Cycling Through Magic Items

The last time my Tuesday group played, the characters went shopping for magic items. The campaign takes place in a big city, and I love rolling on tables, so I allow the players to buy items. The catch is that they have to roll on the item tables to see what is available.

I've never been a fan of how irrelevant money and treasure is in D&D 5e. That's by design. Coming off of 3e and 4e's heavy reliance on gear - and the complexity that added to the game - we were eager to go for something simpler. Unfortunately, I think we overcorrected. Magic items are mostly forgettable, or they are game breaking. The sweet spot is hard to hit.

I also hate that magic items pile up on character sheets. It adds complexity and forces you to throttle down on how often you hand them out.

Video games get around this by getting you to cycle through items. It's almost comical how a beginning character runs around beating up monsters, throwing their old weapon over their shoulder to upgrade to their latest drop. It works in video games but would look ridiculous in tabletop.

However, that item churn does two things. It keeps complexity relatively low and makes the next item the most exciting item you could get. Can we introduce that to 5e?

The Idea

Here's my idea. You job is to tell me if this is a good or bad one.

To start with, set aside the current design of magic items in 5e. Assume that the items you find are interesting, powerful, but balanced.

Items drop their static bonuses. Instead, when you attune an item you pick one of the following:

+1 to attacks

+1 to AC

+1 to saving throws

You can't pick the same benefit more than once. The benefit bumps up based on level (+2 at 10th, +3 at 15th let's say).

You also get the item's normal benefits. This dumps a huge portion of the boring items. We simply don't need them anymore.

When you level, roll a d20 for each attuned item. On a 16 plus, the item gets an attunement check. On any other roll, it gets a discharge check.

Three discharge checks, and the item goes dormant. It loses its power for 1d20 years.

Three attunement checks and it upgrades. It gains some new powers, but is now deeply attuned to you. Give it a name. It's now part of your legend. Every three levels, it gains another upgrade.

Upgrades are on a table, sorted by level. DM can pick, player can pick, or roll. Group figures that out (rolling would likely be default).

This approach does a few things:

• It encourages item churn, but not at a crazy rate

• It caps the total math bonuses items can give by feeding that through attunement

• It explains why magic items end up in dusty treasure hordes ("This sword used to be powerful, but its magic went to sleep. We'll squirrel it away in this tomb or treasure chest and maybe our next generation can use it.")

• It encourages players to attune items rather than save them

• It consumes items on a random schedule, encouraging players to use it lose it

• It pushes magic item design into interesting, effects-based areas

Thoughts?