You've got questions—we've got answers! Here's how it works—each week, our Community Manager will be scouring all available sources to find whatever D&D Next questions you're asking.
There are certain business and legal questions we can't answer (for business and legal reasons). And if you have a specific rules question, we'd rather point you to Customer Service, where representatives are ready and waiting to help guide you through the rules of the game. That said, our goal is provide you with as much information we can—in this and other venues.
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How does magic item creation factor in to the new magic item rules?
We’ve intentionally left magic item creation out up to this point, because it’s something we want to be handled with great care. First off, thematically magic item creation muddies the waters about what magic items are. By default, we assume magic items are treasure that is found during the course of the adventure, not something built, bought, or sold on a whim. Obtaining a magic item should default to being a reward in the game, and the last thing we want is for magic items to become routine or expected.
However, magic items do have to come from somewhere. That’s why we’re currently looking at magic item creation as an option for high-level play, and putting that system alongside other amazing feats that add to your character’s legacy. In our current vision, creating a magic item is a significant event in your character’s progression. This ties nicely in with our hope that even simple magic items will gain a certain depth of story when introduced by the adventure; for the same reason we hope to encourage DMs to reward players with Narsil instead of just a +1 longsword, we’d like creating a magic item to feel more like forging Anduril than hammering out a +1 longsword.
Of course, as with everything, we’ll also want to look into ways to make it so that the DM can adjust the frequency of magic item creation to best fit his or her campaign.
Magic items in certain combinations (a belt of giant strength plus a magic weapon) seem to overstep the balancing line of bounded accuracy; is balance then mostly in the hands of the DM when it comes to magic items?
The nature of our bounded accuracy system doesn’t mean that any increase in accuracy is bad, it’s just not assumed as a default. Even if a character somehow gets to the point (via magic items handed out by the DM) where he or she has 95% accuracy, that only goes so far. Since the bulk of our scaling comes in terms of damage and hit points, even high-accuracy characters should find monsters challenging to bring down.
Would it be possible for the number of attuned magic items to vary from campaign to campaign? One for low magic campaigns and perhaps as many as ten for high magic campaigns?
Absolutely. Just as I mentioned above with regards to magic item creation, the base rules you see as a default are prime targets for optional and variant rules. For example, in addition to providing advice on the effects of tweaking attunement numbers, we can also offer optional rules and guidance for limiting the total number of magic items that can be used of a certain type, or a version of the item slots rules used in 3rd and 4th Editions. We just don’t see those rules as a necessary default, given that we expect magic items to come as rewards.
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How can I submit a question to the D&D Next Q&A?
Instead of a single venue to submit questions, our Community Manager will be selecting questions from our message boards, Twitter feed, and Facebook account. You can also submit questions directly to dndinsider@wizards.com. So, if you’d like to have your question answered in the D&D Next Q&A, just continue to participate in our online community—and we may select yours!
