I do hope I am in the propper forum and not being repetative. If I am, maybing a litttle redirection is alll that I need. Anyways, I’m in the final stages of preparing a D&D PbP Discord server, and I’ve hit a bit of a wall when it comes to handling the magic item list. I don’t necessarily want to outright ban a ton of items, but I am leaning toward bumping certain items up in rarity (or even multiple rarities) to keep things balanced.
The trouble is, I’m not sure where to begin. There are just so many items, and I know some can really warp balance in a long-term play-by-post format. If anyone has experience with this and would be willing to share suggestions on items that absolutely deserve to be banned, adjusted, or restricted, I would appreciate it more than you could imagine.
There are many other factors to consider in terms of what magic items you want to allow in the games on your servers.
1) What magic items are the DM comfortable with? I've played and run Adventurers League as well as playing in a local league with similar rules. In AL, if someone brings a completely unbalancing item to the table then I may just ask them not to bring it for that session.
For example, a Staff of Power is a very nice magic item classed as very rare, it is a likely overpowered at level 5, can be made to work in late tier 2 (level 7-10) and is fine in tier 3 or tier 4 play. However, if someone tried to bring it to a tier 1 game (level 1-4), I'd ask them to leave it at home.
2) How much work do you want to put into it? There are a lot of magic items from a lot of sources. Compiling and maintaining a list of allowed items along with how much they are going to cost players (either in terms of currency or magic item purchase points or whatever) is probably more work than setting up and organizing the server in the first place.
3) As a general rule, I wouldn't allow Artifacts and I would restrict Legendary items to tier 4 (level 17-20).
4) The 2024 rules have made a number of magic items require attunement that did not before - Broom of Flying is a good example - this helps balance things a bit.
5) Another technique used is to limit the number of magic items a character can bring to an adventure depending on level. AL uses Level 1-4 (tier 2): 1 uncommon+ magic item and up to 5 consumables, Level 5-10 (tier 2): 3 uncommon+ magic items and up to 10 consumables, Level 11-16 (tier 3): 6 uncommon+ magic items and up to 10 consumables, Level 17-20 (tier 4): 10 uncommon+ magic items and up to 15 consumables. I don't recall how common magic items are limited off the top of my head. The advantage of this is that characters often have to choose carefully what items to bring.
In addition, part of this is philosophy, should magic items define the character and be used to make them especially powerful or do magic items supplement the class/race abilities of the character. By limiting the magic items a bit, there can be a greater focus on the character and obtaining that one specific magic item that really helps the character can feel more meaningful. However, this depends on the approach you want to use.
All flight-granting items <- these could be acceptable as Very Rare items, but if you allow them the vast majority of characters will be flying at all times.
Cloak of Displacement <- this could maybe be acceptable as a Very Rare/Legendary but nearly every character will try to get one.
Legendary items & Artifacts
Mizzium apparatus & armor <- Mizzium Apparatus is very easily exploitable with Expertise & Multiclassing
Wand of Magic Missile <- because it doesn't require attunement characters can stock up on these and do massive Nova damage by having all their party cast 9th level Magic Missile (or giving the wands to pets / companions / summons)
Horns of Valhalla / of the Maze (and any other items that create additional creatures) -> these easily make combat completely unmanagable by doubling or tripling the number of creatures.
Instant Fortress -> lots of exploitative uses
Mantle of Spell Resistance, Spellguard Shield -> these aren't broken so much as every character will want them so it makes the game really boring.
Ring of Spell Storing (any anything else that does something similar) -> these are very much challenging to keep track of, and have many known exploits online.
All the Manuals that increase your stats -> people will just buy them over and over again to boost all their stats infinitely high.
Hello everyone,
I do hope I am in the propper forum and not being repetative. If I am, maybing a litttle redirection is alll that I need. Anyways, I’m in the final stages of preparing a D&D PbP Discord server, and I’ve hit a bit of a wall when it comes to handling the magic item list. I don’t necessarily want to outright ban a ton of items, but I am leaning toward bumping certain items up in rarity (or even multiple rarities) to keep things balanced.
The trouble is, I’m not sure where to begin. There are just so many items, and I know some can really warp balance in a long-term play-by-post format. If anyone has experience with this and would be willing to share suggestions on items that absolutely deserve to be banned, adjusted, or restricted, I would appreciate it more than you could imagine.
Thanks in advance for any wisdom you might offer!
There are many other factors to consider in terms of what magic items you want to allow in the games on your servers.
1) What magic items are the DM comfortable with? I've played and run Adventurers League as well as playing in a local league with similar rules. In AL, if someone brings a completely unbalancing item to the table then I may just ask them not to bring it for that session.
For example, a Staff of Power is a very nice magic item classed as very rare, it is a likely overpowered at level 5, can be made to work in late tier 2 (level 7-10) and is fine in tier 3 or tier 4 play. However, if someone tried to bring it to a tier 1 game (level 1-4), I'd ask them to leave it at home.
2) How much work do you want to put into it? There are a lot of magic items from a lot of sources. Compiling and maintaining a list of allowed items along with how much they are going to cost players (either in terms of currency or magic item purchase points or whatever) is probably more work than setting up and organizing the server in the first place.
3) As a general rule, I wouldn't allow Artifacts and I would restrict Legendary items to tier 4 (level 17-20).
4) The 2024 rules have made a number of magic items require attunement that did not before - Broom of Flying is a good example - this helps balance things a bit.
5) Another technique used is to limit the number of magic items a character can bring to an adventure depending on level. AL uses Level 1-4 (tier 2): 1 uncommon+ magic item and up to 5 consumables, Level 5-10 (tier 2): 3 uncommon+ magic items and up to 10 consumables, Level 11-16 (tier 3): 6 uncommon+ magic items and up to 10 consumables, Level 17-20 (tier 4): 10 uncommon+ magic items and up to 15 consumables. I don't recall how common magic items are limited off the top of my head. The advantage of this is that characters often have to choose carefully what items to bring.
In addition, part of this is philosophy, should magic items define the character and be used to make them especially powerful or do magic items supplement the class/race abilities of the character. By limiting the magic items a bit, there can be a greater focus on the character and obtaining that one specific magic item that really helps the character can feel more meaningful. However, this depends on the approach you want to use.
On our PbP WM server we ban:
Those that should be increased in rarity are:
I suggest that all magic items should have a fixed number of charges and not be rechargeable. And I would enforce the limitations set by Attunment.