D&D 5e: Magic Items

Magic items are a strange beast in 5e. Because of the whole bounded accuracy dynamic, there isn't a need for magical arms, armor, or gizmos in order to be appropriately powerful at a given level. I am already seeing how this change is playing out in the treasure being portioned: it lowers the amount of magical treasure significantly. In 3e, martial characters looked for that +1 longsword as soon as they started a campaign. Once they had it, it was time to look for a +2 longsword, and so on. Finding each tier of magical item (all the way up to the +5 bonus) was partly a form of "keeping up with the Baggins" and partly a way to measure the success of the party/character. The better armed and armored your character was, the more successful you were as a player. This dynamic is fundamentally shifted once magic items become useful, somewhat privileged, and not required.

As with many other changes from previous editions, this should not hit new players particularly hard. In fact, the idea that a magic item is now something precious and special should make each individual magic-item-find that much more exciting. I think it will feel much more like Lord of the Rings and less like it used to in 3e.

A low-magic Forgotten Realms universe is a strange thing to contemplate for me, but not a completely awkward one. I am going to be very interested indeed to see how Keith Baker's Eberron setting comes to pass in 5e. (His comments on his own webpage suggest that in the high-magic third edition, Warforged were overpowered. His thoughts on their redesign bring that power-creep down significantly.)

The place where the magic item dearth shows up most prominently is in the published adventure paths beyond Lost Mine of Phandelver: the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path(s). The designers, working with unfinished treasure rules, placed almost no magic items into the adventures. And really, until the Dungeon Master's Guide is released, we peons who are making do with the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual are going to find it hard to compensate appropriately. For right now, I'm planning to run the adventures without adjusting the treasure amounts, though I know it will seem somewhat low.

Maybe the biggest change in magic items (from 3e-4e) is in the fact that they're (at the time I'm writing this) no longer associated with a gold value. This one really didn't sink in until I started re-reading the magic item descriptions in the published adventures: gems and art objects are given "sell" values in gold, but magic items are just...magic items (with a few notable exceptions). Apparently, since magic (or physical manifestations of magic) is/are far less common than they were in previous editions, there are no "magic item stores." Some are even postulating that heroes will have little to spend their hard-earned gold on since they won't be able to go into larger cities and buy new magical equipment with it.

I must admit that the lack of pricing certainly sends up red flags for me. If there is no economy for magical items, that makes each one an anomaly or a priceless artifact--and I don't think that's strictly true. Potions of healing are, for better or worse, a staple of the economy and have a set price value in the Player's Handbook relative to other non-magical gear. Why shouldn't other magical items have the same treatment? The values could certainly be exaggerated for the commissioning or purchasing of such items--and the return for selling them on the open market could be lowered to reflect the uncertainty of finding a buyer--but to ignore that altogether would be a mistake.

Heroes will always find something to spend their cash on (fortresses? servants? charity? non-magical assistance?), but magic items--and the economy thereof--have been such an important part of the game for so many years that I will be hard pressed to move my players (and me!) to the new normal.