So Magic Items are honestly one of the corn-stones of Dungeons and Dragons, and even fantasy for that matter. Every story we all grew up reading was filled with items of amazing power that could change that world, or take a simple adventurer and turn him/her into a fierce warrior capable of decimating whole armies off darkness in their wake.
Examples in this space are endless…Excalibur, Holy Grail, The One Ring, Foe Hammer, Sting, etc. And one of the first things you are liable to be asked when you start DM’ing a game, is “When can I get my magic item?”
There are lots of blog posts and videos out there for how to build magic items, but for this post I wanted to focus on practical tips too help a new DM who is building magic items.
Tip #1 – Fun Vs Function
One of the biggest tips I have, is that players love fun magic items. Example being if I gave a player a choice between the following:
Option A – a +1 long sword
And
Option B – The Panther’s Fang, an obsidian ax that glows red in the presence of a marked enemy.
My players have chosen Option B every time. Even though the Panther’s Fang doesn’t have a huge amount of playable utility, it is fun. And many times that would be awesome. And there are a lot of ways to add this kind of utility. So quick tips are to think of the following:
- Give your item a name.
- Give your item a history, not overly complicated.
- Description of appearance
- Look for roleplay utility
The idea here is to give the item something unique and special that makes it unique. That is worth more than power gaming abilities for 90% of the players out there. And it’s a great way to keep from items tipping the scales.
Tip #2 – Involve your players in their creation
Honestly, I know a lot of dungeon masters would cry foul on this. But honestly I find it best to engage my players and find out what kind items they are looking for. And what kind of abilities they would like to have. Not specifics, but at a high level what kind of items they are looking for.
To that end, I would say this is something that should be used sparingly, I usually will ask my players for help crafting vestiges. But that is a subject for another post entirely.
Tip #3 – Simple tricks to keep them scaled.
One of the biggest problems that most DM’s have is how do we make sure that we don’t have an overpowered item. And there are lots of tips to help make sure that the items you create aren’t overpowered. Here are a few of mine:
- For modifiers to hit, look at the other “To Hits” for players, and try to keep it around the same. If players have a lot of +4 and +5, don’t give that +9.
- Avoid immunity to damage types
- If you are giving resistances, try to limit it to 1 or 2.
- Limit the time that magic item can be active
- Limit the number of uses during a day
- Look into charges, but I find that a player should only have one magic item with charges.
- Keep any saving throws in line with other players. If another players spell DC is around 14, have magic items give the same.
Tip #4 – Keep an eye out for stacking items
One of the things to watch for as your building magic items is stacking effects. More than likely in your campaign you will give your characters more than one magic item, and you need to keep in mind that they might have stacking effects. This is how magic items can end up being overpowered, it’s not a single item but usually the combination of several items.
Tip #5 – Expect the unexpected
Know that your magic items are going to be used in ways you would never expect. I had a player who got a “Wand of Smiles.” And they were in a situation where they were attending the funeral for a head of state, and there was a conspirator at the funeral. The players knew who the villain was, but couldn’t prove it. So when the funeral was at its peak, and the head of the guard spoke, they used wand of smiles to force the villain to have a huge grin during the funeral on his face. Which caused the villain to be under suspicion. A great use of a “pointless” item.
Tip #6 – Terrible Items are fun
Not every magic item has to have amazing game play implications, and even terrible items have a place. For example, one of my players got a belt from a shady magic item seller called “The Belt of Doom” said to bring “Doom” to any situation.
The truth was when you click a button the belt let’s out a thunderously loud “DOOOOOOMMMMM”, no play value, no damage, just yells “Doom”. Honestly this is no the favorite magic item of my Barbarian. I even went with the “rule of cool” and said he can “click” that button as a free action whenever he wanted to. It has led to a slew of memorable moments at the table.