The Curious Case of Detect Magic in D&D 5e

NOTE: This blog post was intended to go up several days ago. However, I had to go into surgery, and therefore had to delay the posting of this entry. It also prevented me from properly editing it...there aren't any images, clever captions, and it might come off choppy. That said, I hope you all enjoy.

I think my last post betrayed the fact that I have a deep and abiding love for cool magic items. I love peppering enemies' inventories and weapons-stores with neat little trinkets.

I think the designers of D&D 5e love them, as well, based on some of their design decisions. Traditionally, you see, discovering and identifying magic items boiled down to, mostly, a single spell. Detect Magic. This was the case all the way back in AD&D, and remains the case in modern games like Pathfinder. A group of adventurers comes across a chest full of treasure, and they immediately cast detect magic to see if any of it glows with the light of potentially-cool powers. D&D 5e changed this. In 5e, everyone knows that a magic item is magic as soon as they pick it up. It radiates an aura that can be felt by anyone, like a magical sixth sense.

So, then...what's the point of detect magic? Why does it still exist?

Regarding Magic Item Glut

I am currently suffering Magic Item glut in my 5e campaign. I would blame the fact that I've been running a modified Pathfinder module (Pathfinder being a game where magic items are not just prevalent, but necessary for character power), but really it comes down to me and some poor choices I've made. I've over-powered certain items, under-emphasized others, and overall kicked myself in the ass on this.

Before I talk about how I plan to solve the problem of Magic Item Glut in my current campaign, and a few methods to avoid it in other campaigns, let me define what I mean by Magic Item Glut in general.

Dragons in the Age of Heroes, Part 1: The Dragon Gods

All too often, my games tend to end this way...

The first arc of my first 5^th Edition campaign has come to a close. My players faced off against their first ever dragon, and came out victorious, in the end. Sure, two of them rotted into piles of stinking flesh (Poison breath, man...), while another survived with only 4 remaining hit points, but they beat the beast. And they saved a town in the process.

And, as is tradition, as they begin the next leg of their potentially-endless quest, those who perished will make new characters. One of these characters wanted to play a Dragonborn. I have never taken issue with dragonborn, as a race. I think they're a nice compromise on characters playing Half-Dragons without actually playing Half-Dragons. And they have a nice, lore-friendly place in my homebrew world.

However, he didn't want to play just ANY dragonborn. He wanted to play the spawn of one of Tiamat's children. Specifically, Mordukhavar the Reaver.

The Archfey in the Age of Heroes

I've got a player who's potentially making a Warlock who has made a pact with the Archfey. In doing so, he wanted to know about the Archfey of my world, since he knew that I have very specific Archfey working in the background. Well, rather than just tell him, I decided to make it into a writing exercise on my part. So, here it is! A basic overview of the Archfey of Ascalon.

The Narrative of Feats in D&D 5e

I've been planning on reviving this blog for a while now. Lots of ideas in the works, but one of the things I really wanted to do was create longer-form posts regarding aspects of RPGs that I find great or less-than-great. And, well, I was thinking on the topic of this blog post recently, and decided to just go for it.

So, without further ado, let the re-launch of Behind the DM Screen begin!