Yeah you dont need an artifact level magic item to have an intelligent ogre or ogre-magi wouldn't exist at all... a smarter DM would have just given the ogre a 13 base int with a +3 enchantment item... wallah a very intelligent ogre, less a wtf powerful artifact at level 2... and still with a pretty powerful, more level appropriate(on the high end even) magic item... seems like the dont have confidence in the class, the build.... or that they didnt even take a second to think what a +10 stat item does... hoping we don't see too many of these "gems"...
Obviously noone has to use anything... its just the most "huh?!" stuff like this i see in a "d&d" game, the less i think the people making the game really know d&d and the less i am to likely to invest(time/$) in the game... might just be me but probably not...
d&d 5e does not have +int (or +any attribute) magic items anymore. Rather, all stat items set your attribute to a fixed value, just like the circlet. In other words, this is not a Larian decision, it is a Wizards of the Coast decision.
Your stats are capped at 20, with very few exceptions. Setting int to 18 does not violate this principle, but a +3 int circlet would.
In any case, you are of course free to dislike this if you want to, but if you do then your beef is with Wizards of the Coast, not with Larian.
