Great to see Vecna: Eve of Ruin as a higher level campaign, sometimes it feels like level 10+ characters get forgotten. 

Over the years, I have been on the sidelines of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, so it's been kind of fun to try a few Meet & Greets at the local gaming shop in Savannah, Georgia to try D&D 5th edition.  Groovy stuff and a good gathering too.  Now that they have released a high and powerful campaign, this looks like it ought to be fun for an old gamer like myself, y'all. 

What's with the general lack-luster treasure with the exception of the short list of legendary items and the artifact(s) given this is a 10 to 20 book? We are rolling up to Vecna with our +1 and +2 weapons we gathered from level 10-14. There's gonna be someone with a cool staff and someone with the sword of kas. Cool. So effectively 2 party members with not terrible loot. How are we justifying that Adventure League characters get uncommon items at level 5, and THIS book is giving similar loot at levels level 10 - 14? Approximately 1/2 of the loot in this book is suited for levels 5-10. If you start the adventure as an artificer, you can infuse starter loot weapons and armor to become superior to most of the loot drops in this book. Vecna is supposed to be one of the biggest bads, and we're rolling through this content with some uncommons and rares? I don't get it. If this is presented as one of the baddest of the bads, darkest of the dark lords, literally a demigod. . . I don't get treasure progression throughout this book. Ima need a game designer to explain this. 

Almost every module is lacking in magic items, for two reasons

1) they don't know your party, so they could put in 100 magic items before your party finds something they can use and actually want.

2) Not every DM wants their party to have a load of magic items, and prefers to keep it fairly magic item light.

For these reasons, modules usually only give you story important magic items and in this case enough magic items to guarantee your party will be able to hurt creatures with nonmagical weapon resistance. If you want to give your party more magic items, that is your choice to make, but the default assumption has to be the bare minimum.

Quote from ExplosiveCarnage >>

Almost every module is lacking in magic items, for two reasons

1) they don't know your party, so they could put in 100 magic items before your party finds something they can use and actually want.

2) Not every DM wants their party to have a load of magic items, and prefers to keep it fairly magic item light.

For these reasons, modules usually only give you story important magic items and in this case enough magic items to guarantee your party will be able to hurt creatures with nonmagical weapon resistance. If you want to give your party more magic items, that is your choice to make, but the default assumption has to be the bare minimum.

 IF that's true, that quite possibly one of the stupidest ways to design an adventure based on D&D.

They know the story, the areas and the monsters.  Build the encounters and eventually put treasure in the story as well but then skip out putting level appropriate magic items while throwing in a handful of things at the same time.
That's either just pure laziness  (similar to monster stat blocks without full spell lists) or complete stupidity (as in doing it half Arse) when it comes to design as they go through the trouble to put in treasure at the end of some encounters but then skip out on giving meaningful, level appropriate official treasure.  And how stupid would it be if their reason was to keep it out of adventures league?

It would be far better for creators to add in those magic items listed in an official capacity and have DMs take out or change VS not have level appropriate official magic items listed at all.

There is something to be said for having magic items listed in an official capacity thats better than just a DM saying, yeah I added that in.

I must say that I am quite disappointed with this adventure. I bought it in hopes of facing against deity Vecna!

Can you kill a god? Has that happened in D&D lore? 

I simply don't agree, on many levels, except for agreeing there is something to be said about including magic items in the official module. Plenty of DMs are scared to included items not listed in the module out of fear of breaking them.

However, it isn't laziness not to include them. The module is a framework, and while they know the monsters and the encounters they have included all the magic items needed to combat those monsters and encounters. But they don't, for example, know if your party will include a paladin- so there's little point including a holy avenger. And if your party is all casters and melee, they'll be pretty disappointed at getting an oathbow. But you the DM know if you have a barbarian in the groul that would love a flametounge greatsword, or if giving them that greatsword would invalidate their poleaem master feat.

All I really want is part of running the game to say "be not afraid to add loot where you deem it appropriate." Because 9/10 when a run a module with a lot of magic items, I end up neeing to change them all anyway for the above reason. Especially when you're dealing with a 10th level character. If they get a flame tongue at level 5, it might suck if they took PAM at level 4, but they can build around it from there. At 10th level, you could have taken PAM and sentinel, and would rather just go with a nonmagical glaive.

It is an ugly problem but there should be some realization by the community that the party shouldn't be facing a demigod lich who is likely to be the warlocks patron, while wearing largely uncommon items.

Quote from ExplosiveCarnage >>

Almost every module is lacking in magic items, for two reasons

1) they don't know your party, so they could put in 100 magic items before your party finds something they can use and actually want.

2) Not every DM wants their party to have a load of magic items, and prefers to keep it fairly magic item light.

For these reasons, modules usually only give you story important magic items and in this case enough magic items to guarantee your party will be able to hurt creatures with nonmagical weapon resistance. If you want to give your party more magic items, that is your choice to make, but the default assumption has to be the bare minimum.

Regarding your comments,
1)There are these things called charts, which are actually common in these books. Using a chart provides the developers with providing magic items as a set rather than a fixed piece. This allows for the circumstances on the +skill/dc items such as the amulet of the devout to be provided to the party based upon needs. As you've stated, the devs don't know your party comp. As you'll note, the book contains a +3 rod of the war mage. Where are the items applicable to other classes? Where are the other items of this quality / grade?

2)It isn't a question of "not wanting to have a load of magical items" - this is a question of providing items appropriate for the level. You're missing the point entirely. 

You're making excuses for poorly developed system in this book and a and a lack of tables, which should have been provided.

I run other hard-covers weekly. I run Adventures League weekly. During Adventurers League play, the party is awarded at least 1-2+ items of their choice through the progress of each module. The players typically get their choice of 1 item at the end of the module. This means that players starting the Vecna adventure would have at least an opportunity to collect their choice of 9+ items assuming the character accepts a level at the end of each adventure module. The rules for adventurers league restrict the number of items that players can carry however, a level 10 is likely to have 6 uncommon+ quality item at the start of the Vecna campaign. This isn't a question of "keeping magic items light" - it is a reward expectation set by the devs to the community. If a DM wants to starve their table of gear, that's their option but it shouldn't be the default.

If the party instead starts at 1 and goes through a book like Icewind Dale in advance of starting the Vecna campaign, the party will collect a similar amount of gear to running published adventures. Again, there are lots of uncommon and rares in Icewind Dale that exceed the loot provided in the first few chapters of the Vecna campaign. In essence, this means that the players aren't being adequately rewarded during the progression from levels 10 to 16 appropriately.

1 person gets a sword of Kas, 1 person gets a multi-piece staff, the rest of the party gets greens and blues. Cool story, Hasbro.

"The assumption has to be the bare minimum" screams poor development. I refuse to pat the devs on the back when I think they've failed 2/3 of the party by not rewarding them adequately.

Quote from ExplosiveCarnage >>

I simply don't agree, on many levels, except for agreeing there is something to be said about including magic items in the official module. Plenty of DMs are scared to included items not listed in the module out of fear of breaking them.

However, it isn't laziness not to include them. The module is a framework, and while they know the monsters and the encounters they have included all the magic items needed to combat those monsters and encounters. But they don't, for example, know if your party will include a paladin- so there's little point including a holy avenger. And if your party is all casters and melee, they'll be pretty disappointed at getting an oathbow. But you the DM know if you have a barbarian in the groul that would love a flametounge greatsword, or if giving them that greatsword would invalidate their poleaem master feat.

All I really want is part of running the game to say "be not afraid to add loot where you deem it appropriate." Because 9/10 when a run a module with a lot of magic items, I end up neeing to change them all anyway for the above reason. Especially when you're dealing with a 10th level character. If they get a flame tongue at level 5, it might suck if they took PAM at level 4, but they can build around it from there. At 10th level, you could have taken PAM and sentinel, and would rather just go with a nonmagical glaive.

 Charts...

Provide a group of thematically appropriate items rather than 1.

#quitbeinglazy

There were instances where gods were defeated by mortals in Forgotten Realms as well as other universes that are a part of D&D systems. Not exactly killed but, success was achieved.

Christopher Perkins, has confirmed that statblock for Tiamat in ROT is the statblock for the deity Tiamat...

I was looking at the 4e statblocks for both of them a little bit ago, and I realised that while CR 35 (their CRs in that edition) is no longer in the game- mythic phases let you have a single monster with an XP total higher than a CR 30 monster. A CR 28 with a mythic phase gets you the closest to the 235,000 XP CR 35 was worth in the previous edition, but a CR 26 with a mythic phase is close enough and means you only need to adjust a pre-existing statblock.

If that's what you want for magic items, you have every right to ask for it.

But understand it's a personal preference. I for one would rather not have to look at a spreadsheet whenever I'm trying to read what a room contains when the DMG already has treasure charts for me to make use of and Xanathar's Guide gives me a perfectly good framework to figure out where I need to add in magic items.

Quote from ExplosiveCarnage >>

I was looking at the 4e statblocks for both of them a little bit ago, and I realised that while CR 35 (their CRs in that edition) is no longer in the game- mythic phases let you have a single monster with an XP total higher than a CR 30 monster. A CR 28 with a mythic phase gets you the closest to the 235,000 XP CR 35 was worth in the previous edition, but a CR 26 with a mythic phase is close enough and means you only need to adjust a pre-existing statblock.

 Lol 4e.

Shrug
I was curious what Strahd's statblock was like in the previous edition. It just so happened he was in the same book as Vecna and Kas.

Any official pointers on how to craft character backstory/hooks to help the adventure start smoothly? If a load of high-level characters start the adventure with nothing in common, I predict a slow start. For example, should GMs encourage them all to have some prior history with Vecna?

I heard that one guy is trying to kill dndbeyond for Hasbro again… his antics make be want to step away from dnd entirely 

bring it on !!! my  players are not only going to stop vecna and his evil plans they are going to lichnap him trapping him in a modified Wand of Wonder fusing the tapestry of dark souls with the wand and its orbs good bye evil fiend your centuries are numbered ....... 

can u give us the monster names that we'll be facing