Magical Items at Early Levels

[AmayaElls]

So a quick background of why I'm curious. My DM currently is very averse to giving us magical items, he's worried it will make us too powerful to quickly. This is fair enough, I can see his concern. Sometimes however I feel he is focussing too much on the idea of magical items being +1s or other powerful things. Our joking around probably doesn't help. We are now level 5 and have actually encountered a few situations where he has rolled on a loot table and then told us the item was too powerful so he just gave us gold (I told him not to tell us next time). We broached the topic OOC of magical rewards in the latest quest and he still seems set against it. This isn't a low fantasy world, and so we're starting to get a little bitter.

So I want to ask, Are we having reasonably expectations? Or should we be waiting this long for our first magical items in 5e?
I also wanted to ask what are reasonable magic items for early levels? (for my own future reference).



BTW I am not planning to link my DM to this or call him out, it's his campaign and he will run it his way. I'm just curious.

[Gastronomie]

Stuff with minor bonuses. A demonic dagger that enables you to track the place of a target you wounded with it, if the wound hasn't healed yet. Armor so intimidating that it gives advantage on your intimidation rolls. An amulet forged by a paladin order that detects undead within quite a radius, as well as negates their regeneration abilities within 10 feet. The sort. Preferably with unique, interesting histories. Makes stuff feel special without being overboard at all.

[Specter]

Everything will be alright if he gives items that give small bonuses and abilities and no more than one or two items at a time. I've given my level-2 four-dude party a Stone of Good Luck, Eyes of the Eagle and a breastplate of acid resistance and it's all good.

[Goober4473]

Small powers can be cool and feel rewarding at low level, and usually stay interesting at higher level. Ultimately it's all about two things: inter-party balance, and challenging the players. If either everyone gets cool toys, no one does, or everyone is fine with some characters having better stuff, then you're good on balance.

In terms of challenge, magic items can complicate things in ways that are hard to fully calculate, so it's really just on the DM to figure out what's going to work. I would simply say here that it's hard to truly break 5e with magic items. I've given very powerful items, like a ring of invisibility, to level 1 PCs before and not had a problem. Adjusting difficulty is more of an art than a science anyways.

[Moosoculars]

Everyone likes getting magic items and so there is always a balance between keeping the players happy and rewarded and making them overpowered and getting into a painful position of having to remove their favourite items. Which causes other problems.

So I do understand it from the dm's position.

I solve this with charges. If a bbeg has a +1 sword then it will only have 5 charges or so. This gets you through a number of hard encounters but then is just a normal sword. This works with shields, armour all kinds of things.

One thing I would say that your dm is not doing right is that the monster should have access to the magic he seems to be rolling after the fact. Kill the boss ogre in his lair and find afterwards there was a +1 maul lying around which he should have been using, or a wizard taken down and a staff of the magi in his cupboard. It just makes it all a bit unbelievable.

[Lombra]

In our campaign characters are level 4 and we've got a drift globe so far, but as the levels go on it's very likely that we are gonna get other magic items.

[AmayaElls]

Everyone likes getting magic items and so there is always a balance between keeping the players happy and rewarded and making them overpowered and getting into a painful position of having to remove their favourite items. Which causes other problems.

So I do understand it from the dm's position.

I solve this with charges. If a bbeg has a +1 sword then it will only have 5 charges or so. This gets you through a number of hard encounters but then is just a normal sword. This works with shields, armour all kinds of things.

One thing I would say that your dm is not doing right is that the monster should have access to the magic he seems to be rolling after the fact. Kill the boss ogre in his lair and find afterwards there was a +1 maul lying around which he should have been using, or a wizard taken down and a staff of the magi in his cupboard. It just makes it all a bit unbelievable.

I can understand his position too, which is why I made the point that I was not looking to change his ruling, just curious about other people's.

In that case it was a Manticore (I think) fight, so I don't think rolling after the fight was an issue. I like the idea of limited charge items. Also I think many of the uncommon consumable items in the dmg would be fine.

[Celcey]

I would talk to him again, bringing examples from this thread and the DMG. For example, a ring of invisibility is maybe useful in combat, but it's much more useful for sneaking around. While its fair and important to respect the way he runs his games, it's also important that he listens to the wants and needs of the players, especially if it's going to drive a wedge in the group. If he feels like he gave you something too OP, he can always discuss it with you later. If it really is OP, it's okay for him to say 'hey, I made a mistake and this item is too OP, so let's find something less powerful to switch it out for.'

[MrStabby]

A lot does depend on the item. Some are good for the game some are bad. Really specialist items or situationaly good ones are pretty bad.

Weapons of warning for example damage games. Less variety in combats as less variation in initiative order, and less diversity in fights as no party ambush etc.. it's ability is good but it removes the tension of not knowing if you are being watched...

The benefit/harm of items is not purely about power.

[N810]

Everyone likes getting magic items and so there is always a balance between keeping the players happy and rewarded and making them overpowered and getting into a painful position of having to remove their favourite items. Which causes other problems.

So I do understand it from the dm's position.

I solve this with charges. If a bbeg has a +1 sword then it will only have 5 charges or so. This gets you through a number of hard encounters but then is just a normal sword. This works with shields, armour all kinds of things.

One thing I would say that your dm is not doing right is that the monster should have access to the magic he seems to be rolling after the fact. Kill the boss ogre in his lair and find afterwards there was a +1 maul lying around which he should have been using, or a wizard taken down and a staff of the magi in his cupboard. It just makes it all a bit unbelievable.

Our DM's fix is to have the Big bad actually use those items during the fight.

[Celcey]

Our DM's fix is to have the Big bad actually use those items during the fight.

I think that's what Moo was saying, the the rolls should be made before so the villain is using any useful items they might find in their horde.

[Sirithhyando]

In my opinion, there's many items that would be good for that level.
My favorite : "Immovable Rod"

This thing saved us a couple of time and if you have 2, you can hold an hammock.

Hum, well, that wasn't the question :smallbiggrin:

So, even if it's not low-fantasy, it's really up to the DM. If you all had a bigger expectation about it, well, you could maybe compromise. Or make one with downtime activity maybe? Or buy one... uncommon magic item are not that expensive and if he's giving you gold instead of the item, you should be able to buy something or have it made.
DM could maybe make aquiring those items a sidequest?
I dont know, there's many possibilities. Me, i give alot (it's high-fantasy), even an home-made artefact that's going to be important one day. :smallbiggrin: My usual DM, it's low/med fantasy and he rewarded us especially at the end of a big sidequest and at one point we heroically killed a manticor, we took his wings and had armor made from it. The armor ended up being a leather armor of resistance. I personally love that how we killed the creature was part of the magic we wear.
There's many possibilities that you could agree upon with your DM and would be fun for everyone. :smallwink:

[Oramac]

I solve this with charges. If a bbeg has a +1 sword then it will only have 5 charges or so. This gets you through a number of hard encounters but then is just a normal sword. This works with shields, armour all kinds of things.

Good option.

Another possibility is proc-based items. For example, a maul that stuns the target if you do X or more damage (probably 2/3-3/4 of its max).

Or a mace for a Cleric that has a chance to radiate 1d4 healing after casting a healing spell.

Small things like that. They don't really break anything major, but when they happen it's usually pretty cool.

[Crusher]

In my opinion, there's many items that would be good for that level.
My favorite : "Immovable Rod"

This thing saved us a couple of time and if you have 2, you can hold an hammock.

Hum, well, that wasn't the question :smallbiggrin:

So, even if it's not low-fantasy, it's really up to the DM. If you all had a bigger expectation about it, well, you could maybe compromise. Or make one with downtime activity maybe? Or buy one... uncommon magic item are not that expensive and if he's giving you gold instead of the item, you should be able to buy something or have it made.
DM could maybe make aquiring those items a sidequest?
I dont know, there's many possibilities. Me, i give alot (it's high-fantasy), even an home-made artefact that's going to be important one day. :smallbiggrin: My usual DM, it's low/med fantasy and he rewarded us especially at the end of a big sidequest and at one point we heroically killed a manticor, we took his wings and had armor made from it. The armor ended up being a leather armor of resistance. I personally love that how we killed the creature was part of the magic we wear.
There's many possibilities that you could agree upon with your DM and would be fun for everyone. :smallwink:

Yeah, you can get pretty creative with magic items. I'm DMing a campaign that's had many characters come through, but the "core" group of 5 players are all about level 7 now. The most powerful, imo, piece of gear I've given out was a shield named "Defiance" they got from killing an NPC famed for his endurance in combat. It was +1, gave advantage on Saves vs Fear and also gave the wielder a +1 to-hit on their first attack after someone missed them. That was fun, because it doesn't feel overpowered, but is handy in multiple little ways and made the character think about the item.

I ran them through Phandelver (plus a number of side adventures, I leveled them a bit slower than normal, in part because there were other players drifting through absorbing XP and in part because I had a story to tell and I didn't want them to level before I finished telling it) which, if a party is thorough, hands out quite a few magic items and there are a few ways to solve this.

I tried tinkering with the items a bit, making them a bit more specialized. But even though I've significantly cut back on magic items handed out since then, I'm already feeling a little concerned about turning the characters into swiss army knives, finding the right tools for the job.

The party's Eldridtch Knight is a two-weapon fighting specialist, and he got the Dragon's Axe and the mace from the Mine in Phandelver, so he had 2 *good* magic weapons by level 5 (if I had it to do over again, I'd totally nerf that mace. Its quite powerful). He's also the only character in the party who uses 1H weapons (wizard, druid, eldritch knight, berserker barbarian, ranger/rogue archer who finally had to use a melee weapon this last adventure for the first time, ever), so when the last adventure yielded a +1 battle axe, no one had a use for it.

Before the adventure started, I nearly tweaked it to being +1, +2 vs goblinoids (or something similar), but I left it at +1 just because I was curious what the players would do with it. Their answer was to throw it into a backpack and forget about it, though they might use it to bribe a powerful wizard they've been dealing with.

Armor is even trickier. They also got a +1 chain shirt in the adventure, and decided to fashion it into magical barding for the Ranger's pet wolf, because no one else had a use for it.

By handing out niche items, you make the finds more interesting (the barbarian has a wicked obsidian greatsword that isn't magical, but has lots of spikes and does +2 damage against humanoids. Plus, it was handy in an ooze-heavy adventure they went through later) and more thought provoking than giving them a flat +1 to everything.

[mgshamster]

He may be following the guidelines in the DMG - standard magic campaign doesn't have you getting a magic item until the 11-16th level range. Even a high magic campaign waits for the 5-10th level range. You are now level 5, so for a high magic you're just at the beginning of the range for a magic item to show up.

As for me, I gave my players magical trinkets at lower levels. Specifically, I used this resource (http://lordbyng.net/inspiration/results.php).

[Demonslayer666]

Just relay your expectations to your DM in a friendly manner. Let him know what you find more fun. I would suggest avoiding derogatory remarks, as they may make the DM plant his feet. Even if he doesn't adjust this campaign, the next one might have more magic because he knows what you want.

Any decent DM can adjust the power level of the encounters to deal with magic items. That's not hard to do.

I gave a 2nd level party a wand of magic missiles, thinking it would be way too powerful. Actual result: they have only used it once.

[BigONotation]

IMHO, spells are magic items and full casters have a chart showing how often and which magic items they can choose. They also become the most mechanically powerful in the end undisputed.

So long as the full caster doesn't get free spells when he levels, I am more than okay with everyone else not getting magic items.

[Joe the Rat]

My advice: Gently suggest he throw some potions and scrolls at you. Consumable magics have less of a long term impact. You can't take back* a Holy Avenger, but that Evard's Tentacles scroll only gets one use (assuming no wizard). You might be able to coax a bit on ammunition.
Or you can turn that gold into almost magic stuff: healing pots, poisons, holy water, scrolls, silver weapons. See if you can get flaming arrowheads made.

The other thing you could do is put in a request for "harmless" Wondrous Items. Everybody loves a Bag of Holding. An Alchemy Jug will be memorable. Poisons? Acid? Nah, I want 8 gallons of mayonnaise! A Bag of Tricks won't save you when you are falling off of a dragon, but it can be amusing distractions.

I'm running a more magical campaign - everybody has at least one permanent item, and a variety of consumables. But I'm also a big fan of quirks. The two magic swords are +1, but with attunement they detect undead within 30'. The Paladin has a light-up warhammer. The Warlock has light-up... er, high beams. The cleric has an battle axe with a vengeful ghost inside that will attempt a possession once it's drunk enough blood, but that's as much a plot point as an item. They have a bowl, which when placed on a consecrated altar, can turn holy water into healing potions. There's a limit, but they usually get kicked out of temples after the first batch or two.


* - okay, yes, you can take it back, but that tends to make for grumpy players.

[Stan]

One other point - there is a disconnect between official lore and empirical data on magic items. I think people have read too much into wotc statements about less dependence on magic items.

The official adventures I've seen have a decent amount of magic items. For example, Lost Mine of Phandelver is levels 1 to 4 or 5. By the end characters have a good chance to have found a wand of magic missiles, a staff that casts web and spider climb, a staff of defense, gauntlets of ogre power, boots of striding and leaping, a couple +1 items, and a dozen single use items. That amounts to a permanent and a disposable item per character.

The random charts also give out some items. Instead of almost no items, it's maybe half of 3e. Rather than believing the (mostly online) lore of no magic items, maybe your DM should not assume the random rolls are giving too much and just let people have stuff.

Personally, I like giving out a few moderately powerful single use items to low level players, such as a scroll of fireball or similar power. They can save the party if used wisely but it's not going to allow them to conquer a country or anything.

[Safety Sword]

I actually don't really like items that are just +1 attack etc.

It's much more exciting for my players to give them magical items that give them an option.

For instance, items that can add elemental damage 3 times a day, allow you to Misty Step once per day, etc. It doesn't screw up combat balance and gives the players choices to make.

I'm also a big fan of items that start minor and gain power as their abilities are unlocked via research (and ritual usually).

[Temperjoke]

I'm a bigger fan of magic items that have unusual abilities or quirky abilities that might be useful in certain situations, or items that handle some of the standard adventuring details, like a Bag of Holding, or Decanter of Endless Water. I think it's a common trap when thinking about magic items to only look at the ones that gives boosts in combat, instead of fun items (yes, I know that some folks prefer combat over other styles of play).

[AmayaElls]

Thank you everyone for your answers so far.

I am a big fan of Bag of tricks and Deck of illusions as early game items. Also other amusing utility items that people can get creative with. Also some of your ideas about homebrew items sounded like a lot of fun.



I want to reiterate, the situation with my current DM made me curious about the norm. This is one of my first games and I was wondering if my first expectations were a little off par. Most of our group also seems fine with the status quo as is, we joke about how we should get magic items (our fighter keeps asking for an instant fortress) but we are having fun. It's a bit jarring every now and again when we are shown a very high magic setting and then are told we won't have any magic items, but we're having too much fun to dwell on it.
I do not intend to use this thread as proof to my DM that magical items are not too dangerous, or to force his hand. I am happy with the world as he is running it and was just curious about the more average worlds.

[Flashy]

Just to add to the general consensus I run a ludicrously high magic campaign and it seems to work fine. No static modifiers, just lots of crazy abilities. 5e is a pretty flexible system, honestly. You just need to be careful with playing with the math too hard.

[Safety Sword]

Just to add to the general consensus I run a ludicrously high magic campaign and it seems to work fine. No static modifiers, just lots of crazy abilities. 5e is a pretty flexible system, honestly. You just need to be careful with playing with the math too hard.

This is pretty much my experience too.

It's hard to optimise in a system that doesn't let you, the idea is that there aren't options that are far above all others. Generally speaking and in real play, it's worked out pretty well.

[Sirithhyando]

[...], but we're having too much fun to dwell on it.
Well, that's the most important thing :)

Oh, maybe you could ask your DM to come up with an idea for masterwork weapon/armor. That's something i find missing in the 5th edition. Loved it in 4th. :smallwink:

[Temperjoke]

Something to consider, if you give a basic magic item to a low level player, I mean an item that has a special ability or something and not just a +1 weapon, it can develop over time into something that's a part of that player's character. I'm thinking of the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, where each of the kids were given a magic item that matched their class. You wouldn't want to give the players a too powerful item at low levels, but a signature cape or boots might go a long way to help flesh out their character.

[BiblioRook]

I'm currently in the same boat with my DM, so I can relate. For a good while the only magic item we had access to was a sword that was specifically tied to the campaign.
He did eventually get inclined to allow us access to magic stuff... but considering the stuff he gave us it was clear he was hoping we would go for novelty over value. Such things included the fallowing:
-Bow of +1d2 damage towards Evil enemies
-Boots of Teleportation (The Boots teleported, but not the wearer)
-Boots of Blinding Speed, doubles speed but renders you blind while using them (the DM also enjoys making the user take damage after using them on account of running into things)
-Cursed ring of unknown properties that mutters "yesss..." to the wearer continuously
And my (least) favorite
-Ring of Tuesday Protection, works as a Ring of Protection, but only on Tuesdays (We played Wednesdays)

To be fair the Ranger does love his bow (because a magic bow is a magic bow) and cursed ring (he uses it to ask for advice) and eventually we managed to get some more actual items out of him. Most notably a Bag of Holding (which he immediately regretted because he apparently didn't know what he was giving us and of late has been trying to encourage us to use it in ways that would clearly destroy it)

[Oramac]

-Ring of Tuesday Protection, works as a Ring of Protection, but only on Tuesdays (We played Wednesdays)

O_o

That sounds like an OOC discussion waiting to happen. Magic items are supposed to be fun to get. Not annoying and worthless.

[Gizmogidget]

In short, it messes with bounded accuracy, but you should have a couple by this level.

DMG Section on Rarity Paragraph 2 pg. 135- " A character doesn't typically find a rare magic item, for example, until around 5th level."

If you are playing in a high magic setting you should have at least got say maybe not a +1 sword, but potions of healing or other minor items. Of course this is different for low magic settings. And the DMG warns not to let rarity get in the way of good gaming, stating that if you want to give a 1st level character a ring of invisibility do so if it makes the game more enjoyable.

[BiblioRook]

O_o

That sounds like an OOC discussion waiting to happen. Magic items are supposed to be fun to get. Not annoying and worthless.

I eventually talked him out of the 'Tuesday' thing and let it just function normally, but it was still really annoying.





As for me, I gave my players magical trinkets at lower levels. Specifically, I used this resource (http://lordbyng.net/inspiration/results.php).

I can see a lot of fun coming out of this as some of these aren't actually that bad, like


Drunkard's Gloves of Channelling

Requires attunement
The bearer always knows the direction to the closest alcoholic beverage.
Once per day, the bearer may ignore the Verbal and/or Somatic components of a spell they are casting.
You have to weed out all of the "Only works when on/in..." items though. What low lever adventurer is going to be spending much if any time on multiple planes?

[Safety Sword]

Oh, dear. I tripped and a Link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?399328-List-of-Mostly-Useless-Magic-Items&highlight=mostly+useless) fell out of my backpack

[LordVonDerp]

I

So long as the full caster doesn't get free spells when he levels, I am more than okay with everyone else not getting magic items.

Don't all casters automatically get free spells as they level?

[Baptor]

Ah, a magic item thread. I'm just glad its not me this time.

I feel you. I'm our group's DM and I've had a hard time figuring out what's best for us in terms of magic items.

So far we've had a lot of fun adapting Monte Cook's Cyphers from Numenera into the game. Essentially 1-use items. We call them trinkets. I made a deck of 3x5 cards full of trinkets and whenever they loot a chest or something I think should have a trinket rolling around in there, I shuffle the deck and draw a card and that's the trinket they find.

They love it.

Still, I am working on how to do more permanent items. One guy here talked about a sword that can deal extra damage x/day and another talked about a +1 sword with 5 charges. I think something like that would be nice.

Elder Scrolls uses magic weapons with charges.

[Carlobrand]

DM's kind of limiting himself. Aren't there beasties that can only be hit by magic? He can't bring those beasties out of the toybox if he won't give you the tools to play with them.

[Democratus]

DM's kind of limiting himself. Aren't there beasties that can only be hit by magic? He can't bring those beasties out of the toybox if he won't give you the tools to play with them.

That's old D&D.

In 5th edition there are creatures that are resistant to non-magical weapons, but they still take damage from mundane weapons.

[Joe the Rat]

The Lycanthrope section appreciates your stance on this issue.
Hide the silverware.

[Fighting_Ferret]

Silvering your weapons will bypass the resistances of lower level undead, all devils, and most fae, as well as lycanthropes that have resistance. Funny enough there are a few enemies that requires magical or adamantium weapons to overcome their resistance, even though there is no guide to having your weapon enhanced using that material.

Of course all magical weapon will pretty much get full damage all the time, thus negate resistance.

[Baptor]

Of course all magical weapon will pretty much get full damage all the time, thus negate resistance.

Yeah, this is why I don't like the whole "Magic weapon overcomes all resistance." It creates the same "you must be this tall to ride" problem of 2ed. Sure, you can still damage them, but double hit points is a big deal.

I think it would have been better to do things similar to 3.5 where each resistant bad guy has a specific resistance like silver, adamantine, cold iron, etc. Magic would be one for things like ghosts, but not a one size fits all.

[BigONotation]

Don't all casters automatically get free spells as they level?
That's the point. Casters get their magic for free, why be punitive to non-casters. In my games, the non-full caster focused magic items are much more common.

[jas61292]

Yeah, this is why I don't like the whole "Magic weapon overcomes all resistance." It creates the same "you must be this tall to ride" problem of 2ed. Sure, you can still damage them, but double hit points is a big deal.

I think it would have been better to do things similar to 3.5 where each resistant bad guy has a specific resistance like silver, adamantine, cold iron, etc. Magic would be one for things like ghosts, but not a one size fits all.

I agree with this so much. I get they wanted to simplify things from 3.5, but the way it is now makes it too much of a thoughtless toggle. There is no reason to think about or figure out resistances. Either you have magic and ignore them, or you don't. That would be fine if there were other types of weapon damage resistances, but there really are not.

[Fighting_Ferret]

Well on the other side if the coin, they also really came down hard on immunity as well, meaning even if they have resistance, and you don't have magic...you can still cause some damage.