I recently played a one shot and the DM gave me four premade characters so I could play test the adventure for him.
Except for some very modest items, they had practically no magical items in the group.
Level 7 Bard with a magic Lute that amped his abilities +1 when he was playing it.
Level 5 Paladin with a +1 shield and regular plate armor.
Level 5 Ranger with a +2 "Bleeding Bow" which gave the Ranger +2 to hit but no extra damage.
Level 5 Cleric with a +1 shield and regular leather armor.
This got me to thinking about how fast should a 'normal' party gain magical items. I'm OK with a party not starting with magical items, in fact I think this is probably a hard rule for me. But by level 3 I would expect every fighter sort of character to have at least a +1 armor element or a +1 weapon, spell casters would have something to help them store or cast spells, and cleric/druid players might have one or the other.
By level 5 I would think every fighter would have a +1 weapon And a +1 armor element. Likewise for the other character types I would expect them to have something about this impactful for their class. I would think most magic focused characters would have a wand or magic staff by level 5, although not crazy powerful.
Somewhere around level 5 or 6 they should have a piece of magical equipment like cloak of elven kind or bag of holding and then things start to get really exciting.
We all know about "tiers" of play. What do you think the tiers for acquiring magical items? I understand some DMs need to provide certain magic items to make a dungeon work, but I'm talking more "in general." And I also understand a DM can just jack up the CR if the party is carrying quite a bit of magical items. I guess I would tend to suppress the degree of magical items folks were hauling around. So what do y'all think?
You can only have 3 attuned items so, that is a heavy limit. Most games I play in allow 1-2 +1 items, or something near that level of power by 5th level. If you allow 1-2 magic items every 5 levels, that would have you well decked out, especially considering upgrading to more rare and powerful items.
Characters created with magical items should have considerably fewer than characters that played up to that level, but those items are far more likely to be perfectly suited to the character. If you're talking starting gear, I'd stick to the guidelines for it in the DMG ch1: tiers of play.
For leveled characters, I think a 5th level martial character should probably have a magical weapon of some sort, though it might not even be an uncommon one, along with some potions and probably a "non-combat" (I have yet to see an item that no one will try to use in combat) magical item of some sort. By 10, that weapon should be at least uncommon, possibly rare, along with 1-3 other commonly used uncommon combat items and a couple non-combat items.
Also, I try to avoid simple +1ish items, they increase numbers but they don't really make things more fun. Instead I tend towards magic items that increase the variety of options, like a pure martial character finding a wand of magic missiles.
XGtE has some guidlines on the matter. The rate of distribution is not consistent. The first 4 levels get very few items, the second tier get a large spike in magic items, later tiers get gradually fewer, but stronger items.
I recently played a one shot and the DM gave me four premade characters so I could play test the adventure for him.
Except for some very modest items, they had practically no magical items in the group.
Level 7 Bard with a magic Lute that amped his abilities +1 when he was playing it.
Level 5 Paladin with a +1 shield and regular plate armor.
Level 5 Ranger with a +2 "Bleeding Bow" which gave the Ranger +2 to hit but no extra damage.
Level 5 Cleric with a +1 shield and regular leather armor.
This got me to thinking about how fast should a 'normal' party gain magical items. I'm OK with a party not starting with magical items, in fact I think this is probably a hard rule for me. But by level 3 I would expect every fighter sort of character to have at least a +1 armor element or a +1 weapon, spell casters would have something to help them store or cast spells, and cleric/druid players might have one or the other.
By level 5 I would think every fighter would have a +1 weapon And a +1 armor element. Likewise for the other character types I would expect them to have something about this impactful for their class. I would think most magic focused characters would have a wand or magic staff by level 5, although not crazy powerful.
Somewhere around level 5 or 6 they should have a piece of magical equipment like cloak of elven kind or bag of holding and then things start to get really exciting.
We all know about "tiers" of play. What do you think the tiers for acquiring magical items? I understand some DMs need to provide certain magic items to make a dungeon work, but I'm talking more "in general." And I also understand a DM can just jack up the CR if the party is carrying quite a bit of magical items. I guess I would tend to suppress the degree of magical items folks were hauling around. So what do y'all think?
You can only have 3 attuned items so, that is a heavy limit. Most games I play in allow 1-2 +1 items, or something near that level of power by 5th level. If you allow 1-2 magic items every 5 levels, that would have you well decked out, especially considering upgrading to more rare and powerful items.
Characters created with magical items should have considerably fewer than characters that played up to that level, but those items are far more likely to be perfectly suited to the character. If you're talking starting gear, I'd stick to the guidelines for it in the DMG ch1: tiers of play.
For leveled characters, I think a 5th level martial character should probably have a magical weapon of some sort, though it might not even be an uncommon one, along with some potions and probably a "non-combat" (I have yet to see an item that no one will try to use in combat) magical item of some sort. By 10, that weapon should be at least uncommon, possibly rare, along with 1-3 other commonly used uncommon combat items and a couple non-combat items.
Also, I try to avoid simple +1ish items, they increase numbers but they don't really make things more fun. Instead I tend towards magic items that increase the variety of options, like a pure martial character finding a wand of magic missiles.
XGtE has some guidlines on the matter. The rate of distribution is not consistent. The first 4 levels get very few items, the second tier get a large spike in magic items, later tiers get gradually fewer, but stronger items.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/xgte/awarding-magic-items