Keep On the Borderlands: 40 Years and Still Kicking
The quickie teach-newbies-D&D game I was planning to start this weekend got bumped to next weekend, which actually helps because there’s a bit more work in converting The Keep on the Borderlands to (what I consider) a playable 5E adventure than you might think. Just going through and giving the NPCs names rather than THE CASTELLAN and THE CURATE is ( Read more... )
To me, the purely numerical bonuses/progression make the character more survivable and useful. It's not the primary driving motivator of my gaming or characters, but often #2 or 3 on the "keeping in back of mind" list. Magical bonuses/effects on top of that can not only enhance those two critical features, but also make possible some nifty character concepts, and add a lot of, well, flavor to combat. When everybody swings a sword, one more sword is no big deal. When one person's sword is flashing red when it hits people and sometimes setting them on fire for a second, that's impressive. also scary as hell if the weilder in question is is attacking your party.
I call 5e's leaving in the high level 'Classic' enchanted weapons (Frostbrand, for example) in the DMG a tease because there's no 'economy' equivalent now, when there used to be. (At least not listed or spelled out in any way) Frostbrand's a +3 in this system, which equates to a +4/5 in previous editions, which equates to Farking Ridiculous unless you're playing a level 15+ campaign. When, at lower levels, you can get/find/commission yourself a +1 longsword that does some bonus frost damage, and maybe later can unlock the ability to once per long rest to frost the floor like a Grease spell... Well darn, that's not just no longer a tease, and pretty cool, but has a potential plot hook hidden inside, which might be appreciated by the owner and the party as well.
In fairness to the 5e writers, I did find a few nuggets spread about in the DMG, bottom of page 141, on page 129, and on 284-5. It opens up the door for the notion, and some rough mechanics for time and cost to enchant it yourself, even if it gives next to no guidance in its implementation in terms of specific effects or balance. To me, this was their "fine, if you want to enchant platemail that grows thorns when something bites you to do some damage back, HERE." The only place i've seen minor/side effects listed/suggested, was on pages 142-143, and to be honest... YAWN. most of their examples were not terrifically interesting, or technically useful. Ooh, it floats. my hammer floats. that's nice. TBH back when 5e came out and I went looking for the nonexistant enchanting tables i was used to, and found those two pages of charts, it made me stop and say "oh really? that's IT!? The best they could imagine players wanting was... this?"
Oddly, it's presented on pg 141 as a formula that exists; it can be found or awarded or researched, etc, yet the player is apparently the only one in the world with an existing reason to make one, seemingly for the first time. The notion of "you can buy that thing here" or "This is A Thing That Exists Already In The World" seemingly never occurred before. And, since the writers assumed you'll only get this by making it, That's the one game mechanic aspect they actually detailed, which holds ZERO appeal to me as a player.
Exercises in how many GP and Work-days are required to churn out a +1 dagger don't interest me. (20 days, 500gp, for the record) *BEING* an enchanter generally doesn't interest me, as a player. Quests to find some magical McGuffins for use in enchanting can interest me. What cool things i can do with the enchanted item later, really interest me. Making the damned thing is a chore i'd rather outsource to an NPC so we don't waste valuable game time on it.
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Less obvious in 5E design is that the real stretching point in the system is damage per round vs. hit points. The real bumps in CR and threat hide in things like multiattack or ancillary effects, which is why piling on lots of low-level monsters is often just as dangerous if not moreso than making a single monster bigger. Four orcs at 1/2 CR each are just as dangerous as a single CR 2 creature, if they can hit you four times for 5 hp each instead of twice for 10 (and if they spread out it's harder to shut them down with a single spell/trip/disarm, even if they are way more killable on a 1-to-1 basis).
This is why the infamous "axe of max damage to plants" item exists. It sounds weaksauce, but in its situational spot it's effectively twice as good as a regular axe (8 dpr instead of 4). Granted, fighting plants isn't something that comes up every day, but the axe was also placed such that the characters might have it in that village with the green dragon- a village packed to the brim with twig blights. If things had gone differently in our game, that silly axe could have turned a potential TPK into a walk in the park. It's all about the context.
(For the record, I didn't bother with the twig blights because I liked the whole "overgrown village as creepy ambiance" better than "here's some more CR 1/2 monsters to randomly fight" so I didn't have them be aggressive. Having the Axe of Plant Hate wouldn't have made a difference in our game, but in the module-as-written it does have a place, filling that "very minor magic item" slot.)
Another factor is the unwritten "campaigns REALLY start at 3rd level" thing 5E has going on. Lost Mines of Phandelver starts at 1st level because it's specifically intended to teach newbies (both in front of and behind the screen) how 5E plays; but the designers at WotC don't actually intend for the "typical" campaign to do that, they just put in levels 1 & 2 basically for the OSR types who want a grinder/funnel setup. In a campaign that starts at level 3+ and goes up from there (as most of the 5E published campaign books do), you're more likely to get to the beefier items, and sooner.
Anyhow, my point is, at low levels particularly, the "safe" realm for item improvement is in damage dealt rather than to-hit bonuses (and conversely, damage resistance rather than AC bonuses) and the like. To that end, I do think there could be a more robust selection of things to choose from. A flaming sword that does +1d6 fire damage sans attunement seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for a 1st level character to find, for instance, without being any real danger to the math. But 5E doesn't have that right off the shelf- it jumps straight to the +2d6 flame tongue (requiring attunement) that might show up at low level if lightning strikes, but isn't really likely to appear until level 5+ (by which time +2d6 is less likely to amaze). Again, part of the "fewer, but more impactful" philosophy, but hampered by the competing need to avoid the infamous Christmas Tree.
I think D&D generally suffers from an over-reliance on randomization to make balance "come out in the wash" (and always has). Having stuff doled out by random number generator is less static than the dead-feeling "treasure parcels" of 4E, but also leads to the frustration of neat stuff locked behind the gate of being unlikely to show up so it doesn't flood the game world. (OTOH, D&D as played today, with a story-based campaign and regular groups, is very different from the "take your character to the current DM's house and go down into the megadungeon" model it was created to serve in 1978. In that environment, randomization was the great equalizer.)
But that's what the DM is for, to find the balance between extremes! (Insert rambling and ultimately irrelevant rant about D&D not being a video game here. ;)
-TG
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