D&D General The limiting drawback of character customization

[R_J_K75]

I have to admit I am super-skeptical of all the "I don't customize at all!" people. I strongly suspect that in 9/10 cases if I looked at the sheets of the PCs in your groups, many would have exactly the items they might want.

Why is that so hard to believe? Last treasure I gave out was from the PCs robbing a rangers grave from which there was a +1 bow, bracers of archery and a ring of animal friendship. I gave way more consideration to what would logically be in a rangers grave rather than if Im making sure that my players can use or want the items. One of the party rogues ended up with the ring, talking to porcupines wasnt very high on his list of priorities.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have to admit I am super-skeptical of all the "I don't customize at all!" people. I strongly suspect that in 9/10 cases if I looked at the sheets of the PCs in your groups, many would have exactly the items they might want.

I'm sure nothing I post will change your mind; I know how internet forums work . But it's not all that unusual. Look at many of the replies here? And for my table and group, we like finding the unknown treasure and finding out what it is. It gives more mystery to the game, and reinforces the living world concept we all prefer. If we knew we'd get magic items we all wanted, it would make the game feel just like an exercise in optimization, and we don't like that.

So we're either all lying here, or we do in fact don't customize

 

[R_J_K75]

I'm sure nothing I post will change your mind; I know how internet forums work . But it's not all that unusual. Look at many of the replies here? And for my table and group, we like finding the unknown treasure and finding out what it is. It gives more mystery to the game, and reinforces the living world concept we all prefer. If we knew we'd get magic items we all wanted, it would make the game feel just like an exercise in optimization, and we don't like that.

So we're either all lying here, or we do in fact don't customize

I agree 100% with every word youve said here. Ive been playing D&D for 35+ years, and randomly generating treasure has always been the way weve run games, whether it be by rolling on tables, or using the treasure provided in modules. Are there rare occassions that an item has intentionally placed in a game, of course but it is very few and far between. I legimately (as I suspect most of the replies have) gave an honest answer to the OP question. What would I get from lying, nothing. Its skepticism like this, or the arguments that inevitably creep into most threads that makes me question more and more with each passing day whether participating in these conversations is worth my time. Its just a game, one we all play to socialize and have fun, shouldnt be taken too/so seriously.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I've done it both ways, depending on the genre, the rules used, and table preference.

If the PCs are implicitly destined to be Heroes! with elaborate backgrounds and high-AC plot armor, they'll eventually get most of the stuff they need to flesh out their character as they envision it. If the party is a bunch of faceless interchangeable zeroes haplessly wandering though a whimsical old-school nightmare, they're stuck with what they find. And in reality, games I've been involved usually in fall somewhere in the middle.

It's all good. It just boils down to whatever game experience the tablefolk want for that campaign.

 

[Hriston]

Here’s my contribution: When running D&D, I’ve always rolled for treasure or stuck with what has been placed in a pre-written adventure, and I still do that in 5E with one exception: If a PC has an personal characteristic, particularly a bond, that relates to acquiring a particular item or type of item, or even just has such a short or long term goal, then the availability of such an item is going to be an issue that comes up in that character’s dealings with NPCs and the world in general, which can eventually lead to the item itself manifesting in the fiction.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So we're either all lying here,

Couldn't pick a better place to do it. Shield of on-line anonymity, forum policy that insulates us from being openly /called/ liars. "You, sir, are factually incorrect!"

I have to admit I am super-skeptical of all the "I don't customize at all!" people. I strongly suspect that in 9/10 cases if I looked at the sheets of the PCs in your groups, many would have exactly the items they might want.

The old-school random tables were weighted to fighter-useful items (by extension, cleric-useful armor and thief-useful weapons), and many items had hard limits on who could use them. (OTOH, old-school, low level modules seemed to have an inordinate love of healing potions, +1 daggers, and +1 rings of protection). So, over time, things would sort themselves out. The fighter & cleric would have magic platemail, the fighter the best magic sword they'd found so far (the thief squabbling with equally expendable henchmen over the second best), possibly an intelligent sword (the old joke went, quite possibly /more/ intelligent than fighter wielding it), the magic-user would collect bracers of defense and other protective items and any wands/staves/scrolls specific to that class (likewise the cleric rods/staves/scrolls specific to his class... illusionists & druids tended to fall through the cracks, but there was a chance to find a couple things specific to them, and they could generally piggy-back on their parent class.

 

[MoonSong]

Good optimizers optimize themselves to the table they're playing at, not expect the table to conform to their play style. If you know magic items are both prevalent and random, focus on concepts that aren't weapon-limited.

Not everybody customizing is an optimizer though. Maybe I just envision my character with a glaive and want to eventually have a magic one? There is a point in the game where you really need to have a magic weapon just to keep up (because monsters start being immune to non-magic weapons). Call me entitled, but I would expect the DM to work with me to facilitate the kind of character I want to play -of course table variation and stuff-. I really would talk to the DM if I had been playing with a glaive from day one and we hadn't found a magic one yet we were drowning on +1 swords that nobody in the party wanted to use. Ok, hyperbole, but still...

 

[cbwjm]

I do a little bit of both when it comes to magical items when building adventures. I will roll up random treasure for most of it, but then I might also throw in 1 or 2 items that will be picked up by a PC, like the magical lute I threw into an adventure for my bard player. On the other hand, the party has a suit of +1 chainmail that none of them can make use of because none of them have heavy armour proficiency.

 

[Lanefan]

Craft requiring a Feat is basically the Wizard or whoever getting screwed over so the rest of the group can have stuff. It would make far more sense to force investment in some sort of "group project", probably in terms of cash and downtime (and adventures?) building a lab/forge to make items than to mechanically steal from a single PC.

You're making a huge assumption here: that it's a PC doing the crafting.

In our games, if someone wants something custom built they can commission it from an artificer - provided they're willing to pay up front and maybe wait a long time (often well over half a year in-game; during which adventuring almost always continues as normal) for completion*.

* - unless the item is something simple like a spell scroll or common potion; those don't usually take long at all.

That's actually a good example of how in many games there aren't three options - there's only find.

Maybe in your experience. In mine there's a very small bit of 'craft' and the rest is about 50-50 split between 'find' and 'buy'. Towns usually have a (completely random!) smattering of items on the market.

I have to admit I am super-skeptical of all the "I don't customize at all!" people. I strongly suspect that in 9/10 cases if I looked at the sheets of the PCs in your groups, many would have exactly the items they might want.

Which would make sense, given that those PCs have probably had lots of time to find what they want/need. The question is, how long did it take them and-or how much effort was involved?

And don't forget that sometimes the character ends up being customized to the item rather than the other way around: some spectacular item is found and a character decides to do whatever has to be done in order to use it. (e.g. change alignment, change proficiency, even change class)

Personally in 5E I use a mix of random and heavily customised (including building new items). This seems to work very well. People don't get entitled but they often find cool or surprising things.

Yeah, I dream up new items as well, but without any idea of who's ever gonna find 'em.

 

[Lanefan]

Not everybody customizing is an optimizer though. Maybe I just envision my character with a glaive and want to eventually have a magic one? There is a point in the game where you really need to have a magic weapon just to keep up (because monsters start being immune to non-magic weapons). Call me entitled, but I would expect the DM to work with me to facilitate the kind of character I want to play -of course table variation and stuff-. I really would talk to the DM if I had been playing with a glaive from day one and we hadn't found a magic one yet we were drowning on +1 swords that nobody in the party wanted to use. Ok, hyperbole, but still...

Artificers are your friend.

Take a few of those surplus +1 swords in and ask how much they'll get you toward a custom-built magic glaive.