D&D 5E Wandering "Monsters": Magic Items

[Uller]

It seems to me to be equally arbitrary to assume that the world is full of high-level npcs capable of crafting or stealing the exact item you want and magic shops that stock such an item.

Oh sure. Where I'm coming from is I've seen some designers mention (can't find it...so maybe I'm hallucinating here anyway) and a few commenters here and there also say that magic items shouldn't be buyable. I think the rules should be neutral on this point and they should just give good guidance to DMs on how to control magic items in their games. Every game I've ever played in, it's been about 50/50.

My understanding is the default world is Forgotten Realms (meh...). It's hard to imagine FR without a magic shop in just about every city (I'm playing Baldur's Gate EE right now...sure enough, even the Feldpost Inn has a few +1 weapons and such for sale and as my party is getting to be about 3rd level I will use the 8,000 gp I have to outfit each of my PCs with either a +1 weapon or +1 armor).

for me, the really cool, top of the power curve type items for the PCs level are not available to buy in most cases. Those, you have to find (besides, the PCs almost never have enough gold to buy them anyway). For lower level items, this isn't the case.

So far with Next, We've just be staying away from magic items for the most part anyway except for ones that do weird things. In our Isle of Dread campaign, they have a ring of water walking, a +1 Sword that detecst gems (I think) and a wand of levitation. Each player makes good creative use of them and it's fun. Obviously when you are stranded on a primitive island there is no magic (or any other shop) around anyway...like you, I kind of have fun no matter what.

 

[Uller]

And then in the next one, Icewind Dale (which was described by 10th-15th level Drizzt as a daily struggle for survival, where he almost dies several times just from the local wildlife) was also a 1st-3rd level adventure location. At this rate, the upcoming Tiamat campaign will end with the ruler of the first layer of Hell being defeated by 5th-level "heroes."

Yeah. My assumption is that since they made them for Encounters, they wanted to keep them playable by newish players and DMs but yet they still wanted the "Sundering" theme. So they just scaled the power curve down. Not saying this was a good idea...I think they should have started these with 7th level pregens and made the main NPCs about 10th level or so. That would have fit the plot better and allowed them to showcase what Next can do in the "meaty" mid level game where most campaigns live most of the time anyway.

A guild kingpin or the marshal of the Flaming Fist should not be a 5th level character...that's just silly. My son is prepping to run Icewind Dale for his friends and said the same thing.

 

[Starfox]

A final note: this style of play really only works with a DM who isn't reluctant to kill pcs off. Otherwise, "choosing the difficulty of an encounter" is meaningless, or at least mostly so.

Guilty as charged. I see encounters more as minigames to break up the story into manageable chunks. Mine and my players' focus are on the overall story, and by that I mean HOW we do things more than what we actually do. It's like reading a novel and getting to direct the main characters, but the basic outline of the novel is already there. Particpartism I believe it is called.

Then of course, my players still put a lot of energy into making encounters easier, avoiding them or turning them into social encounters. But that is more an expression of their role-playing that because they have to to overcome the challenges presented.

This is no absolute truth - people have died in my campaigns, but it was many years ago by now.

 

[I'm A Banana]

13th Age has Essentials-style resources but (unlike default 4e) puts the rationing of rests on the GM rather than the player side, and so enforces balance of effectiveness that way. @Kamikaze Midget has often talked about using the "adventure" as the unit of play in terms which I have interpreted along similar lines.

[sblock=digression!]
Kinda. I mean, I basically grok 13th Age is doing with that, but for me its much less about who controls the full recharge and more about what happens in between each full recharge.

When the "adventure" is the core loop and the style is "sandbox," what's happening in a functional way is that you're peppering the landscape with adventures of varying levels and durations. Fighting the dragon is a Level X adventure (encounters like: fighting her minions, finding her lair, discovering her weakness). Eluding her while you cross her territory might be a Level Y adventure (encounters like: fighting her minions, evading her gaze, surviving off the beaten path). Taking our her loyal cultists might be two and a half Level Z adventures...etc. You might also generate spontaneous adventures or encounters, if you're into that.

Then you're just letting the PC's generally choose which adventures to undertake (or which random chance to suffer) and when.

The encounters on that path may vary wildly in difficulty. The adventure may be broken up into multiple parts, too (or a single goal might be worth multiple "adventures").

In a practical way, an "adventure" is just a way to group encounters into a whole that outputs Success or Failure (or somewhere between the two), while allowing significant variation between any two individual encounters.

In much the same way that a 4e "encounter" is just a way to group challenges into a whole that outputs Success or Failure (or somewhere between the two), while allowing significant variation between any two challenges.

It's a change in focus, a bigger matryoshka doll, but ultimately just an organizational tool. Not so much about who controls the recharge -- an adventure focus doesn't care too much if the DM allows the rest or the players do.
[/sblock]

 

[Jester David]

In D&Dnext terms I think it is elven chain, a very rare magic item - because Frodo is able to wear it even without being proficient in it.

Fair enough. I can't argue with that,

 

[Jester David]

One of them did harm the Witch-King, who could not be damaged by normal weapons.

Checking Wikipedia, this was because the weapon was forged in the northlands ruled by the witch king and designed to be able to kill him. (Convenient.)
The how is unsaid. Could be magic, could be the metal.

 

[billd91]

Checking Wikipedia, this was because the weapon was forged in the northlands ruled by the witch king and designed to be able to kill him. (Convenient.)
The how is unsaid. Could be magic, could be the metal.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is it could be interpreted either way for the purposes of designing a game around the lore of Lord of the Rings. Magic can be either flashy or subtle. The subtlety of the +# magic items in D&D enables them to be used even in campaigns that model relatively low magic or subtle magic stories like Conan or Lord of the Rings. Who's to say that the Fellowship aren't loaded up with lots of subtle magic effects on their weapons, armors, equipment? Nobody. That's the beauty of having some magic items be subtle in appearance yet still have an effect.

The fact that elves in Middle Earth really don't understand "magic" as the hobbits understand it helps us interpret the magic of equipment in any number of ways as well. For the elves, things are just as they make it but to everyone else, the cloaks and rope are pretty magical.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

The way I run my games is I still have a big emphasis on the story but not on particular characters. Having a certain PC or PC's tied to a story is basically railroading because that character or characters need plot armour to keep the story going. I am able to continue the story but have it where almost any PC can fill those shoes so while a person's character may die, their next character can carry on where the other one left off. Make no mistake, PC's can find death in my games because of poor dice rolls on their part or fantastic rolls on my part. I view this as in game fate. If you make it to the end then you were destined to, if not, then you weren't meant to.

I think limiting magic items will cut back on the "magic items off ma dead comrade" hoarding that can go on.