Talamare
2017-12-27, 04:24 AM
Have you ever been a little unsure of when to give players +1 or +2 Gear?
Do you ever worry that you might be giving them too early? or perhaps even too late?
This is a simple guideline for DMs to have a rough idea of when they should grant this equipment.
Let's start with Rarity, despite the name of each tier of rarity. They merely are there to represent roughly what level they should be granted.
Level 1 should see Common and Uncommon Items, value of roughly 100g - 500g
Level 5 should see Rare Items, value of roughly 500g - 5,000g
Level 11 should see Very Rare Items, value of roughly 5,000g - 50,000g
Level 17 should see Legendary Items, value of over 50,000g or more than likely literally PRICELESS
Of course this is just a general guide line, you may award items before or after this.
=====================
How Many Items do I give out?
Xanathar details information on how many items you're more or less expected to give out by each bracket. Remember that this is a guideline, not a rule. That means you can easily grant half as much or twice as much, follow the temperature of your group.
Across the 20 Levels of play, players will receive roughly 100 Magical Items. This means there is a rough assumption of 5 Magical Items per level. Tho this isn't distributed this way. The Distribution roughly follows
Level 1 - 10 Items
Level 5 - 40 Items
Level 11 - 30 Items
Level 17 - 20 Items
Some people may note that this is a pretty high value. This roughly means that there is an expectancy of PCs to receive roughly 20 Items per player. However you must remember that a majority of these items aren't intended to be upgrades. The rough amount of expected upgrades is only 20 Items. So for example, a level 7 party might have already found roughly 30 Magical Items, but only about ~6 of those were significant. Meaning the party would likely end up with a vast amount of items that are basically Vendor Trash.
For DM's wishing to play with significantly less magical items, 20-25 Magical Items across the PCs Career is a decent expectation.
Aka, Dividing the previous table by 4-5
Level 1 - 2-3 Items
Level 5 - 8-10 Items
Level 11 - 6-8 Items
Level 17 - 4-5 Items
Non Magical Magical Items?!?
An extremely common Variant of Magical Items is to treat the "+#" (Plus Values) as Quality instead of sign of Magic. So a +2 Sword would not be a Magic Sword, but would still grant the +2 Attack and +2 Damage. Common Magical Weapons would then be introduced as a keyword such as "Enchanted".
There are purposes for this Variant. Blacksmiths are able to make Quality equipment without it being Magical. Monsters and Ability that grant Resistance to non-magical damage would still work. Spells that make items Magical would still be relevant. --- Remember tho, there are some abilities that allow you to empower 'non magical' weapons with bonuses. To continue the balance, those abilities would not work on high quality items.
I also recommend to treat the Magical Keyword as a step of Quality or perhaps even 2 steps of Quality. Meaning...
A +3 Hammer and a +2 Enchanted Hammer, would be seen as equivalent rarity
or if 2 steps, A +3 Axe and a +1 Enchanted Axe, would be seen as equivalent rarity
=====================
Next let's take a look at Weapons!
Levels 0-4
Let's start with the most common Magic Item of all... Magical Ammo for Bows, Slings, and Crossbows.
These are shockingly common items, but remember that once they hit a target ONCE the magic is used up. (If you miss, feel free to recollect your Magical Arrow!)
At level 1-4 you're expected to find a few Magical Arrows of all quality.
Even +3 Magical Ammo have a chance to appear at this stage of the game! So, if the Archer in the group is struggling. Letting him find a few Magical Arrows should be a nice and reasonable boon.
Other +1 Weapons also exist in this Tier. So don't be afraid of granting those out, especially if the players just fought a particularly strong enemy. The chance of finding one on the Random Table is decently high. So it's more or less expected to find a few +1 Weapons.
The Random Table also presents a EXTREMELY LOW chance of finding a +2 Weapon. (Literally under half of one percent chance), so you're probably better off avoiding it.
Levels 5-10
The players continue with a fairly high chance of finding +1 Weapons at this Tier. So don't afraid to grant enough of them over time until every player is equipped with one.
It is likely even that the players might end up with multiple +1 Weapons, or even have some extra to sell.
Remember that buying a +1 Weapon is expected to cost around 100-500g, so selling it would only be a fraction of that value.
At this Tier +2 Weapons should start rarely popping up, and it's a real treasure to get one.
The chance is of acquiring one is decent, but it should still be a slow progression for each player to have one.
Again there is a extremely minuscule chance of finding a +3 Weapon at this Tier.
Levels 11-16
Indeed this is roughly the expected level for you to see and grant +3 Weapons for your players. Make sure to make it a bit of a challenge since they might not get any upgrades beyond this.
In this tier +2 Weapons become fairly common place, and +1 Weapons become surprisingly rare.
The Dungeon Master Guide also lists a few incredibly powerful named Legendary Weapons. The chance of getting a Legendary Item at this Tier is small, but still reasonable... but the chance of finding a Legendary Weapon specifically is very very low.
Level 17+
+3 Weapons are still not super common in this bracket, so it's not the worst thing if a few players are still seeking theirs out.
Legendary Weapons have a bit of a higher chance to be found, but they are still... LEGENDARY WEAPONS! Make it a challenge!
=====================
Next we are going to focus on Defenses. Let's start with Shields.
Shields basically follow the exact same progression as Weapons do.
They have inherently lower chance to appear than Weapons do, however it's likely only some of the players would even want a +1 Shield.
While most of the players would want a +1 Weapon.
Overall, don't be shy about granting out Shields. Due to the Bounded AC system, Shields are an INSANELY IMPORTANT aspect to the survivability of Tanks.
I cannot stress this part enough, If one of your players is playing an AC based Tank and is struggling to survive... Throw the man a shiny new Magic Shield.
----------------------------------------
Finally we have Armors, now before we go into the levels you should grant the Magical ones... We first need to understand the different Armor Classes.
Class 1 Armor is Full Plate and Half Plate
Class 2 Armor is Splint Mail, Breast Plate, and Studded Leather
Class 3 Armor is Chain Mail, Chain Shirt, Scale Mail, and Leather Armor
Now what is distinct about these Classes is the Maximum amount Armor they can grant (Medium Armors assume you have the Feat for +3 Dex)
Class 1 Armor grants 18 AC
Class 2 Armor grants 17 AC
Class 3 Armor grants 16 AC
(Scale Mail technically Grants 17 AC, but gives you a penalty to Stealth -shrugs-)
Why does this matter?
Because the Rarity of +1, +2, +3 Armors depends on the Class.
You get common access to +1 Full Plate, +2 Splint Mail, and +3 Chain Mail at the exact same time.
This is part of 5e Bound Accuracy design.
Before listing the levels as well, it's important to understand that Magical Armors in general are significantly rarer than Weapons.
So even if they are in the same Tier, you're still much more likely to find Weapons than Armors.
Levels 0-4
The only +1 Armors you should be seeing are Class 3 Armors. These items are generally considered trash to begin with. Since, why pay 100-500g for a +1 Leather Armor when you can pay 45g for a standard Studded Leather Armor!
Players will generally start with their representative Class 3 Armor, and they should work towards getting an effective Class 2 Armor. Either thru a +1 Class 3 Armor, or again just a Class 2 Armor.
Essentially the expected amount of AC from Armor should start at 16, and progress to 17 at this Tier.
Remember that players are NOT expected to be able to afford Full Plate and Half Plate at this level!
If you have a Level 2 Paladin, you're struggling to kill because he is already wearing Full Plate + Shield+1 + Defense + Shield of the Faithful... That's as much your fault as it is his...
Levels 5-10
Characters should start moving towards getting an effective Class 1 Armor at this point. Which means eventually getting Full Plate and Half Plate.
As well as finding +1 Class 2 Armors,
and +2 Class 3 Armors.
Basically the expected amount of AC from Armor you should find is about 18 AC
Levels 11-16
We continue our rarity trend moving up a step. Expect +1 Class 1 Armor. Aka, +1 Full Plate for example.
As well as +2 Class 2 Armors,
and +3 Class 3 Armors.
The common find for Armors at this point should place you at about 19 AC.
However I should make it clear that this is still a pretty rare find.
Getting higher than the 19 AC wall is actually fairly difficult.
Both the effective AC 20 and AC 21 Armors exist at this tier, however the chance of finding them are insanely rare.
Finding an AC 20 Armor is about as TWICE difficult as Finding a LEGENDARY WEAPON
That's right, You're likely to find 2 Legendary Weapons than find a +2 Full Plate!
and AC 21 Armor? Aka... The +3 FULL PLATE!!!
THE GOD ARMOR
THE SAVIOUR OF WORLDS!!!
You're likely to find... 18... once more... 18... Last time... 18!!! Legendary Weapons before finding this piece.
The +3 Full Plate is by far the rarest item in the game. Don't be afraid to never grant one, and if you do... Make it forged by a LITERAL GOD.
Hell... It's so rare that it isn't even Forged by a God to give away... You had to literally take the Forge God's BEST Armor Piece.
Levels 17+
The previous trends essentially continue. Should slowly have everyone equipped with effective AC 19 Armors.
They become slightly more common compared to the previous tier, but are still not spectacularly often.
=====================
What about the Ring of Protection?!
Believe it or not, there is also the Cloak of Protection! It also grants +1 AC
The key difference is that a Player will generally only be allowed to equip 1 Cloak, but might be able to equip as many rings as he has Fingers (and attunement allows)
Due to this...
Cloak of Protection is a decently common item for Levels 1-4
While Ring of Protection won't generally start appearing until Levels 5-10
Cloak and Ring of Protection will stack with each other, but multiple Rings of Protection will never stack.
Ioun Stone of Protection is also Levels 5-10
If you don't know what is an Ioun Stone, just think of it as a Magical Ring that floats around your head. (It's actually a Rock tho, not a Ring)
====================
A quick note to DMs playing a Low Magic Campaign and not wanting to grant a ton of Magical Items.
Due to how monsters scale in the Monster Manual, a +1/+2/+3 Weapon is never inherently needed.
Hitting the hardest of monsters might happen slightly less often, but chance of success is always fairly high.
On the other hand Monsters Attack bonus EXPLODES upwards and at Higher CR an AC Tank will struggle to avoid getting hit.
I recommend at least awarding +1 and +2 Shields. Even if it happens later than normal and are extremely rare.
+2 Shields might even be LEGENDARY in your campaign, but your AC Tanks will Thank you!
====================
Short Version
Levels 0
Base Weapons
AC 16 Armor
Levels 1-4
+1 Weapon
+1 Shield
Cloak of Protection
AC 17 Armor
Levels 5-10
+2 Weapon
+2 Shield
Ring of Protection or Ioun Stone of Protection
AC 18 Armor
Levels 11-16
+3 Weapon
+3 Shield
AC 19 Armor
Levels 17+
Legendary Weapons
AC 20 Armor
Optional
AC 21 Armor (+3 Full Plate or +3 Half Plate)
If you don't know what I mean by AC ## Armor, just scroll up a little.
Do you ever worry that you might be giving them too early? or perhaps even too late?
This is a simple guideline for DMs to have a rough idea of when they should grant this equipment.
Let's start with Rarity, despite the name of each tier of rarity. They merely are there to represent roughly what level they should be granted.
Level 1 should see Common and Uncommon Items, value of roughly 100g - 500g
Level 5 should see Rare Items, value of roughly 500g - 5,000g
Level 11 should see Very Rare Items, value of roughly 5,000g - 50,000g
Level 17 should see Legendary Items, value of over 50,000g or more than likely literally PRICELESS
Of course this is just a general guide line, you may award items before or after this.
=====================
How Many Items do I give out?
Xanathar details information on how many items you're more or less expected to give out by each bracket. Remember that this is a guideline, not a rule. That means you can easily grant half as much or twice as much, follow the temperature of your group.
Across the 20 Levels of play, players will receive roughly 100 Magical Items. This means there is a rough assumption of 5 Magical Items per level. Tho this isn't distributed this way. The Distribution roughly follows
Level 1 - 10 Items
Level 5 - 40 Items
Level 11 - 30 Items
Level 17 - 20 Items
Some people may note that this is a pretty high value. This roughly means that there is an expectancy of PCs to receive roughly 20 Items per player. However you must remember that a majority of these items aren't intended to be upgrades. The rough amount of expected upgrades is only 20 Items. So for example, a level 7 party might have already found roughly 30 Magical Items, but only about ~6 of those were significant. Meaning the party would likely end up with a vast amount of items that are basically Vendor Trash.
For DM's wishing to play with significantly less magical items, 20-25 Magical Items across the PCs Career is a decent expectation.
Aka, Dividing the previous table by 4-5
Level 1 - 2-3 Items
Level 5 - 8-10 Items
Level 11 - 6-8 Items
Level 17 - 4-5 Items
Non Magical Magical Items?!?
An extremely common Variant of Magical Items is to treat the "+#" (Plus Values) as Quality instead of sign of Magic. So a +2 Sword would not be a Magic Sword, but would still grant the +2 Attack and +2 Damage. Common Magical Weapons would then be introduced as a keyword such as "Enchanted".
There are purposes for this Variant. Blacksmiths are able to make Quality equipment without it being Magical. Monsters and Ability that grant Resistance to non-magical damage would still work. Spells that make items Magical would still be relevant. --- Remember tho, there are some abilities that allow you to empower 'non magical' weapons with bonuses. To continue the balance, those abilities would not work on high quality items.
I also recommend to treat the Magical Keyword as a step of Quality or perhaps even 2 steps of Quality. Meaning...
A +3 Hammer and a +2 Enchanted Hammer, would be seen as equivalent rarity
or if 2 steps, A +3 Axe and a +1 Enchanted Axe, would be seen as equivalent rarity
=====================
Next let's take a look at Weapons!
Levels 0-4
Let's start with the most common Magic Item of all... Magical Ammo for Bows, Slings, and Crossbows.
These are shockingly common items, but remember that once they hit a target ONCE the magic is used up. (If you miss, feel free to recollect your Magical Arrow!)
At level 1-4 you're expected to find a few Magical Arrows of all quality.
Even +3 Magical Ammo have a chance to appear at this stage of the game! So, if the Archer in the group is struggling. Letting him find a few Magical Arrows should be a nice and reasonable boon.
Other +1 Weapons also exist in this Tier. So don't be afraid of granting those out, especially if the players just fought a particularly strong enemy. The chance of finding one on the Random Table is decently high. So it's more or less expected to find a few +1 Weapons.
The Random Table also presents a EXTREMELY LOW chance of finding a +2 Weapon. (Literally under half of one percent chance), so you're probably better off avoiding it.
Levels 5-10
The players continue with a fairly high chance of finding +1 Weapons at this Tier. So don't afraid to grant enough of them over time until every player is equipped with one.
It is likely even that the players might end up with multiple +1 Weapons, or even have some extra to sell.
Remember that buying a +1 Weapon is expected to cost around 100-500g, so selling it would only be a fraction of that value.
At this Tier +2 Weapons should start rarely popping up, and it's a real treasure to get one.
The chance is of acquiring one is decent, but it should still be a slow progression for each player to have one.
Again there is a extremely minuscule chance of finding a +3 Weapon at this Tier.
Levels 11-16
Indeed this is roughly the expected level for you to see and grant +3 Weapons for your players. Make sure to make it a bit of a challenge since they might not get any upgrades beyond this.
In this tier +2 Weapons become fairly common place, and +1 Weapons become surprisingly rare.
The Dungeon Master Guide also lists a few incredibly powerful named Legendary Weapons. The chance of getting a Legendary Item at this Tier is small, but still reasonable... but the chance of finding a Legendary Weapon specifically is very very low.
Level 17+
+3 Weapons are still not super common in this bracket, so it's not the worst thing if a few players are still seeking theirs out.
Legendary Weapons have a bit of a higher chance to be found, but they are still... LEGENDARY WEAPONS! Make it a challenge!
=====================
Next we are going to focus on Defenses. Let's start with Shields.
Shields basically follow the exact same progression as Weapons do.
They have inherently lower chance to appear than Weapons do, however it's likely only some of the players would even want a +1 Shield.
While most of the players would want a +1 Weapon.
Overall, don't be shy about granting out Shields. Due to the Bounded AC system, Shields are an INSANELY IMPORTANT aspect to the survivability of Tanks.
I cannot stress this part enough, If one of your players is playing an AC based Tank and is struggling to survive... Throw the man a shiny new Magic Shield.
----------------------------------------
Finally we have Armors, now before we go into the levels you should grant the Magical ones... We first need to understand the different Armor Classes.
Class 1 Armor is Full Plate and Half Plate
Class 2 Armor is Splint Mail, Breast Plate, and Studded Leather
Class 3 Armor is Chain Mail, Chain Shirt, Scale Mail, and Leather Armor
Now what is distinct about these Classes is the Maximum amount Armor they can grant (Medium Armors assume you have the Feat for +3 Dex)
Class 1 Armor grants 18 AC
Class 2 Armor grants 17 AC
Class 3 Armor grants 16 AC
(Scale Mail technically Grants 17 AC, but gives you a penalty to Stealth -shrugs-)
Why does this matter?
Because the Rarity of +1, +2, +3 Armors depends on the Class.
You get common access to +1 Full Plate, +2 Splint Mail, and +3 Chain Mail at the exact same time.
This is part of 5e Bound Accuracy design.
Before listing the levels as well, it's important to understand that Magical Armors in general are significantly rarer than Weapons.
So even if they are in the same Tier, you're still much more likely to find Weapons than Armors.
Levels 0-4
The only +1 Armors you should be seeing are Class 3 Armors. These items are generally considered trash to begin with. Since, why pay 100-500g for a +1 Leather Armor when you can pay 45g for a standard Studded Leather Armor!
Players will generally start with their representative Class 3 Armor, and they should work towards getting an effective Class 2 Armor. Either thru a +1 Class 3 Armor, or again just a Class 2 Armor.
Essentially the expected amount of AC from Armor should start at 16, and progress to 17 at this Tier.
Remember that players are NOT expected to be able to afford Full Plate and Half Plate at this level!
If you have a Level 2 Paladin, you're struggling to kill because he is already wearing Full Plate + Shield+1 + Defense + Shield of the Faithful... That's as much your fault as it is his...
Levels 5-10
Characters should start moving towards getting an effective Class 1 Armor at this point. Which means eventually getting Full Plate and Half Plate.
As well as finding +1 Class 2 Armors,
and +2 Class 3 Armors.
Basically the expected amount of AC from Armor you should find is about 18 AC
Levels 11-16
We continue our rarity trend moving up a step. Expect +1 Class 1 Armor. Aka, +1 Full Plate for example.
As well as +2 Class 2 Armors,
and +3 Class 3 Armors.
The common find for Armors at this point should place you at about 19 AC.
However I should make it clear that this is still a pretty rare find.
Getting higher than the 19 AC wall is actually fairly difficult.
Both the effective AC 20 and AC 21 Armors exist at this tier, however the chance of finding them are insanely rare.
Finding an AC 20 Armor is about as TWICE difficult as Finding a LEGENDARY WEAPON
That's right, You're likely to find 2 Legendary Weapons than find a +2 Full Plate!
and AC 21 Armor? Aka... The +3 FULL PLATE!!!
THE GOD ARMOR
THE SAVIOUR OF WORLDS!!!
You're likely to find... 18... once more... 18... Last time... 18!!! Legendary Weapons before finding this piece.
The +3 Full Plate is by far the rarest item in the game. Don't be afraid to never grant one, and if you do... Make it forged by a LITERAL GOD.
Hell... It's so rare that it isn't even Forged by a God to give away... You had to literally take the Forge God's BEST Armor Piece.
Levels 17+
The previous trends essentially continue. Should slowly have everyone equipped with effective AC 19 Armors.
They become slightly more common compared to the previous tier, but are still not spectacularly often.
=====================
What about the Ring of Protection?!
Believe it or not, there is also the Cloak of Protection! It also grants +1 AC
The key difference is that a Player will generally only be allowed to equip 1 Cloak, but might be able to equip as many rings as he has Fingers (and attunement allows)
Due to this...
Cloak of Protection is a decently common item for Levels 1-4
While Ring of Protection won't generally start appearing until Levels 5-10
Cloak and Ring of Protection will stack with each other, but multiple Rings of Protection will never stack.
Ioun Stone of Protection is also Levels 5-10
If you don't know what is an Ioun Stone, just think of it as a Magical Ring that floats around your head. (It's actually a Rock tho, not a Ring)
====================
A quick note to DMs playing a Low Magic Campaign and not wanting to grant a ton of Magical Items.
Due to how monsters scale in the Monster Manual, a +1/+2/+3 Weapon is never inherently needed.
Hitting the hardest of monsters might happen slightly less often, but chance of success is always fairly high.
On the other hand Monsters Attack bonus EXPLODES upwards and at Higher CR an AC Tank will struggle to avoid getting hit.
I recommend at least awarding +1 and +2 Shields. Even if it happens later than normal and are extremely rare.
+2 Shields might even be LEGENDARY in your campaign, but your AC Tanks will Thank you!
====================
Short Version
Levels 0
Base Weapons
AC 16 Armor
Levels 1-4
+1 Weapon
+1 Shield
Cloak of Protection
AC 17 Armor
Levels 5-10
+2 Weapon
+2 Shield
Ring of Protection or Ioun Stone of Protection
AC 18 Armor
Levels 11-16
+3 Weapon
+3 Shield
AC 19 Armor
Levels 17+
Legendary Weapons
AC 20 Armor
Optional
AC 21 Armor (+3 Full Plate or +3 Half Plate)
If you don't know what I mean by AC ## Armor, just scroll up a little.