For ten years, 5eDungeons & DragonsDungeon Masters and players have dealt with ambiguous and contradictory guidance regarding magic items, but the revised 2024Player’s Handbooksuggests positive changes could be in store. In the 2014 version ofD&D,the creation of magic items was described as a rare, lost art, and any magic items were relics of a bygone era of advanced magical knowledge. Unlike the prior two editions,players were instructed not to “expect” magic items, and DMs received conflicting instructions on what levels to make certain rarities of magic items available to their players' characters.
Clearly, the2024D&DDMGhas magic items, but the more important question is whether it providescoherent and specific instructions on exactly when DMs should provide them to the partyalong with functional rules for buying and selling such items. Third editionD&Dhad specific “wealth by level” charts that made it simple for DMs, since all magic items had clearly listed prices. Fourth edition followed a similar model, with better guidance on specific item types a character should have at any given level to ensure their offensive and defensive capabilities were appropriate for the challenges they would be facing.
D&D Made The Martial-Caster Divide Absolutely Worse
Martial classes and full spellcaster classes were close to balanced in the 2014 Dungeons & Dragons rules. 2024’s rules make martial classes obsolete.
D&D’s Martial Characters Require Magic Items To Fight
Spell Focused Classes Can Benefit From Magic Items, But Do Not Need Them As Badly
The presence ofcrafting rules in 2024’sD&D DMGmight seem to help make magic items universally available to players who can afford them, but themassive time investments required to craft magic items do not mesh wellwith most campaigns. While downtime is extremely important for campaigns, few campaigns involve lulls of months or years in between each adventuring day. The revisedPHBalready gave reason to hope, as it contained its “wealth by level” chart in thePHB, while in 2024 this was only in theDMG. This makes it player-facing information,legitimizing it beyond solely DM-facing content.
When 4eD&Dput its list of magic items and their prices in thePHBrather than theDMG, this went even beyond 3e’s approach tomake the purchase of magic items known and validated in the game.This was a boon for DMs, effectively offloading magic item purchases to playersandletting DMs focus on their story, NPCs, world-building, and planning appropriate encounters, not worrying about the right loot to place in a dungeon. Thisgave players more agency as well, as buying magic items offered more control over a major aspect of their characters' growth and progression.
The 3e rules provided a mandated amount of wealth based on character level, and players would buy magic items, which were assumed to be available to them. The 4e system mandated specific tiers of the “big three” magic items, focusing on offense and shoring up defenses, along with additional gold for miscellaneous purchases. Both assumed magic items were readily available to buy.
The2024DnD Monster Manualchanges balancingfor higher-level monsters, but that will not change the fact thatmagic items were never truly “optional” in 5eD&D. There was a false narrative that a party could succeed with or without magic items, butin practice, this was not the case. Many monsters were resistant, or outright immune, to non-magical weapon damage, rendering classes like the Fighter and Barbarian either half as useful or entirely useless in certain encounters. Pure spellcasting classes gained less from magic items than martial characters, leading to amassive imbalance between class archetypes without magic items.
The 5e D&D Vibe Of Rare Magic Items Made No Sense
Player Characters Gain Unrestricted Access To Spells, Magic Items Logically Follow
While2024’sDMGmay offer better advice, one of the most important things it can advise on is toensure a party has the appropriate wealth for their leveland theability to purchase magic items with that wealth. Since the tables shown in thePHBmatch what was the “high magic” table in the 2014DMG, there are signs the designers have come to this realization —5eD&Ddoes not work without magic items. Beyond the obvious balancing issues between PCs and monsters, and martial and caster characters, 2014D&D’s handling of magic itemssimply made no sense.
I’m Convinced The D&D 2024 Player’s Handbook Has Taken Rulings Over Rules Too Far
Ten years of questions to Sage Advice confirm that 5e Dungeons & Dragons was far too ambiguous. The 2024 Player’s Handbook has not fixed this problem.
The suggested fictional “flavor text” that magic items are a rare and lost art was a decidedly low magic setting vibe thatcontradicted all the rest of 2014 5eDnD. The craft of making a +1 Dagger was described as something lost to the ages or an opus an archmage might struggle at for years, but other examples of spellcasting did not carry this same tone. There was no universal statement that resurrection magic is rare inD&D, or that thewishspell is a lost art from more advanced times.Magic items were singled out, bizarrely contradicting everything else.
The new books are already making some major mistakes in their design, like the2024DMGabandoning the adventuring dayas a concept instead of providing guidance to DMs on how to facilitate multiple-encounter adventuring days. The already released 2024PHBis a clear example of “one step forward, two steps back” in its quality of rules. While some things might simply be rough edges a DM can smooth off, thehandling of magic items is too integral to both the fiction and balance ofD&Dto have a repeat of2014’s bad design calls.
D&D Needs To Return To Mandated Magic Item Pricing
Prior Editions Got It Right With Clear Wealth By Level And Magic Item Price Lists
In an implied paradigm whereany Sorcerer is free to learn Fireball simply by reaching level 5, a Fighter should not have a hard time purchasing a +1 Longbow. The third and fourth editions ofD&Dembraced this, acknowledging thatif the game represents a highly magical world, then all characters must make that a part of their life, whether they are a martial warrior or a spellcaster. Classes like the Artificer were popular in 2014 5e in part because their ability to Infuse magic items provided a workaround for the lack of coherent rules on simply buying magic items.
The 2014 5eDnDmagic item pricing guides were next to useless, as they were inconsistent from theDungeon Master’s Guideto subsequent supplements and presented prices as a massive range for a given tier of rarity instead of standardized prices like the two prior editions.
No doubt there are plenty of quirky optional rules, like the2024DnD DMG’s Shotguns that Push, futuristic ray guns, and other options that are unlikely to see regular use in most campaigns. A coherent crafting system is a promising start.D&Dalso needsclear guidelines for which rarities of magic items should be available to purchase based on character levelandspecific prices for those items, not broad ranges. While it is unlikely to snap back to the specificity of 4e, 2024Dungeons & Dragonscould at least return to the 3e paradigm as far as magic item prices are concerned.
