in the game) for 10 minutes. Basically it was a mini-Tenser's Transformation for anyone, and two separate groups had a lot of fun hauling it out when the chips were down, each taking turns to be the godling before passing it on to another user. With it, anyone was a badass, for a little while, which was part of the appeal.

For me, I like the absolute items because, as a DM, you know what you're giving them, no more, no less, and because they were fun in 2E. So I don't really disagree with liking them. I just think that's a really odd example.

Elsewhere people mentioned that items boosting stuff other than strength were "just symmetry", and not found in myths/legends, and I don't think that's actually true. It's just that D&D's conception of strength matches up very well with the mythical conception, and the way the word is used, whereas all it's other stats don't really match up so precisely - agility and dexterity tend to be separate concepts (speed is often separate from both, too). You see plenty of mythical stuff that made people tougher, or prettier, or more attractive/beguiling (often this is treated in a negative way and associated with women, I think it's safe to say there's a strong element of a very gendered, very patriarchal society behind a lot of that), or even more wise. It's not always an item, of course (Odin gained wisdom from his quasi-crucifixion), but it easily could be. I do think D&D is kind of "missing a trick" by not having more rewards like Odin's crucifixion - you could have a sort of "one-use item" in the form of a magic tree or whatever (obviously, I wouldn't go that literal, but still). Early editions had the books of stat increasing, but they were a little dull. You could also make them raise a stat to a fixed point - maybe the Odintree grants you a fixed 18 WIS or whatever.

I enjoyed the solid stat item also because as others noted they did make inherent stats less important, as well as not boosting numbers into the stratosphere. Seems like in 3.x if you weren't running around with stats in the mid 20's by level 12 or higher, you were losing the arms race.