Especially in a game that is essentially created intentionally to be "low magic item". If players can create magical items, then that whole concept goes out the window.
IT would also seriously disrupt the other portions, where magical items are described as being things that "the knowledge of making was lost long ago". While lost knowledge can be found again, making it common knowledge is a separate issue, and has some big impact on worldbuilding decisions, even if that includes a restriction to only "certain kinds of people".
There would need to be a mechanism put in there to really make crafting magical items a challenge if they are going to keep that kind of "low magic item" ethos going -- which is why I wonder if they are just going to open it up, discarding that element.
D&D generic was never created to be a low magic item system and never said the knowledge of making magic items being lost. That is campaign specific concepts.
Um, bad news...
The game assumes that the secrets of creating the most powerful items arose centuries ago and were then gradually lost as a result of wars, cataclysms, and mishaps. Even uncommon items can’t be easily created. Thus, many magic items are well-preserved antiquities.
DMG Chapter 7
It explicitly says it.
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Without any mechanics to roll proficiencies there is literally no reason for a player to choose them.
there are only 2 tool proficinacies that have a in game use. Herbalism to make healing potions and thieves tools to be able to pick locks.
And yet, my group manages to use them. My character with masonry tool proficiency got a bonus when interacting with some stone masons, for example. It’s a matter of the player pointing it out to their DM why they should, and a DM who realizes that it’s sensible.
Not everything needs to be spelled out. Not every situation can be covered in the rules. Sometimes, spelling things out, in fact, works against you as it can stifle creative uses of skills and tools.
and some people like having a structure of rules to work with, and it can still allow for creative uses of skills and tools. you example could still be done if there was a mechanic to use the toolset to actually build stuff. Having a rules set for soemthing does not stifle creativity, it gives a baseline to be able to do something.
Especially in a game that is essentially created intentionally to be "low magic item". If players can create magical items, then that whole concept goes out the window.
IT would also seriously disrupt the other portions, where magical items are described as being things that "the knowledge of making was lost long ago". While lost knowledge can be found again, making it common knowledge is a separate issue, and has some big impact on worldbuilding decisions, even if that includes a restriction to only "certain kinds of people".
There would need to be a mechanism put in there to really make crafting magical items a challenge if they are going to keep that kind of "low magic item" ethos going -- which is why I wonder if they are just going to open it up, discarding that element.
D&D generic was never created to be a low magic item system and never said the knowledge of making magic items being lost. That is campaign specific concepts.
Um, bad news...
The game assumes that the secrets of creating the most powerful items arose centuries ago and were then gradually lost as a result of wars, cataclysms, and mishaps. Even uncommon items can’t be easily created. Thus, many magic items are well-preserved antiquities.
DMG Chapter 7
It explicitly says it.
OK, I will except that, but as everyone always saysm the rules are jsut a guideline. and 99% of players dont even follow that guideline anyway.
Without any mechanics to roll proficiencies there is literally no reason for a player to choose them.
there are only 2 tool proficinacies that have a in game use. Herbalism to make healing potions and thieves tools to be able to pick locks.
Xanathar's has additional tool uses that will most likely end up in the new DMG. In addition, if you have both a tool and skill that apply to a given check, you get automatic advantage (e.g. Disguise Kit + Deception).
Very little use, there needs to be more or just get rid of them completely
There needs to be less magic, in the game. It's killing all other aspects of the game, skill proficiencies -> irrelevant just just Borrowed Knowledge + Enhance ability, disguise kit -> irrelevant just use Disguise Self, foraging / cooking -> irrelevant just use Goodberry, climbing / swimming -> irrelevant just use low level teleporation & Water Walk.... etc...
I would rather they drop all the special abilities and increase the amount of magic ites in the game.
And a lot of that "just use magic" comes because the overall game system doesn't place limits on players getting spells (as it once did, even though most people ignored it, lol).
I have a lot of issues with the way that 5e handles magic spells (and they track back to long before it), but for some reason all those other abilities have always been of value and use in my games.
(me. I'm the reason.)
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Especially in a game that is essentially created intentionally to be "low magic item". If players can create magical items, then that whole concept goes out the window.
IT would also seriously disrupt the other portions, where magical items are described as being things that "the knowledge of making was lost long ago". While lost knowledge can be found again, making it common knowledge is a separate issue, and has some big impact on worldbuilding decisions, even if that includes a restriction to only "certain kinds of people".
There would need to be a mechanism put in there to really make crafting magical items a challenge if they are going to keep that kind of "low magic item" ethos going -- which is why I wonder if they are just going to open it up, discarding that element.
D&D generic was never created to be a low magic item system and never said the knowledge of making magic items being lost. That is campaign specific concepts.
Um, bad news...
The game assumes that the secrets of creating the most powerful items arose centuries ago and were then gradually lost as a result of wars, cataclysms, and mishaps. Even uncommon items can’t be easily created. Thus, many magic items are well-preserved antiquities.
DMG Chapter 7
It explicitly says it.
OK, I will except that, but as everyone always saysm the rules are jsut a guideline. and 99% of players dont even follow that guideline anyway.
Oh, no doubt, lol.
However, I mentioned how the game was designed to be that way -- and coming from the 1e days, when you needed magic items in order to have the kinds of special abilities that PCs just get these days, it is explicitly a low magic game, by design and intent. The discussion was on the way that D&D was conceived and designed, not about how others play it.
Which has little to do with how everyone plays it (including myself).
The easier they make it to get magic items -- particularly anything uncommon or more rare -- the more they break their own design goals and systems, shifting he game away from how the designers intended for it to be played. WHich is fine -- but it also points to the fact that they are making a shift, and we will likely see a goodly amount of change in the 2024 version.
Or, also possible, we could just see that they ignore this, and THen they will have to adjust for what they break in other ways.
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Without any mechanics to roll proficiencies there is literally no reason for a player to choose them.
there are only 2 tool proficinacies that have a in game use. Herbalism to make healing potions and thieves tools to be able to pick locks.
And yet, my group manages to use them. My character with masonry tool proficiency got a bonus when interacting with some stone masons, for example. It’s a matter of the player pointing it out to their DM why they should, and a DM who realizes that it’s sensible.
Not everything needs to be spelled out. Not every situation can be covered in the rules. Sometimes, spelling things out, in fact, works against you as it can stifle creative uses of skills and tools.
and some people like having a structure of rules to work with, and it can still allow for creative uses of skills and tools. you example could still be done if there was a mechanic to use the toolset to actually build stuff. Having a rules set for soemthing does not stifle creativity, it gives a baseline to be able to do something.
I'm a little wondery...
What additional rules are you looking for here?
The rules for the use of the skills are pretty good for this type of simplified approach to skills in a class based game system. it is common and ordinary for all the skills in my game to have assorted uses through the play -- in part because I make use of them.
Proficiencies are chosen, not rolled for, and resolution of a task is shockingly straightforward -- more so than in 1e for example. You need a DC for whatever it is, and then they roll -- skills are all tied to Ability scores, so that means they add their ability score modifier and proficiency bonus (which demonstrates improvement) to the roll against that DC.
All of the Ability scores tell you what the skills do and are for. It is more a matter of having a use for them when you create an adventure -- if you don't make a point of it, then they never use them.
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
but also as i said before crafting doesnt alwys have to be about magic items. Having a crafting system for just making mondane items, and common postions and magic items. something to give a structured use of the ability.
THe way it is a player is better off to choose 2 skills and 2 laungages for the backgoud then having a tool proficiancy, unless they want to get Herbelism or thieves tools, A language would be more usefull in the game.
Without any mechanics to roll proficiencies there is literally no reason for a player to choose them.
there are only 2 tool proficinacies that have a in game use. Herbalism to make healing potions and thieves tools to be able to pick locks.
And yet, my group manages to use them. My character with masonry tool proficiency got a bonus when interacting with some stone masons, for example. It’s a matter of the player pointing it out to their DM why they should, and a DM who realizes that it’s sensible.
Not everything needs to be spelled out. Not every situation can be covered in the rules. Sometimes, spelling things out, in fact, works against you as it can stifle creative uses of skills and tools.
and some people like having a structure of rules to work with, and it can still allow for creative uses of skills and tools. you example could still be done if there was a mechanic to use the toolset to actually build stuff. Having a rules set for soemthing does not stifle creativity, it gives a baseline to be able to do something.
I'm a little wondery...
What additional rules are you looking for here?
The rules for the use of the skills are pretty good for this type of simplified approach to skills in a class based game system. it is common and ordinary for all the skills in my game to have assorted uses through the play -- in part because I make use of them.
Proficiencies are chosen, not rolled for, and resolution of a task is shockingly straightforward -- more so than in 1e for example. You need a DC for whatever it is, and then they roll -- skills are all tied to Ability scores, so that means they add their ability score modifier and proficiency bonus (which demonstrates improvement) to the roll against that DC.
All of the Ability scores tell you what the skills do and are for. It is more a matter of having a use for them when you create an adventure -- if you don't make a point of it, then they never use them.
Without any mechanics to roll proficiencies there is literally no reason for a player to choose them.
there are only 2 tool proficinacies that have a in game use. Herbalism to make healing potions and thieves tools to be able to pick locks.
And yet, my group manages to use them. My character with masonry tool proficiency got a bonus when interacting with some stone masons, for example. It’s a matter of the player pointing it out to their DM why they should, and a DM who realizes that it’s sensible.
Not everything needs to be spelled out. Not every situation can be covered in the rules. Sometimes, spelling things out, in fact, works against you as it can stifle creative uses of skills and tools.
and some people like having a structure of rules to work with, and it can still allow for creative uses of skills and tools. you example could still be done if there was a mechanic to use the toolset to actually build stuff. Having a rules set for soemthing does not stifle creativity, it gives a baseline to be able to do something.
I'm a little wondery...
What additional rules are you looking for here?
The rules for the use of the skills are pretty good for this type of simplified approach to skills in a class based game system. it is common and ordinary for all the skills in my game to have assorted uses through the play -- in part because I make use of them.
Proficiencies are chosen, not rolled for, and resolution of a task is shockingly straightforward -- more so than in 1e for example. You need a DC for whatever it is, and then they roll -- skills are all tied to Ability scores, so that means they add their ability score modifier and proficiency bonus (which demonstrates improvement) to the roll against that DC.
All of the Ability scores tell you what the skills do and are for. It is more a matter of having a use for them when you create an adventure -- if you don't make a point of it, then they never use them.
i ment for tools, i dont know why i put in skills
Ah, ok.
Well, it helps to realize that Tools are actually proficiencies. Skills, that is. One of my pet peeves is that the equipment lists will have things in them like "Thieves tools" so anyone can buy them, when they should only be available through backgrounds and class stuff. Because if you have the tools, you can use your proficiency bonus when doing the things with those tools (and if you don't have the tools, you can still do it, but you don't have the proficiency bonus).
They used Tools as a way to add more proficiencies without actually adding to the list of skills. Silly, imo/ime, but that was their choice.
So using them operates the exact same way -- ultimately, they are tied to one of the existing skills (thieves tools is linked to dexterity, for example) and operate the same way as the other skills.
Which is not to say I am disagreeing here -- I have a much more involved skill set up for my own games, but I was a massive fan of Proficiencies when they were introduced to the game initially, wrote articles, the whole spiel, and so I have always had a focus on them and their value. I have more tools and More Kits (and even a specific definition for them), more skills and even complex skills (that are based in one score but use a different score modifier), and then crafting skills (that are being updated to work with Bastions, as of today) and an inhouse crafting system that is really simple and just requires a roll.
And if one is going to make magical items, well, then it is two rolls.
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I'm firmly of the belief that 5E's biggest design flaw was that explicit, deliberate element to make magic items unnecessary. It leads to a cascade of issues in the game, not the least of which is power creep in PC abilities and removing a HUGE incentive for PCs to actually go adventuring.
I understand that one of the underlying motives was to give each class something cool and new when a level is gained, and to avoid a player having nothing to do in a turn of combat. Both laudable goals. But as we're seeing with the UA playtest material, the solution they went with in terms of game and class design was the safest, least creative way available.
I come from old school roots and I can't tell you how far my jaw dropped when I read that sentence in the DMG stating that the game is intentionally designed so that characters never need a magic item.
I'm firmly of the belief that 5E's biggest design flaw was that explicit, deliberate element to make magic items unnecessary. It leads to a cascade of issues in the game, not the least of which is power creep in PC abilities and removing a HUGE incentive for PCs to actually go adventuring.
I understand that one of the underlying motives was to give each class something cool and new when a level is gained, and to avoid a player having nothing to do in a turn of combat. Both laudable goals. But as we're seeing with the UA playtest material, the solution they went with in terms of game and class design was the safest, least creative way available.
I come from old school roots and I can't tell you how far my jaw dropped when I read that sentence in the DMG stating that the game is intentionally designed so that characters never need a magic item.
yeah, it ranks as number two or three of my least favorite things about the game.
Hmm, three.
1 = Loss of class Archetype distinctiveness.
2 = Special abilities each level that do what magic items used to do.
3 = Weakened, erased, nerfed magic items and absence of them.
4 = Nerfing the hell out of healing magic.
5 = Overly "soft". Needs a little more crunch.
All three are design choices. They are also fairly easy to rectify through essentially rewriting the class side of things. However, doing so cuts you off from the VTT and the like. That said, all of my complaints have been prattled on about for a decade, and haven't made a dent in the popularity of the the current model -- which is the metric they choose to use.
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
but also as i said before crafting doesnt alwys have to be about magic items. Having a crafting system for just making mondane items, and common postions and magic items. something to give a structured use of the ability.
THe way it is a player is better off to choose 2 skills and 2 laungages for the backgoud then having a tool proficiancy, unless they want to get Herbelism or thieves tools, A language would be more usefull in the game.
What mundane items do you want to make? Xanathar’s has rules for lots, you want a horseshoe? Smith’s tools. You want a necklace? Jeweler’s tools. And what it’s better to choose is, and always will be, campaign dependent. Languages could be critically important, or could be written on your sheet and never considered again. Some skills go a whole campaign without coming up, or coming up very rarely. But if you’re playing a ship-based campaign, navigator’s tools and carpenter’s tools will come up a lot.
I'm firmly of the belief that 5E's biggest design flaw was that explicit, deliberate element to make magic items unnecessary. It leads to a cascade of issues in the game, not the least of which is power creep in PC abilities and removing a HUGE incentive for PCs to actually go adventuring.
I understand that one of the underlying motives was to give each class something cool and new when a level is gained, and to avoid a player having nothing to do in a turn of combat. Both laudable goals. But as we're seeing with the UA playtest material, the solution they went with in terms of game and class design was the safest, least creative way available.
I come from old school roots and I can't tell you how far my jaw dropped when I read that sentence in the DMG stating that the game is intentionally designed so that characters never need a magic item.
It's part of what seems to be the broader philosophy of minimizing DM workload. Shifting character progression to the classes puts it squarely on the responsibility of the player to know their abilities, and on the game designers to balance the game, so the DM needs only to tell an interesting story without having to micromanage loot to ensure the game remains correctly balanced.
Which falls apart when we evolve an expectation that magic items will trickle in at a certain rate according to their rarity and character level. Which we have evolved. The DMG and XGtE make it pretty explicit, in fact. It would work out, if the rarity system was actually a power ranking system instead, with as many categories as there are levels, or close to it. It would be dull and video-gamey, but it would work. Level 4, give them all level 4 items!
Instead, it's like, give them an uncommon item between 3-5 probably! And it could be as powerful as a Broom of Flying, or as weak as +1 blowgun ammo. Good luck!
I'm firmly of the belief that 5E's biggest design flaw was that explicit, deliberate element to make magic items unnecessary.
It's a side effect of bounded accuracy, which is itself a fundamentally confused and flawed concept (the idea that, in previous editions, DCs scale with the level of the party has never been true. DCs scale with the level of the dungeon, and running into a higher DC lock is no different from running into an ogre guard instead of an orc guard).
Crafting is a massive hydra of a feature and I just don't see them doing it.
I think it's only a hydra if you let it be; the key is to limit the amount of detail to only what's actually needed.
For example, let's say to craft an item you need a component of the same rarity, plus a gold cost in others materials and labour (hiring someone to do the work). If you have relevant tool proficiencies you can try to do the work yourself to reduce the labour cost. The work would also take some amount time by rarity (less time for consumables).
In this way, the availability of crafting is easily controlled by the DM, who can hand out special materials like they would any other loot, essentially becoming an invitation of the form "you can now choose any item of uncommon rarity that you would like to have, and start the process of having it made".
Crafting components could be separated into materials and ingredients, so you might have a rare metal that a player can then use to make a rare weapon or piece of armour, while rare ingredients might come in the form of special ingredients that affect the potency of a potion or poison, giving you access to the more powerful options. This avoids the need to worry about specific ingredients under the assumption that a basic damage poison and a stronger damage poison might use mostly similar, common, ingredients the difference is the potency. Weapon/armour materials could likely be purity rather than specific special metals (like mithral or adamantine) and can stay broad so your DM could allow say a rare item from harvested dragon scales or whatever.
Point is to keep it basic, and focus on what matters to the player, which is being able to create (some of) the gear they want, rather than make do only with what they find.
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Are you suggesting a system with resources called "resources"? Like, to craft a level 1 item, you need a level 1 resource? And then the DM material would be like, "in the chest is 250gp, a gem worth 100gp, and a dragon scale that counts as a level 1 resource"?
But if you start requiring resources, even if you abstract it and say 1 common resource without naming it (which would be awful and boring and metagame-y), you force the DM to track not only those resources, but also what those resources could possibly turn into. They have to then balance it between giving characters enough to make stuff, but not too much so they can make stuff you don’t intend for them to have. Or stuff beyond the power level of the game.
Then you have to arrange for enough down time to actually make the stuff — which, campaign dependent, may not be much hurdle, but mostly would be. It’s not Skyrim where you make 5 swords in the time it takes to press a button 5 times.
Point is to keep it basic, and focus on what matters to the player, which is being able to create (some of) the gear they want, rather than make do only with what they find.
I fundamentally disagree on this point. IMO there are two types of players who want crafting:
1) munchkins who want uber powerful combos that they don't think their DM would normally allow in the game (hence the DM wouldn't give them the items they want) so they want to go around the DM to create it anyway by using crafting. Hopefully we can agree that this is an absolutely terrible thing for the game and should not be enabled. These players don't care how crafting works they just want their goodies by any means necessary.
2) flavour creatives who want to use their creativity to make a unique item to remember / honour particular moments in the game - e.g. making a suit of armour from the scales of the dragon their character killed, or making a dagger from the fang of a guardian naga they defeated, or making a flying broom from the feather they stole from an Awk's nest. These players want the item they create to be thematically linked to the materials used to create it.
Um, bad news...
The game assumes that the secrets of creating the most powerful items arose centuries ago and were then gradually lost as a result of wars, cataclysms, and mishaps. Even uncommon items can’t be easily created. Thus, many magic items are well-preserved antiquities.
DMG Chapter 7
It explicitly says it.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
and some people like having a structure of rules to work with, and it can still allow for creative uses of skills and tools. you example could still be done if there was a mechanic to use the toolset to actually build stuff. Having a rules set for soemthing does not stifle creativity, it gives a baseline to be able to do something.
OK, I will except that, but as everyone always saysm the rules are jsut a guideline. and 99% of players dont even follow that guideline anyway.
I would rather they drop all the special abilities and increase the amount of magic ites in the game.
And a lot of that "just use magic" comes because the overall game system doesn't place limits on players getting spells (as it once did, even though most people ignored it, lol).
I have a lot of issues with the way that 5e handles magic spells (and they track back to long before it), but for some reason all those other abilities have always been of value and use in my games.
(me. I'm the reason.)
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
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Oh, no doubt, lol.
However, I mentioned how the game was designed to be that way -- and coming from the 1e days, when you needed magic items in order to have the kinds of special abilities that PCs just get these days, it is explicitly a low magic game, by design and intent. The discussion was on the way that D&D was conceived and designed, not about how others play it.
Which has little to do with how everyone plays it (including myself).
The easier they make it to get magic items -- particularly anything uncommon or more rare -- the more they break their own design goals and systems, shifting he game away from how the designers intended for it to be played. WHich is fine -- but it also points to the fact that they are making a shift, and we will likely see a goodly amount of change in the 2024 version.
Or, also possible, we could just see that they ignore this, and THen they will have to adjust for what they break in other ways.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I'm a little wondery...
What additional rules are you looking for here?
The rules for the use of the skills are pretty good for this type of simplified approach to skills in a class based game system. it is common and ordinary for all the skills in my game to have assorted uses through the play -- in part because I make use of them.
Proficiencies are chosen, not rolled for, and resolution of a task is shockingly straightforward -- more so than in 1e for example. You need a DC for whatever it is, and then they roll -- skills are all tied to Ability scores, so that means they add their ability score modifier and proficiency bonus (which demonstrates improvement) to the roll against that DC.
All of the Ability scores tell you what the skills do and are for. It is more a matter of having a use for them when you create an adventure -- if you don't make a point of it, then they never use them.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
but also as i said before crafting doesnt alwys have to be about magic items. Having a crafting system for just making mondane items, and common postions and magic items. something to give a structured use of the ability.
THe way it is a player is better off to choose 2 skills and 2 laungages for the backgoud then having a tool proficiancy, unless they want to get Herbelism or thieves tools, A language would be more usefull in the game.
i ment for tools, i dont know why i put in skills
Ah, ok.
Well, it helps to realize that Tools are actually proficiencies. Skills, that is. One of my pet peeves is that the equipment lists will have things in them like "Thieves tools" so anyone can buy them, when they should only be available through backgrounds and class stuff. Because if you have the tools, you can use your proficiency bonus when doing the things with those tools (and if you don't have the tools, you can still do it, but you don't have the proficiency bonus).
They used Tools as a way to add more proficiencies without actually adding to the list of skills. Silly, imo/ime, but that was their choice.
So using them operates the exact same way -- ultimately, they are tied to one of the existing skills (thieves tools is linked to dexterity, for example) and operate the same way as the other skills.
Which is not to say I am disagreeing here -- I have a much more involved skill set up for my own games, but I was a massive fan of Proficiencies when they were introduced to the game initially, wrote articles, the whole spiel, and so I have always had a focus on them and their value. I have more tools and More Kits (and even a specific definition for them), more skills and even complex skills (that are based in one score but use a different score modifier), and then crafting skills (that are being updated to work with Bastions, as of today) and an inhouse crafting system that is really simple and just requires a roll.
And if one is going to make magical items, well, then it is two rolls.
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I'm firmly of the belief that 5E's biggest design flaw was that explicit, deliberate element to make magic items unnecessary. It leads to a cascade of issues in the game, not the least of which is power creep in PC abilities and removing a HUGE incentive for PCs to actually go adventuring.
I understand that one of the underlying motives was to give each class something cool and new when a level is gained, and to avoid a player having nothing to do in a turn of combat. Both laudable goals. But as we're seeing with the UA playtest material, the solution they went with in terms of game and class design was the safest, least creative way available.
I come from old school roots and I can't tell you how far my jaw dropped when I read that sentence in the DMG stating that the game is intentionally designed so that characters never need a magic item.
I'm firmly of the belief that 5E's biggest design flaw was that explicit, deliberate element to make magic items unnecessary. It leads to a cascade of issues in the game, not the least of which is power creep in PC abilities and removing a HUGE incentive for PCs to actually go adventuring.
I understand that one of the underlying motives was to give each class something cool and new when a level is gained, and to avoid a player having nothing to do in a turn of combat. Both laudable goals. But as we're seeing with the UA playtest material, the solution they went with in terms of game and class design was the safest, least creative way available.
I come from old school roots and I can't tell you how far my jaw dropped when I read that sentence in the DMG stating that the game is intentionally designed so that characters never need a magic item.
yeah, it ranks as number two or three of my least favorite things about the game.
Hmm, three.
All three are design choices. They are also fairly easy to rectify through essentially rewriting the class side of things. However, doing so cuts you off from the VTT and the like. That said, all of my complaints have been prattled on about for a decade, and haven't made a dent in the popularity of the the current model -- which is the metric they choose to use.
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What mundane items do you want to make? Xanathar’s has rules for lots, you want a horseshoe? Smith’s tools. You want a necklace? Jeweler’s tools.
And what it’s better to choose is, and always will be, campaign dependent. Languages could be critically important, or could be written on your sheet and never considered again. Some skills go a whole campaign without coming up, or coming up very rarely.
But if you’re playing a ship-based campaign, navigator’s tools and carpenter’s tools will come up a lot.
It's part of what seems to be the broader philosophy of minimizing DM workload. Shifting character progression to the classes puts it squarely on the responsibility of the player to know their abilities, and on the game designers to balance the game, so the DM needs only to tell an interesting story without having to micromanage loot to ensure the game remains correctly balanced.
You may be right, though my take is a bit more cynical than that.
BTW, right there with you on #1 and #2.
Which falls apart when we evolve an expectation that magic items will trickle in at a certain rate according to their rarity and character level. Which we have evolved. The DMG and XGtE make it pretty explicit, in fact. It would work out, if the rarity system was actually a power ranking system instead, with as many categories as there are levels, or close to it. It would be dull and video-gamey, but it would work. Level 4, give them all level 4 items!
Instead, it's like, give them an uncommon item between 3-5 probably! And it could be as powerful as a Broom of Flying, or as weak as +1 blowgun ammo. Good luck!
It's a side effect of bounded accuracy, which is itself a fundamentally confused and flawed concept (the idea that, in previous editions, DCs scale with the level of the party has never been true. DCs scale with the level of the dungeon, and running into a higher DC lock is no different from running into an ogre guard instead of an orc guard).
I think it's only a hydra if you let it be; the key is to limit the amount of detail to only what's actually needed.
For example, let's say to craft an item you need a component of the same rarity, plus a gold cost in others materials and labour (hiring someone to do the work). If you have relevant tool proficiencies you can try to do the work yourself to reduce the labour cost. The work would also take some amount time by rarity (less time for consumables).
In this way, the availability of crafting is easily controlled by the DM, who can hand out special materials like they would any other loot, essentially becoming an invitation of the form "you can now choose any item of uncommon rarity that you would like to have, and start the process of having it made".
Crafting components could be separated into materials and ingredients, so you might have a rare metal that a player can then use to make a rare weapon or piece of armour, while rare ingredients might come in the form of special ingredients that affect the potency of a potion or poison, giving you access to the more powerful options. This avoids the need to worry about specific ingredients under the assumption that a basic damage poison and a stronger damage poison might use mostly similar, common, ingredients the difference is the potency. Weapon/armour materials could likely be purity rather than specific special metals (like mithral or adamantine) and can stay broad so your DM could allow say a rare item from harvested dragon scales or whatever.
Point is to keep it basic, and focus on what matters to the player, which is being able to create (some of) the gear they want, rather than make do only with what they find.
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Are you suggesting a system with resources called "resources"? Like, to craft a level 1 item, you need a level 1 resource? And then the DM material would be like, "in the chest is 250gp, a gem worth 100gp, and a dragon scale that counts as a level 1 resource"?
But if you start requiring resources, even if you abstract it and say 1 common resource without naming it (which would be awful and boring and metagame-y), you force the DM to track not only those resources, but also what those resources could possibly turn into. They have to then balance it between giving characters enough to make stuff, but not too much so they can make stuff you don’t intend for them to have. Or stuff beyond the power level of the game.
Then you have to arrange for enough down time to actually make the stuff — which, campaign dependent, may not be much hurdle, but mostly would be. It’s not Skyrim where you make 5 swords in the time it takes to press a button 5 times.
I fundamentally disagree on this point. IMO there are two types of players who want crafting:
1) munchkins who want uber powerful combos that they don't think their DM would normally allow in the game (hence the DM wouldn't give them the items they want) so they want to go around the DM to create it anyway by using crafting. Hopefully we can agree that this is an absolutely terrible thing for the game and should not be enabled. These players don't care how crafting works they just want their goodies by any means necessary.
2) flavour creatives who want to use their creativity to make a unique item to remember / honour particular moments in the game - e.g. making a suit of armour from the scales of the dragon their character killed, or making a dagger from the fang of a guardian naga they defeated, or making a flying broom from the feather they stole from an Awk's nest. These players want the item they create to be thematically linked to the materials used to create it.