Feeling Epic With Magic Items

[DrLoveMonkey]

Okay so I was having a discussion with my group about higher tiers of play, and keeping everyone feeling like they belong there. It was actually an offshoot of the thief not being able to infiltrate past two aware guards discussion. We settled on the idea that surely a max level rogue must have a wand of sleep or a cloak of invisibility or something. Some magical item or device that lets them infiltrate into otherwise impossible areas.

That got me thinking about how important it might be for characters at higher tiers to have those kind of wondrous items. Specifically not talking about a +3 sword or vambraces of defense here. I’m thinking more of a warrior with a cape that lets him breathe and swim through the ocean like a fish, a ring with 3 charges that lets him dimension door, and pinion clipped to his lance that lets him fall safely from any height and glimmers in the presence of outsiders.

I think it might even be important, although less so, for full casters. Having a little selection of recharging wands up your sleeves, literally, can make you feel like a hell of a wizard.

BUT I was originally told way back when it launched that 5e in no way requires magic items. Which I think is technically true from a combat standpoint, it’s not high level 3.5 where everyone needed their cloaks of resistance and the like. On the other hand they might be required to keep everyone solidly feeling like their characters belong in a story where they’re treating with an irfrit sultan or smashing pit fiends in the face. Am I wrong?

[GlenSmash!]

Getting an iconic magic item or 2 is an intrinsic part of heroic for me. Probably because of the gift giving in Lothlorien scene from the Lord of the Rings. there is just something defining about getting a small number of useful or powerful magic items.

So that's what I try to emulate in my games.

[Segev]

I think 5e is speaking directly to "balanced combat" when it claims magic items are superfluous. Magic items, too, tend to do a lot more "expand breadth of ability" rather than "add depth of power" in 5e. It's not 100% true, but in general, they try to avoid having magic items be essential or overpowering by keeping numbers balanced for the assumption of no magic items, then having magic items allow you to do new things. Or, for some (like wands) certain things more frequently.

[RulesJD]

Just keep this in mind -> http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?592881-Game-Changing-Magic-Items

[Man_Over_Game]

One concern that comes up with magic items is figuring out how scaling works. Magic items defy physics and reality, and they bypass limitations that are part of the skill/class system (for example, letting a Rogue easily combine Invisibility with Stealth Expertise, when normally combining those things is expensive).

And the fact is, the DM is only human. Coming up with mundane problems, solved with generally mundane things, is very easy for most DMs. Now add a bunch of magic items into the mix, and coming up with a "challenge" across 5 characters, 3 magic solutions apiece BEFORE considering their build abilities, and it starts getting very challenging to set up a well-paced adventure.

Another thing to note is making sure that magic items aren't making builds/characters redundant. If your party is having fun with a social/espionage campaign and is manipulating their way into success, tossing in a Detect Thoughts item might invalidate the value of the Rogue or Warlock, despite providing the party more options.

I think that's why the standard pacing of 5e is a slow trickle of magic items, just enough to spice things up past your character build. Jump the gun a bit, give them something like a rechargeable Dimension Door, and now it's hard to create any meaningful campaign or challenge.

[Frozenstep]

The whole no-magic items required thing is more that you can fight that pit fiend without needing to be loaded with magic items in the first place (except for perhaps a basic magic weapon).

But I agree that part of feeling like an epic character is having all sorts of tricks up your sleeve.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Yeah they can definitely make things a lot different and sometimes harder to DM, as the magic item tier thread is showing. Most of this is coming from my group deciding a year or two ago that it’s dumb how we basically never get past 10th level and there’s like half the game and class abilities that we’re not interacting with so our last campaign and this current one we’re/are dedicated to getting to level 20. So we’re running into some problems that we haven’t seen before, or haven’t seen since 3.5.

One was just needing to stick more to adventuring days for the sake of runaway casters. It wasn’t so bad at low level but with 10+ fireballs per day it’s very noticeable. Another though was that the story was seeming to grow epic enough that in spite of the legendary numbers of HP and damage they weren’t always feeling like the sorts of demigods they should have. So I made up some artifacts that let the Barbarian fly on a stream of flame, immune to fire, and cast up to 5th level fire based spells with recharging spell point, the Horizon Walker an amulet of plane shift and an item that let him use Guardian of Nature for free. It ended up being a pretty epic campaign clearly, and it definitely felt better than how it was before.