Another way to encourage players to engage with role play is to allow them to narrate their NPC interactions, instead of acting them out. Some people avoid role playing because they get stage fright about pretending to be someone else in front of an audience. Let them just say, “I try to convince the guard to let us pass,” instead of having them speak in character.
If you are going by one module/adventure then , in that one- maybe not so much. You can play a game where magic isn’t needed much even. However, in general, around CR 5 or so, you start to get quite a few that take full damage only from silver or magic.
Sure.
Yep.
And to some extent- balance the martial classes at higher levels.
I tend to have the +1 weapons, armor, potions, scrolls, common magic items etc available very easily- The rest is quest or loot.
There was a great article about this on dndbeyond recently, Playing a High Charisma Character as a Shy Player. It’s advice that goes beyond the high-cha characters, and is definitely something I’ll watch for in my games going forward.
If they have the skill proficiencies, tools and materials - I require someone making e.g. a very basic magic sword to have blacksmithing tools and skills, and then perform a small quest to get some special materials - bog iron from a particular swamp and a particular gem for the hilt. Or if they’re making a bag of holding, they’ll need leathercrafting skills and tools, and then need to obtain the hide of an astral creature.
And then some appropriate spells, as well.
Just for sake of conversation, here’s what Xanather’s Guide to Everything says about magic items in 5e:
ARE MAGIC ITEMS NECESSARY IN A CAMPAIGN?
The D&D game is built on the assumption that magic items appear sporadically and that they are always a boon, unless an item bears a curse. Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items, which means that having a magic item always makes a character more powerful or versatile than a generic character of the same level. As DM, you never have to worry about awarding magic items just so the characters can keep up with the campaign’s threats. Magic items are truly prizes. Are they useful? Absolutely. Are they necessary? No. Magic items can go from nice to necessary in the rare group that has no spellcasters, no monk, and no NPCs capable of casting Magic Weapon. Having no magic makes it extremely difficult for a party to overcome monsters that have resistances or immunity to nonmagical damage. In such a game, you’ll want to be generous with magic weapons or else avoid using such monsters.
Never mind that class features are even more toned down.
And I still say that spells like Magic Weapon aren’t an answer, because making the fighter dependent on the wizard in order to be able to do anything is terrible game design. No matter how many times the devs say that magic items are unnecessary, they’re still wrong, at least in regards to weapons.
That said, if you give your party at least one weapon per weapon-using character, that has any magical property at all, once you’ve done that, then further magic items are nice-but-unnecessary. They don’t even need to be weapons appropriate to the players’ combat styles, at least at first (though upgrading from a magic weapon that doesn’t work with your style to one that does is a definite milestone).
As an example, my first 5e character was a rogue (arcane trickster). His first magic weapon was a staff, which he wanted mostly because it had some useful spells in it, but it could also be wielded as a quarterstaff. But because quarterstaves aren’t finesse, he couldn’t Sneak Attack with it. Later, the party found a nice magic rapier, which he still didn’t get, because the paladin was also dex-based, and needed it more. Later yet, the paladin got a sunblade, and so handed down the rapier to my rogue, who now had a weapon he could sneak attack with… but only in melee, when he would otherwise have preferred to be at range. It wasn’t until sometime in the teens that he got a magic shortbow.
I certainly agree that spending your rounds doing Help actions or trying to grapple or whatever because your fighter can’t hit the monster without an outside assist isn’t much fun. I think the primary lesson should be not to worry about chasing +X bonuses (as those aren’t strictly necessary) but, also, magic items are fun to earn and cool to have so do give them something. Even if the magic comes from a nifty thematic ability rather than a strict Atk/Dmg bonus.
I played in a 5E session at a gaming convention a few years ago; we were running through the classic AD&D module, “White Plume Mountain,” which had been updated for 5E. We had pregenerated characters at around 7th level, but the DM (who had also made the pregens) didn’t give us any magic items, not even healing potions.
That wouldn’t have been so bad, except for a random wandering monster – an invisible stalker, which has resistance to non-magical weapon attacks. We were already pretty beat up, and out of spells, when it attacked us, and it TPKed the party. Fun! 
Like they say in the quote here provided by Jophiel, magical items are only necessary if the DM makes them necessary. (Rereading the quote there’s some serious issues there with the mix of conditionals, but the point still stands.)
5e has done a pretty good job keeping the need for hit/damage bonuses in check. Flat bonuses to hit or damage are relatively rare, and the biggest possible weapons are only +3.
Strictly speaking - and assuming we’re talking about typical levels of play - magical weapons aren’t mechanically necessary unless the DM makes them necessary by introducing resistant/invulnerable monsters.
A level 11 fighter with 18 strength has a +8 bonus to attack. A quick glance at an online bestiary tells me the vast majority of CR 11 monsters have an AC of 17. So even without advantage, the fighter is hitting better than half the time against challenging foes.
Even at CR 20 most monsters are in the AC 17-20 range, and our non-magical fighter maxes at a +11 bonus to attack at level 20. Still hitting more than half the time.
So yeah, I’d conditionally agree with the assertion that magical items aren’t necessary. There are other tabletop games (including other editions of D&D) where the underlying mathematics relies on the players getting these bonuses. 5e’s math doesn’t.
But magic weapons are still cool, and I wouldn’t want to play a campaign where they (or some kind of analogue) weren’t available as rewards.
Not only from a player standpoint but, as a DM, I wouldn’t want to have to carefully restrict myself on monster choice because I know the party will really struggle to fight some mundane weapon immune foe. There’s better ways to make a fight challenging (especially when it’s only challenging to the melees) and plenty of cool critters you’re keeping off the table just because you don’t want to give the group some token enchanted weapons.
Well, there’s no real need for care if you insist on restricting magic weapons.
Monster Manual: “This monster is immune to nonmagical weapon attacks.”
DM: “No it isn’t. Carry on.”
True. The only real reason I could see for doing that would be some super low-magic campaign (which 5e isn’t good at) and, even then, I’d probably sub in silvered/cold iron weapons as your magic stand-in for poking at ghosts and demons and elementals. Assuming, of course, your super low-magic game even has stuff like that and not just a million bandits and wolves.
Yep.
I like magic weapons in my games, but much more of the unique, named, potentially dangerous variety. Much more “Stormbringer” than “+1 sword”.
So not requiring them for encounters is a positive, IMO.
One thing I do is make much more specific immunities/circumstances for some monsters e.g. an undead that can only be struck on ground consecrated to a particular deity. They can’t be harmed outside those areas (but can’t enter homes, either)
Right. Maybe some magic armor, but Martials no longer need the old “Christmas tree” of magic items.
OTOH, Players LOVE Magic items and they are fun. D&D is a game, and the idea of a game is to have fun.
I’d say, rather, that 5e’s math doesn’t work; it’s just that magic weapons aren’t enough to fix it. Here we’ve got a guy who’s literally legendary for his ability to hit things with weapons: He really ought to be able to do a lot better than “Well, he hits over half the time”.
In other words, I think that the 5th edition notion of “bounded accuracy” was a really bad idea.
We’re straying pretty far from advice here–maybe we should start a new thread to nerdfight about 5e’s math? (to be clear, I just edited out some nerdfight, so I’m not exactly holding myself above the fray)
Don’t worry on my account! It’s all interesting to think about.
So, got a session on Sat. We’re going to arrive at the town, possibly with a couple of swift plot hint encounters along the way, have some time to explore the town, maybe buy some new kit inc. healing potions and then get stuck into the battle.
Won’t do magical weapons yet. I think there’ll be an opportunity to build a quest to make one or two, but better if the party pick up for themselves that they need something special, maybe with specific properties for a specific type of villain, and set about finding/making the weapon(s).
Will definitely keep the villains focused on the MacGuffin and be ready for them to negotiate from strength if need be.
@Miller, thanks for the hint about narrating rather than acting, will definitely be offering this as an option.
Thanks all!
All, right, if the nerdfight is in-bounds…
Our 20th-level fighter will almost certainly have a 20 strength/Dex, in addition to 4-5 feats, more than any other character. Those feats will probably be giving them extra attacks, extra damage, and/or additional chances to hit. They may also be able to impose conditions like prone on enemies. On a normal round, they’ll be attacking at least four times, and on a CR 20 creature at the upper end of average AC, hitting 2-3 times (60% chance of success; twice in a battle they can make an additional four attacks. And that’s not even considering subclass features.
Bounded accuracy works just fine in my experience.
I don’t think that they’ll be largely needing them in the early chapters of that adventure; if memory serves, for our group, I think we had one total magic weapon at that point, a greataxe that the barbarian had gotten when we were going through the introductory “Lost Mine of Phandelver” adventure.
As the DM, you may want to take a look at the monsters they’ll be fighting, and if you see, down the road, that there’s critters for whom magical weapons will make a difference for your party, either (a) make sure that the characters have them by that point, or (b) as mentioned above, make a ruling that said monsters don’t have that resistance, i your game.