Why are Magic Items listed in the PHB?

[MinionOfCthulhu]

I can house rule with the best of them. What I can't house rule is...

"Don't look at the magic items in the PHB."

I can make house rules so that characters can't make them or buy them or sell them. But I can't house rule that list in the PHB away.

I am not quite sure where you're coming from here. All one of your players (or anyone else's) would have to do to ruin the whole "magic items are special secrets" would be to read your DMG when you weren't looking. Or look at their own. Or look at one in a book store. If a player is going to want to know what the magic items are, he will find out.

 

[Destil]

Players use the rules for magic items. Quite a bit, actually.

Hence these rules are in the player's book. Makes sense to me.

 

[Lanefan]

Nor could you house rule "Don't look at the magic items in the DMG." either

I did. If you're not also a DM and I find out you've been reading the DMG (or my Red Binder) you're out of my game.

If you want a bit more mystery invent your own items the PHB is very limited after all.

Absolutely. Or, pull forward an items table from any earlier edition and use that, though you'll probably have to rejigger the prices and values.

On another topic: allowing PCs to make pretty much any non-artifact item they wanted was, true, a 3e invention. It was also an enormous 3e mistake, and I'm sad to learn it's been carried forward.

Lanefan

 

[WhatGravitas]

I am not quite sure where you're coming from here. All one of your players (or anyone else's) would have to do to ruin the whole "magic items are special secrets" would be to read your DMG when you weren't looking. Or look at their own. Or look at one in a book store. If a player is going to want to know what the magic items are, he will find out.

Also, the stuff in the PHB is hardly sense-of-wonder or mystery-inspiring. They're more or less basic items boosting numbers or fleshing out basic needs for magic items.

Artifacts, especially the new approach, handle that much, much better and deserve their spot in the DMG.

Cheers, LT.

 

[malraux]

Another benefit of moving the magic items to the PH, the DMG pretty much only contains non-table material and is relevant only to game prepping, but not really game running.

 

[FireLance]

Hey, I want my players to become GMs too (so that I can play as well...) but I also don't want them burdened by the obligation to buy two (three books if you were a summoner or shapeshifter in 3.XX) books to make a mid-level/high-level character.

Making mid- or high-level characters is badwrongfun. If the PC isn't starting at first level with randomly generated gold, you aren't playing D&D.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Welcome to another round of "+1 swords are not mysterious"

Additionally the best campaigns I've ever played have involved the players choosing, in some way, what happens, what loot they get and what monsters they defeat. Deciding to go battle the giants to find a mysterious magical bastard sword that you heard about is more interesting that being sent on a quest to battle the giants and find a mysterious longsword, and doubly so when you've specialised in bastard sword in some way.

 

[CountPopeula]

Making mid- or high-level characters is badwrongfun. If the PC isn't starting at first level with randomly generated gold, you aren't playing D&D.

This is kind of a good point. I seem to remember the original rules implying that if your 12th level PC died, you rolled a level 1 and started over, regardless of the fact that your friends were all level 12. And I also seem to remember no less than Gary Gygax implying that characters who died in convention gaming scenarios like the Tomb of Horrors should have died in their home campaign.

The problem with the whole "magic items are mysterious" thing is that the game doesn't work that way anymore. The tradeoff for having the impact of magic items lessened is that players do have to decide on what and when they get their magic items.

The whole "Monty Haul" scenario of 1e and 2e doesn't apply. But the opposite is now a concern. Giving your players too many magical gear won't make them nigh-invulnerable demigods like it would in 1e. But not giving them enough because you want magic items to be rare and special is like sending them to their death.

I've never really understood this mindset, other than it was the way Gary Gygax described things. He had a bad habit of using the DM position as a giant power trip. The wizard can shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips on a regular basis. In the new edition, every five minutes or so. So why is the same wizard creating a better wand or a flaming sword so unbelievable?

To put it another way... Lightsabers. Lightsabers are mysterious, and rare, and only three people in the three movies have them (Luke, Obi-Wan, and Vader). That doesn't stop Luke from making one. Magic items are lightsabers now. They're rare and mysterious, but your PCs have to have them.

 

[neceros]

Okay, I'm old school.

I've been playing since '84 when I was in 6th grade. And I've always been a "magic items are special and mysterious" kind of guy.

That's the first problem. Characters without magic items die. The 3.5 DMG stated that PCs should have access to the items they desire within reason. 4e changes it so that it's not a hurdle, but it's still expensive.

 

[fuindordm]

The idea of magic items in the PH isn't so bad, when characters can create them. These are obviously the standard items that everyone knows how to make. The DM is still free to come up with wacky stuff to surprise them.

No, what really bugs me is that the DMG has so little of use in it now. It's a full 100 pages shorter than the PH. And while it covers the bare bones, it doesn't have much to inspire.

The PH, on the other hand, desperately needs one or two more classes, a couple of dozen more feats that anyone can use (SO many of them have prerequisites), and a handful of epic destinies. It would even have benefited greatly from the DMG's chapter on player types. The PH is full of good stuff, but it feels incomplete.

The DMG could easily have absorbed the magic items chapter, along with another 6 artifacts, a MUCH longer chapter on house rules, and advice on creating new classes and races.

And... intelligent weapons are gone! Sniff.