this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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Yeah, they got super lazy with magic item economy in 5e and justified it by saying "you can play this game without the expectation of magic items!" Like bullshit, you just didn't want to deal with the hassle of pricing items correctly to the point that there are items in lower tiers that are functionally the same or better than items in higher tiers. (Ring of warmth vs ring of resistance is an egregious example, but if you look hard enough you'll find more.)
Yup. Mechanically, what do you even spend money on once you've got Platemail? A boat? A castle? Neither of those are especially likely to be of use to a roaming party of adventurers.
I think my favourite example of a really shitty 5e item (that was apparently quite good in previous editions) is the Ioun Stone. If I believe in official item prices (Very Rare items are worth around 50,000gp), then that means I'm paying that much for an item which...
-Has the same impact as a +1 weapon -Uses an Attunement Slot -CAN BE EASILY DESTROYED (Has 20hp, can be hit by enemy AoE attacks. For example... Fireball, dragon breath...)
That said, for what it's worth, dragons aren't the only thing I've homebrewed. Here, I made it standard practice to assign prices to all my magic items. Feel free to steal some!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15je74qMiYxSEnF43zp2UkEoSk3LqRymMbxruPVGQ-i4/edit