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Oct 17, 2012 -- 1:21AM, Verdegris_Sage wrote:

Oct 16, 2012 -- 4:24AM, DemoMonkey wrote:

sirkaikillah

I admit, right up front, that the wording on the boots may just be sloppy. Or a placeholder until they put something else in. In either of those cases you are completely right.

However, there is a third possibility that gives the designers and their vision of "D&D for everyone" a little more credit. That is, that the rules for the boots are vague because they WANT different gaming groups to come up with their OWN mechanical in-game interperetation of the effects. In effect, a "fluff first" rather than "effect first" way of approaching magic items.

If they say "The boots give + plus 4 to Stealth",  even as an example, then that becomes the right and only way to adjudicate them (apart from a house ruled change). But if they say "The wearer can move silently even over dry leaves" the mechanical effect of the boots can work however your group wants AND THAT WILL BE RIGHT. The way I suggested is only how I would adjudicate them; Verdegris_Sage had a completely different idea and that was good too. Neither of us should be wrong.

(The first argument against this approach will read something like "Why should I pay for a vague half-finished game?"; and that would be a valid concern if this "you guys decide" approach was widespread throughout the rules. However, I think miscellaneous magic items is the perfect place for a few examples of this style.)

I tend to think it is incomplete as other magic items offer both a description and at least a suggestion on adjudication.  If the attempt was to just give vague descriptions and let each game table discover thier own methods for adjudicating rules with out any suggestions, then why offer suggestions for adjudication for some magic items and only a vague discriptions for others.  Brief vague discriptions work great for experienced Dms and established groups but not for an inexperienced Dm or new group.  IMO a D&D rule book should at least offer suggestions on adjudication of rules for specific magic items.  A pair of sentences is all that  most would need.

Oct 17, 2012 -- 1:21AM, Verdegris_Sage wrote:

Mind you, I'm in total support of your method at your table.
I personally don't mind fairly vague descriptions, for my games, or for games where (as people have already mentioned) a rapor or understanding exists between me and the DM.  
Organized play may suffer. 
However, so long as everyone at the game table is on the same sheet of music, I imagine things will work out.
Alternatively, the wording is vague enough that some DMs will just assume the boots grant advantage on stealth. Mayhaps a side-bar or suggestion in the DMG for adjudicating such gray areas would be helpful, especially to the newer DM.

Mind the both of you, I think both of you offered really good suggestions on adjudication.  I also think that an experienced Dm with an established group could easily house rule any suggestions regarding a specific magic item in an official rule book to suite his group and game needs.  It' s kind of a tradition for many Dms.  But those rule should offer at least a suggestion on adjudication if only as a starting point for a discussion on such house rules. 

Anyway thanks for the discussion.  Smart thoughtful debate is always good fun and educational.  You both diffenetly expanded my view on the subject, despite my disagreement.

I don't think granting more attunement slots as you gain levels is a good idea. As you adventure more and gain levels, you're going to be finding more and more powerful items to fit into those slots. So, if you offer more slots while simultaneously increasing the power of what goes into those slots, you're getting into what I'll preemptively call the "quadratic attunement problem".