Somewhere someone mentioned something about the UA stuff not necessarily being balanced but they are testing concepts.
Also I don't know whose idea it was to not have magic item costs... But if you can't buy magic items you don't really need gold as there is nothing else to spend it on.
I'm sorta on the same page with this. I really like 5e so far, but this automatic "low magic" thing is a little hard to deal with, especially with strict "by the books" DMs (like the ones I play with). SO FAR, though, I've found stuff to spend money on...newer/better armor, buying and training a griffon (plus saddle, etc), studded leather barding for my animal companion (cougar), healing potions...so that's cool. But my current DM will barely even ENTERTAIN purchasing magic items. It kinda sucks.
Somewhere someone mentioned something about the UA stuff not necessarily being balanced but they are testing concepts.
Yes, all Unearthed Arcana articles that WotC release via their website are considered playtest material.
Technically that is a bit different than straight up playtesting, as it is focusing on the concepts, not balance. Hence, they should make that more clear that they are going to internally focus on balance and they are really looking at concepts.
Somewhere someone mentioned something about the UA stuff not necessarily being balanced but they are testing concepts.
Also I don't know whose idea it was to not have magic item costs... But if you can't buy magic items you don't really need gold as there is nothing else to spend it on.
I'm sorta on the same page with this. I really like 5e so far, but this automatic "low magic" thing is a little hard to deal with, especially with strict "by the books" DMs (like the ones I play with). SO FAR, though, I've found stuff to spend money on...newer/better armor, buying and training a griffon (plus saddle, etc), studded leather barding for my animal companion (cougar), healing potions...so that's cool. But my current DM will barely even ENTERTAIN purchasing magic items. It kinda sucks.
That is a problem with the DM. The reason the game takes the default low magic approach is because it is better to build the game around the assumption that the PCs don't have magic items than it is to assume they do and force the PCs to gain magic items at certain levels to be able to fight the monsters they encounter at those levels. Honestly your DM probably just doesn't like magic items because he doesn't like having campaigns at that power level and he would prefer you guys didn't have them.
Doesn't help that there aren't costs in the DMG as far as I can find, so if someone wants to buy a magic item you have to come up with a price off the top of your head that may or may not be too high or too low.
Somewhere someone mentioned something about the UA stuff not necessarily being balanced but they are testing concepts.
Also I don't know whose idea it was to not have magic item costs... But if you can't buy magic items you don't really need gold as there is nothing else to spend it on.
I'm sorta on the same page with this. I really like 5e so far, but this automatic "low magic" thing is a little hard to deal with, especially with strict "by the books" DMs (like the ones I play with). SO FAR, though, I've found stuff to spend money on...newer/better armor, buying and training a griffon (plus saddle, etc), studded leather barding for my animal companion (cougar), healing potions...so that's cool. But my current DM will barely even ENTERTAIN purchasing magic items. It kinda sucks.
That is a problem with the DM. The reason the game takes the default low magic approach is because it is better to build the game around the assumption that the PCs don't have magic items than it is to assume they do and force the PCs to gain magic items at certain levels to be able to fight the monsters they encounter at those levels. Honestly your DM probably just doesn't like magic items because he doesn't like having campaigns at that power level and he would prefer you guys didn't have them.
Doesn't help that there aren't costs in the DMG as far as I can find, so if someone wants to buy a magic item you have to come up with a price off the top of your head that may or may not be too high or too low.
I agree it's a problem with my DM's. The one before this game gave us a horde of treasure, but we were in Ravenloft and I don't know if it's just that book, or whatever, but we couldn't buy SQUAT! No magic items at all, and even some better equipment was like pulling teeth! My character was a Battlerager, and he BARELY was able to scrape enough raw material together to assemble his Spiked Armor.
And now THIS DM, for our current game, he's running a Storm King's Thunder campaign, and is doing very similar things.
I wonder if it's just that they're focusing TOO MUCH on the books? Makes me want to take a turn DM'ing again...shake our group UP!
Somewhere someone mentioned something about the UA stuff not necessarily being balanced but they are testing concepts.
Also I don't know whose idea it was to not have magic item costs... But if you can't buy magic items you don't really need gold as there is nothing else to spend it on.
I'm sorta on the same page with this. I really like 5e so far, but this automatic "low magic" thing is a little hard to deal with, especially with strict "by the books" DMs (like the ones I play with). SO FAR, though, I've found stuff to spend money on...newer/better armor, buying and training a griffon (plus saddle, etc), studded leather barding for my animal companion (cougar), healing potions...so that's cool. But my current DM will barely even ENTERTAIN purchasing magic items. It kinda sucks.
That is a problem with the DM. The reason the game takes the default low magic approach is because it is better to build the game around the assumption that the PCs don't have magic items than it is to assume they do and force the PCs to gain magic items at certain levels to be able to fight the monsters they encounter at those levels. Honestly your DM probably just doesn't like magic items because he doesn't like having campaigns at that power level and he would prefer you guys didn't have them.
Doesn't help that there aren't costs in the DMG as far as I can find, so if someone wants to buy a magic item you have to come up with a price off the top of your head that may or may not be too high or too low.
I agree it's a problem with my DM's. The one before this game gave us a horde of treasure, but we were in Ravenloft and I don't know if it's just that book, or whatever, but we couldn't buy SQUAT! No magic items at all, and even some better equipment was like pulling teeth! My character was a Battlerager, and he BARELY was able to scrape enough raw material together to assemble his Spiked Armor.
And now THIS DM, for our current game, he's running a Storm King's Thunder campaign, and is doing very similar things.
I wonder if it's just that they're focusing TOO MUCH on the books? Makes me want to take a turn DM'ing again...shake our group UP!
I really think the issue is that there are no costs in the DMG. If you want to buy a magical sword of +1 there is no guide as to how much that costs. This probably leads most DMs to either 1) believe the items simply can't be bought or 2) don't want to deal with trying to come up with prices for the magic items. I'll have to read the DMs guide much closer to see if it has costs for magic items hidden anywhere in its pages. (The big issue with playing D&D for so long is that most of the DMG is material I've read from the previous two editions, so I really skip over things because it is basically rereading stuff I've already read many years ago, I really do wish everything that was needed to play the game was in the players handbook and the DMG was more substantial).
Apparently WotC has paid attention to the collective yelling of the internet about the fact that gold is worthless, because all I can take away from this work is that they were looking for a way to take away gold from the PC. They had such a golden opportunity to build a useful crafting system, create a solid system for buying or selling magic items, and clear up a host of other questions instead of inventing a bunch of complications and spending several pages discussing how to build a "foil". Shouldn't that have been left for a whole separate article?
Personally, I love the new Downtime rules, and if any developers are reading, then I hope they don't take all the criticism to heart! Auberginian, the "golden opportunity" you describe is exactly what I believe WotC has been trying to avoid in 5e.
The entire DMG builds this attitude that magic items are bigger than any price tag: you shouldn't be able to just go buy them, and you shouldn't be able to just dump them at the local vendor; you have to earn them through exciting combat, exploration, or diplomacy. Every magic item, even the ones you don't want, are powerful objects and should lead to stories of their own (maybe you have to trade a reward for something more suitable, maybe you have to be careful to prevent the item from falling to the wrong hands, etc.). In my campaigns, our group prefers to play stories, not shopping simulators. I think we need to understand the developers' intent and realize D&D is a game with limitless possibilities. Does one of your players want a new magic longsword? Why ask WotC to spend precious time and resources balancing an economy system when you as the DM could easily write a fun, exciting adventure or story complication for your player to earn that awesome sword they're after?
The complications and foil systems build off this idea even more. The game should be fun and exciting! I for one would have a horrible D&D session if there was no conflict, no challenges, and nothing ever went wrong. This latest Unearthed Arcana developed an exciting (and frankly cool) way to keep our downtime activities tied into the greater story and world that is our campaigns, as well as to add some much-needed challenge to this game-play feature, making our progress and rewards that much more special for overcoming them.
Its not even necessarily like that. It all just depends on the DM to price things out as they see fit. For some, it does mean that things will never be priced, but it does allow for DM control over their own economy rather than imposing a lot of details onto the campaign. Ask your DM about magic items let them explain their reasoning for purchasing power in their game. Then you can see if it is indeed because they want a low-power campaign or if you can work with your DM to price and have opportunities to purchase items.
Apparently WotC has paid attention to the collective yelling of the internet about the fact that gold is worthless, because all I can take away from this work is that they were looking for a way to take away gold from the PC. They had such a golden opportunity to build a useful crafting system, create a solid system for buying or selling magic items, and clear up a host of other questions instead of inventing a bunch of complications and spending several pages discussing how to build a "foil". Shouldn't that have been left for a whole separate article?
Personally, I love the new Downtime rules, and if any developers are reading, then I hope they don't take all the criticism to heart! Auberginian, the "golden opportunity" you describe is exactly what I believe WotC has been trying to avoid in 5e.
The entire DMG builds this attitude that magic items are bigger than any price tag: you shouldn't be able to just go buy them, and you shouldn't be able to just dump them at the local vendor; you have to earn them through exciting combat, exploration, or diplomacy. Every magic item, even the ones you don't want, are powerful objects and should lead to stories of their own (maybe you have to trade a reward for something more suitable, maybe you have to be careful to prevent the item from falling to the wrong hands, etc.). In my campaigns, our group prefers to play stories, not shopping simulators. I think we need to understand the developers' intent and realize D&D is a game with limitless possibilities. Does one of your players want a new magic longsword? Why ask WotC to spend precious time and resources balancing an economy system when you as the DM could easily write a fun, exciting adventure or story complication for your player to earn that awesome sword they're after?
The complications and foil systems build off this idea even more. The game should be fun and exciting! I for one would have a horrible D&D session if there was no conflict, no challenges, and nothing ever went wrong. This latest Unearthed Arcana developed an exciting (and frankly cool) way to keep our downtime activities tied into the greater story and world that is our campaigns, as well as to add some much-needed challenge to this game-play feature, making our progress and rewards that much more special for overcoming them.
The only problem is why go adventuring? For Gold and Glory right? but then you literally have nothing to spend Gold on. So you end up lacing any real reason to go adventuring. At some point you would then start requiring those that buy your services to provide magic items instead of Gold, because Gold is worthless for an adventurer who can't buy anything.
While adventures for powerful magic items is clearly awesome, it would become lame and intensive to literally go on six adventures to get six players a weapon that simply gives them a +1 to attack, all while your main story is taking a back seat as the players go get magic items, that by the time the last player gets his magic item you have to start all over again.
I think having magic items as rewards for completing tasks, makes the items more trivial than being able to go to a Wizard and buy them. Why would the local governor have an item and a well known wizard wouldn't have an item for sale? The very fact that these items exist, virtually demand that they can be bought.
To be honest WotC would just have to open up their own DM book from an earlier edition and copy the prices already established. Very little work would have been required to give magic items prices. Especially helpful given most DMs probably need prices. It really makes no sense at all that the mega cities of the world would not have magic items for sale.
Its not even necessarily like that. It all just depends on the DM to price things out as they see fit. For some, it does mean that things will never be priced, but it does allow for DM control over their own economy rather than imposing a lot of details onto the campaign. Ask your DM about magic items let them explain their reasoning for purchasing power in their game. Then you can see if it is indeed because they want a low-power campaign or if you can work with your DM to price and have opportunities to purchase items.
DMG really should have guidelines for prices in the game. Doesn't mean that has to be the cost of the item in the campaign world, but it does help establish a baseline price, which is very helpful when a player needs to know the value of an item mid game. If magic items aren't for sale that virtually means they are all worth millions of gold because they are extremely rare and supply and demand would dictate they would sell for the price of the highest bidder. Meaning, a PC who offers someone a +1 dagger, would most likely be offering them enough gold for the rest of their lives.
Apparently WotC has paid attention to the collective yelling of the internet about the fact that gold is worthless, because all I can take away from this work is that they were looking for a way to take away gold from the PC. They had such a golden opportunity to build a useful crafting system, create a solid system for buying or selling magic items, and clear up a host of other questions instead of inventing a bunch of complications and spending several pages discussing how to build a "foil". Shouldn't that have been left for a whole separate article?
Personally, I love the new Downtime rules, and if any developers are reading, then I hope they don't take all the criticism to heart! Auberginian, the "golden opportunity" you describe is exactly what I believe WotC has been trying to avoid in 5e.
The entire DMG builds this attitude that magic items are bigger than any price tag: you shouldn't be able to just go buy them, and you shouldn't be able to just dump them at the local vendor; you have to earn them through exciting combat, exploration, or diplomacy. Every magic item, even the ones you don't want, are powerful objects and should lead to stories of their own (maybe you have to trade a reward for something more suitable, maybe you have to be careful to prevent the item from falling to the wrong hands, etc.). In my campaigns, our group prefers to play stories, not shopping simulators. I think we need to understand the developers' intent and realize D&D is a game with limitless possibilities. Does one of your players want a new magic longsword? Why ask WotC to spend precious time and resources balancing an economy system when you as the DM could easily write a fun, exciting adventure or story complication for your player to earn that awesome sword they're after?
The complications and foil systems build off this idea even more. The game should be fun and exciting! I for one would have a horrible D&D session if there was no conflict, no challenges, and nothing ever went wrong. This latest Unearthed Arcana developed an exciting (and frankly cool) way to keep our downtime activities tied into the greater story and world that is our campaigns, as well as to add some much-needed challenge to this game-play feature, making our progress and rewards that much more special for overcoming them.
Your whole argument loses a lot of merit when you flip through the DMG, you know the one you said WotC spent the entire thing building an attitude that magic items aren't for sale, only to have a section about selling magic items. But like a lot of people you missed my most important point which is that WotC missed a golden opportunity to really build some useful downtime activities, especially crafting rules. And how do we know magic items are rare and wonderful? We have no frame of reference for the amount of toil and resources it takes to craft them. At least back in the days of 1st and 2nd edition in order to create a permanent magic item you needed to be able to cast both the Enchant an Item and the Permanence spell. The latter of which was an 8th level spell and cost the caster a year of his life. Since those days had level limits for demi-humans the only race capable of creating magic items were humans and given the caster had to be 16th level it was assumed he was already old so losing a year of his life was very costly indeed. Both 1st and 2nd editions also made it clear that magic items weren't readily for purchase but at least the game designers put in a system to explain why. In 5E it seems that a ambitious spell caster of any given level could hire a handful of artisans and crank out magic items almost like an assembly line. Nothing really rare or wondrous about that. All of this ranting is merely to point out that if the designers want magic items to be rare, wondrous and hard to craft perhaps they should have spent as much time working on a basic system explaining the nuts of bolts of crafting magic items and left the pages of "how to create a foil" for another project.
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My apologies. Jumping from third edition to 5th edition, I missed the small paragraph that included gold amounts. Which seem extremely low for items that are suppose to be rare. The problem was flipping through the DMG looking for magic prices and seeing the magic items themselves being without prices.
To be honest in most of the games I've played in, magic items are generally not crafted. (This is largely due to how third edition worked though).Personally I just prefer to say that generally crafting a magic item is beyond the realm of the PCs. Either do to skills or the length of time it would take to make such an item.
5e intentionally made a lot of things ambiguous for the benefit of DMs and their groups. Skill contests are one, where they're both less complex and more flexible than previous editions. Magic Item prices are similar. Should magic items be cheap? expensive? perhaps they should be only gotten by questing or maybe you need to both the components and have someone craft it? No matter what the method is, it allows the group to decide (as a group) based on their wants and needs for the campaign. Plus, who's to say the DM and players can't port an economy over from a previous campaign?
Magic items aren't even implied to exist. They're just like feats in that they're optional/variant rules. Also like feats, many people assume can be obtained and pre-plan builds around that. However, it much simpler to set the threshold at something not existing and adding upon it than to remove it and have to deal with the uproar when someone can "prove" they're getting jipped.
Their one is FAR too complicated, and puts negative things with everything. They are really sticking to the idea that the only way to progress in the world is to go adventuring.
The only problem is why go adventuring? For Gold and Glory right? but then you literally have nothing to spend Gold on. So you end up lacing any real reason to go adventuring. At some point you would then start requiring those that buy your services to provide magic items instead of Gold, because Gold is worthless for an adventurer who can't buy anything.
While adventures for powerful magic items is clearly awesome, it would become lame and intensive to literally go on six adventures to get six players a weapon that simply gives them a +1 to attack, all while your main story is taking a back seat as the players go get magic items, that by the time the last player gets his magic item you have to start all over again.
I think having magic items as rewards for completing tasks, makes the items more trivial than being able to go to a Wizard and buy them. Why would the local governor have an item and a well known wizard wouldn't have an item for sale? The very fact that these items exist, virtually demand that they can be bought.
To be honest WotC would just have to open up their own DM book from an earlier edition and copy the prices already established. Very little work would have been required to give magic items prices. Especially helpful given most DMs probably need prices. It really makes no sense at all that the mega cities of the world would not have magic items for sale.
Well, gold and glory are two completely different things. But you're right, many characters do only adventure for wealth and riches; I for one think it's a lot of fun to go outside of the box for ways to spend money (along the lines of the DMG's Building a Stronghold section) besides upgrading gear. For example, one of my players is funding an alchemy shop's research in order to get access to their latest potions, etc.
And you're completely right about the ridiculousness of the party going on six adventures just for everyone to get a magic item. Sure a DM might find a way to reward everyone at once, but it is very limiting if you're looking for simpler items like +1 gear; unfortunately, it looks like this is just a preference thing we will agree to disagree on. I've really come to loathe +1-5 gear in my campaigns. The way I see it, why bother? I remember my first adventure getting a +1 version of my favorite weapon and feeling... pretty underwhelmed. +1 helps with mechanics, but it just changes a number. It's boring, and from a DM standpoint, why throw off the numbers for building encounters anyway? Personally, I'd rather magic items feel really special and really rare, but I admit that goes against the traditional D&D culture of gaming-for-guns. Still, I think WotC got it really right with a less-is-more approach.
My campaign's party don't even all have magic items right now, and they're pretty content. Our samurai-style paladin uses a tantō and wakizashi (dagger and shortsword) when he's in close quarters, and he recently received a new tantō as a mark of honor from his commander. To reward roleplay and interest in his character's weaponry, I gave the new tantō a quickdraw feature and a Battle Master kind of perk if he lands a hit with both weapons. Simple, not that OP, and it felt so much more personal and cool to him than something that just gives +1 to its rolls. While I don't think D&D should be designed where we have to homebrew our rewards, I find it's other elements than the numbers that make them actually feel rewarding.
And the fact that magic items exist does not demand they can be bought. I think jetpacks are a good point of comparison for the real world. Just because they exist, that does not mean they could be bought. Even with all of the money in the world, if you didn't have internet (like D&D, which is a crucial detail), it would probably be super tough to find an actual functioning jetpack. You could still find one... with a little adventure.
WotC did good leaving the prices out of the DMG. If you want them so bad, you can look them up from an earlier edition. It wouldn't take five minutes. They chose not to so players could have the choice to scale-up magic items if they wanted, but the baseline system keeps them harder to reach. I think Ghotistyx's post argues that point pretty well.
Even so, that's 100 days. I don't know many DM's that would make you wait however long that takes to make non magical plate armor. That's likely to take over a year in real life at least unless you play every day. Seriously though, its not enough to buy a magic item, it's also going to be a fake! What's that all about? While I can appreciate the story aspects that come with benefits why bother in this case? Either let the players get some benefits or don't. Use the play session to introduce and use villains don't use things that are meant to be a benefit and then take them away. It's like holding out a magic long sword, here you are it costs you x. Oh you mean it cost me x in time, x in money and its just a plain long sword. nice...
Lets face it, just because you might benefit in downtime via a business or job doesn't mean your D&D game is going to become farm simulator.
I was seriously let down by most of the downtime material, if you've got 6 players at the table how do you get downtime done quickly enough? It's going to take an hour to get it done and then all the players are going to be trying to figure out which villain took their stuff and your whole story plot gets derailed to follow up on downtime choices of players. Not to mention the preparation time that its going to take to incorporate plots and foils in a meaningful way.
They need to build an economy that make sense, because no one who is there to play D&D is going to be like "you know what, i'd rather spend this session serving ale to my customers at my bar and not doing anything remotely dangerous." Giving players easy ways to utilise their tools, background experience and abilities to make a little extra money and pursue secondary interests isn't going to harm the game, it's going to enhance it. It should be quick and easy, manageable from a DM's point of view and easy for the players so that just before you start a session you can resolve it all and continue with the story, its just a pit-stop.
Apparently WotC has paid attention to the collective yelling of the internet about the fact that gold is worthless, because all I can take away from this work is that they were looking for a way to take away gold from the PC. They had such a golden opportunity to build a useful crafting system, create a solid system for buying or selling magic items, and clear up a host of other questions instead of inventing a bunch of complications and spending several pages discussing how to build a "foil". Shouldn't that have been left for a whole separate article?
Personally, I love the new Downtime rules, and if any developers are reading, then I hope they don't take all the criticism to heart! Auberginian, the "golden opportunity" you describe is exactly what I believe WotC has been trying to avoid in 5e.
The entire DMG builds this attitude that magic items are bigger than any price tag: you shouldn't be able to just go buy them, and you shouldn't be able to just dump them at the local vendor; you have to earn them through exciting combat, exploration, or diplomacy. Every magic item, even the ones you don't want, are powerful objects and should lead to stories of their own (maybe you have to trade a reward for something more suitable, maybe you have to be careful to prevent the item from falling to the wrong hands, etc.). In my campaigns, our group prefers to play stories, not shopping simulators. I think we need to understand the developers' intent and realize D&D is a game with limitless possibilities. Does one of your players want a new magic longsword? Why ask WotC to spend precious time and resources balancing an economy system when you as the DM could easily write a fun, exciting adventure or story complication for your player to earn that awesome sword they're after?
The complications and foil systems build off this idea even more. The game should be fun and exciting! I for one would have a horrible D&D session if there was no conflict, no challenges, and nothing ever went wrong. This latest Unearthed Arcana developed an exciting (and frankly cool) way to keep our downtime activities tied into the greater story and world that is our campaigns, as well as to add some much-needed challenge to this game-play feature, making our progress and rewards that much more special for overcoming them.
Your whole argument loses a lot of merit when you flip through the DMG, you know the one you said WotC spent the entire thing building an attitude that magic items aren't for sale, only to have a section about selling magic items. But like a lot of people you missed my most important point which is that WotC missed a golden opportunity to really build some useful downtime activities, especially crafting rules. And how do we know magic items are rare and wonderful? We have no frame of reference for the amount of toil and resources it takes to craft them. At least back in the days of 1st and 2nd edition in order to create a permanent magic item you needed to be able to cast both the Enchant an Item and the Permanence spell. The latter of which was an 8th level spell and cost the caster a year of his life. Since those days had level limits for demi-humans the only race capable of creating magic items were humans and given the caster had to be 16th level it was assumed he was already old so losing a year of his life was very costly indeed. Both 1st and 2nd editions also made it clear that magic items weren't readily for purchase but at least the game designers put in a system to explain why. In 5E it seems that a ambitious spell caster of any given level could hire a handful of artisans and crank out magic items almost like an assembly line. Nothing really rare or wondrous about that. All of this ranting is merely to point out that if the designers want magic items to be rare, wondrous and hard to craft perhaps they should have spent as much time working on a basic system explaining the nuts of bolts of crafting magic items and left the pages of "how to create a foil" for another project.
To quote a great review of the DMG on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1F6R8), "Even the table describing costs for magic item creation is a story driver, because when you do the math (one day of work for every 25 g.p. in an item’s manufacturing cost), you find that legendary items take about 54 years for a 17th level mage to craft. Who has that kind of time? Obviously, only an elf, a particularly obsessive dwarf, or some spellcaster of a shorter-lived race who has learned the secret of near-immortality. A vorpal weapon is therefore not just a set of game mechanics that let you lop off heads on a natural 20 – it’s someone’s life work, or at the very least an elf archmage’s long-term hobby."
Yeah, it's pretty tough to find the time to read the DMG from top to bottom, but I think it does better at covering these issues then you're giving it credit for. And the important fact of this conversation is that 5e is constantly telling us to borrow stats, rules, and abilities where we see fit. D&D, and especially 5e, is supposed to be flexible for whatever you want. Why would they lock in an all-encompassing crafting system that is supposed to be particularly grueling? 5e aims for freedom! If you like the fact that legendary items take 54 years to make, then borrow that and apply it to your players: it's in the book, so use it.
Even if WotC had infinite time, manpower, and money, they would still need to pick and choose which features to include in their published materials because no one wants a 10,000 page tome to flip through for references. I think we need to be asking ourselves which content MUST be in these materials, and forgive (or praise) WotC for doing their best to set a baseline with the page-space they have, and giving the power to the players to fill in the nitty-gritty with how they see fit. I find the adventuring and roleplaying have a much higher priority than items in my campaigns, but if you feel differently then I don't know what else to say about it.
I loved the doowntime system because, it give some guideline. The way the system work anybody with some crafting tools could craft a magic item; given time and some special items/quest. I remember the time when I read the ritual of Bruenor crafting Aegis Fang, He's no caster but with a little bit of faith, some precious gem and possibly some of his vitality he crafted one awesome weapon. WotC give us DM some guideline and we're the making the last call. I'm a DM since AD&D and the crafting of magical items was an adventure. In 3rd edition, I have seen so much character becoming OP because of the magical items. Characters have a lots of options now (more than AD&D) and they can do a lot with their abilities coming from their classes. Don't let magical items steal the show.
The only problem is why go adventuring? For Gold and Glory right? but then you literally have nothing to spend Gold on. So you end up lacing any real reason to go adventuring. At some point you would then start requiring those that buy your services to provide magic items instead of Gold, because Gold is worthless for an adventurer who can't buy anything.
While adventures for powerful magic items is clearly awesome, it would become lame and intensive to literally go on six adventures to get six players a weapon that simply gives them a +1 to attack, all while your main story is taking a back seat as the players go get magic items, that by the time the last player gets his magic item you have to start all over again.
I think having magic items as rewards for completing tasks, makes the items more trivial than being able to go to a Wizard and buy them. Why would the local governor have an item and a well known wizard wouldn't have an item for sale? The very fact that these items exist, virtually demand that they can be bought.
To be honest WotC would just have to open up their own DM book from an earlier edition and copy the prices already established. Very little work would have been required to give magic items prices. Especially helpful given most DMs probably need prices. It really makes no sense at all that the mega cities of the world would not have magic items for sale.
Well, gold and glory are two completely different things. But you're right, many characters do only adventure for wealth and riches; I for one think it's a lot of fun to go outside of the box for ways to spend money (along the lines of the DMG's Building a Stronghold section) besides upgrading gear. For example, one of my players is funding an alchemy shop's research in order to get access to their latest potions, etc.
And you're completely right about the ridiculousness of the party going on six adventures just for everyone to get a magic item. Sure a DM might find a way to reward everyone at once, but it is very limiting if you're looking for simpler items like +1 gear; unfortunately, it looks like this is just a preference thing we will agree to disagree on. I've really come to loathe +1-5 gear in my campaigns. The way I see it, why bother? I remember my first adventure getting a +1 version of my favorite weapon and feeling... pretty underwhelmed. +1 helps with mechanics, but it just changes a number. It's boring, and from a DM standpoint, why throw off the numbers for building encounters anyway? Personally, I'd rather magic items feel really special and really rare, but I admit that goes against the traditional D&D culture of gaming-for-guns. Still, I think WotC got it really right with a less-is-more approach.
My campaign's party don't even all have magic items right now, and they're pretty content. Our samurai-style paladin uses a tantō and wakizashi (dagger and shortsword) when he's in close quarters, and he recently received a new tantō as a mark of honor from his commander. To reward roleplay and interest in his character's weaponry, I gave the new tantō a quickdraw feature and a Battle Master kind of perk if he lands a hit with both weapons. Simple, not that OP, and it felt so much more personal and cool to him than something that just gives +1 to its rolls. While I don't think D&D should be designed where we have to homebrew our rewards, I find it's other elements than the numbers that make them actually feel rewarding.
And the fact that magic items exist does not demand they can be bought. I think jetpacks are a good point of comparison for the real world. Just because they exist, that does not mean they could be bought. Even with all of the money in the world, if you didn't have internet (like D&D, which is a crucial detail), it would probably be super tough to find an actual functioning jetpack. You could still find one... with a little adventure.
WotC did good leaving the prices out of the DMG. If you want them so bad, you can look them up from an earlier edition. It wouldn't take five minutes. They chose not to so players could have the choice to scale-up magic items if they wanted, but the baseline system keeps them harder to reach. I think Ghotistyx's post argues that point pretty well.
There are many monsters that require magic items to remain not overpowered. Werewolves are unkillable without silver weapons or magical means. Other monsters may simply be unbeatable without magic. So it helps to have those +1 weapons that don't change the math of a D&D encounter, while still allowing players to be able to go against something like a werewolf, without having to relay on the magic users.
Further, you probably can't go buy a legendary weapon (aka a jet pack), but +1 items and the like are probably not as rare as a jetpack.
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D&D Beyond FoundersPun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
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Its not even necessarily like that. It all just depends on the DM to price things out as they see fit. For some, it does mean that things will never be priced, but it does allow for DM control over their own economy rather than imposing a lot of details onto the campaign. Ask your DM about magic items let them explain their reasoning for purchasing power in their game. Then you can see if it is indeed because they want a low-power campaign or if you can work with your DM to price and have opportunities to purchase items.
I think having magic items as rewards for completing tasks, makes the items more trivial than being able to go to a Wizard and buy them. Why would the local governor have an item and a well known wizard wouldn't have an item for sale? The very fact that these items exist, virtually demand that they can be bought.
As for me, I choose to believe that an extinct thunder lizard is running a game of Dungeons & Dragons via Twitter!
My apologies. Jumping from third edition to 5th edition, I missed the small paragraph that included gold amounts. Which seem extremely low for items that are suppose to be rare. The problem was flipping through the DMG looking for magic prices and seeing the magic items themselves being without prices.
To be honest in most of the games I've played in, magic items are generally not crafted. (This is largely due to how third edition worked though).Personally I just prefer to say that generally crafting a magic item is beyond the realm of the PCs. Either do to skills or the length of time it would take to make such an item.
5e intentionally made a lot of things ambiguous for the benefit of DMs and their groups. Skill contests are one, where they're both less complex and more flexible than previous editions. Magic Item prices are similar. Should magic items be cheap? expensive? perhaps they should be only gotten by questing or maybe you need to both the components and have someone craft it? No matter what the method is, it allows the group to decide (as a group) based on their wants and needs for the campaign. Plus, who's to say the DM and players can't port an economy over from a previous campaign?
Magic items aren't even implied to exist. They're just like feats in that they're optional/variant rules. Also like feats, many people assume can be obtained and pre-plan builds around that. However, it much simpler to set the threshold at something not existing and adding upon it than to remove it and have to deal with the uproar when someone can "prove" they're getting jipped.
I didn't like the UA downtime at all - who want's to spend 200 days or something making plate armor... I did my own instead.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JBDIPeKSBV0rgw_EmK_qDH3JCk2BxWfMZL7FjPT7akY/edit?usp=sharing
Their one is FAR too complicated, and puts negative things with everything. They are really sticking to the idea that the only way to progress in the world is to go adventuring.
Hire two apprentices, now your plate armor takes only 10 workweeks.
Well, gold and glory are two completely different things. But you're right, many characters do only adventure for wealth and riches; I for one think it's a lot of fun to go outside of the box for ways to spend money (along the lines of the DMG's Building a Stronghold section) besides upgrading gear. For example, one of my players is funding an alchemy shop's research in order to get access to their latest potions, etc.
And you're completely right about the ridiculousness of the party going on six adventures just for everyone to get a magic item. Sure a DM might find a way to reward everyone at once, but it is very limiting if you're looking for simpler items like +1 gear; unfortunately, it looks like this is just a preference thing we will agree to disagree on. I've really come to loathe +1-5 gear in my campaigns. The way I see it, why bother? I remember my first adventure getting a +1 version of my favorite weapon and feeling... pretty underwhelmed. +1 helps with mechanics, but it just changes a number. It's boring, and from a DM standpoint, why throw off the numbers for building encounters anyway? Personally, I'd rather magic items feel really special and really rare, but I admit that goes against the traditional D&D culture of gaming-for-guns. Still, I think WotC got it really right with a less-is-more approach.
My campaign's party don't even all have magic items right now, and they're pretty content. Our samurai-style paladin uses a tantō and wakizashi (dagger and shortsword) when he's in close quarters, and he recently received a new tantō as a mark of honor from his commander. To reward roleplay and interest in his character's weaponry, I gave the new tantō a quickdraw feature and a Battle Master kind of perk if he lands a hit with both weapons. Simple, not that OP, and it felt so much more personal and cool to him than something that just gives +1 to its rolls. While I don't think D&D should be designed where we have to homebrew our rewards, I find it's other elements than the numbers that make them actually feel rewarding.
And the fact that magic items exist does not demand they can be bought. I think jetpacks are a good point of comparison for the real world. Just because they exist, that does not mean they could be bought. Even with all of the money in the world, if you didn't have internet (like D&D, which is a crucial detail), it would probably be super tough to find an actual functioning jetpack. You could still find one... with a little adventure.
WotC did good leaving the prices out of the DMG. If you want them so bad, you can look them up from an earlier edition. It wouldn't take five minutes. They chose not to so players could have the choice to scale-up magic items if they wanted, but the baseline system keeps them harder to reach. I think Ghotistyx's post argues that point pretty well.
Even so, that's 100 days. I don't know many DM's that would make you wait however long that takes to make non magical plate armor. That's likely to take over a year in real life at least unless you play every day. Seriously though, its not enough to buy a magic item, it's also going to be a fake! What's that all about? While I can appreciate the story aspects that come with benefits why bother in this case? Either let the players get some benefits or don't. Use the play session to introduce and use villains don't use things that are meant to be a benefit and then take them away. It's like holding out a magic long sword, here you are it costs you x. Oh you mean it cost me x in time, x in money and its just a plain long sword. nice...
Lets face it, just because you might benefit in downtime via a business or job doesn't mean your D&D game is going to become farm simulator.
I was seriously let down by most of the downtime material, if you've got 6 players at the table how do you get downtime done quickly enough? It's going to take an hour to get it done and then all the players are going to be trying to figure out which villain took their stuff and your whole story plot gets derailed to follow up on downtime choices of players. Not to mention the preparation time that its going to take to incorporate plots and foils in a meaningful way.
They need to build an economy that make sense, because no one who is there to play D&D is going to be like "you know what, i'd rather spend this session serving ale to my customers at my bar and not doing anything remotely dangerous." Giving players easy ways to utilise their tools, background experience and abilities to make a little extra money and pursue secondary interests isn't going to harm the game, it's going to enhance it. It should be quick and easy, manageable from a DM's point of view and easy for the players so that just before you start a session you can resolve it all and continue with the story, its just a pit-stop.
I loved the doowntime system because, it give some guideline. The way the system work anybody with some crafting tools could craft a magic item; given time and some special items/quest. I remember the time when I read the ritual of Bruenor crafting Aegis Fang, He's no caster but with a little bit of faith, some precious gem and possibly some of his vitality he crafted one awesome weapon. WotC give us DM some guideline and we're the making the last call. I'm a DM since AD&D and the crafting of magical items was an adventure. In 3rd edition, I have seen so much character becoming OP because of the magical items. Characters have a lots of options now (more than AD&D) and they can do a lot with their abilities coming from their classes. Don't let magical items steal the show.
Player since 1982 and DM since 1990.