Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Eris.Shrugged Aug 29, 2014 5:58:33	So, I didn't think I would be returning to DnD. Call of Cthulhu is my Great love, I have three editions of warhammer fantasy roleplay, I bought into fate core, and all my friends who actually play DnD with any regularity play 3.5 I wasn't going to play 5th edition. I had no need for it, I mean seriously, if I really wanted to run DnD, it was probably going to be basic, or maybe i'd go with lamentations of the flame princess or something.   But I picked up the beginners box, because you know it is DnD, and you kinda have to, and ran it for friends, and it was fun, and then a friend showed me the PHB.  So now I am going to be running DnD 5th edition. But the whole period of not having paid any attention to DnD 5th edition, has left me with a knowledge deficit. What is going on with Magic Items. I have been told magic items are going to be MUCH rarer, which I am very happy about. Is this true?  To go with this rarity, are they going to be more special, or individual.  There is a BIG part of me that hopes they are going to look a lot like the magic items in 13th age. Any information would be happily recieved.
#2 alienux Aug 29, 2014 7:05:22	I can't say specifically, but from what I understood from WotC all during the playtest, and from what I've seen in the official releases so far, yes, magic items are rarer in 5E.   A lot of items require a character to attune the item to themselves. It takes one short rest to discover the nature of the item, and another short uninterrupted rest to attune to it.   They did make a change to who can cast scrolls between the release of the Starter Set and the update to the free Basic rules pdf. The Starter Set rules only allow someone to cast a spell from a scroll if it's a spell they could cast. The updated Basic pdf says that anyone can make an Intelligence check (DC10 + spell's level) to see if they can cast a spell from a scroll.
#3 Goober4473 Aug 29, 2014 7:15:03	The important thing about magic items is they are very much under the DM's control. The game math, and the challenge of monsters, are not based on the assumption that certain levels of magic item will be held be X level characters. Some things assume a binary where at a certain point, maybe most people will have some kind of magic weapon, but a +1 sword is just as good at level 20 as level 1, and the DM can always not use, or modify, monsters that have resistance to nonmagical weapons.   But what this means is, combiend with the limit of three attuned items, the DM decides how rare magic items are. You can hand out piles of them, and since attunement and how many weapons you can swing in a turn limits them, characters won't become exponentially more powerful. Or you can make them extremely rare and special, not even something that will show up in every campaign. And besides tweaking the difficulty of encounters up a little bit for loads of magic items, it shouldn't change how the game runs.
#4 Keen_Man Aug 29, 2014 7:16:30	Magic items also dont contain prices. I did note the magic items released so far have "rarity" as one of their parts   download the dungeon masters rules and some magic items here - http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
#5 Eris.Shrugged Aug 29, 2014 7:31:25	Thanks guys. That is all very positive news. I see the return of the  longsword +2 vs. Orcs to my gaming table.
#6 Jharii Aug 29, 2014 7:58:24	Goober4473 wrote:
#7 IxidorRS Aug 29, 2014 8:54:20	Of course, in your games, you could run the magic items like 13th Age even if they aren't codified that way.
(Reply to #7) Eris.Shrugged	IxidorRS wrote:
#9 Zyph Aug 29, 2014 9:46:47	Yeah, I wouldn't exactly say that there's less magic items as it's that there's less system reliance on perpetual gain of magic items.   If you want to give out a lot of magic items as a DM you absolutely can, but they'll actually have a significant impact in making your characters "stronger" as opposed to "on par for what's expected at their level".   So if you want to go with significantly little magic items, the game is balanced for it out of the gate. If you want to give lots of magical items, that's fine...just understand that you're upping the power level of the characters (which isn't necessarily a problem).   Glad to know you were a fan of the system once you looked it over.
#10 Timborama Aug 29, 2014 11:07:10	Jharii wrote:
#11 Goober4473 Aug 29, 2014 11:38:58	Timborama wrote:
#12 Illithidbix Aug 29, 2014 15:05:51	Yeah, the maths no longer assumes you'll have a +3 weapon at level X. And it no longer assumes that monsters use catapault to throw chests of gold at players, which was the only sensible way I could ever match the wealth by level guidelines.   They also finally acknowledged that +1 Swords are really kinda dull, so the playtest had 4 fun tables to roll on to give "standard" magic items more flavour. (Creator, Nature, Minor Quirks, Minor properties) The idea being you never have to have just a +1 sword. And there is no such thing as generic +2 or higher items.   e.g
#13 CorwynnMaelstrom Aug 29, 2014 17:47:43	I think the game also assumes you will not be collecting a "paperdoll" full of items. You might get a magical sword (+1) and find a pair of boots (striding and sprining) but you're not adding on to that bracers, armor, shield, helm, rod, two rings, an ioun stone, three more weapons for various encounters, fifty three potions, a bag of holding, cloak, and a codpiece of strutting.