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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 6972060" data-attributes="member: 6801252">I agree that 5e is a pretty good system that way, but it does have a few problems that conflict with the way my group likes to play games. I prefer the idea of players being able to pick magic items themselves, magic items as they are presented in the DMG are not particularly balanced for players to be able to optimize their characters and selection (That +2 from the hand crossbow, +3 proficiency, +2 archery style, +5 dex mod, no cover because sharpshooter, with like 3 attacks? kind of started outshining the others, and was only gonna get worse as the prof bonus increased, bounded accuracy, +static bonuses are an issue) it's clearly written for the DM to be the one doing the picking full stop. Meanwhile in my games, if someone tells me that their character concept is at it's most basic a 'barbarian with a flaming sword' I want to do everything i can to accommodate that. I also want another lever for them to pull in shaping their characters- there are many things we like about 5e, but that level of customization is something major we miss from 4e, so i've sought to bring it back somewhat. I do somewhat consider this a flaw, in that the math breaks down a bit with items (a side effect of it being designed as balanced without)So I took the initiative of creating a magic item system with less straightforward bonuses (no static bonuses, something like a flaming sword doesn't do this metric tonne of extra damage, it can toggle it's regular damage to fire damage instead) and crafted a different itemization scheme (I basically have normal items of roughly uncommon quality, and grand artifact types that scale as you level to unlock additional properties but are story and level gated). Players get to select some of these items and then the DM weaves their acquisition into the story (which, is easy to do in this context, because the basic lore of the world supports many of these minor blessed items floating around)The whole thing works out quite nicely as a neat bit of unique mechanical crunch to go along with the unique flavor of my setting- players basically act as the hand of fate in selecting what objects their characters will come across. For a mythical swashbuckling setting, I'd say it's thematic at least. They do seem to like the idea and implementation thus far.</blockquote>

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