Red Flags for DMs?

[Quertus]

Nah, I think i got it and we just disagree.

Okay, except most people who just wholesale ban magic items or make them very rare do not not do this. In fact I've never seen a DM that didn't like magic items screw with XP tables or adjust encounters all that much, they just shrug when the party with no gear at level 5 dies to a group of shadows.

It doesn't do a great job but it can provide approximations in many cases, to the point where gross outliers like the crab and the adamantine horror are notable rather than commonplace.

Sorry, I misunderstood you then. I suppose I hadn't accounted for DMs being just bad. I was exclusively talking about doing it right.

As to CR... a high-OP 2nd level party with 2 bfc wizards and 2 druids can likely handle many threats above their CR, but will have a much harder time with a shadow than a 3rd level party with a dread necromancer, or fighter with a magical weapon, who can likely deal with several.

In a party with no AoE, a horde of creatures is much more of a threat than it is to even a lower level party with a blaster wizard / zombie dragon / etc.

The actual party composition, capabilities, and tactics greatly influence just how challenging an encounter will be.

+ DMs who roll all loot randomly without a easily accessible means of exchanging the random loot for gear appropriate to the party.

This ends up being very similar to the low magic item DM if the random loot contains nothing for your character.
Hope you don't fight unarmed, you basically get nothing with standard tables.

Or at least the option to chase down rumors of specific items.

Well, that's kind of the point. The game expects you to beat CR 10 monsters at level 10. If you're beating CR 10 monsters at level 14 because you don't have items, you needed those items to do what the game expected you to do. Obviously, you can still play without them, but it's dishonest to say you don't need them because the game can be warped to accommodate not having them.

Having bigger numbers lets you handle bigger threats. Having smaller numbers means you have to deal with smaller threats. If you want to modify your game to ignore WBL and not give out items, you need to have the party facing smaller threats.

Flying foes. Foes who can move fast enough to kite them. Foes with sufficiently good stealth abilities. Foes who inflict conditions that you need magic to protect again and/or cure.

A party of casters could probably handle being zero-wealth, though they'd have to be a lot more cautious than typical. But many classes will run into problems that higher numbers don't help with.

Those first 3 can be solved with a ranged weapon and a bag of flour/marbles/caltrops player skills. I'll grant the 4th one, conditions that you need to fix, does mandate some expendable items and/or some casters. Because you can't just "get better" from being turned to stone.

The Tarrasque can only be killed if you drop it to -10 hit points, and then use the greater function of Wish or Miracle. Sending it against a party that doesn't have access to either of those is literally impossible to justify.

Here, Wish is a quest-specific McGuffin.

And one you should never need, as any reasonable Illithid Savant has already procured the Tarrasque for its delicious regeneration.

Going underwater. Dealing with fliers. Most extraplanar travel. Getting high enough will saves to avoid the fighters being sicced on the rest of the party. Healing if the cleric gets ganked first.

Quest-specific McGuffin, ranged weapon, "yo, sage, where the portal be at?", numbers, agreed.

Protecting the fighter from mind control yourself from the fighter is, from your description, simply a matter of numbers. Thus, my suggestion of fighting lower CR foes covers this problem.

It is difficult to heal the only healer in the party without items. Go team cleric!

Realism is fine in doses, but I just don't want to saturate the world in convenient gear. depending on what the other players do to sometimes.. It can be a nightmare when they make other party members obsolete because they have enough gear that compliments them enough to fight an encounter by them self.

... Can everyone in the party handle an encounter by themselves?

If not, then you have a balance issue, not a gear issue. If so, then you have a balance issue, not a gear issue.