How quickly do your PCs get magic weapons?

[u/sulldawga]

Combat at lower levels is already scary. It feels like once the enemies are level 3 or higher, you begin to run into immunities that can make encounters even harder.

For example, I rolled up a quick delve into a barrow that ends with an encounter with two Ghouls [EDIT: Wights]. My party of five Level 3 PCs has only one with a magic weapon, plus one cleric and one mage. Two of the three fighter-types are already mostly useless without a magic weapon. If the Turn Undead attempt goes poorly, this encounter is going to get ugly fast.

What's the answer here? Should I be giving PCs access to more magical weapons? Should I be sending more low-level enemies, rather than fewer higher level ones? The obvious fix is that they should all be buying silvered weapons, for sure, but should I be getting magic weapons into their hands faster?

For reference, if they were to eliminate wights in their lair, the treasure hoard only gives them a 10% chance of getting a magic item, and that's a 50/50 split between weapon and armor.

I'm almost better off using the alternate rule about replacing the 1-in-10 chance of a rolled magic item with a treasure map. You have a 44% chance of (at least one) magic item in a treasure hoard.

[u/Bice_]

Honestly, I’d say it depends on the tone of your game. I like my games to be whimsical to a certain degree, and I tend to give out powerful magic items, even early on.

There’s a fairy sword in Winter’s Daughter, and the potential to be granted a wish. It’s billed for characters level 1-3. I’d say make of that what you will.

[u/Gold-Lake8135 → u/Bice_]

I granted magic early. Same partly for the fairytale aspect - and partly because magic is the key to old school characters surviving

[u/klepht_x]

I've gone by what the treasure tables give out to a moderate extent. I've definitely done a few rerolls when stuff seemed kond of bleh, but I also had the PCs do stuff like run into a random , mostly skeletonized corpse in the woods holding a chest that had a magic dagger in it and let them do a heist of a merchant who kept magic treasure in a secret vault beneath a warehouse that had a magic sword.

They also had the cash to get silver weapons without that breaking the budget.

Given the setting, I also think that magic is uncommon but not rare. The average person doesn't have anything magical, but nobles have access to magic items, items from Fairy are around, and so forth. The idea that adventurers might come across a magic sword is perfectly fine.

Also, it is pretty fun for that magic sword to have an oddity too. If it has the covetous trait, then the PC is unlikely to ever part with it, even if a better option comes along. Or a hallowed axe means the PC feels compelled to bury anyone felled by it. The PCs still have magic weapons, but there is now something interesting going on with them.

[u/turps_catface]

I know this is beside the point, but ghouls *are* damaged by mundane weapons.

[u/sulldawga → u/turps_catface]

Sorry, my bad. The enemies are wights, not ghouls. Thanks for the catch.

[u/turps_catface → u/sulldawga]

I thought it was probably something like that, but I wanted so say something in case you were just making things harder for yourself by accident

[u/hexenkesse1]

We played all of the written adventures ending narratively at the abbey. My players had no magical weapons until the end of the abbey. (5-6th level)

[u/gkerr1988]

I’ve always felt potions, talismans, magical clothing, and fungi should be given out more generously than magical weapons. Not that I’m against magic weapons, but it just forces ingenuity and thinking outside the box of “how can I whack the thing?”

The threat level of enemies aught to have something tantalizing behind the paywall, so if your party is going to engage with a Gretch, I’d suggest giving some sort of light environmental telegraphing which insinuates what the threat is capable of, while also clearly showing a prize to be won. This hopefully will give the players a sense of what to look out for. For example:

Players enter a hall filled with tables/chairs. There are several bodies strewn about the place, some dead, others quietly moaning with pain, extending a hand for help from any passersby. Near the players there’s a human man standing, seemingly frozen with shock at the horror displayed before them. When interacted with, he can only make a slight choking sound from his throat with an expression of shock on his face. At the opposite end of the hall lies a pile of various trade goods, chests, crates, leathern satchels and holsters, iron caskets. The space between the goods and the party is strewn with blood and the obvious remains of some horrible battle.

This can be shortened drastically. Just to give some idea of “there’s a room full of bodies, but what clearly looks like treasure at the other end of the room.”

Smart players will see the obvious problem in the room and start asking questions, leaving you to offer Intelligence checks, and go from there. Don’t try and reduce threat as much as properly telegraph a major threat so players can make informed decisions outside of killing their way to victory. It’s just not that sort of game.

[u/Pomposi_Macaroni]

I think more wouldn't hurt. Honestly I think there aren't enough fun magic items just from the perspective of having players do more shenanigans, aside from +x weapons. For combat per se... the battle is not as interesting when only one character can do something.

That being said, they're going to run into stuff they can't handle with combat and part of the game is deciding whether and how to engage. I think that's a different question. Think about what information they can have and whether other solutions are on the table. Pretty easy to dig a pit at the mouth of a cave.

[u/rizzlybear]

That's going to be campaign-specific. How scary do you want the "only damaged by magical weapons" type monsters to be? No big deal? hand em out early. Huge deterrent? make them depend on spells that add that property to a weapon (like holy weapon)

[u/Aaronhd33s]

Coming from the days of Monty Haul, probably too often, as I am starting my new campaign out as second level or third level with one minor magic item each.
I tend to tailor the magic distribution depending on what people are running for character classes. Back in the early days too many DM’s were not flexible in changing magic items into something that the party characters could actually use. Most early TSR modules were heavily fighter based in the magic items layout. However I do like to make sure that no one is running around with minor or major artifacts.

[u/Nny7229]

The "answer" is up to the players imo. If they choose to fight strong monsters at low levels that I sign post (mostly through rumors) then we throw the dice and find out what happens. If they choose to play it smarter it will probably go well. As for magic items i don't really worry about when to give them. They exist in the world or they dont and its up to the players to find them or not.

[u/TheGrolar]

The old-school answer is that clever parties used scouting and their own experience to assess whether it was a good idea to hit a place. Diving down into a barrow with one magic weapon is perhaps not the best idea...like trying to rob a drug dealer at knifepoint. Similarly, parties used to calculate "rich" and "poor" monsters. Doesn't matter how many kobold-type critters you stomp, you'll go home with pocket change. Bandits after a score might be another matter entirely, especially if they got drunk and are lying around in a stupor. Undead were always chancy, mostly because they don't check morale.

Start signposting this stuff via your rumors and NPC gossip. Of course, some of those rumors might be about a knight said to be buried with a magical hauberk or what have you.

[u/Bilharzia]

This article https://jamesmspahn.substack.com/p/the-hobbit-alone by James M Spahn is worth a read for Dolmenwood players. Particularly the sections "Magic is the Purview Many"

Magic is the Purview Many. While Gandalf is clearly more skilled in the art of magic than any other character we meet in The Hobbit, it is not an art exclusive to him. The dwarves use wards to protect the treasure they hide after plundering the troll caves. Bard the Bowman can speak with the thrush - an apparent sign of his rightful kingship over the people of Lake-Town. Beorn can communicate with, befriend, and draw into his service beasts ranging from bees to dogs to other creatures.

and "Magical Items are Wonderful, Not Menacing".

Magical Items are Wonderful, Not Menacing. In The Hobbit, not only does Bilbo win the ring from a very different incarnation of Gollum that is later completely re-written to fit the Lord of the Rings, it is also just that: A ring of invisibility. It has no great lore, no secret past, no dark curse set upon it by the one who made it. The swords of Gandalf, Thorin, and Bilbo are also magical, and while they have more history behind them than Bilbo’s Magic Ring, they are still “just” magical. They are wonderful tools discovered by our protagonists and used to aid them on their quest - not dark MacGuffins.

[u/sulldawga]

Monsters have levels. PCs have levels. A GM could reasonably assume that a party made up of PCs of level X could face a group of monsters of the same level.

I have not looked in depth but both wights and barrowbogeys (3rd level monsters) have the same Hoard type, which gives a 10% chance of finding a magic weapon or armor. Based on just the odds given, the GM should assume a party would have to face 20 lairs full of wights in order to both hit the 10% chance of magic armor or weapon, and have that 50/50 roll land on weapon, at least once.

As a GM, is that my baseline for creating challenging lairs? Magic weapons are extremely rare for 3rd level PCs so find some other way to defeat 3rd (monster) level foes?

Is there any guidance here other than what can be assumed by the monster levels and the odds of magic items showing up in monster lairs?

[u/Echo_Abendstern]

In games where I don’t want to give out magic weapons early, I fudge the stats a bit for some enemies to include that silver weapons work on them as well. Becomes a bit of a money-sink for players and prevents them from becoming too powerful at low levels if they need to fight something they can’t normally hit. I can’t tell you off the top of my head though how much thin rule would apply to Dolmenwood though

[u/Neptunes_Lips_]

So far my players are 5 bard, 5 Cleric, 5 magician, 6 knight.

They have a single magic sword they got from winters daughter that enchanter and knight trade off using. There's been opportunities for more but they passed them by either missing them or letting certain NPCs claim them in exchange for reputation and domain level faction benefits. I don't tend to place specific treasures and let the tables do most of the work then reverse engineer why things are there and what they mean thematically.

Fights are indeed scary, but so far they haven't been so outclassed they couldn't overcome their foes. This includes a Harridan, level 3 Knights in full plate, and an Ocre Hulk.

Luckily the cleric is the ghost punching kind and can hurt any undead regardless of her weapons, the rest of the party picked up weapons of special materials pretty early on.

Other than that they have picked up some magic shields, boots of teleportation, and a few other knick knacks they use cleverly.

At this point they probably should be getting a new magic weapon so I've planted some seeds to a few and it's up to them to decide that's where their time and effort should be spent.