D&D 5E Wealth and Starting Magic Items for 5th Level Playtest Characters?

[Kraydak]

Maybe, but it still needs to be worded, that the standard is no magic items!

But "standard is no magic items" is utter nonsense. In no way will the standard DnD Next group have no magic items. Trying to pretend that no magic items is "standard" will just result in schizophrenic DMG language (reminiscent of 1e) and very confused newbie DMs trying to figure out why their groups have trouble in modules written under the correct assumption that magic items (and a lot of them!) are, in fact, standard.

Such a sytem could be: for every very rare magic item, add 1 extra monster. Or you could have different encounter tables appropriate for low magic/high magic-
As long as the math assumes no magic items, everything is fine!

But again, writing the math assuming no magic items, when the core play mode of DnD (kill things, take their stuff) involves "magic items, lots of them!", is dumb. Simply, irrevocably dumb. Trying to make the math flexible enough to reasonably cover "no magic items" is a reasonable (if sacrificeable) design goal. Making it the standard though involves throwing out the core play mode of DnD. The mind boggles.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Stop that.

Look at 4e, what happens, if magic items are assumed in the math. I also once believed, it is good to assume them. But I´d now rather have an extra page in the adventure, that tells you not only for which level of PCs it is written, but also the average wealth...

It is not tooo hard, in a game without every increasing accuracy and defenses, to just say:

Adventure for 5 adventurers from level 3-5 (low magic)

I assume, modifying an adventure to take magic items into account is no harder than adjusting it for one more player.

 

[Li Shenron]

But "standard is no magic items" is utter nonsense. In no way will the standard DnD Next group have no magic items.

...

But again, writing the math assuming no magic items, when the core play mode of DnD (kill things, take their stuff) involves "magic items, lots of them!", is dumb. Simply, irrevocably dumb.

Wrong... it's instead smart if you have set yourself a design goal of appealing as many gamestyles as possible, because everybody knows that adding stuff, inflating numbers and generally increasing things is easier than doing the opposite.

If you have "no magic items" as a starting point, you can add ANY amount of them to the PC as your preference is, and you can very easily balance all encounters by just giving all monsters the SAME equivalent amount of magic items (and for those monsters who don't use equipment, you can "fake" magic items by "embedding" their properties into the monster's traits). All you need from the game rules to help you, is a reasonable measure of an item's worth (for example, a gp price) so that you don't need to give the monsters the same exactly items but something roughly equivalent.

You cannot do the other way around, because once ANY level of magic item is assumed for the PCs, then the monsters will be designed with "embedded" features (such as higher attack bonus, more HP etc) that aren't visible to a DM who wants to decrease them (the DM can just remove magic items from NPCs but not these embedded numbers and abilities from monsters easily).

 

[the Jester]

But "standard is no magic items" is utter nonsense. In no way will the standard DnD Next group have no magic items.

Says who?

Put another way, I suspect some groups have always preferred to keep magic items rare and special, insofar as the rules support doing so.

I really don't see why this is such a huge problem.

But again, writing the math assuming no magic items, when the core play mode of DnD (kill things, take their stuff) involves "magic items, lots of them!", is dumb. Simply, irrevocably dumb.

You're making stuff up. The "core play" of D&D, at least outside of 3e and 4e, does not assume "magic items, lots of them!" I'd further assert that the "simply, irrevocably dumb" move is writing the game to assume those lots of magic items, because they are easy to add to a "no magic items assumed" system but extremely hard to tear out of a "Magic items EVERYWHERE assumed" system.

Trying to make the math flexible enough to reasonably cover "no magic items" is a reasonable (if sacrificeable) design goal. Making it the standard though involves throwing out the core play mode of DnD. The mind boggles.

I totally disagree. What's more, my way enables your playstyle, while your way effectively disables (or, at the very least, hamstrings) my playstyle.

Finally, I doubt I speak only for myself when I ask that you stop painting other peoples' playstyles as "simply, irrevocably dumb". It may not be your preference, but there is no reason that your preference is inherently superior to mine or anyone else's. So it would be nice if you could drop the disparaging language and absolute statements about how people play the game.