Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754895I always kind of felt magic items worked pretty well for the first three editions (though 3E got a bit crazy at time with them for my tastes). They were never really something I felt needed any fixing (which is one of the reasons the 4E approach was a let down). For those who have been following the playtesting closely how well does it match the 1E or 2E approach to magic items? How well does it compare to 3E?

Really one of the things I am hoping for with 5E is a return to the old approach to magic.

It's far closer to 1/2e then 3e in my opinion because of the bounded accuracy thing, attunement and the fact magic items are not baked into the math like 3/4e. It would be easy to make it similar to 3e/4e just by raising the attunement limits. Also the items themselves are 1/2/3e style not 4e style.

Quote from: Marleycat;754897It's far closer to 1/2e then 3e in my opinion because of the bounded accuracy thing, attunement and the fact magic items are not baked into the math like 3/4e.

Is attunement just a little boost the weapon gets in the hand of the right class/race/alignmente/etc?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754899Is attunement just a little boost the weapon gets in the hand of the right class/race/alignmente/etc?

Sometimes or it's just what you would consider classically powerful items (Staff of the Magi, Robes of the Archmage, Vorpal swords, holy swords, Defender sword, etc.) Or basically an item that could have multiple abilities like Cloak of the Bat or something.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754895I always kind of felt magic items worked pretty well for the first three editions (though 3E got a bit crazy at time with them for my tastes). They were never really something I felt needed any fixing (which is one of the reasons the 4E approach was a let down). For those who have been following the playtesting closely how well does it match the 1E or 2E approach to magic items? How well does it compare to 3E?

Really one of the things I am hoping for with 5E is a return to the old approach to magic.

This pretty much represents how I feel. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Quote from: Marleycat;754897It's far closer to 1/2e then 3e in my opinion because of the bounded accuracy thing, attunement and the fact magic items are not baked into the math like 3/4e. It would be easy to make it similar to 3e/4e just by raising the attunement limits. Also the items themselves are 1/2/3e style not 4e style.

Doesn't the bounded accuracy thing imply much less of a need for magic item churn overall? That alone should make it tend toward earlier versions in style.

I don't see how attunement contributes to that, though.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;754903Doesn't the bounded accuracy thing imply much less of a need for magic item churn overall? That alone should make it tend toward earlier versions in style.

I don't see how attunement contributes to that, though.

1. Yes, magic items especially X-items are not needed at all
2. It's just a way to avoid the "christmas tree" effect and to add flavor/risk/mystery to magic along with forcing a decision on which really cool item do I keep? Because somebody in the group is going to be able to use an attuned item and want it just like you.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754899Is attunement just a little boost the weapon gets in the hand of the right class/race/alignmente/etc?

More like its a safeguard against full access. Back in AD&D there were one or two items that appeared mundane +X. But if you could activate them they had alot more oomph.

Staff of Striking in the playtest. Unattuned it is a +3 staff. A Mage, Cleric or Druid can attune it and gains access to the use of its charges to deal more damage.

The ring of Protection though grants no bonus till it is attuned. +1

All the playtest items with charges had vastly fewer 10 for the aformentioned staff of striking. But some like said staff regenerated 1d6+4 charges each day. Wand of Magic Missiles has 7 charges and regens 1d6+1 per day.

I wasnt too keen on the charge regen personally. But since the items have so few now in a day. It is ok. The staff of striking for example you could get say five 2-charge hits out of in a day.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;754903Doesn't the bounded accuracy thing imply much less of a need for magic item churn overall? That alone should make it tend toward earlier versions in style.

I don't see how attunement contributes to that, though.

It absolutely does.  It also, by proxy maybe:

* reduces DMs needing to change magic items in an adventure to fit the player's build (I never did that anyway, but a lot of people do).  Because that +1 spear is effective over a much wider level scale compared to previous editions, a PC who focuses on fighting with a spear doesn't need to DM to make sure he gets an ever increasing power level of magic spears throughout the campaign.  Yes, I'm looking at 3e mostly here.

* allows you to not have as many magic weapons and armor, either helping achieve lower magic settings if that's what you want, or to add more miscellaneous magic items.  Again, this sort of ties into the assumed "power creep" of magic items found in older editions.

Quote from: Omega;754906More like its a safeguard against full access. Back in AD&D there were one or two items that appeared mundane +X. But if you could activate them they had alot more oomph.

Staff of Striking in the playtest. Unattuned it is a +3 staff. A Mage, Cleric or Druid can attune it and gains access to the use of its charges to deal more damage.

The ring of Protection though grants no bonus till it is attuned. +1

All the playtest items with charges had vastly fewer 10 for the aformentioned staff of striking. But some like said staff regenerated 1d6+4 charges each day. Wand of Magic Missiles has 7 charges and regens 1d6+1 per day.

I wasnt too keen on the charge regen personally. But since the items have so few now in a day. It is ok. The staff of striking for example you could get say five 2-charge hits out of in a day.

I like the regenerating charges deal it makes you not afraid to use your staff or wand because you know you'll probably always have the item ready to use 2-3 times a day at worst.

Quote from: Marleycat;754913I like the regenerating charges deal it makes you not afraid to use your staff or wand because you know you'll probably always have the item ready to use 2-3 times a day at worst.

It's also less bookkeeping, trying to find a wizard to recharge it, or worrying about recharging it yourself.

That's the nature of little things, they add up to bigger things.

At-will damage spells.
Recharging Staves and Wands.
All assumed to be standard baseline, not optional.

It looks like WotC is just finding a different way to retune the Magic-User to make them work like other classes.  Magic-User is a class I don't think they've ever understood.  It fits well with the High Fantasy Extreme! version of the WotC era Realms though. Easy fix, for me.

For the Internet, oh the humanity.

"Coming in 2015 to a community near you, the new LFQW threads!".

I'm not a great fan of the daily re-charge either.

It'd make it a much more interesting mechanic if the user could recharge with his hit points. Low level magic items might be a 1 to 1 deal, but stuff like the Staff of Striking might be 3 hit points gives 1 charge back. You can only recharge upto the max charges it holds during a 24 hour period. So 7 a day for Wand of MM and 10 per day for Staff of Striking.

Another resource management choice.

Looks like the whole game is still bound and determined to have the sun rise and set around the fights per day model.

D&D for the moar PEW PEW less QQ generation.

Quote from: One Horse Town;755271I'm not a great fan of the daily re-charge either.

It'd make it a much more interesting mechanic if the user could recharge with his hit points. Low level magic items might be a 1 to 1 deal, but stuff like the Staff of Striking might be 3 hit points gives 1 charge back. You can only recharge upto the max charges it holds during a 24 hour period. So 7 a day for Wand of MM and 10 per day for Staff of Striking.

Another resource management choice.

That's a great idea, Hit Points or burning spells/day or some kind of resource management that means something other then "Magic-User must always keep up his damage quotient in every round in every combat."

Burning HPs for magic seems like a Blood Magic kind of thing, perhaps the basis for a variant Warlock class or something. (Like Path of the Sun Aztlan Priests for those who know Shadowrun.)

Quote from: CRKrueger;755268That's the nature of little things, they add up to bigger things.

At-will damage spells.
Recharging Staves and Wands.
All assumed to be standard baseline, not optional.

It looks like WotC is just finding a different way to retune the Magic-User to make them work like other classes.  Magic-User is a class I don't think they've ever understood.  It fits well with the High Fantasy Extreme! version of the WotC era Realms though. Easy fix, for me.

For the Internet, oh the humanity.

"Coming in 2015 to a community near you, the new LFQW threads!".

See, at least you're open to it and know it can be altered say like so, you can recharge the item on a 1 for 1 basis with your spell slots (9th level slot means 9 charges) or maybe 1 for 2. Charges for hitpoints work but it is variable depending if you altered healing rates also.

Still have no idea about game assumptions or baseline you keep mentioning given you'll have at least the DMG if not the PHB full of tools explicitly there to change the game at the macro and micro level.