Xmas tree magic items was never the problem and attunement hurts the game

[Schwann145]

Being decked out in magic items was never problematic.
The problem was that 3.X design purposely included "system mastery" as a design point, so specific magic items always won out in importance.
Wearing two rings, bracers, a cloak, armor, a headband, a belt, gloves, etc and so on, by itself, is fine. The fact that you were "doing it wrong" if that cloak wasn't a Cloak of Resistance, that ring wasn't a Ring of Protection, that headband wasn't a "Headband of *Stat*," that amulet wasn't "Amulet of Nat Armor," etc etc was the real problem.

Interesting magic items always had to take a back seat to stat boosts in order to keep up with the silliness of the math as the game progressed. Magic items didn't feel like fun rewards, but like requirements.
But, also, magic items *are* requirements - required to bridge that martial/caster disparity.

And that's where attunement's failure comes in.
By introducing attunement to fix the "christmas tree problem" (when the actual problem was never the tree, but the required ornaments for the tree), we are stuck in a design space where, even with heavy nerfs to magic, the disparity between magic and mundane is still a chasm.

You need look no further than BG3 and it's lack of attunement limitation to see that access to many magic items does not hurt the game, nor does it hurt the fun.
If Game Design is smart about how it designs magic items (ie: making them interesting rather than simply mathematically superior), then they could go a long way towards making sure all those Fighters and Rogues and Barbarians and what not don't feel totally outclassed by the Clerics and Sorcerers and Wizards.

And... I'm about 99% certain 5.5 will not be learning this lesson.
RIP.

[JNAProductions]

Wouldn’t the solution to “Martials drool, casters rule!” Be to make martials better?
Like, not just with items. Just make them better in the classes themselves.

[Schwann145]

Wouldn’t the solution to “Martials drool, casters rule!” Be to make martials better?
Like, not just with items. Just make them better in the classes themselves.

Depends on how you define, "better."

Magic is a tool that a regular dude uses to effect. Without using that magic, there is nothing special about a Wizard; still just a person with all the ups/downs/expectations of being a person.
If "making martials better" means making them into something approaching demigods or anime characters, you suddenly have this weird disconnect where some regular dudes become superhuman while other regular dudes stay regular, despite having a toolbox full of powerful magic to wield. Why aren't the Wizards becoming demigods/anime characters on top of being wizards?

The cleanest default is that everyone starts and paths along the same playing field, their only differences being the tools they use. Or, in other words, it's the same reason you don't let one player be a human Mage and then, to make up for it, let another player be a full grown adult Red Dragon.

But, since a grenade is more powerful than a pokey stick (ie: magic vs non-magic), then you have to balance everything by giving magic to everyone. If the class can't cast spells, then they have to get it elsewhere.
If the argument is "pokey sticks should be equal to grenades," I don't know how to have that discussion.

[clash]

Depends on how you define, "better."

Magic is a tool that a regular dude uses to effect. Without using that magic, there is nothing special about a Wizard; still just a person with all the ups/downs/expectations of being a person.
If "making martials better" means making them into something approaching demigods or anime characters, you suddenly have this weird disconnect where some regular dudes become superhuman while other regular dudes stay regular, despite having a toolbox full of powerful magic to wield. Why aren't the Wizards becoming demigods/anime characters on top of being wizards?

This question doesn't really make sense to me. People specialize in different things. If I spend all my time studying to become a surgeon and someone else spends there's training to be a world class boxer why should I also be a world class boxer just cause he was able to accomplish it?

One person trains to be a wizard another to be an anime character. Either character could have accomplished the other feat but they were busy accomplishing the thing they chose.

[Schwann145]

This question doesn't really make sense to me. People specialize in different things. If I spend all my time studying to become a surgeon and someone else spends there's training to be a world class boxer why should I also be a world class boxer just cause he was able to accomplish it?

One person trains to be a wizard another to be an anime character. Either character could have accomplished the other feat but they were busy accomplishing the thing they chose.

To attempt to answer/clarify this: if one can get all the benefits of "the magic" without actually needing the magic, then why would anyone ever use the magic? The magic can be taken away, but being "as good as the magic" can't.

[JNAProductions]

To attempt to answer/clarify this: if one can get all the benefits of "the magic" without actually needing the magic, then why would anyone ever use the magic? The magic can be taken away, but being "as good as the magic" can't.

How do you "take away" the magic?

You can lose spell components or casting foci.
You can also lose weapons or armor.
The ability to cast is gonna be there, just like the ability to swing a sword is there whether or not you actually have a sword.

The main issue I see with your suggestion is that, under the assumption that casters are fine and martials need support, you should not have to rely on the DM dropping the right items to make a PC competent. It's why I have a distaste for PCs that rely on Strength as an ability score and a Belt of Giant Strength-it's effective, letting you dump your main stat while still benefiting from a high stat-but I dislike it.
Which relates to why the Christmas Tree is an issue for me-if Groshnak The Fierce, 20th level Barbarian, needs more than basic gear to be awesome, then Groshnak isn't awesome. It's his gear that makes him awesome. (By basic gear here, I would mean... Well, basically just a two-handed weapon. Maybe a shield and armor, but mundane gear.)

To relate back to 3.5, a 5th level PC with 20th level wealth can be made significantly stronger than a 20th level Fighter with 5th level wealth. It's not even especially hard. And that? That's a problem to me.

[akma]

A different approach could be to change magic itself, so it will have more counter-play without resorting to magical items.

[Chaos Jackal]

Attunement in and of itself is not that bad as an idea. The point of attunement is essentially twofold - one, to curb the issues of a character having a metric ton of magic items, which can be related to either power or a long list of things to track, and to fix the issue of required magic gear, like the Big 6 of 3.5, by making items few, optional and not necessary to play. Both points are valid and in theory, attunement could solve them.

The problem is that the implementation is far from ideal and the combination with certain other perks of 5e, primarily bounded accuracy, makes it worse. See, magic items are, or at least are supposed to be, fun and cool. They're something to look forward to, to shake things up, to give you new things to do in and possibly out of combat. Yet the ways the rules suggest to hand them out range from bad to terrible and attunement proves to be both a massive downer and an absolute pain in the rear. If you play a magic item-rich game using official items, for example, there's a good chance that sooner rather than later you'll start, more or less regrettably, to pass over stuff and ignore numerous options, because you can only attune three items and a boatload of the (interesting) options are attunement-only. Weapon with unique but situational effect? Would be interesting, I'd love to, except I have a Flame Tongue and it just doesn't make sense to drop it.

Or, you know, look at shields. A generic +3 shield is among the best shields in the game, if not the very best one, because a flat +3 to AC all the time is massive and it requires no attunement, while many magical shields with cool effects don't have an AC bonus and require attunement to boot. The issue is similar with a lot of weapons, because a bog-standard +X weapon is actually very powerful for its "intended" level of rarity, owing to how bounded accuracy works, but is not attunement. And having a magical weapon happens to be a requirement for the majority of martial-oriented characters, so hooray, you have a full-blown failure of attunement's purposes in your hands - there is an item requirement where one shouldn't be and the character potentially has more power than they're supposed to.

Attunement would be better if it was more prevalent when it comes to actually strong magic items or if it was limited to some specific item types, while for the rest you'd be presented with nice, but situational effects that would spice up your sessions without posing an existential threat to planned boss fights.

It's not about attunement as an idea. Magic items in 5e are just a mess if you try to use the systems and options in the way they are presented.

[Akal Saris]

I agree with everything Chaos Jackal just said. And in addition, 3 attunement slots, in my experience, is more limiting for martial characters than spellcasters, especially if you're dual wielding. Meanwhile, the list of useful non-attunement items is actually quite small for rare/very rare items, which is really frustrating if all of your attunement slots are 'spoken for' already.

[JayDomK]

This question doesn't really make sense to me. People specialize in different things. If I spend all my time studying to become a surgeon and someone else spends there's training to be a world class mifinity specialist why should I also be a world class mifinity specialist just cause he was able to accomplish it?

One person trains to be a wizard another to be an anime character. Either character could have accomplished the other feat but they were busy accomplishing the things they chose.

Really, why complicate things? Let each character do what he wants and can do. And it will eliminate the need to do what he don't want to do.
If I'm a surgeon and I hate boxing, why should I study boxing? I don't like that idea.

[JayDomK]

But, since a grenade is more powerful than a pokey stick (ie: magic vs non-magic), then you have to balance everything by giving magic to everyone. If the class can't cast spells, then they have to get it elsewhere.
If the argument is "pokey sticks should be equal to grenades," I don't know how to have that discussion.

If there is no equality of classes, then one class becomes more powerful and advantageous. Do you want more inequality?
And if everyone has the need to learn magic even if they don't want to do it, then it would create discomfort in the game, wouldn't it?

[Amnestic]

Stat stick magic items (eg. Ring of Protection) are 'easy' to Christmas tree because it's a fire-and-forget note on your character sheet until you look to change rings. Christmas treeing 'interesting' magic items will inevitably lead to half of them getting forgotten, whether they're active or passive.

BG3 is more easily able to have all these interesting magic items because the computer does all the offloading of remembering them for you, and it doesn't need to go "oh actually, I just remembered this" thirteen times a round as players remember that their ring lets them do an additional 1d4 psychic damage when Mercury is in retrograde.

3 slots might be overly limiting in tier 3-4 (and I've changed attunement slots=PB in my games, so characters max out at 6, or 12 in the case of an Artificer (their capstone still caps at +6 to saves)) but removing attunement entirely is, I think, a mistake.

If you want to argue the removal of any +1s/2s/3s on magic items in favour of only interesting effects though I could certainly get behind it. Someone might actually cast Magic Weapon then.

[InvisibleBison]

To attempt to answer/clarify this: if one can get all the benefits of "the magic" without actually needing the magic, then why would anyone ever use the magic? The magic can be taken away, but being "as good as the magic" can't.

Magic and spellcasting aren't the same thing. Well-designed high level martials who can keep up with spellcasters may in fact be using magic, just to augment their physical prowess rather than to cast spells.

[Dr.Samurai]

I generally agree with the OP.

5E has made magic items a scary bad thing that you have to be cautious about. And attunement makes magic items unfun as soon as you have to start turning down new magic items or picking and choosing which ones to keep.

Just keep the "necessary" power gamer +stat items as requiring attunement, and leave all the interesting stuff without it.

5E does this to some extent; there's a lot of items that can be used without attunement. But in my experience, modules don't hand out nearly enough magic items, and neither do my in-person DMs.

And in my current game, I have a sword that does +1d6 cold damage against any enemy, and another sword that does +2d6 vs giants. I have to attune to both, even though I will only ever use one at at time. And my cursed armor requires attunement as well. So I'm tapped out. Yay, much fun.

[Segev]

On the one hand, I see the value of limiting some of what any one PC can have to force more interesting choices as one player's full attunement count might hand a new magic item that normally would go into his golf bag to a different player who actually can attune a new item.

And, if you want to make the 'set to 19' stat items a choice rather than a 'gimme', making them eat a precious attunement slot is a good way to do it.

That said, I think 5e could have done more with it, and maybe over-applied it. Imagine if fighters had a bonus attunement slot or two for armor and weapons. Or the Thief Rogue's Use Magic Device let him shift attunement as a use of cunning action. Give different classes different limits.

Lately, I have been brainstorming the notion that magic item sets are sets less due to combo powers (though those could still be a thing) and more due to all of them in a set occupying only one attunement slot. Mordenkainen's Archmagus Regalia might be a Staff of the Magi, a Robe of the Archmage, and a Pointy Hat or Power, all of which can be attuned together as if they were only one magic item.

I also still think Ioun Stones should not require attunement.

[Mindflayer_Inc]

Wouldn’t the solution to “Martials drool, casters rule!” Be to make martials better?
Like, not just with items. Just make them better in the classes themselves.

Yup.

The problem is that 3.x made items mandatory for non-casters to try and keep up.

Tome of Battle fixed that problem (mostly)

[Blatant Beast]

Attunement would be better if it was more prevalent when it comes to actually strong magic items or if it was limited to some specific item types, while for the rest you'd be presented with nice, but situational effects that would spice up your sessions without posing an existential threat to planned boss fights.

It's not about attunement as an idea. Magic items in 5e are just a mess if you try to use the systems and options in the way they are presented.

I completely agree with your entire post. The idea of Attunement is fine, the problem lies in too many items requiring Attunement.

A Ring of Protection is a basic item, and should not require Attunement.

I do think tweaking Attunement ‘slots’ so the number of attunment slots advance with one’s Proficiency Bonus, would be a nice change. (I use this as a Houserule)

[Segev]

I completely agree with your entire post. The idea of Attunement is fine, the problem lies in too many items requiring Attunement.

A Ring of Protection is a basic item, and should not require Attunement.

I do think tweaking Attunement ‘slots’ so the number of attunment slots advance with one’s Proficiency Bonus, would be a nice change. (I use this as a Houserule)

Ironically, the reason the Ring of Protection has an attunement requirement is the lack of anti-stacking rules in 5e. If you attuned three Rings of Protection, their bonuses would all stack.

[stoutstien]

Ironically, the reason the Ring of Protection has an attunement requirement is the lack of anti-stacking rules in 5e. If you attuned three Rings of Protection, their bonuses would all stack.

Not true.
DMG
Combining Game Effects (p.252). When two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them applies.
See Combining Magical Effects” section of chapter 10 in the Player’s Handbook.

You can combine the ring and cloak but not two rings.

[KorvinStarmast]

Being decked out in magic items was never problematic.

In AD&D and previous eras, finding magic items was a significant part of the reason one went adventuring. (IIRC, staves and wands had finite charges and could not be recharged, but my memory of how that works in AD&D 2e is gone).

And that's where attunement's failure comes in.

Not a failure, a good feature.
I like attunement. It requires players to make a choice. It also emulates the idea (which I find appealing) that magic items can interfere with each other (kind of like radio frequency interference)

That said, what needs attunement and what doesn't need attunement might need a tweak here and there.

You need look no further than BG3 and it's lack of attunement limitation to see that access to many magic items does not hurt the game, nor does it hurt the fun.

It's a computer game.

Suggested Attunement rule tweak: martial characters can attune as many items as their proficiency bonus. (Rogue, fighter, monk, Barbarian, Ranger Paladin).

Casters can attune up to three.

This would IMO bring back some of the high level Fighting Men over time have accumulated a bunch of magical items and through that key aspect of adventuring, close the perceived balance problem in Tiers 3 and 4.

Attunement in and of itself is not that bad as an idea. The point of attunement is essentially twofold - one, to curb the issues of a character having a metric ton of magic items, which can be related to either power or a long list of things to track, and to fix the issue of required magic gear, like the Big 6 of 3.5, by making items few, optional and not necessary to play. Both points are valid and in theory, attunement could solve them.

Implementation was uneven.

See, magic items are, or at least are supposed to be, fun and cool.

This, right here.

They're something to look forward to,

They are, or once were, part of the whole point of going adventuring.

I agree with everything Chaos Jackal just said. And in addition, 3 attunement slots, in my experience, is more limiting for martial characters than spellcasters, especially if you're dual wielding. Meanwhile, the list of useful non-attunement items is actually quite small for rare/very rare items, which is really frustrating if all of your attunement slots are 'spoken for' already.

See my suggestion above on martials getting more attunement slots.

Someone might actually cast Magic Weapon then.

It's a very good spell in a game where there are almost no magic items/weapons. I have played in two of those.

And, if you want to make the 'set to 19' stat items a choice rather than a 'gimme', making them eat a precious attunement slot is a good way to do it.

Good point. I have an orc battle master who has the headband of intellect. Smartest Orc in the Flanaess, as far as we can tell.
Rogue/Thief's UMD ability needs to come on line before lvl 13. (I think 9 might be a better time for that).

Supreme Sneak
Starting at 9th level, you have advantage on a Dexterity (Stealth) check if you move no more than half your speed on the same turn.

Use Magic Device
By 13th level, you have learned enough about the workings of magic that you can improvise the use of items even when they are not intended for you. You ignore all class, race, and level requirements on the use of magic items.

Not sure how good that level 9 feature is, as I've not played a level 10+ rogue/thief. Depends on the game, I guess.

I also still think Ioun Stones should not require attunement.

I think it would be cool for Ioun stones, no matter how many you have, to take up one slot. (They don't get found very often anyway, in my experience).

Ironically, the reason the Ring of Protection has an attunement requirement is the lack of anti-stacking rules in 5e. If you attuned three Rings of Protection, their bonuses would all stack.

Fortunately, there is a rule in the DMG explicitly against that kind of stacking.

[Pex]

My 11th level game, the party just acquired gauntlets of ogre power. No one wants it. The fighter already has 18 ST. The wizard considered carrying capacity, but it's not that important a necessity at this time. The cleric doesn't do melee. The warlock fights with Charisma. Some 5E magic items look cool on paper, but in reality they are useless. The Amulet of Health is the only set to 19 magic item that's worth anything because anyone can use hit points even you only have adventurer tax 14. Not even the saving throw bonus is appealing for the others. Maybe the 10 Stat character will take it but only because of might as well no one else is, not Oh Gimme!

[Mindflayer_Inc]

In AD&D and previous eras, finding magic items was a significant part of the reason one went adventuring. (IIRC, staves and wands had finite charges and could not be recharged, but my memory of how that works in AD&D 2e is gone).

Not a failure, a good feature.
I like attunement. It requires players to make a choice. It also emulates the idea (which I find appealing) that magic items can interfere with each other (kind of like radio frequency interference)

That said, what needs attunement and what doesn't need attunement might need a tweak here and there.

It's a computer game.

Suggested Attunement rule tweak: martial characters can attune as many items as their proficiency bonus. (Rogue, fighter, monk, Barbarian, Ranger Paladin).

Casters can attune up to three.

This would IMO bring back some of the high level Fighting Men over time have accumulated a bunch of magical items and through that key aspect of adventuring, close the perceived balance problem in Tiers 3 and 4.
Implementation was uneven.

This, right here.

They are, or once were, part of the whole point of going adventuring.
See my suggestion above on martials getting more attunement slots.

It's a very good spell in a game where there are almost no magic items/weapons. I have played in two of those.
Good point. I have an orc battle master who has the headband of intellect. Smartest Orc in the Flanaess, as far as we can tell.
Rogue/Thief's UMD ability needs to come on line before lvl 13. (I think 9 might be a better time for that).
Not sure how good that level 9 feature is, as I've not played a level 10+ rogue/thief. Depends on the game, I guess.
I think it would be cool for Ioun stones, no matter how many you have, to take up one slot. (They don't get found very often anyway, in my experience).
Fortunately, there is a rule in the DMG explicitly against that kind of stacking.

Supreme Sneak is such a scam, rogues should get a friend to take Tricker Cleric 2 for a (mostly) better version.

[LudicSavant]

Regarding Supreme Sneak:

Not sure how good that level 9 feature is, as I've not played a level 10+ rogue/thief.

Not very, especially since Reliable Talent comes right next level and doesn't stack well with Advantage (the average effective bonus from Reliable Talent to an Advantage roll is +0.7).

The best stealth features generally let you boost the stealth of allies or hide from things that auto-detect (like allow you to hide with less cover, or evade special senses or divination spells). Thief's kit offers neither, and even slows your movement speed while it's in use.

Also, as Mindflayer_Inc mentions above, the level 1 Trickster Cleric has a better stealth feature than this. Soulknife Rogues do, too. It's alright, but it doesn't live up to the moniker of "supreme."

Attunement in and of itself is not that bad as an idea. The point of attunement is essentially twofold - one, to curb the issues of a character having a metric ton of magic items, which can be related to either power or a long list of things to track, and to fix the issue of required magic gear, like the Big 6 of 3.5, by making items few, optional and not necessary to play. Both points are valid and in theory, attunement could solve them.

The problem is that the implementation is far from ideal and the combination with certain other perks of 5e, primarily bounded accuracy, makes it worse. See, magic items are, or at least are supposed to be, fun and cool. They're something to look forward to, to shake things up, to give you new things to do in and possibly out of combat. Yet the ways the rules suggest to hand them out range from bad to terrible and attunement proves to be both a massive downer and an absolute pain in the rear. If you play a magic item-rich game using official items, for example, there's a good chance that sooner rather than later you'll start, more or less regrettably, to pass over stuff and ignore numerous options, because you can only attune three items and a boatload of the (interesting) options are attunement-only. Weapon with unique but situational effect? Would be interesting, I'd love to, except I have a Flame Tongue and it just doesn't make sense to drop it.

Or, you know, look at shields. A generic +3 shield is among the best shields in the game, if not the very best one, because a flat +3 to AC all the time is massive and it requires no attunement, while many magical shields with cool effects don't have an AC bonus and require attunement to boot. The issue is similar with a lot of weapons, because a bog-standard +X weapon is actually very powerful for its "intended" level of rarity, owing to how bounded accuracy works, but is not attunement. And having a magical weapon happens to be a requirement for the majority of martial-oriented characters, so hooray, you have a full-blown failure of attunement's purposes in your hands - there is an item requirement where one shouldn't be and the character potentially has more power than they're supposed to.

Attunement would be better if it was more prevalent when it comes to actually strong magic items or if it was limited to some specific item types, while for the rest you'd be presented with nice, but situational effects that would spice up your sessions without posing an existential threat to planned boss fights.

It's not about attunement as an idea. Magic items in 5e are just a mess if you try to use the systems and options in the way they are presented.

Agree with pretty much all of this. Attunement has potential, but the fact that something like a +3 shield doesn't take attunement really undermines its value as a mechanic.

[Inquisitor]

My 11th level game, the party just acquired gauntlets of ogre power. No one wants it. The fighter already has 18 ST. The wizard considered carrying capacity, but it's not that important a necessity at this time. The cleric doesn't do melee. The warlock fights with Charisma. Some 5E magic items look cool on paper, but in reality they are useless. The Amulet of Health is the only set to 19 magic item that's worth anything because anyone can use hit points even you only have adventurer tax 14. Not even the saving throw bonus is appealing for the others. Maybe the 10 Stat character will take it but only because of might as well no one else is, not Oh Gimme!

Part of this is the attunement limit, but part of this is another issue with 5e, that some ability scores are (almost) meaningless for almost all characters. Further, besides getting a moderate Con that you allude to, a lot of characters don't get a lot of benefit out of anything other than their prime attribute. In older editions, at least encumbrance was a real part of the game and intelligence provided more skills and/or languages.

Given the way the game is going, most people don't agree, but I'd consider the 5e Paly to be the model for class design as it relates to ability scores. You can focus on Cha, attack stat, or feats (or in some combination) and make an effective character. Those Gauntlets would be amazing provided you didn't already have an 18; for a Str based fighter they might be OK for a while, but eventually you're going to want a 20 anyway.

[Mindflayer_Inc]

Part of this is the attunement limit, but part of this is another issue with 5e, that some ability scores are (almost) meaningless for almost all characters. Further, besides getting a moderate Con that you allude to, a lot of characters don't get a lot of benefit out of anything other than their prime attribute. In older editions, at least encumbrance was a real part of the game and intelligence provided more skills and/or languages.

Given the way the game is going, most people don't agree, but I'd consider the 5e Paly to be the model for class design as it relates to ability scores. You can focus on Cha, attack stat, or feats (or in some combination) and make an effective character. Those Gauntlets would be amazing provided you didn't already have an 18; for a Str based fighter they might be OK for a while, but eventually you're going to want a 20 anyway.

Started fiddling with some homebrew where classes are designed around Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma. Wisdom gets lumped in with Constitution where abilities aren't connected to it, but it does play a role. Constitution is mostly HP and Wisdom is mostly "6th sense / oh crap meter" via perception.

Probably will call them something else eventually, might pull from Cipher System (Might, Speed, Intellect, etc...).

So, Cleric casting is now Intelligence (knowledge of divine doctrine makes the god appeased) but can also be charisma (how cool the deity thinks you are).

This still gives you dump stats, but because everything is mostly focused to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma you aren't stretched as thin.

[Dork_Forge]

I think attunement is a good thing for the game and actually presents interesting choice for players to make. Shuffling items and choosing what's best is a part of my high level table's prep phase, it works well.

I do have to disagree with pointing to BG3 as evidence of anything, though. I haven't played it (yet) but I have many players that have and have been part of the discussions:

- Multiple found magic items to be an immense source of power, with one explicitly saying having a bunch of broken items made end game super easy.
- The game may be based around 5e, but it is so drastically different you can't really compare them like you're intending to. Bonus action jumping, the way potions and positioning work etc. martials are in a very different place in BG3 than they are in 5e. To then look at items in isolation of that misses too much context.

[Blatant Beast]

I think attunement is a good thing for the game and actually presents interesting choice for players to make. Shuffling items and choosing what's best is a part of my high level table's prep phase, it works well.

I do have to disagree with pointing to BG3 as evidence of anything, though. I haven't played it (yet) but I have many players that have and have been part of the discussions:

- Multiple found magic items to be an immense source of power, with one explicitly saying having a bunch of broken items made end game super easy.
- The game may be based around 5e, but it is so drastically different you can't really compare them like you're intending to. Bonus action jumping, the way potions and positioning work etc. martials are in a very different place in BG3 than they are in 5e. To then look at items in isolation of that misses too much context.

One, ideally, is not looking at BG3 in isolation, one is directly comparing the two experiences. Ludic Savant boiled down the difference in one moderately lengthy post in the BG3 Martial thread that was floating around the board.

What BG3 makes apparent is:

• easily accessible mobility enhancements for Strength based characters is something that makes those characters fun, and seems to be a broadly popular change.
• People like Magic items, even bunch’s of small powered items that mainly serve as flavor and world building…(The Forgotten Realms has a lot of history and a lot of enchanted items).
• This is not solely a BG3 Revelation, but Many items from the DMG Suck, even some Legendary ones.

Is Efreeti Chainmail ‘better’ than Plate Mail +3?

[Psyren]

You need look no further than BG3 and it's lack of attunement limitation to see that access to many magic items does not hurt the game, nor does it hurt the fun.
If Game Design is smart about how it designs magic items (ie: making them interesting rather than simply mathematically superior), then they could go a long way towards making sure all those Fighters and Rogues and Barbarians and what not don't feel totally outclassed by the Clerics and Sorcerers and Wizards.

And... I'm about 99% certain 5.5 will not be learning this lesson.
RIP.

You can't really look at BG3 as a paragon of martial/caster equality though. Martials feel amazing in that game because 99% of the serious challenges boil down to which side can pour out the most damage in the least amount of time, and tabletop caster staples are either vastly more unreliable (e.g. control effects, see the "Unstoppable" buff in most boss fights, the lack of walls etc) or functionally/wholly nonexistent (e.g. divinations, illusions.) And that's assuming you ignore the Larian-specific things that don't apply to 5e at all like barrelmancy, chasmancy and surfacemancy, all of which also favor martials. I agree with you that it's all fun, don't get me wrong, but it wouldn't really translate to tabletop D&D that well either.

Which is not to say I entirely disagree with you on attunement - I wouldn't mind if martials got more slots than casters. Keep in mind though that most basic magic items (e.g. +X weapons/armor/shields) don't require attunement and don't benefit casters as much either.

[Chaos Jackal]

• This is not solely a BG3 Revelation, but Many items from the DMG Suck, even some Legendary ones.

Is Efreeti Chainmail ‘better’ than Plate Mail +3?

I already mentioned that in my own post, but I'd like to double down on this, because it's a big problem - it both takes away from the actual point of attunement (if you want to curb power concentration on magic items and/or prevalence of magic items, why are the best magic items non-attunement?) and the fun of getting new items.

Like, I'm not an absolute enemy of stat sticks myself. When playing 3.X, I didn't bemoan spending years wearing the same cloak with different numbers attached to it, because to me it felt good to "nope" BBEGs and their big save-or-die effects with ever increasing save bonuses. I didn't mind having huge stats because of headbands and belts, I liked looking at my sheet and seeing 30 Str and 24 Int on my magus. But those things were also not the only ones I owned - I had armors that could make me fly, boots that could haste me, gloves that let me use two-handed weapons with one hand, trinkets that allowed me to use anime-style "cutting wind" attacks and maneuvers, ioun stones granting me extra numbers and tricks... It didn't feel as if all I had was some extra numbers, or that the extra numbers were the most important thing I had.

Now, let's take a look at that +3 plate, or the +3 shield I mentioned on my own post. Compared to a lot of "interesting" options, those flat numbers are just way superior, because said options don't really offer much, or what they offer is severely limited. The Efreeti Chain Blatant Beast mentions is nice and all if you expect to see a lot of fire in your future, but otherwise, being forced to wear chain instead of plate will not be particularly desirable to a lot of people, especially since a +3 version of the latter doesn't take attunement. The Shield of the Blazing Dreadnought or Euryale's Aegis, legendary shields from more recent splatbooks, have cool effects, but said effects aren't that powerful and/or are only usable once per day, while neither has an AC bonus. Is it cool to have a version of Athena's Aegis, petrifying people with its Medusa head? It most certainly is, but if you can only use that effect on a single creature per long rest and it's not likely to stick (takes two Con saves, good luck hitting most high level enemies at their Con) and it costs an attunement slot to boot, why not just get an always +3 to AC without attunement and call it a day?

Stat sticks aren't the enemy of fun, big numbers make you feel cooler. But if, in a supposedly bounded accuracy system that wants to avoid over-reliance and overabundance of magic items, stat sticks end up being king... then something's gone wrong. Not with the idea, but with the execution.

[stoutstien]

The solution I came up with for my WIP is that any magical items that is more powerful than minor charms takes away from the pool that represents the ability to withstand major stress on the connection of soul/body. Hearty heros tend to have a larger pool and hearty heros also tend to lean towards dealing with problems with physical force.

So a PC could potentially Xmas tree themselves but it would severely limit their ability to magical healing, diseases, going without rest or other hardships, and pushing themselves beyond their mental limits.

It's a little bit more complex due to having some classes having the ability to reduce the cost of wearing or wielding magical objects while others get significant bonuses for every point of this pool that isn't used so there is a lot of give and take on the logistical side of deciding what one wears.

For example the fateless can decide to automatically succeed at any check prior to rolling but doing so takes one of these points until it can be recovered (One per good night rest typically). It's probably not a too tougher decision to decide to give up one of these for a magical item they want but it doesn't take long before it's a meaningful choice.