Discussion: What if Tomes of Stats operated for multiple levels?

[Segev]

Tomes have always required weeks of study before they buff the stats they affect. This requires downtime, but is an in-play sudden increase. What if, instead, a tome required you to be attuned to it and study it nightly, an if you do, you gain +1 to your stat the next two times you level?

Or if that's not enough, the next three? Four? Five? As long as you stay attuned.

Maximum Stat values increasing along with this, still.

It seems to me this would smooth out the increase, but makes the tome itself more of an investment to profit from. Further tweaking on whether you can lose attunement and resume it later to resume gaining the effects is possible.

[nickl_2000]

What happens if a level 19 character gets one?
Can you pass it along to someone else?
What if I get only a +1, can I give it to someone else so they can get a +1 before it goes dormant?

[stoutstien]

I dislike the tomes in the same vien that I dislike any item that just sets a ability value at X. They don't really add anything positive to my games. If the players are allowed to seek them out then they will because why would you not and if they are found at random it a quick change of a few values and forgotten about. That is the exact opposite effect discovery should have.

[Sigreid]

I personally don't think your idea would break the game. Mostly because if you give one of these books you've clearly already decided it's ok for one of your players to get the boost. I will say that by requiring a week of downtime you have the opportunity to allow the others something as well, like maybe feat training or research time into something they desire, etc.

Honestly, if you are willing to give the book, it probably wouldn't be a problem to simply require them to read it over the course of a long rest or 2. You've already decided the increase is acceptable.

[Unoriginal]

Tomes have always required weeks of study before they buff the stats they affect. This requires downtime, but is an in-play sudden increase. What if, instead, a tome required you to be attuned to it and study it nightly, an if you do, you gain +1 to your stat the next two times you level?

Or if that's not enough, the next three? Four? Five? As long as you stay attuned.

Maximum Stat values increasing along with this, still.

It seems to me this would smooth out the increase, but makes the tome itself more of an investment to profit from. Further tweaking on whether you can lose attunement and resume it later to resume gaining the effects is possible.

As a matter of personal taste, I much, much prefer the "you red the book, the magic goes away, and X part of yourself becomes better" way.

What you're proposing isn't game-breaking, having an item dependent on you gaining levels wouldn't be very fun to me, and 5e avoids the "item gives you +X to a stat" design for a reason.

[Valmark]

Tomes have always required weeks of study before they buff the stats they affect. This requires downtime, but is an in-play sudden increase. What if, instead, a tome required you to be attuned to it and study it nightly, an if you do, you gain +1 to your stat the next two times you level?

Or if that's not enough, the next three? Four? Five? As long as you stay attuned.

Maximum Stat values increasing along with this, still.

It seems to me this would smooth out the increase, but makes the tome itself more of an investment to profit from. Further tweaking on whether you can lose attunement and resume it later to resume gaining the effects is possible.

Imo this would be worst because... Somehow, an high level spellcaster can't benefit from it while lower level spellcasters can.

That... Just makes no sense in my head. I much prefer like it is now- and I wouldn't really call it a sudden increase since like you said it requires downtime. It's different from getting a new flashy magical item only in the fact that this takes time to take effect.

[Segev]

As a matter of personal taste, I much, much prefer the "you red the book, the magic goes away, and X part of yourself becomes better" way.

What you're proposing isn't game-breaking, having an item dependent on you gaining levels wouldn't be very fun to me, and 5e avoids the "item gives you +X to a stat" design for a reason.

What reason is that?

The Belt of Dwarvenkind gives you +2 to Constitution. Several Ioun Stones give you +2 to stats.

Also, I am not proposing the bonuses go away if you stop being attuned. The design intent here is that you have to stay attuned to keep gaining +1 each level. Cease to be attuned, and you don't get +1 next level. You retain the ones you already had.


On tomes not adding anything positive because they just give a boost to stats, do you also feel that way about ASIs?


The question on what happens if a level 19 or 20 character gets one is a valid one. Since the goal isn't to make them item give less benefit in the end, probably some caveat about it granting a level 20 character its full benefits immediately or somesuch.

[Monster Manuel]

What reason is that?


Can't point to a specific post or SA entry or Tweet that supports this, but if I remember right there were two reasons they wanted to avoid the +X stat boost items. The first was that it was contributing to the "Christmas Tree Magic Items" model of 3e, where you load your character up with items giving small buffs and boosts. They thought that was boring, and figured it was no longer necessary with bounded accuracy (the game was built around the assumption that you wouldn't need those +x to stats).

The second reason was that in many cases they didn't do what they said on the tin. A magic belt that makes you strong is cool, but a wizard with a STR of 10 puts on a Belt of Physical Might and goes to a 12, and it's kind of a let-down. A belt that gives you a 20 STR outright will make the wearer strong. This also, kind of, I think dips into questions of balance...they wanted an upper bound on stats, so an item that gives enough of a bonus to always be significant can also result in a 20STR fighter suddenly getting a 26 STR. Then he gets an ioun stone and a Belt of Dwarvenkind, and rocks a 30 STR, and is suddenly WAY outside the imagined limits of bounded accuracy.

I think it's a little bit of an overreach...as long as the +x items are rare and/or don't stack with eachother, it doesn't break anything in practice. A +2 Strength is just a +1 to hit and damage, whih is significant, but not unbalancing. It's when that +2 becomes a +2+1+4+1 from multiple sources that it gets to be a problem, but that's not really an option at this point in the game.

As to your suggestion about the Tomes, I was expecting something that worked more or less the way it does now, but the benefit is level dependent. So, you spend a week of downtime and get a bonus to a stat. At Tier 2 levels, it's a +1, at Tier 3 it increases to a +2 and in Tier 3 you get a +3. So, it stays relevant (and appropriately scaled) throughout the character's whole career. If a Lvl 19 mage reads a tome, they get the +3 right away, but if a 5th level mage reads that same book, where a +3 to their INT could be a huge boon, they only get a +1 until they level up enough to earn the larger bonuses later.

Tying it to attunement would, I think, be tricky. What happens if they lose attunement at some point? Do they have to start over? What if they re-attune to it later? Can you metagame this item by attuning to it just before you level up, and then dropping the attunement in favor of something more interesting until it's time to level again? It seems like tying it to Tier may give you a similar result without the extra bookkeeping.