So I have been DMing for a number of years and I have always asked myself this question so amny times. How much cool loot should my players have? Traditionally back in 3.5 there was a table of how much wealth a player should have by level (equipment included). I would usually subtract a few thousand since it was a little offer.
However, now with 5E I am a little confused. For the most part player characters are already unique in the sense they a stronger, faster, etc.. than the average person in their race (I mean they are heroes after all) which means they should have cool gear to go with it.
My question is how do you guys go about ensuring your loot is meaningful and yet rewarding for them? This has something I always struggled with and any help would be appreciated!
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I would say that they should find good weapons, armor, rings and so on that just make their characters perform better according to their class and give them resistances to certain types of damage. Those items should not have any extra abilities.
I've found that in 5e a lot of cool items with special abilities have extremely unpredictable effects on play. The luck blade that the rogue found on lvl 3 (it had 3 wishes in it) had much less radical effects than I had thought, and one wish that they used really progressed the narrative in a nice way. I had suspected it could be game breaking. The Dwarven Thrower upset the rules balance, I didn't expect that it would be quite as bad, and Robe of Scintillating colors is slightly annoying for me as DM -- stunned monsters can't do cool entertaining stuff, you know...
So if the item has its own spell-like abilities, perhaps each player should perhaps have only 1 at any given time. Even items like Cape of the Mountebank, for example, can have a radical effect on play sometimes.
I tend to dole out permanent magic items rather stingily and to be very generous with one-shot magic and other rewards, including gold, prestige/reputation, gems, etc. I struggled with this when I first started DMing back in the 1980s, and learned "the hard way" that giving out really cool magic items too often causes PCs to become very quickly too powerful for my campaign, which has the chain-reaction effect of forcing me to up the challenge of the encounters too quickly to keep it fun, which eventually leads to surprise TPK situations.
Another thing I've learned over the years is that it's a good idea to use negative-effects options. This tends to make the PCs weigh risk-reward before using powerful magic items: "So this is a really great +2 sword, but when he uses it, there's always that 10% (or whatever) chance Hrothgar will go berserk and attack whoever's near. Maybe he should save that for desperate situations!"
One more thing you can do is reward them with magic items that do not tend to make the characters more powerful, things that have fun effects that are not necessarily combat bonuses. A "hood of infinite disguise" that allows the character to mimic the physical appearance of anyone she's ever seen, for example, could be really cool, but has limited combat application and doesn't make the character greatly more "powerful" but does present a lot of fun RP options. Certain players will really love that kind of thing, and it won't really impact the CR of your campaign like rewarding them with +1 bows and magic armor tends to do. (The hood idea could really impact story lines, though!)
So make it yours, but keep the consequences in mind so you're not surprised by how the rewards impact play.
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Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.
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So I have been DMing for a number of years and I have always asked myself this question so amny times. How much cool loot should my players have? Traditionally back in 3.5 there was a table of how much wealth a player should have by level (equipment included). I would usually subtract a few thousand since it was a little offer.
However, now with 5E I am a little confused. For the most part player characters are already unique in the sense they a stronger, faster, etc.. than the average person in their race (I mean they are heroes after all) which means they should have cool gear to go with it.
My question is how do you guys go about ensuring your loot is meaningful and yet rewarding for them? This has something I always struggled with and any help would be appreciated!
When I play a player, I endeavor to have as much cool stuff as possible. Sometimes I’ll take boring stuff and make it cool.
*rummages through backpack full of starting equipment*
A bar of soap? Run it all over the stairs and throw some water on it.
A skillet? More like an improvised club and then I make the party bacon and eggs for breakfast.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
This is something that is highly dependent on the tone/feel of your campaign, and your world.
I run a fairly "low magic" setting - so the party doesn't have a ton of magic items, even at 5th level.They all have a magic item that they use.
Most of their rewards to date have been social - favors and influence, and such.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I would say that they should find good weapons, armor, rings and so on that just make their characters perform better according to their class and give them resistances to certain types of damage. Those items should not have any extra abilities.
I've found that in 5e a lot of cool items with special abilities have extremely unpredictable effects on play. The luck blade that the rogue found on lvl 3 (it had 3 wishes in it) had much less radical effects than I had thought, and one wish that they used really progressed the narrative in a nice way. I had suspected it could be game breaking. The Dwarven Thrower upset the rules balance, I didn't expect that it would be quite as bad, and Robe of Scintillating colors is slightly annoying for me as DM -- stunned monsters can't do cool entertaining stuff, you know...
So if the item has its own spell-like abilities, perhaps each player should perhaps have only 1 at any given time. Even items like Cape of the Mountebank, for example, can have a radical effect on play sometimes.
I tend to dole out permanent magic items rather stingily and to be very generous with one-shot magic and other rewards, including gold, prestige/reputation, gems, etc. I struggled with this when I first started DMing back in the 1980s, and learned "the hard way" that giving out really cool magic items too often causes PCs to become very quickly too powerful for my campaign, which has the chain-reaction effect of forcing me to up the challenge of the encounters too quickly to keep it fun, which eventually leads to surprise TPK situations.
Another thing I've learned over the years is that it's a good idea to use negative-effects options. This tends to make the PCs weigh risk-reward before using powerful magic items: "So this is a really great +2 sword, but when he uses it, there's always that 10% (or whatever) chance Hrothgar will go berserk and attack whoever's near. Maybe he should save that for desperate situations!"
One more thing you can do is reward them with magic items that do not tend to make the characters more powerful, things that have fun effects that are not necessarily combat bonuses. A "hood of infinite disguise" that allows the character to mimic the physical appearance of anyone she's ever seen, for example, could be really cool, but has limited combat application and doesn't make the character greatly more "powerful" but does present a lot of fun RP options. Certain players will really love that kind of thing, and it won't really impact the CR of your campaign like rewarding them with +1 bows and magic armor tends to do. (The hood idea could really impact story lines, though!)
So make it yours, but keep the consequences in mind so you're not surprised by how the rewards impact play.
Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.