Magic Item Loot

[Pex]

I'm starting to get a bit annoyed with many people saying PCs won't have magic items. That's male bovine feces. Just because PCs can no longer go to Ye Olde Magik Shoppe to purchase whatever doesn't mean they should never, ever have magic items. 2E didn't have magic shops either yet PCs still got magic items. PCs will still get magic weapons. They'll get magic armor. It may only be +1 for a long time, but they will have them and it's all that's truly needed given the system, "needed" meaning effective not necessary. They'll be rings, potions, scrolls, wands, staffs, boots, gloves, and all sorts of miscellaneous stuff. PCs won't have their own dragon horde's worth, but they'll have them. PCs don't necessarily have to have a specific item to function, and that's a good thing, but they'll still get cool items that are fun to use, even if some are passive in their use.

[Scirocco]

The system is balanced without the expectation that characters won't need Xmas trees of items, not that they won't have them. Similarly they're not supposed to be required for adventuring.

[silveralen]

Which is absolutely silly because they will be getting them regardless. Restricting them just makes things boring.

I guess the idea is people using magic items should feel more powerful than normal.

[MaxWilson]

Which is absolutely silly because they will be getting them regardless. Restricting them just makes things boring.

I guess the idea is people using magic items should feel more powerful than normal.

That seems like a pretty reasonable design decision to me.

[silveralen]

That seems like a pretty reasonable design decision to me.

Then you run into the whole problem of making sure everyone is actually challenged, versus wanting them to have cool things. I always had trouble manging that, having it factored into the CR was always nice imo. But that's just me.

[Greylind]

Then you run into the whole problem of making sure everyone is actually challenged, versus wanting them to have cool things. I always had trouble manging that, having it factored into the CR was always nice imo. But that's just me.

A magic sword helps very little against a trap or the gaze of a medusa. Magic armor is similarly unhelpful against area of effect attacks like dragon breath. Other magic items may require the use of an action, at which point it becomes a tactical choice.

[Giant2005]

I'm starting to get a bit annoyed with many people saying PCs won't have magic items. That's male bovine feces. Just because PCs can no longer go to Ye Olde Magik Shoppe to purchase whatever doesn't mean they should never, ever have magic items. 2E didn't have magic shops either yet PCs still got magic items. PCs will still get magic weapons. They'll get magic armor. It may only be +1 for a long time, but they will have them and it's all that's truly needed given the system, "needed" meaning effective not necessary. They'll be rings, potions, scrolls, wands, staffs, boots, gloves, and all sorts of miscellaneous stuff. PCs won't have their own dragon horde's worth, but they'll have them. PCs don't necessarily have to have a specific item to function, and that's a good thing, but they'll still get cool items that are fun to use, even if some are passive in their use.

Agreed with everything but the bolded part. If the current adventures that have been released are anything to go by, players will get their hands on a relative hoard of magic items rather reliably.

[silveralen]

A magic sword helps very little against a trap or the gaze of a medusa. Magic armor is similarly unhelpful against area of effect attacks like dragon breath. Other magic items may require the use of an action, at which point it becomes a tactical choice.

True enough, they don't make a huge difference in the long run.

[Eslin]

3.5 had a problem where magic items were necessary to keep up, you needed to boost your stats, armour etc with the right amount of +s in order to be competitive. It made magical items kind of boring to shop for because it was very rare that interesting effects were purchasable since you needed to spend that money on miss chance/mind blank/flight/saves/stats/armour etc. Then 4e came out and instead of fixing it, they made it baseline - everything was +1 to +6, the maths was done on the assumption that everyone was spending their money on the relevant + items and it was boring as hell. If every monster at that level needs a +4 weapon to hit to fight effectively why not just give it 4 less AC, less hp and not require a magic weapon at all?

As long as 5e keeps away from that, I don't care what it does with magic items. Not saying it's the perfect solution, 3.5's artificer was massive fun to play and can't be done with the new system, but we've had the magic item treadmill editions, time for a change.

[Strill]

A magic sword helps very little against a trap or the gaze of a medusa. Magic armor is similarly unhelpful against area of effect attacks like dragon breath. Other magic items may require the use of an action, at which point it becomes a tactical choice.
Magic items do make a difference against those effects. For example, Holy Avenger in the playtest documents, when wielded by a Paladin, gave all nearby allies Advantage on saves vs magic.

Similarly, Ring of Protection gives +1 AC and +1 to all saves.

[TheOOB]

You can totally give the players lot of magic items if you want, go nuts, just note that you may have to make the encounters a little more difficult to compensate.

Here's the deal, in 3e(and also 4e as well), you needed bonuses from magic items to be effective. You needed magic items to boost your attacks, AC, and saves, and you needed items to boost your ability scores. The math of the game was designed assuming your numbers went up more than your class and level alone would account for, and thus if a level 15 party didn't have at least +3 weapons and armor and +4 stat boosters they would no be able to face level 15 threats.

In 5e that's not the case. Magic items are awesome, and make you better, but the math is made assuming no magic items. A level 20 fighter should have a high enough ac, stats, and attack to survive and fight just fine without any magic boosting their numbers.

[silveralen]

Well... sort of.

The fact many enemies have immunity or damage reduction to nonmagic weapons kinda screws that up a bit. You need to be a monk, or have a magic weapon, or have the ability to deal magic damage, or the ability to turn a weapon into a magic weapon. Or have a party member do the latter.

[Thrudd]

5e has the same general sort and number of magic items as in the past, and as always the frequency and power of the items found is up to the DM. The game just doesn't assume items of any and every description will be available for the PC's to craft/purchase whenever/wherever they want. It's a good thing.

[Safety Sword]

Magic items do make a difference against those effects. For example, Holy Avenger in the playtest documents, when wielded by a Paladin, gave all nearby allies Advantage on saves vs magic.

Similarly, Ring of Protection gives +1 AC and +1 to all saves.

Yes, but you're talking about the end game weapon for most paladins. This is THE weapon they want. You should be going through hell (literally) to get the materials, prove you're worthy of the weapon, favour of the smith gods, etc etc.

It should do awesome things.

Edit: Had a typo attack..

[Baptor]

My biggest complaint about this magic item philosophy are the enhancement bonuses to weapons and armor. They make absolutely no sense at all.

This edition's claim to fame is Bounded Accuracy. I love BA personally and couldn't think of going back to things like a 42 AC and +36 to hit. The whole idea is that by binding the bonuses to hit from +2-+6 base and +1-+5 ability (or +3-+11) and restricting AC bonuses to a mostly tight range of 10-20 (with rare exceptions), you will have a never-ending balanced combat system on those terms. Brilliant.

Now let's throw in enhancement bonuses and blow this to heck. Seriously! If a player receives a +2 weapon and +2 armor, that means that his foes must also increase in to-hit and AC bonuses to compensate. In a game where the accuracy is bound to +3-+11, +2 is a huge bonus. So as DM, if I escalate the monster's bonuses, I've got to make sure every player also has +2 gear or they will be behind and oh-my-gosh its back to the way it was!

I brought this up to Mike during the playtest and all he said was, "The enhancement bonuses encourage us game designers to come up with cooler abilities." Whatever the heck that means.

In my game we all agreed to nix the enhancement bonuses. There are magic weapons and normal weapons but no bonuses.

[rjfTrebor]

Which is absolutely silly because they will be getting them regardless. Restricting them just makes things boring.

I guess the idea is people using magic items should feel more powerful than normal.

I think you're simply looking at it the wrong way.

The designers know the PCs are going to get magic items, they want you to get them. No one designs things they don't want people to use.

By not assuming magic items like they have in the past, the game can have tighter, simpler math, that accepts magic items even better for its good design.

The end result is a system that works with no items, some items, or any combination in between. If there's no assumptions to get in the way, everyone is free to manage Items as they see fit.

[Safety Sword]

I think you're simply looking at it the wrong way.

The designers know the PCs are going to get magic items, they want you to get them. No one designs things they don't want people to use.

By not assuming magic items like they have in the past, the game can have tighter, simpler math, that accepts magic items even better for its good design.

The end result is a system that works with no items, some items, or any combination in between. If there's no assumptions to get in the way, everyone is free to manage Items as they see fit.

Not only does it allow you to manage the "flow" of magic items, but it allows you to incrementally increase their power, without it feeling necessary for the whole party to have the same bonus.

As a DM there is nothing more frustrating than designing cool encounters for your PCs to face and then having to artificially litter their path with magic weapons of a particular bonus so that everyone can contribute to the fight.

Even worse is sitting at the table whilst players figure out their budgets so they can all upgrade to the +2 version of the weapons they have now... so boring for a DM.

[silveralen]

But again we face the problems where giving some people access to magic items and others not isn't the best plan. When we tried out the premade adventure, most of the people in my group got +1 weapons at roughly the same time, even though the adventure didn't call for it, because I didn't want one to get an artificial boost over another. As soon as they found one, I found a couple spots in the dungeon to seed a second and third. It worked.

So it doesn't really solve anything, you are still going to litter the party with magic items of the same bonus unless you want to favor some over another, which... I mean if you have the excuse that's what came up on the table or that's what the premade has it is one thing, but if you run custom campaigns that likely will end up leading to bad feeling.

[Safety Sword]

But again we face the problems where giving some people access to magic items and others not isn't the best plan. When we tried out the premade adventure, most of the people in my group got +1 weapons at roughly the same time, even though the adventure didn't call for it, because I didn't want one to get an artificial boost over another. As soon as they found one, I found a couple spots in the dungeon to seed a second and third. It worked.

So it doesn't really solve anything, you are still going to litter the party with magic items of the same bonus unless you want to favor some over another, which... I mean if you have the excuse that's what came up on the table or that's what the premade has it is one thing, but if you run custom campaigns that likely will end up leading to bad feeling.

The difference comes in the fact that the enemies no longer require +2 (as an example) to hit and you're not stacking bonuses to reach arbitrarily high ACs. The rogue and the fighter can both still hit the bad things without needing to manage a suite of ability stacking items, magic weapon bonuses and miscellaneous pluses. Of course to be fair you'd like to distribute magic items equally for your party members, but now I think the margin for making mistakes in encounter balance are minimised by comparison with the 2 other recent editions.

TL;DR: It's easier to DM now because I don't need to calculate who is going to be able to hit a monster to a large degree. Magic items are bonuses for characters not requirements.

For clarity: I prefer for the party to have a mix of items and for the items to be unique enough that it's not just a generic stat bonus weapon. A sword may give you +1 to attack and damage, but that's a bonus on top of the weapon's real properties (which can only be limited by the imagination of the DM). In 3.5 the assumption that magic weapons were mass produced and stocked in stores just made them less special and just another bonus to stack. I think that took something from the game. Let's call it the "magic".

[silveralen]

But.... plenty of enemies require +1 for people to be effective. Or possibly to deal any damage at all. It fixes the need for constant upgrades, but as these sort of upgrades it'll likely happen anyways (unless your party doesn't like finding more powerful magic items, that's a table thing) you'll tweak the difficulty up slightly, same as you would have done in reverse for earlier editions if you didn't give constant upgrades.

Like I said, it either discourages giving your party treasure (bad, at least for everyone I ever played with) or creates additional work (bad) or reduces the challenge (bad).

I don't think this is nearly the godsend people make it out to be.

[Sartharina]

The actual problem is adherence to CR and linear adventure design, not magic items.

[silveralen]

CR is a tool for simplicity. You don't have to adhere to it, but it makes things easier.

Linear design... my group tends toward straight forward approaches. We do linear very well. Not sure if that's a bad thing or?

[MaxWilson]

Well... sort of.

The fact many enemies have immunity or damage reduction to nonmagic weapons kinda screws that up a bit. You need to be a monk, or have a magic weapon, or have the ability to deal magic damage, or the ability to turn a weapon into a magic weapon. Or have a party member do the latter.

Immunity and resistance are very different properties. If they are just resistant you can at worst simply pour more oil on the fire and brute-force them, but if they are immune to your attacks and you can't change your strategy you are out of luck and have to just run away.

A fair number of creatures from Earth Elementals to Balors are resistant to weapon damage, but only a very few are actually immune, presumably because immunity is so very powerful. Off the top of my head I can think of lycanthropes (need silver or magic weapons to damage them), golems (need adamantine or magic weapons to damage them), and the Tarrasque. I think lycanthropes don't count because a fighter can simply be expected to buy a silver weapon or two, so that leaves on very powerful magic creatures having weapon immunity--and many of the most powerful creatures like Pit Fiends don't even have it. (IIRC on Pit Fiends, I'm AFB.)


I brought this up to Mike during the playtest and all he said was, "The enhancement bonuses encourage us game designers to come up with cooler abilities." Whatever the heck that means.

In my game we all agreed to nix the enhancement bonuses. There are magic weapons and normal weapons but no bonuses.

It sounds to me like what you came up with (no enhancement bonuses) is the same thing that Mike was attempting to convey to you during the playtest. "Cooler abilities" = "not enhancement bonuses". Great minds think alike?

[Sartharina]

CR is a tool for simplicity. You don't have to adhere to it, but it makes things easier.For designing encounters, yes. But as a restriction on potential encounters, it's terrible.


Linear design... my group tends toward straight forward approaches. We do linear very well. Not sure if that's a bad thing or?Ideally, there are points where the ideal course of action is to run away and come back when you're stronger.

[MaxWilson]

The actual problem is adherence to CR and linear adventure design, not magic items.

This. Good level design (a.k.a. adventure design) empowers the player(s) to choose their own difficulty, pace, and approach. It is fun to navigate, it creates an emotion, and it tells the player(s) what to do (clear objectives) but not how to do it. Ideally you always have options beyond "grab your magic weapon and kill [whatever] to death."


Ideally, there are points where the ideal course of action is to run away and come back when you're stronger.

FWIW, I happen to agree.

[Safety Sword]

For designing encounters, yes. But as a restriction on potential encounters, it's terrible.

Ideally, there are points where the ideal course of action is to run away and come back when you're stronger.

Agreed on your first point.

On the second, in many 3.5 games the solution was to run away, to a magic shop, to load up on specific elemental damage, buy an "extra" +1 worth of upgrades to a few items and go again. That's what I didn't like.

Making your PCs run away is some of the best fun you can have as a DM :xykon: