D&D 5E What's the point of gold?

[Dannyalcatraz]

And a +1 sword is only boring in certain contexts. Believe me when I say that a +1 Shortsword can sometimes get a table grinning from ear to ear.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Not everybody is an optimizer, a powergamer or has the system mastery to catch if a folding boat is more game changing than a +1 sword of boringness. The point of giving players free reign over magic items is so they can have fun with them, not to promote powergaming.

Okay, so we agree that sovereign glue is a terrible example due to its obvious poorness?

I'm a natural powergamer (I "see" numbers quite easily) and my observation for you is this: 5E is so easy (per official encounter tables) that if you stick to encounter guidelines, players can do anything they want and come out okay. I have no idea if a folding boat will turn out to be worth anything to the players or not, but a +1 sword of boringness isn't worth all that much either, in terms of expanding the scope of play. (Yes, it will double the fighter's damage against elementals, but if he was going to win that fight anyway, all it really does is save him a short rest.) Let's say you allow PCs to purchase magic items freely from some wizard shop, at DMG prices. What's the worst that will happen? Maybe some guys will buy super-effective stuff like Wands of Web and Winged Boots, while others buy Leather Armor +2 (which, honestly, is terrible). That essentially makes it like the guy who bought Leather Armor +2 threw his money away--and it doesn't matter! He will still be an effective character against anything in the MM that follows encounter guidelines, because 5E is easy by design.

Now, if you're the kind of DM who likes to throw your PCs into the deep end ("you're now being chased by twelve Fire Giants; what do you do?"--note that that would be a Deadly encounter even for a group of 11(!) 20th level PCs, but I would totally do it to my current group of 3rd through 7th level PCs) then maybe optimization becomes more important. Even then, why not just have the guys who are good optimizers give advice to the guys who aren't?

In short, there's nothing in the game requiring you as DM to rejigger the DMG prices for magical items before opening a magic shop, unless you want to. This is in spite of the fact that the DMG prices are almost uncorrelated with utility.

 

[CapnZapp]

The problem is that 3e let the cat out of the box.

Your attempts to make dnd into a game without a solid magic item economy are cute, but doesn't really change anything.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The problem is that 3e let the cat out of the box.

Comments like those make me glad I skipped 3E and barely touched 4E. Or perhaps they explain why I skipped them.

 

[MoonSong]

And a +1 sword is only boring in certain contexts. Believe me when I say that a +1 Shortsword can sometimes get a table grinning from ear to ear.

I guess it all comes to individual styles, for me a +1 sword is always boring, the only math item I could find interesting would be an uncursed -5 sword.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I guess it all comes to individual styles, for me a +1 sword is always boring, the only math item I could find interesting would be an uncursed -5 sword.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I do like the DMG rules on minor properties for magic items, and I've used them for almost all the non-consumable items I've handed out in my campaign. If the PCs beat the bad guy (Death Slaad) of the next session, for example, they're going to find Shadrach, a +3 golden shield made to commemorate the death of Breed Wyrmbane, which becomes warm when within 120' of a dragon, gives the user pangs of conscience at any malevolent act, and makes his joints ache continually like an old man (Breed died of old age). I rolled that straight up on the treasure tables, but it's still a quite interesting item IMO.

(In this case the Death Slaad will not be using Shadrach during the battle because he's not proficient in shields, but if he were he would.)

/tangent

P.S. No, I don't know yet who Breed Wyrmbane is. If the players ever investigate, I will invent something as needed.

 

[MoonSong]

Okay, so we agree that sovereign glue is a terrible example due to its obvious poorness?

I'm a natural powergamer (I "see" numbers quite easily) and my observation for you is this: 5E is so easy (per official encounter tables) that if you stick to encounter guidelines, players can do anything they want and come out okay. I have no idea if a folding boat will turn out to be worth anything to the players or not, but a +1 sword of boringness isn't worth all that much either, in terms of expanding the scope of play. (Yes, it will double the fighter's damage against elementals, but if he was going to win that fight anyway, all it really does is save him a short rest.) Let's say you allow PCs to purchase magic items freely from some wizard shop, at DMG prices. What's the worst that will happen? Maybe some guys will buy super-effective stuff like Wands of Web and Winged Boots, while others buy Leather Armor +2 (which, honestly, is terrible). That essentially makes it like the guy who bought Leather Armor +2 threw his money away--and it doesn't matter! He will still be an effective character against anything in the MM that follows encounter guidelines, because 5E is easy by design.

Now, if you're the kind of DM who likes to throw your PCs into the deep end ("you're now being chased by twelve Fire Giants; what do you do?"--note that that would be a Deadly encounter even for a group of 11(!) 20th level PCs, but I would totally do it to my current group of 3rd through 7th level PCs) then maybe optimization becomes more important. Even then, why not just have the guys who are good optimizers give advice to the guys who aren't?

In short, there's nothing in the game requiring you as DM to rejigger the DMG prices for magical items before opening a magic shop, unless you want to. This is in spite of the fact that the DMG prices are almost uncorrelated with utility.

I'm in the opposite side, I just barely understand optimization from 3.x let alone another edition, I picked the most obvious one because it is the most obvious one, there have to be some other ones that are invisible to me, but that is worse, all the experience i had from previous editions is useless. And that's why I need a list based upon utility because I don't really know which is more unbalancing. (And because I suck at using the encounter guidelines I go for what makes sense at the time instead)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm in the opposite side, I just barely understand optimization from 3.x let alone another edition, I picked the most obvious one because it is the most obvious one, there have to be some other ones that are invisible to me, but that is worse, all the experience i had from previous editions is useless. And that's why I need a list based upon utility because I don't really know which is more unbalancing. (And because I suck at using the encounter guidelines I go for what makes sense at the time instead)

Nope, there is nothing worse than sovereign glue/universal solvent for cost/benefit ratio. There are some things much, much better than it, as mentioned, but if your players are really bad at math and tactics you'll never have to worry about them abusing those items even at DMG prices. (And if you roll the items in the shop from the treasure tables instead of putting everything in the DMG up for sale simultaneously, even those too-cheap items won't cause problems before they won't be available very often.)

If you're bad at encounter guideline math you can use kobold.com. But tossing them entirely is valid too (I do it), as long as you let the players self-pace their encounter difficulty.

 

[Salthorae]

i think one of the points that some have made, but may not have articulated super clearly, is that opening up a magic item shop even with price ranges isn't going to probably kill your game.

So what if a shop has Sovereign Glue for 50,000 and a Vorpal Sword for 150,000? (Since the value of legendary item is 50,000+) and most people seem to agree that a +3 weapon that can decapitate someone 1 in 20 times is more valuable than a substance that can force a dragon's jaws shut for all time...

My 9th level character has generated all of 12-13 gp in his whole adventuring career thus far. I don't think I'd ever even be able to afford the Sovereign glue!

but with Bounded Accruacy, the vorpal sword is not all that cool either. One of the heights AC's in the game is 22, an Ancient Red Dragon. Any 1st level character with 16 str (or dex with finesse) hits that Ancient Dragon 20% of the time. A character able to afford a Vorpal Sword at even 50,000 gp, say 15th level to save up for that sword... Any 15th level melee type is now up to a 45% chance to hit. A Vorpal sword only moves that to 60% and any DM worth his salt isn't going to let you behead a dragon with sword so you'd be better off paying much less for a regular +3 sword than banking on that extra 6d8 slashing damage.

Personally I'd rather stick the dragon's head to the ground while he sleeps or slip some sovereign glue into his mouth via a deceptive cow offering or something and then just pot shot him from a distance.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Glue his wing to the cave wall. He'll LOVE that!

Sovereign-ed projectiles up the nostrils won't be fun for him, either.










...or applied to an opening on the other end...