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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kurald Galain
Hey look, there's an update to the playtest package, which most notably contains magical items now.
It is full of contradictions. The fluff text says that magic items are not an entitlement, but the rules say the average encounter should have 0-8 magical items in it (determined by a % roll). The fluff says that there is no market for magic items, but also that this nonexistent market is easier to find in big cities, and the rules give each item a gp value between 50 and 10,000. The fluff says that 'rare' items should be given to characters of level 5 and up, but they have a 4% chance of showing up for every average encounter, regardless of character level.
Quote:
The tables that follow provide guidelines for
awarding magic items based on the difficulty of
encounters. You can add or withhold magic items
in your adventures as you see fit; such items are a
reward, not a necessary part of a player character’s
advancement.
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You can ignore the result of a roll or modify it as
suits your needs. For instance, if you roll high for a
given encounter, you don’t have to include every
magic item indicated. You could instead pick one or
two appropriate items for that award and scatter
the rest throughout the adventure. Or you could
save up several results and award them all at once,
when dramatically appropriate.
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If the characters do find someone willing to put
up gold, they’ll probably have to settle for less than
the item’s true worth. An item’s price is based on its
rarity.
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Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise,
magic items are, by and large, so rare that no
market exists for them. Most such wonders aren’t
sold in mass quantities, although situations might
arise that allow player characters to buy or sell
particular items.
Prices are given for reference of relative and ballpark value, not a strict shopping list.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
huttj509
Prices are given for reference of relative and ballpark value, not a strict shopping list.
The same was true of 3.5, which is why all the magic item rules were in the DMG rather than the player's handbook. Didn't stop people from using them as if it was a strict shopping list.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeful
The same was true of 3.5, which is why all the magic item rules were in the DMG rather than the player's handbook. Didn't stop people from using them as if it was a strict shopping list.
Well, that's partly because DMs usually just say, "Hey, go through the DMG and buy equipment." Or provide handy magic-marts in all major cities.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
noparlpf
Well, that's partly because DMs usually just say, "Hey, go through the DMG and buy equipment." Or provide handy magic-marts in all major cities.
Given that the amount of accounting involved doing this during the session is a total pain due to the wealth system, this is to be expected.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Knaight
Given that the amount of accounting involved doing this during the session is a total pain due to the wealth system, this is to be expected.
Yeah. Though you can just not have magic marts at all, and have magic items be quest items. Or you could have the stocked items at a magic mart determined randomly by rolling from a table.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Knaight
Given that the amount of accounting involved doing this during the session is a total pain due to the wealth system, this is to be expected.
And? That doesn't make the complaint that magic items have rules for buying and selling them mean that it'll be magic marts everywhere. That's entirely a setting or DM issue, one that no amount of rules will ever solve.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeful
And? That doesn't make the complaint that magic items have rules for buying and selling them mean that it'll be magic marts everywhere. That's entirely a setting or DM issue, one that no amount of rules will ever solve.
Fewer rules would probably help, however. If accounting were largely removed, and thus didn't just eat through session time the problem would basically be gone. That said, given the frequency of item proliferation by the tables, and the rules regarding purchase limits magic marts were probably an intentional setting feature.
Onto 5e - The current magic system is a mess. Even looking at easy encounters, every second tiny warband has somebody with a magic item, and the generation process is long and involved, containing creators, quirks, minor properties, and natures. Putting aside how this seems to be playing into the christmas tree effect to a level unseen since Diablo, it's clunky, poorly made, and in desperate need of being completely redone. Hopefully the response is generally negative, and it gets completely redone.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Severely disappointed by the reversion to 2E style magic items. Hope I'm not the only one who preferred being able to stitch together my own weapons/armour from various enhancements, rather than being stuck with Flame Tongue Longswords, Elven Chain and whatnot. What if my fighter prefers using something like glaives? "Sorry, no Glaive of Frost for you, but can I interest you in this Frost Brand?" It's as if they don't trust players to create their own fluff so the magic items come with pre-loaded fluff. Also, the old +N style of magic weapons/armour is one sacred cow that needs to be slaughtered. There is NOTHING interesting about a +1 Longsword.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeful
The same was true of 3.5, which is why all the magic item rules were in the DMG rather than the player's handbook. Didn't stop people from using them as if it was a strict shopping list.
Not really true.
3.x the rules for pricing and making Wands, Scrolls, and Potions were in the PHB. You could make and price those items without ever glancing at the DMG.
Meanwhile the DMG had rules for population centers and for what you could buy in population centers.
“Every community has a gold piece limit based on its size and population. The gold piece limit is an indicator of the most expensive item available in that community. Nothing that costs more than a community’s gp limit is available for purchase in that community. Anything having a price under that limit is mostly likely available, whether it be mundane or magical. While exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought), these exceptions are temporary; all communities will conform to the norm over time.”
So, magic mart is IN THE RULES. Magic mart is assumed in 3.x because the rules TELL YOU that there's a magic mart in any large city. This wasn't an accident, the rules didn't change from 3.0 to 3.5, the designers EXPECTED play to work this way.
Similarly, when D&D next has playtest rules that TELL YOU that an easy encounter has 0.755 magic items on average and that an average encounter has 1.31 magic items on average and that a hard encounter has 2.28 magic items on average then I don't believe them that magic items are rare. Rules trump fluff. After a few encounters I expect Christmas trees because I read the rules and that's what they tell me.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
Not really true.
3.x the rules for pricing and making Wands, Scrolls, and Potions were in the PHB. You could make and price those items without ever glancing at the DMG.
Meanwhile the DMG had rules for population centers and for what you could buy in population centers.
“Every community has a gold piece limit based on its size and population. The gold piece limit is an indicator of the most expensive item available in that community. Nothing that costs more than a community’s gp limit is available for purchase in that community. Anything having a price under that limit is mostly likely available, whether it be mundane or magical. While exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought), these exceptions are temporary; all communities will conform to the norm over time.”
So, magic mart is IN THE RULES. Magic mart is assumed in 3.x because the rules TELL YOU that there's a magic mart in any large city. This wasn't an accident, the rules didn't change from 3.0 to 3.5, the designers EXPECTED play to work this way.
Similarly, when D&D next has playtest rules that TELL YOU that an easy encounter has 0.755 magic items on average and that an average encounter has 1.31 magic items on average and that a hard encounter has 2.28 magic items on average then I don't believe them that magic items are rare. Rules trump fluff. After a few encounters I expect Christmas trees because I read the rules and that's what they tell me.
True. Though just because it's in the rules doesn't mean it necessarily should be. Especially when the fluff says otherwise.
I don't really see any point in debating the merits of magic item dependency and magic marts, as I imagine most people here have pretty solid opinions on it already. All I'll say on the matter for the moment is that I wish the fluff and rules at least matched. They should admit that magic marts are a thing and that their intended balance depends on magic equipment.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Do we even have the same PDF, I'm reading this thing and I don't see half the problems you guys are complaining about, the text clearly outlines that this with the exception of the existence of Magical Items is a module. The tables for rolling magical items for encounters says directly that they're there only if you want to use them and that its not required for each battle to drop a magical item.
Also there's a reason we aren't seeing Ice [Insert Weapon] because these are sample items to be given out I would expect the actual Magic Item Creation rules to outline the ability to have an Ice everything. The point of this packet is to introduce magic items, the rarity system and rules for building encounters with magic items if you so choose.
The Legends and Lore article I thought made this pretty clear on any given published adventure you'd probably find a single Magic Item, and the quantity of Magic Items in a home game is completely chosen by the DM.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
noparlpf
Really? Why no emails about it?
Edit: Magic items are out.
They're claiming that magic-marts won't be a thing in Next and that magic items will be relatively rare. I certainly hope that's actually the case.
They make that claim, but in the packet there are magic item prices (which are ludicrously cheap relative to power levels involved) and a table for random magic item generation which results in an average of more than 1 magic item per encounter. They also got rid of magic item slots, so if you want to wear 10 amulets and 4 rings on each finger, you can. This is supposedly balanced by attunement, except the vast majority of items don't require attuning.
The packet also includes a large number of items that are flat numerical bonuses, or otherwise useful things that they want, can use together, and don't require attuning. So what I'm seeing is a system where people will be getting/using more magic items than ever before. Seriously there's a Ring of Wizardry which gives +1 spell slot of each level 1-4, no attunement required. There's also the belt of giant strength which allows for up to 29 strength, no attunement required, and Ioun Stones which provide a +1 untyped bonus to just about anything and everything and no attunement required.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DrBurr
Do we even have the same PDF, I'm reading this thing and I don't see half the problems you guys are complaining about, the text clearly outlines that this with the exception of the existence of Magical Items is a module. The tables for rolling magical items for encounters says directly that they're there only if you want to use them and that its not required for each battle to drop a magical item.
Also there's a reason we aren't seeing Ice [Insert Weapon] because these are sample items to be given out I would expect the actual Magic Item Creation rules to outline the ability to have an Ice everything. The point of this packet is to introduce magic items, the rarity system and rules for building encounters with magic items if you so choose.
The Legends and Lore article I thought made this pretty clear on any given published adventure you'd probably find a single Magic Item, and the quantity of Magic Items in a home game is completely chosen by the DM.
Fluff text made that equally clear in the original game, and in basic D&D, and in AD&D 1st edition, and in AD&D 2nd edition, and in all of those games if you played their modules and adventures you needed a wheelbarrow to hold all the bags of holding you needed to carry all the magical crap you accumulated.
Fluff text that does not match rules doesn't fix the rules. Telling me I can not use the rules doesn't fix the rules.
I can not use D&D next rules at all. If the rules as written, and the adventures they produce based on those rules, are crap then I will "fix" the D&D next rules by playing something else that works with minimal modification rather than something where entire large blocks of the rules are unusable.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
Fluff text made that equally clear in the original game, and in basic D&D, and in AD&D 1st edition, and in AD&D 2nd edition, and in all of those games if you played their modules and adventures you needed a wheelbarrow to hold all the bags of holding you needed to carry all the magical crap you accumulated.
Fluff text that does not match rules doesn't fix the rules. Telling me I can not use the rules doesn't fix the rules.
I can not use D&D next rules at all. If the rules as written, and the adventures they produce based on those rules, are crap then I will "fix" the D&D next rules by playing something else that works with minimal modification rather than something where entire large blocks of the rules are unusable.
Its not fluff text its basic instructions on how to use the table properly, Its module to add onto the game to control the degree of magic items in the game.
Nothing is inherently wrong with the rules, the rules present you with what to do to add a magical item to an encounter to progress the story. If you want the Goblin Warband to have a magic weapon it tells you to roll these dice and select the appropriate weapon, if you don't want the encounter to feature a Magic Weapon you skip the table and continue on to building the next part of the Adventure, what is so hard to comprehend?
If the majority of published adventures feature a single Magic Item your probably not going to run into many problems, DM's will be able to give out a magic item fitting of the encounter to their players if they so wish, its not like every encounter will have 5 artifacts like your reactions imply.
This requires no fixing cause this is how the rules are designed to work its up to the DM to decide whether or not you gain Items A, B &/or C not WotC, WotC simply will supply you with stat blocks for the weapons should you choose to use them.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
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This requires no fixing cause this is how the rules are designed to work its up to the DM to decide whether or not you gain Items A, B &/or C not WotC, WotC simply will supply you with stat blocks for the weapons should you choose to use them.
So basically no useful guidelines at all, let the DM figure out how to balance it. Man it must be nice to be Mike Mearls, designing a game where a contingent of the customer base actually supports you not bothering to write rules so they can do it themselves.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seerow
So basically no useful guidelines at all, let the DM figure out how to balance it. Man it must be nice to be Mike Mearls, designing a game where a contingent of the customer base actually supports you not bothering to write rules so they can do it themselves.
Wasn't that pretty much the Fighter's initial design? Don't actually design or implement a mechanic, sort of just let everyone do their own thing?
It's the first pass, but they really didn't implement their stated goal very well. I'm all for limited magic items, making them feel more epic and exciting - but if that's the plan, actually institute mechanics to support that.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
I really like that magic items are more rare and more unique, but I don't like a lot of the items that they have right now. The Ring of Mind Shielding is pretty cool, but seriously, Wand of Enemy Detection? Hat of Disguise? Maybe it's just the names...so many bad things will come from the Rod of Lordly Might.
I certainly don't like the metagamey Identify spell.
I certainly won't be using the percent charts at all. Since magic items are extra for character strength, that means that a campaign could theoretically be run without magic items at all. So I'm only going to hand out magic items when they're really fun or plot-relevant.
I've already made up two items in my 5e game at home:
The Sword of Healing
The sword of healing appears as a longsword with three elven runes etched into the blade. Normally, the runes are glowing with greenish light. When you strike a creature with this sword, you can choose to deal damage as a normal longsword would or you can choose to heal the target. If you heal, one of the runes stops glowing and the target regains 1d8+4 hit points (undead take 1d8+4 damage). You cannot heal if all the runes are unlit. The runes start glowing once again after the sword spends 4 hours absorbing sunlight.
The Crown of Midreth
The king of the ancient kingdom Midreth was constantly suspicious of his courts. He saw treason in every sideways glance. He crafted this crown himself (having knowledge of the arcane arts, and no trust of his court mages) so that he would always be able to tell when his subjects were lying to him. Once he started using the crown, he realized that his court was actually quite loyal to him and was rarely told anything beyond little white lies to make him happy. He decided that he found it more fun when he thought that they were plotting behind his back, so he added another effect to the crown. Now he could implant ideas into the minds of anyone who trusted him so that he could spread rumors and incite scandals where there were none before, and none of it could be traced back to him. His fun backfired when one rumor that he started became something else on its own, and somehow led to his assassination. Few know of the crowns true powers.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seerow
So basically no useful guidelines at all, let the DM figure out how to balance it. Man it must be nice to be Mike Mearls, designing a game where a contingent of the customer base actually supports you not bothering to write rules so they can do it themselves.
Common items are good for characters Level 2+
Uncommon 3+
Rare 5+
Very Rare 7+
Legendary 9+
Artifact 11+
The higher the Level the more likely an item requires atunement, you can only attune 3 items at a time (or if using the Experimental Rule your CHA mod)
If your handing out Magic Items you should probably look at both the fluff and Mechanical effects of the Item
+1 Armor is fairly obvious +1 to AC, if your going to give this item away you should probably give it to someone who needs higher defense, this is considered Common and is suitable for a Character Lv 2+. But if your playing low to no magic you don't need to give it out because character growth isn't calculated with this +1 in mind
A Rare Item like the Efreeti Chain, gives the fluff of resistance to extreme heat, so probably good to give to players going into a Volcano and gives the Mechanical effects of +2 AC, Fire Resistance, No move Penalty on Molten Rock and you learn 2 new languages
As a Rare Item this is designed to be used at the earliest by Lv 5 characters, the only thing I'd be worried about is the Fire Resistance because how resistances work
But what exactly is challenging about evaluating an item before giving it out, who knows more about balancing a particular groups play-style, some guy in Washington State or the guy in charge of the group?
Yes there could be rules designed to instruct the use of Items but this is a playtest, an unfinished project those rules will be written based off feed back
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seerow
So basically no useful guidelines at all, let the DM figure out how to balance it. Man it must be nice to be Mike Mearls, designing a game where a contingent of the customer base actually supports you not bothering to write rules so they can do it themselves.
It's better than that. He's not only supporting not writing rules so the DM can do it himself. The rules they have given us work DIRECTLY agaist their stated goals! You have to FIRST ignore their rules and sugestions and THEN design your own system!
The adventures they've ALREADY given us FAIL COMPLETELY to match the one item per adventure DrBurr keeps CLAIMING will fix the problem "IF" they hold to it (what "if", we already KNOW they won't and we have almost 40 years of experience to indicate that they won't even if they hadn't already explicitely shown us they won't in 2 out of 2 example adventures).
But don't worry, REAL SOON NOW they'll be out with these low magic item adventures. And also, it's not only fine that you need to make up your own rules to ballance their items, it's fine that the rules THEY GIVE US are completely unballanced because they've put the magic words "module" and "DM" in the document!
Neat. I can give you a BETTER system for free in this very post! See below:
There! No rules that you need to ACTIVELY IGNORE to get a good game. No adventures that DIRECTLY CONTRADICT what I tell you adventures will be like rather than going 0 for 2 out of my first 2 tries!
Send me $100 (plus shipping, handling, and sales tax) for this vastly superior system and I'll send you many pages full of suplemenatary material of equally superior quality. Or you could go by Office Depot and buy a ream of blank paper for yourself, either way. It's still better than rules that you have to actively ignore to get a decent game.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Camelot
I really like that magic items are more rare and more unique, but I don't like a lot of the items that they have right now. The Ring of Mind Shielding is pretty cool, but seriously, Wand of Enemy Detection? Hat of Disguise? Maybe it's just the names...so many bad things will come from the Rod of Lordly Might.
I certainly don't like the metagamey Identify spell.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or are just unfamiliar with pre-4e mechanics and items, but in case it's the latter, none of those are new, and neither are any jokes about them.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Looks like it's time for Thread #7.
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
The Mod Wonder: Closed for Length. New thread already started.