Awarding Magic Items in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

there are many magic items in this world and none of them should be used lightly so we're gonna talk about how to award magic items in your does the Dragons campaign greetings adventurers my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelley McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes today we're taking a look at awarding magic items in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition now magical items such as weapons armor scrolls potions and staves are an iconic part of the Dungeons & Dragons experience they're important to characters and they can really be an important part of the story and the secrets of your campaign worlds so many of our favorite stories include magic items like the Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda Thor's hammer the Elder Wand from Harry Potter or the One Ring from Lord of the Rings exactly and these magical items not only do they play a role in your story but they're also an important part of your characters powers and abilities adventurers love getting magic items they love looting dragon hordes and finding these rare and unique and interesting items yeah because they love the powers that they give their characters and the dungeons of dragons 5th edition rules are really open-ended about how often you can award magic items you can have a world where magic is very scarce or a world like ever on where magical items are bought and sold and the figure into international politics now the guides in the dungeon master guide are a little unclear on how to award magic items yeah most of the Dungeon Master's guide concerns a bunch of random tables and treasure horns that you can roll on to give out treasure but they don't really tell you how magic items make your characters more powerful or necessarily make it clear about how to make this a special moment in your campaign and really tie it into the storyline many of you have asked us how we handle these things in our own campaigns and so today we're gonna look at how to make awarding magic items a really special moment but then we're also going to breakdown a couple strategies that you can use to determine how many magic items you should give up to your players as a dungeon master so that you get the right balance for the tone of the campaign you want to set so let's get rolling now no matter how often you decide to award a magic item to your players it should always come on the heels of a very special moment in your campaign and in itself it needs to be a memorable occasion yeah you might get a magic item as a reward for completing a difficult task or a major story moment in the campaign yeah your players could find it in the depths of a dusty tomb at the end of a long dungeon crawl or they might pry it from the cold dead fingers of an enemy they might sneak in and steal it from a dragon's hoard or they might get it as a noble reward for saving a city or town now no matter what you still want to spend the time to make that magic item more than just a plus one sword or boots of striding and springing by giving it a really unique description yeah there's nothing more boring than just being told hey here's a plus one sword it's whatever but on the other hand if your players find glimmer a mere bladed long story sort that shines with the light of the Stars and has the runes which market is created by the ancient elven sages of silvery moon and when they hold it in their hands and a werewolf is nearby it makes all their hair stand on end well that's a cool item even if mechanically it doesn't necessarily make their character that much more powerful yeah you can take instead of homebrewing you're your own item you can take an existing item and just add some quirks or flavor texture to make it something more unique and interesting yeah and the tables in the dungeon master sky actually do a really good job of helping you figure out like the origin of the magic item who made it and what kind of minor properties or descriptive elements that it might have it really only takes one or two lines of description to make that magic item way cooler than just here is it plus one sword another really cool thing that you can do is introduce intelligent magic items which can act as extra NPC and something that's gonna be really memorable for the players yeah making a magic item intelligent doesn't necessarily need to increase its direct power but it's more like introducing this additional character that your players can interact with and this is a great way to give a magic item a history and personality because it will talk to your players about its previous wielders it might have weird insight into the situation at hand or even have its own goals and our ulterior motives then it tries to drive the players on I love giving out these magic item cards to my players they're a really great way to help players keep track of the properties of their magic items because you can give it like a paid reference or notes on them and one of the cool things about them is that they're super DIY I have some of these ones that were made by Paizo for Pathfinder and you can get a pack of them they're like 50 cards for about $10 but there's all these great community creators online and we'll include some links to where you can find these of magic item cards that have great art you can print them out on photo paper and some of them even have their rules text for the the ones that are in the open version of the rules on them too and you guys just love these they're great you know it feels really great like being told that you're getting a magic item writing it on your character sheet that's great but when you have a card that has like a really cool picture of that magic item it kind of just reminds you every time you look down and see that that hey I have this really awesome thing and I got to remember how it works when to use it and how cool I look what I'm using yeah it's especially helpful because unlike spells and character abilities which players can reference these in the players handbook if your players don't own a copy of the Dungeon Master's guide they might have a hard time remembering the rules of their magic items especially the more complex ones so giving a handout of some kind is really really useful in this regard and we highly recommend it when you ever you do award a magic item I even do it for consumable items because I find that players often have a really hard time remembering how many potions and Scrolls they have so even giving out a a card that is a potion is being like I'm using this potion and involved and then they hand it back to me and that marks that occasion and I think it's really good for if you have players that are bad at hoarding their consumable items and they never use them before we get into actually how often to award a magic item there's a couple categorizations that the fifth edition rules use for sorting magic items and one other technique that we like to use when we're thinking about magic items now of course in the Dungeon Master's guide the magic items are outlined by rarity these rarities being there is common uncommon rare very rare and legendary all right uh but even within these rarities there's a great deal of variance within the power of individual magic items so I also like to say that even within the item rarity there's really what we would consider to be minor magic items major magic items and game-changing magic items and it's important to keep all of these things in mind when you are giving magic items up to your players because this is an indication of approximately how powerful and impactful that item is going to be on your game if you introduce an item that is far too powerful for your player characters you might be dealing with the repercussions of that for the rest of the campaign yes let's start with the common magic items which I will also say if you have XANA Thor's guide to everything introduced a whole number of common magic items that can be used in your candy in the core rules the only common magic items are potions and Scrolls but Zanna throws guide to everything introduced so fun magic items that really have no practical effects but are things like the helm that makes your eyes glow red yeah or the wand of smiles yes yeah I love these magic items because they're the kind of thing that if you get as a player they don't really change the game but they're really fun and if you can think of a creative way to use them you can have a blast with them yeah the next category is uncommon magic items and these include magic items like a plus-one sword slippers of Spider climbing a javelin of lightning these are items that they usually have a small boost to the player's power but they're very rarely something that you have to be worried about how much power they're gonna get so they're great rewards for even the lowest level characters yeah and that we usually find these in Tier one of play the next rarity for magic items is rare and rare items include things like the Sun blade the wand of fireballs and magic armor these are pretty powerful items that can change a lot of aspects about what your character can do and you usually find them in tier two of play the next rarity are the very rare magic items and these ones are character to find the items that you often don't see until higher level play usually over tenth level these items include things like the staff of power or +3 weapons and very powerful magic armor like dwarven plate because these items are so character-defining they often include items which will really really amp up the power of characters the next rarity is legendary magic items and these ones are definite game changers and you probably won't find them until near the end of the campaign and they're going to really really add a lot of power to your party yet this is let's rock your world yeah I find that these are something that you get when you're like on your way to the final boss or so yeah these include things like the war Perl sword and the Holy Avenger or the robes of the Archmage and or if you want to talk to a complete GameChanger the lock blade which gives wishes yeah right with legendary magic items you really want to save them for those amazing story moments as you approach the climax moments of your campaigns introducing them in mundane situations is such a game-changing factor that it will warp what your characters are capable of so let's talk about some of the magic items that actually change the whole game world for us yeah so was that authors guide to everything introduced this idea of minor items and major items and actually the tables in the dungeon masters guide are categorized in this way but the book doesn't tell you that and so magic items tables a through e are all minor items and the other tables are all major items within this we're kind of adding our category of the game-changing items just so that you can be aware that they exist and we'll talk about what a few of them are one of the biggest game changers that you can put into your game with a magic item is the ability to fly or become invisible or teleport over vast distances you want to be really really careful when awarding these magic items because they will vastly alter the capabilities of your players so save them for those moments when your world and your storyline is upping the ante yeah you don't want to give these out too early and especially if your campaign isn't ready for the ability to solve puzzles simply by flying over them or teleporting away at the same time when you look at aside from the game-changing items major magic items typically directly boost player character power and so this means that it's taking something that a character is already good at and making them better at it like giving the fighter a magic weapon or giving the wizard something that lets them cast more spells such as a wand of fireballs or a staff of power the minor magic items typically are situational or niche and so when you're looking at the items that you're giving out to your players if this is an item that's going to come into play in numerous combat encounters you can see them using it every session it's probably a major item or a game-changing item and you need to think very carefully about putting that in the treasure that they find with minor items if you're like well it's cute but it doesn't really do that much you don't have to necessarily be as cautious yeah one of the really cool things that you can do with magic items is think of them as ways to unlock the world mm-hmm so I think of a lot of classic video games then as you collect them it is you get to go to more places within the world yeah and so certain magic items you can place in there not so much to overpack your characters but to give them the potential to travel to new places or go back to places that were previously unobtainable to them yeah now they can get there now they can do these things in many campaigns the cloak of the manta ray is completely useless but if your players are going to the water temple it's a game changing item so now the big question how many magic items should we be giving to our party so this is where the dungeons dragons rules themselves have very kind of flippant advice which is you can give out as much or as little treasure as you want and that's great because you can you can have a game where your players don't find any magic items whatsoever and they'll be fine the fifth edition rules make no assumption that they find any treasure at all and while certain combat encounters against flying enemies or enemies with resistance to non magical weapons will be a little more difficult for them they won't necessarily be impossible as long as you have a balanced group yeah on the other side of this I would say it's better to go lower than to go higher because if you give them too many magic items you run into some problems with them being overpowered which is something that you do need to be prepared for as um if you're doing this if you have a party that has every legendary magic item in the dungeon masters guide you could throw them up against Dima Gorgon Tiamat and orcas all at the same time and they're not going to break a sweat and and so many players fantasize about having like three legendary magic items and while that's awesome in theory in practice that might not be appropriate for your campaign depending on the power level of the characters that you're capable with so you really want to take on a stock of both the tone of your campaign world again if you're playing in a high magic world like ever on go nuts but if you're playing in a more measured world where magic is a little bit more special and rare you might want to have that more measured approach to things where this really comes into play I think for me the bottom line is if you break down all these random table if you've done the math and there's many members of the community that have done the math and then finally is anitha's guide to everything actually breaks it down for us on average in a typical heroic fantasy campaign each player character will find at least one magic item of each rarity they may find an additional major item of uncommon or rare rarity and approximately 20 magic minor magical items yes so this means that besides the minor magic items you're really only getting about what four to five magic items throughout the campaign yeah which makes sense because you only have three two-minute slots yeah as a player character anyways right I think the biggest thing that requires a like a mindset change particular if you like playing video games is this means that players aren't probably going to upgrade from a +1 item to a +2 item to a +3 item they're gonna find an item and keep it for the rest of the campaign yeah for for newer DMS something that you want to avoid is what I call a video game syndrome which basically means in video games it's all about loot a lot of times like if I play Diablo or things of that nature it's all about finding better loot tossing away my old magic items for new ones it doesn't dragons you don't really want to think of it like that sometimes the magic item that you get very early on it's something that you're gonna be sticking with for the entire campaign and that's really going to become a personalized item for you yeah in practice if you keep to the rule of 1 magic item of each rarity per character plus or minus 2 that means that the players as a party are gonna find one magic item of major power about as often as they gain a level I will usually make sure the players find like one or two minor magical items every game session like a potion or a scroll or something fun and quirky and oftentimes this will be like waited in awkward ways but one of the big habits that I've had to break it myself is like the dragon horde scenario where here's 6 magic items coming at the party all at once and I found actually more recently it's you don't have to get out like six magic items all at once for the players to feel really rewarded it's a really hard habit to break because oftentimes as DMS we want to make sure that everyone feels equal by giving everyone a magic item at the same time and then what happens is then you end up either giving out all these new items at once and then they never find anything for weeks and weeks and weeks or you're giving out way too much at once if you can do this the right way I actually remember we went on an entire quest just because we wanted our paladin to get a magic sword yeah because as a team we wanted him to be more powerful mm-hmm he had a curse or it he wanted to get rid of that but then he had no magic item and we were like guys let's go find this guy a magic sword yeah and that became a quest for all of us to get involved in to get that one magic item and I think too if you look at storytelling there are those moments where everyone gets a new magic item in some stories but oftentimes they like to authors will only have one item beat the spotlight because that lets that item shine for a few moments and rather than having everyone find a new item and all be competing for the spotlight to show off their new bling awarding one item at a time and letting that player kind of be the star for the next game session actually makes it feel much much more special one of the most common items that you'll be giving out are consumable items mm-hmm and if you look at the tables and stars guide to everything and break down the treasure tables in the Dungeon Master's guide the rule is about 20 magic items per player character over the course again of a 1 to 20 campaign so that's pretty much 1 per level yeah and that includes healing potions I actually think it's ok to break this limit for healing potions and with minor quirky items like cute things like a movable rods or bags of holding I don't usually count these against the limit if you want my tip for actually breaking yourself of the like giving your party piles and piles of healing potions let them find a staff of healing and then just stop giving it healing potions just full stop give it like look at the other types potions - hand em use those instead give them scrolls and then make healing potions something that the players can buy so Monte do you prefer to tailor the magic items to the characters or just using random I prefer to tailor the magic items to the campaign that's fair yeah um I think that the world feels more real when the magic items make sense within the context of the story that's why Dragon's Lair was in the castle of rest like the crown of rest was in that castle and that magic item was there because it made sense for it to be there that does bring some authenticity to finding those Maddy atoms but I think it is also important to know your players as well yeah because you won't you don't want to give like a staff of power in a campaign that doesn't have any spell casters or something like that you want to make sure that you know your characters and not just what they're playing but also their personalities and the way they're choosing to play those characters because a magic item should be something that gets that player excited yeah especially when it's a very rare legendary item that is a character defining item you want to think about like the relationships that like link has with the Master Sword or Thor has with his hammer right and your characters are gonna look for those items to give them an iconic image and you do want to be able to deliver on that especially towards the higher levels of the of the campaign but I do think that like I like magic items being part of the story and grounded in the reality of the world so one thing that I really like to do is foreshadow that a magic item is coming by saying like there's a legendary dragon horde and in that horde is this magic item it was so much more satisfying when it was then found and the players felt like they got to seek it out and they knew what to expect and sometimes though the unexpected is way more interesting when Jon Tolan walks around wearing the crown of rest people like whoa he's got the crown of rest right and people recognize that and then also have those opportunities for the weird quirky items like the ever smoking bottle and the immovable Raw which who knows how these are actually going to be used in an encounter let's find out so what do you think about buying magic items I think that if you're gonna run a high magic campaign um instead of having more magic items be found by the players letting them buy one magic item of each rarity over the course of the one to 20 campaign is the perfect way to capture that medium if each player character is then able to purchase a magic item again it makes it something that only happens once every couple of levels which I find avoids the feeling of the magic item Mart where like every time they go to a major city but if you are gonna do that you really want to have the people that are buying and selling magic items be memorable NPC's in their own right I absolutely love that one of our favorite NPCs elder the immense has now become this guy with his caravan of magic items that's well protected and that's also a key point yeah you made it very clear that the the kind of group of people that he's traveling with are much higher level than us and if we try to rob him we are going to die yeah I think that like the question of whether or not magic items are bought and sold in your campaign world says a lot about the politics and economics of your world right I like to think about magic items not like antiques but like military-grade weapons and that means that they're things that politicians and rulers are really worried about right you and I can't go and buy a battle tank we can't buy an f-16 fighter jet right but a paramilitary organization like a band of adventurers can and when you hear about how that kind of organization is buying magical items it makes all the people in the world get really on edge think about how worried we get about the notion of like nuclear weapons being who owns them in our own world and I think that that's how the political forces in campaign worlds probably feel about magic weapons right actually the legendary was right and so for me Eldora the immense who buys and sells magic items is really a character that's like Lockheed Martin or an arms dealer he's on the fringes of the law right but people are still buying and selling from them because he's got a lot of power and influence because hey magic items might be dangerous but they win worse so this has been our guide to awarding magic items in Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition we hope that you find some sweet loot yeah and of course one thing we didn't touch on too much in this episode was actually crafting or creating your own homebrew magic items if you're curious about this we're thinking about covering it in a future video and we'd love to know your thoughts and questions in the comments below of course we talked a lot about Zanna thar's guide to everything if you want to see some of the other things that are in that book you can check out our reviews over here now of course we bring you great DM tips every month and you can check out our playlists of previous episodes right over here please subscribe to our channel so you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 380,702

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book, magic items, sword, curses, artifact, cursed, staff, rarity, rare, common, minor, major, game-changing, uncommon, legendary, very rare

Id: AHaGEvTGzAo

Length: 25min 27sec (1527 seconds)

Published: Thu May 31 2018