| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
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| #1MasterOfNimanJun 19, 2015 8:27:46 | Has anyone here played or ran a 5e campaign all the way to level 16-20 without any magic items?
If so, how did it go?
Did the players have enough to deal with things like adult/ancient dragons, pit fiends and so forth? |
| #2ChrisCarlsonJun 19, 2015 9:58:02 | I loved the idea of Monte Cook's Iron Heroes back in the day. The execution had a few snags, but the concept was brilliant.
I could totally see a 5e version of it. That could be a blast!
To be fair, IH wasn't technically "no magic". But it marginalized the magic much like 5e has managed to do through BA. |
| #3MasterOfNimanJun 19, 2015 11:07:30 | I think as long as the characters are allowed higher stats than the normal array or point buy, I can see a no magic item campaign working okay in 5e.
I'm always a believer that a character should be awesome due to the raw abilities they possess and not because of the myriad of items at their disposal.
IH sounds interesting. Might look into it a bit more. |
| #4TiaNadiezjaJun 19, 2015 12:21:45 | Honestly? I haven't. But no magic does seem to be the baseline. |
| #5IllithidbixJun 19, 2015 17:21:23 | The biggest issue in my mind is fighters and rogues being able able to overcome resistance and immunity to non-magical weapons.
I think it's interesting that as a very rough guideline at 6th level Monks get Ki-Empowered Strikes and 6th level Moon Druids get Primal Strikes which means their unarmed or beast form attacks count as magical for purposes of overcoming nonmagical resistance and immunities. Silvered weapons work against devils, lycanthropes, wraiths and wights. Adamantine weapons (awkwardly not actually in the DMG or PHB...) work on golems, gargoyles, helmed horrors and the Xorn.
Did a thread on the Mechanical Implications of Immunity to nonmagical weapons: https://community.wizards.com/forum/rules-questions/threads/4195911
A non-magical game will put priority on spellcasters (and esp. Paladins...) to deal with non-magic weapon immune/resistant creatures or buffing other party members with Magic Weapon and similar spells.
Otherwise I think the game basically assumes you have what you need with maths and tricks from spells and class abilities. |
| (Reply to #5)MasterOfNiman |
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| #7FFSAAJun 20, 2015 7:18:52 | High level monsters are under powered in 5E, there is no issue with being able to deal with the threats the DMG says are supposed to be appropriate. The party can still face roll them with no magic items. The real issue is keeping your players interested when every monster has the same reward, a number of XP. You will likely want to come up with something else to reward the players. Just be careful the reward isn't even more powerful than magic items. A few hirelings can easily be more powerful than handing out magic items would be. |
| #8Tony_VargasJun 21, 2015 0:41:23 | I was initially encouraged by the "optional" or 'not factored in' approach to magic items (magic, in the broader sense of daily spells is still overwhelmingly available in 5e, with all classes having at least one sub-class that brings daily magical resouces to the party). However, after seeing the published adventures and the DMG, I'm not so sure that magic really was written out to that degree. It looks like the few non-magical sub-classes are going to 'need' magic items as they did in classic D&D and 3e, and that there is an expectation of wealth/level and 'level apropriate' items building up out there. |
| #9Torg_SmithJun 21, 2015 6:18:50 | If you look at page 285 in the Dungeon Master’s Guide there is a table Magic Item Power by Rarity. You could take the Max Spell Level and Max Bonus columns and extrapolate out levels for a modifier. It would be as so.
You would want to apply this modifier to the To Hit and Damage rolls of weapons. You would also want to apply it to the AC of the PC. You can use stats from the monster manual as written. If you create your own NPCs that PCs will face in combat, you will want to apply the modifiers to them as well.
You will want to remove any immunity or resistance to non-magical weapons from opponents the PCs will face. |
| #10MasterOfNimanJun 22, 2015 5:09:40 | @FFSAA
Fair point about keeping the interest levels of players up.
@Tony_Vargas
From what little I've seen from the published adventures, I think the main issue is that it seems the players will end up fighting creatures with CR that is at least several levels higher than the character level, which means some magic must be handed out if the PCs are to have a chance. I suspect if the CR was more in line with the character level, it would be less of an issue, but I also suspect that the encounters would be far too easy by that point and I guess no one really makes the BBEG the same CR as the party's character level.
@Torg_Smith
Sort of like inherent bonuses in 4e, right? I don't actually know anything about 4e, but I heard that is something players used in lieu of magic items. |
| #11Mommy_was_an_OrcJun 22, 2015 9:36:01 |
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| #12Torg_SmithJun 22, 2015 17:27:45 |
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| #13IllithidbixJun 23, 2015 15:50:03 | I am far less convinced that the maths of 5E assumes those numbers when looking at the expected to Hit Modifiers and AC of high level players and monsters.
Almost every character of level 17+ will have at least +11 to hit or Save DC 19, few monster have AC above 20. (See my post: http://community.wizards.com/comment/51547586#comment-51547586 )
I think players would do fine without such inherent bonuses... be less powerful than their magical item wielding counterparts... yes but still fine. |
| #14LawolfJun 23, 2015 16:17:20 |
If you compare all the numbers across the MM, you actually find that player AC hovers around the 65-75% range at almost every CR.
A level 20 fighter with a +3 sword has +14 to hit. Most CR 20+ creatures have an AC of 20-22. At CR 13, AC is typically around 17-19 and a fighter with a +1 weapon has a +11 attack bonus. Player accuracy and monster AC seem to scale up in parallel with each other for the most part.
Player AC on the other hand is fairly static compared to monster attack bonus. |
| #15Hurin88Jun 23, 2015 19:21:30 |
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| #16Tony_VargasJun 26, 2015 0:38:03 |
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