By providing access to bespoke magic items, the DM is creating an arms race with themselves. The DM gives these wonderful toys and tools to the players, and in turn, the DM then has to artificially amp up the difficulty level of the encounters to keep the group from steamrolling them.
All of D&D is like that, though. Level a party up -> DM in an arms race with themself. Start a campaign -> DM in an arms race with themself. Let a player build a character -> DM in an arms race with themself. The whole game is built around "wonderful toys and tools."
This thread has started to head in a tonal direction that really seems to suggest a DM vs player mindset.
I've heard of TRPGs being described as collaborative storytelling. It's an ideal I certainly strive towards. Part of this can be DMs helping parties achieve greatness. Imagine the paladin's anguish as s/he sees the bard suffer.
This thread has started to head in a tonal direction that really seems to suggest a DM vs player mindset.
The DMs goal (for combat encounters) is an interesting challenge for the PCs. More powerful PCs mean you need more powerful enemies (or other situational effects) to continue providing an interesting challenge.
... Mr 6th level Paladin with an 16 CHA gives a +3 to all savings throws to those within 10 feet of him. Awesome ability. Now we give that same Paladin a Luckstone, and a +1 ROP, which he bought at Magic R Us. Oh look, that Paladin now has a +5 to all his saves. Meanwhile, the Bard is 15 feet away, and has not gone that route of personal defense items.
The DM knows about this +5 of the Paladin, and has to scale up attacks to make the encounter even halfway challenging for the Paladin. So the DM thinks, "hmmmm...to make this encounter challenging, I am going to have to amp up the DC on the spells cast at the Paladin. I will have my NPC Warlock get a +2 Rod of the Pact Keeper to counter the +2 to the Magic Items the Paladin has." But Mr. Bard suddenly finds that the Sickening Radiance cast by the DM's NPC is well, brutal, while the Paladin makes what would be a fair roll. ...
The DM knows this about the inexperienced player of the bard character and says, "one thing your character may have remembered is that you should be in 10 ft of paladin to get the benefit. Do you want to [retcon] scooch over?"
The DM knows that the experienced player of the bard character should have known better. Tough.
... Mr 6th level Paladin with an 16 CHA gives a +3 to all savings throws to those within 10 feet of him. Awesome ability. Now we give that same Paladin a Luckstone, and a +1 ROP, which he bought at Magic R Us. Oh look, that Paladin now has a +5 to all his saves. Meanwhile, the Bard is 15 feet away, and has not gone that route of personal defense items.
The DM knows about this +5 of the Paladin, and has to scale up attacks to make the encounter even halfway challenging for the Paladin. So the DM thinks, "hmmmm...to make this encounter challenging, I am going to have to amp up the DC on the spells cast at the Paladin. I will have my NPC Warlock get a +2 Rod of the Pact Keeper to counter the +2 to the Magic Items the Paladin has." But Mr. Bard suddenly finds that the Sickening Radiance cast by the DM's NPC is well, brutal, while the Paladin makes what would be a fair roll. ...
The DM knows this about the inexperienced player of the bard character and says, "one thing your character may have remembered is that you should be in 10 ft of paladin to get the benefit. Do you want to [retcon] scooch over?"
The DM knows that the experienced player of the bard character should have known better. Tough.
Right? Also what's the issue with a paladin being more able to take more punishment than a bard. If your character archetype you're going for is the immovable wall that protects the glass cannon/healer/fighter/w.e type of character (bard) that's a really cool thing to have a disparity in.
Point in case though if there is purchasable magic items that bard can now go buy items to bring up their saving throws if the player has issue with the power disparity specifically with saving throws. We also seem to be ignoring that the items mentioned can be given to the bard to up their saving throws while outside the paladin AOE if it's a problem.
I mean I assume the bard is better than the paladin at something so I feel this is all moot.
Arthur you argue we should choose the subclasses that have magic damage but you're ignoring that with shops/crafting players are choosing which items they get. If they are imbalanced because of their own choices then why feel bad about that? I don't feel bad about someone picking a subclass that is sub optimal in certain situations. They'll have another opportunity to swap out magic items later.
I also have never dealt with the childish nature your talking about - my groups generally determine who an item is "best" on then moves on it never comes up again other than "omg that's awesome" when they pull off cool shit with their magic items. If 2 people want it they usually just both tell each other to take it until another person tells them to "shut up and someone take it". But again they are all given choices and aren't forced to be that bard because their DM is creating and maintaining that disparity (whether purposefully or accidently).
Once again, why should the DM have to go through that mental process at all, when it can be avoided by simply not allowing players to purchase Force Multiplying items for their chars?
The mental process of choosing to help an inexperienced player or deciding they are experienced enough to know that they should be close but are actively choosing not to be?
If that's a difficult mental process for you as a DM I don't know what to say. I even give my experienced players reminders of things because not everyone remembers everything all the time. It's very odd that you think that is putting more on the DM. Heck even the paladin player can remind the warlock about their aoe it doesn't even need to be the DM. It's a collaborative/cooperative game.
Once again, why should the DM have to go through that mental process at all
That's, uhh, kind of their job
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I have played enough and DM'ed enough to know that players are like children. They always want more, more, more.
If a Magic R Us store is available, they WILL exploit it. I try not to be, being a somewhat reformed optimizer, but I guarantee if a DM says "here is a store where you can buy stuff, and even make requests that might eventually be filled", I will most certainly take advantage of that offer. That opportunity should NEVER be given to players, unless the DM is running a ridiculously high powered game, where the monsters are all lethal in any encounter.
By providing access to bespoke magic items, the DM is creating an arms race with themselves. The DM gives these wonderful toys and tools to the players, and in turn, the DM then has to artificially amp up the difficulty level of the encounters to keep the group from steamrolling them.
Or worse, and this has been an obvious fact forever, if one player, is demonstrably more powerful than the rest, thanks to magic items, or one player is weaker, than the rest of the party, bad things happen.
Mr 6th level Paladin with an 16 CHA gives a +3 to all savings throws to those within 10 feet of him. Awesome ability. Now we give that same Paladin a Luckstone, and a +1 ROP, which he bought at Magic R Us. Oh look, that Paladin now has a +5 to all his saves. Meanwhile, the Bard is 15 feet away, and has not gone that route of personal defense items.
The DM knows about this +5 of the Paladin, and has to scale up attacks to make the encounter even halfway challenging for the Paladin. So the DM thinks, "hmmmm...to make this encounter challenging, I am going to have to amp up the DC on the spells cast at the Paladin. I will have my NPC Warlock get a +2 Rod of the Pact Keeper to counter the +2 to the Magic Items the Paladin has." But Mr. Bard suddenly finds that the Sickening Radiance cast by the DM's NPC is well, brutal, while the Paladin makes what would be a fair roll.
And to those that say "well, a good DM would find ways to challenge the group without resorting to such methods", I retort with "why should the DM have to go through all the gyrations in the 1st place, when the DM can avoid the entire problem by simply not giving the char(s) the opportunity to buy items.
The players you have played with, again 30+ years hundreds of players in that time, not played with a single one who, in our games, went for Min maxing or power gaming, or got jealous that someone else had a cool magic item.
"Please don't use it" is usually unspoken and just an assumption or naivety on the part of the DM that the party will not go crazy and simply buy everything, or that the items the party purchases are far more powerful in play than the DM thought they would be on paper (and yes, that latter bit is a risk regardless of how the party gets new items).
Not pointing at you necessarily, I just like to know what in the DMG or PHB actually suggests magic items shouldn't be used, if anything. Because all I see is indications they should be used, just not willy-nilly.
It's a figure of speech. In this case pointing out that the books or here in this particular example gives tons and tons of magic items, ways to make them but then says that MI's are rare and cost so much money no one can afford them. That players will have difficulty selling them as no one can afford them and that to be able to buy one is, almost unheard of. That's a tldr of that part of the DMG. And Xanathar's. This is of course contradicted with every official settings abundance of magic items. Or that making healing potions and magical scrolls is an easy way to make money, even for pc's. Or that Wizards need to be able to buy scrolls if they want new spells.
"Few people can afford to buy a magic item, and fewer still know how to find one. Adventurers are exceptional in this regard due to the nature of their profession." -The DMG literally says adventurers (aka the PCs) are exceptional when it comes to being able to afford magic items. How easy or hard it might be for them to get rid of such items is frankly largely immaterial. The point is the book suggests player characters can afford magic items and know how to find them. Figure of speech or not, the message of the books as far as I can find it is not the message that's being espoused here. If someone can correct me I'll happily accept that, but again: I'm not seeing it so far. All I'm seeing are allegations I can't seem to corroborate with actual passages from the PHB or DMG.
The book says that it's easier for pc's to find MAgic Items because they adventure and pillage tombs, dungeons, ancient cities. Places were you can find them. That's implication behind that sentence.
Another Dichotomy of the DMG, the players are not and have not been the only adventurers in the world, there is a dearth of magic items but every tomb has some to find, but they have not been found yet.
That to me is harder to believe and makes less sense then magic shops existing in a low magic world.
... Mr 6th level Paladin with an 16 CHA gives a +3 to all savings throws to those within 10 feet of him. Awesome ability. Now we give that same Paladin a Luckstone, and a +1 ROP, which he bought at Magic R Us. .. .
Why would a Mr 6th level Paladin with +3 to all savings throws go into Magic R Us to buy an attunement requiring, 4200 gp +1 luckstone unless it's to give it to Ms Bard?
... Mr 6th level Paladin with an 16 CHA gives a +3 to all savings throws to those within 10 feet of him. Awesome ability. Now we give that same Paladin a Luckstone, and a +1 ROP, which he bought at Magic R Us. .. .
Why would a Mr 6th level Paladin with +3 to all savings throws go into Magic R Us to buy an attunement requiring, 4200 gp +1 luckstone unless it's to give it to Ms Bard?
Huh? You have lost me.
With Bards being a typical go-to for skills, with their potential additional tendency to perform and with their desire to maintain concentration for spells yet being without the Paladin's benefit of "+3 to all savings throws", Ms Bard might be a preferred recipient of that luckstone.
Why would Mr Paladin, who already has +3 to all savings throws, want that attunement requiring item over something else he might buy?
Not sure exactly what you are trying to say. It happened in a game I was in 2 sessions ago. For the umpteenth time. My char stumbled across an item. It was way OP for the group, but was also the 1st magic item the group had encountered, and yes, the DM has made it clear there is no Magic R Us store in his world. Immediately two people at the table say "we should have a conversation about who gets it" aka "not your char".
Uhhh the fact you don't expect a discussion for loot distribution is odd.
Why does having a conversation mean you don't end up with it(not your char)? My players always automatically have a quick discussion, it doesnt need to be brought up. Most of the time its "hey Id like that anyone else?" if no one wants it they take it if they do they discuss pros/cons. but no one gets upset about it.
Also with the way youve been talking Im curious what is this OP magic item and what level are you?
Once again, why should the DM have to go through that mental process at all
That's, uhh, kind of their job
Uhhhh....the DM has a ton of jobs. Making their own lives more difficult is not one of them.
It doesn't though, at all. DMs have to come up with conflicts appropriate to a party's power level, regardless of what that power level is
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... Mr 6th level Paladin with an 16 CHA gives a +3 to all savings throws to those within 10 feet of him. Awesome ability. Now we give that same Paladin a Luckstone, and a +1 ROP, which he bought at Magic R Us. Oh look, that Paladin now has a +5 to all his saves. Meanwhile, the Bard is 15 feet away, and has not gone that route of personal defense items.
The DM knows about this +5 of the Paladin, and has to scale up attacks to make the encounter even halfway challenging for the Paladin. So the DM thinks, "hmmmm...to make this encounter challenging, I am going to have to amp up the DC on the spells cast at the Paladin. I will have my NPC Warlock get a +2 Rod of the Pact Keeper to counter the +2 to the Magic Items the Paladin has." But Mr. Bard suddenly finds that the Sickening Radiance cast by the DM's NPC is well, brutal, while the Paladin makes what would be a fair roll. ...
The DM knows this about the inexperienced player of the bard character and says, "one thing your character may have remembered is that you should be in 10 ft of paladin to get the benefit. Do you want to [retcon] scooch over?"
The DM knows that the experienced player of the bard character should have known better. Tough.
Once again, why should the DM have to go through that mental process at all, when it can be avoided by simply not allowing players to purchase Force Multiplying items for their chars?
A luckstone gives a +1 additional bonus to ability checks and saving throws and as paladins aren't the typical go-tos for ability checks and, except say for bless, don't have such great call for concentration saving throws, I'm not sure if Mr Paladin would have gone for the luckstone.
What you're left with is a Paladin with Aura of Protection.
... The DM knows about this +5 of the Paladin, and has to scale up attacks to make the encounter even halfway challenging for the Paladin. ...
It may alternatively be possible that Mr Paladin (and other caring party members with different ability sets) have enough of a challenge just in keeping each other alive.
Hey, if you want to ban magic item shops in your games as an aid to keeping each character challenged in every encounter, you do you.
Alternatively, you could just leave it for different characters to face different challenges at different times.
Not sure exactly what you are trying to say. It happened in a game I was in 2 sessions ago. For the umpteenth time. My char stumbled across an item. It was way OP for the group, but was also the 1st magic item the group had encountered, and yes, the DM has made it clear there is no Magic R Us store in his world. Immediately two people at the table say "we should have a conversation about who gets it" aka "not your char".
Uhhh the fact you don't expect a discussion for loot distribution is odd.
Why does having a conversation mean you don't end up with it(not your char)? My players always automatically have a quick discussion, it doesnt need to be brought up. Most of the time its "hey Id like that anyone else?" if no one wants it they take it if they do they discuss pros/cons. but no one gets upset about it.
Also with the way youve been talking Im curious what is this OP magic item and what level are you?
I am not going into the long details of this item. It is a DM homebrew. Trust me, it is laundry list of abilities. I would place its abilities in the Very Rare, with gusts up to Legendary, category. But it also fits my char, mechanically and RP wise, perfectly.
Ok your power/rarity rating of items has been higher than I would rate things in general so I was curious.
You also didn't address why it means you don't get the item or why you don't automatically expect a discussion? Do you expect the rogue to get the loot because he checked for traps and opened the chest?
Was it brought up in the discussion how it was made for your character? Since it fits perfectly I can only assume this homebrew item was specifically for you? Is that not the case and it is pretty generic and would fit multiple party members? If it fits you and only you then discussion should end up with it being yours. If your DM made it specifically for you they should step up and say it's for you. If your other players get salty at you getting loot and them not - again a good argument for an item shop to allow them to get items they want when you already have one you want.
Uhhhh....the DM has a ton of jobs. Making their own lives more difficult is not one of them.
Again how is deciding to a) remind an inexperienced player of another characters ability or b) they are experienced enough and likely choose there positioning on purpose difficult? Do you honestly believe that makes the DMs life more difficult? If it does I'd say no dnd is better than bad dnd at that point or at least the DM would probably prefer to be a player. Also what does it have to do with magic items? The aoe is literally a class feature not a magic item. Would you only remind them if the paladin had magic items that give + to saving throws or you buffed a monster above it's original stat block?
I even mentioned before the other player (the paladin) can even remind them of it themselves. It doesn't even need to be on the DM. This is a cooperative/collaborative game.
Your position is making less and less sense as this thread continues. This isn't work and most of what you claim makes extra work already exists even without magic items. There are lots of things that I would agree can make a DM's life harder; reminding a player of an ability wouldn't even make the list.
One thing that would really make a DMs life difficult is real life drama over who gets what loot. Having to make sure you provide loot useful to specific characters who are lagging behind but then have that loot snatched away by a selfish player. Or worse a table of selfish players that you end up policing/being referee too. That makes the DM's life more difficult but that's not because of magic items or the characters that's because of the players. If it's a recurring pattern I just wouldn't put up with it in my games though and I'd probably have a chat with them the first time it happened.
That problem would lessen with magic shops because even those selfish players would have a hard time arguing they deserve all of the groups funds to purchase equipment only for themselves.
I started this thread and stopped actually reading it a long time ago. I feel almost as if I gave birth to some demon spawn! Now I just check back to see how many appendages have grown fourth from it's body. lol
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I started this thread and stopped actually reading it a long time ago. I feel almost as if I gave birth to some demon spawn! Now I just check back to see how many appendages have grown fourth from it's body. lol
Well it's keeping me from preparing my session for Saturday.
And to those that say "well, a good DM would find ways to challenge the group without resorting to such methods", I retort with "why should the DM have to go through all the gyrations in the 1st place, when the DM can avoid the entire problem by simply not giving the char(s) the opportunity to buy items.
Unless you're assuming uneven items are the only reason why characters would differ in power, this is not a "problem" that can be avoided entirely by not allowing them to buy items. I don't think it's a problem in the first place, more like a challenge, and I know for a fact uneven items are not the only reason for it - classes and subclasses are not balanced well, races aren't completely balanced, and players don't always make mechanically optimal choices (for a variety of reasons, it doesn't have to be a mistake). And if the challenge exists anyway, adding potentially uneven items in the mix doesn't put anything extra to solve on the DM's plate; on the contrary, it gives the DM a tool to manage this. Providing items to characters that are suffering in comparison to others is dead easy to do.
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Another Dichotomy of the DMG, the players are not and have not been the only adventurers in the world, there is a dearth of magic items but every tomb has some to find, but they have not been found yet.
That to me is harder to believe and makes less sense then magic shops existing in a low magic world.
Among the reasons there is not a lot of tomb robbing in my campaigns. Which, to me, is an easier answer to that question. Why would valuable gear be buried with people rather than passed on to heirs anyway?
Typical answer: for use in the afterlife.
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All of D&D is like that, though. Level a party up -> DM in an arms race with themself. Start a campaign -> DM in an arms race with themself. Let a player build a character -> DM in an arms race with themself. The whole game is built around "wonderful toys and tools."
This thread has started to head in a tonal direction that really seems to suggest a DM vs player mindset.
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I've heard of TRPGs being described as collaborative storytelling. It's an ideal I certainly strive towards. Part of this can be DMs helping parties achieve greatness. Imagine the paladin's anguish as s/he sees the bard suffer.
The DMs goal (for combat encounters) is an interesting challenge for the PCs. More powerful PCs mean you need more powerful enemies (or other situational effects) to continue providing an interesting challenge.
The DM knows this about the inexperienced player of the bard character and says, "one thing your character may have remembered is that you should be in 10 ft of paladin to get the benefit. Do you want to [retcon] scooch over?"
The DM knows that the experienced player of the bard character should have known better. Tough.
Right? Also what's the issue with a paladin being more able to take more punishment than a bard. If your character archetype you're going for is the immovable wall that protects the glass cannon/healer/fighter/w.e type of character (bard) that's a really cool thing to have a disparity in.
Point in case though if there is purchasable magic items that bard can now go buy items to bring up their saving throws if the player has issue with the power disparity specifically with saving throws. We also seem to be ignoring that the items mentioned can be given to the bard to up their saving throws while outside the paladin AOE if it's a problem.
I mean I assume the bard is better than the paladin at something so I feel this is all moot.
Arthur you argue we should choose the subclasses that have magic damage but you're ignoring that with shops/crafting players are choosing which items they get. If they are imbalanced because of their own choices then why feel bad about that? I don't feel bad about someone picking a subclass that is sub optimal in certain situations. They'll have another opportunity to swap out magic items later.
I also have never dealt with the childish nature your talking about - my groups generally determine who an item is "best" on then moves on it never comes up again other than "omg that's awesome" when they pull off cool shit with their magic items. If 2 people want it they usually just both tell each other to take it until another person tells them to "shut up and someone take it". But again they are all given choices and aren't forced to be that bard because their DM is creating and maintaining that disparity (whether purposefully or accidently).
Edit to include post above:
The mental process of choosing to help an inexperienced player or deciding they are experienced enough to know that they should be close but are actively choosing not to be?
If that's a difficult mental process for you as a DM I don't know what to say. I even give my experienced players reminders of things because not everyone remembers everything all the time. It's very odd that you think that is putting more on the DM. Heck even the paladin player can remind the warlock about their aoe it doesn't even need to be the DM. It's a collaborative/cooperative game.
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That's, uhh, kind of their job
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
The players you have played with, again 30+ years hundreds of players in that time, not played with a single one who, in our games, went for Min maxing or power gaming, or got jealous that someone else had a cool magic item.
Another Dichotomy of the DMG, the players are not and have not been the only adventurers in the world, there is a dearth of magic items but every tomb has some to find, but they have not been found yet.
That to me is harder to believe and makes less sense then magic shops existing in a low magic world.
Why would a Mr 6th level Paladin with +3 to all savings throws go into Magic R Us to buy an attunement requiring, 4200 gp +1 luckstone unless it's to give it to Ms Bard?
With Bards being a typical go-to for skills, with their potential additional tendency to perform and with their desire to maintain concentration for spells yet being without the Paladin's benefit of "+3 to all savings throws", Ms Bard might be a preferred recipient of that luckstone.
Why would Mr Paladin, who already has +3 to all savings throws, want that attunement requiring item over something else he might buy?
Wowsers, this thread.
Uhhh the fact you don't expect a discussion for loot distribution is odd.
Why does having a conversation mean you don't end up with it(not your char)? My players always automatically have a quick discussion, it doesnt need to be brought up. Most of the time its "hey Id like that anyone else?" if no one wants it they take it if they do they discuss pros/cons. but no one gets upset about it.
Also with the way youve been talking Im curious what is this OP magic item and what level are you?
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It doesn't though, at all. DMs have to come up with conflicts appropriate to a party's power level, regardless of what that power level is
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
A luckstone gives a +1 additional bonus to ability checks and saving throws and as paladins aren't the typical go-tos for ability checks and, except say for bless, don't have such great call for concentration saving throws, I'm not sure if Mr Paladin would have gone for the luckstone.
What you're left with is a Paladin with Aura of Protection.
It may alternatively be possible that Mr Paladin (and other caring party members with different ability sets) have enough of a challenge just in keeping each other alive.
Hey, if you want to ban magic item shops in your games as an aid to keeping each character challenged in every encounter, you do you.
Alternatively, you could just leave it for different characters to face different challenges at different times.
Ok your power/rarity rating of items has been higher than I would rate things in general so I was curious.
You also didn't address why it means you don't get the item or why you don't automatically expect a discussion? Do you expect the rogue to get the loot because he checked for traps and opened the chest?
Was it brought up in the discussion how it was made for your character? Since it fits perfectly I can only assume this homebrew item was specifically for you? Is that not the case and it is pretty generic and would fit multiple party members? If it fits you and only you then discussion should end up with it being yours. If your DM made it specifically for you they should step up and say it's for you. If your other players get salty at you getting loot and them not - again a good argument for an item shop to allow them to get items they want when you already have one you want.
Again how is deciding to a) remind an inexperienced player of another characters ability or b) they are experienced enough and likely choose there positioning on purpose difficult? Do you honestly believe that makes the DMs life more difficult? If it does I'd say no dnd is better than bad dnd at that point or at least the DM would probably prefer to be a player. Also what does it have to do with magic items? The aoe is literally a class feature not a magic item. Would you only remind them if the paladin had magic items that give + to saving throws or you buffed a monster above it's original stat block?
I even mentioned before the other player (the paladin) can even remind them of it themselves. It doesn't even need to be on the DM. This is a cooperative/collaborative game.
Your position is making less and less sense as this thread continues. This isn't work and most of what you claim makes extra work already exists even without magic items. There are lots of things that I would agree can make a DM's life harder; reminding a player of an ability wouldn't even make the list.
One thing that would really make a DMs life difficult is real life drama over who gets what loot. Having to make sure you provide loot useful to specific characters who are lagging behind but then have that loot snatched away by a selfish player. Or worse a table of selfish players that you end up policing/being referee too. That makes the DM's life more difficult but that's not because of magic items or the characters that's because of the players. If it's a recurring pattern I just wouldn't put up with it in my games though and I'd probably have a chat with them the first time it happened.
That problem would lessen with magic shops because even those selfish players would have a hard time arguing they deserve all of the groups funds to purchase equipment only for themselves.
How to get your dice to look like the ones in my profile picture and a full site dark mode.
Tutorial thread by Hyrkali
I started this thread and stopped actually reading it a long time ago. I feel almost as if I gave birth to some demon spawn! Now I just check back to see how many appendages have grown fourth from it's body. lol
Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
Well it's keeping me from preparing my session for Saturday.
So gratz?
Unless you're assuming uneven items are the only reason why characters would differ in power, this is not a "problem" that can be avoided entirely by not allowing them to buy items. I don't think it's a problem in the first place, more like a challenge, and I know for a fact uneven items are not the only reason for it - classes and subclasses are not balanced well, races aren't completely balanced, and players don't always make mechanically optimal choices (for a variety of reasons, it doesn't have to be a mistake). And if the challenge exists anyway, adding potentially uneven items in the mix doesn't put anything extra to solve on the DM's plate; on the contrary, it gives the DM a tool to manage this. Providing items to characters that are suffering in comparison to others is dead easy to do.
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Typical answer: for use in the afterlife.
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