Davvy's D&D 5e Magic Item Guide

howdy how's it going my name is Davy chappy and apart from your race in your class the next biggest thing that mechanically defines you as a person is your big box of swag so it's time to talk about a highly requested topic magic items I'm gonna go over the concept of magic items the ways and consequences of adding them to your game and how to balance out your own magic items to homebrew into your own world as always keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion so if you feel like I do not understand the power of hoots enough to wield the mighty Glory hammer of ancient cosmic destiny feel free to run your magic items however you want and real quickly I'd like to give a shout out to my new patrons this month mark Baum in SF book hist Brooks journey bad bad fishy a guy named square freeze your Ferguson Victor g20 David awesome boss thank you so much for pledging to me I pledge to you to make you happy but without a way let's begin so a magic item comes into being a whole plethora of different ways you could be a wizard trained in the magic mechanical arts able to infuse the life breadth of magic into otherwise mundane items you could be a mighty metal forger so great that your creations are cast not just in fire but in the fires of destiny giving them unnatural cutting power or resilience or it could just be that that item is liked by some Gotha decided to head to the beach and start blessing everything you're a lucky Rock you're a lucky Rock you're a lucky Rock whatever the case may be from that point that magical item is gained it is destined to fall into the hands of an adventuring party that I'll praise it for the magical item it is while also feeling weird about wearing it because shoes with wings do not match the rest of their aesthetic magic items are generally used to either round out the skills the player needs improvement in to buff up the skills that they already have or to just do some crazy special ability that can be sprung on the enemy like an you know reverse card and magic items also come in all shapes and sizes such as a sword that cuts harder a necklace with beads that turn into fireballs shoes that can make you fly a cloak that lets you swim in breath underwater a handle that ejects a sword made of pure light that makes a woman when you swing it habit can disguise as anyone you want a giant robotic lobster a perfectly normal playing card deck it's normal there's nothing wrong the shapes and sizes and abilities of what magic items can do or beholden only to either your own imagination or if you don't have one the contents of your Dungeon Master's guide the only constant is rarity which decides power price and commonality of your magical items how many magic items are practically everywhere depending on the setting and if you run a high or wide magic campaign these are probably used to at least moderately buy the upper crust of society who can afford them uncommon items are just a little bit rarer but still generally easy to get hold of rare items are hard to find very rare items require a degree of adventuring just to find out where to find them and let items are the stuff of well legends so getting your hands on a mythical object like that isn't going to happen unless the DM makes it happen now adding magical items to your games may seem like a daunting task I mean one wrong move and you've gone from a reasonably balanced party to the Inspector Gadget of taking down bad guys but it's actually not as difficult as you might think for the most part the rarity of an item does indicate how much ludicrous power it could provide the person wielding it and aside from a few items like the belt of giant strength of a perfectly normal deck of cards most items can be added in slowly one at a time and you'll get a good gauge on what is and isn't too much for the party hell if you check his Anne flowers guide they've got a big ole list of super low power mundane magical items that are perfect if you want magic items to be super common in your world just slap a flat 100 gold price tag on them call them baby magic items for children and the magically challenged and let the party go ham enjoying that orb that can tell you what time it is the big things that you want to be careful about when adding magical items to your games are things that give numeric bonuses because fifth edition balanced itself off of a thing called bounded accuracy bounded accuracy is the idea that on your own no matter what class or race or whatever you're playing there is only a maximum number that you can possibly reach through ability modifiers proficiencies and class specific bonuses through this the developers are able to balance the likelihood that an enemy is both able to hit the party and that the party is able to hit it this works pretty well but you start to throw the system out the window when you give players magic items that buff stats like their likelihood to hit or their armor for every one point that you add you're adding a 5 percent greater chance to succeed than the game accounted for so it becomes a 10 percent on a +2 and a 15% on a +3 now 15% may not seem like that much but in a game like D&D where you roll all the time that percentage difference dictates whether you take or deal all the damage so it's a pretty big deal other than that things that just change abilities that your players have access to like winged boots letting them fly out of disguise giving them unlimited disguised cells and perfectly normal playing cards are just rewards for a job well done meant to be given out freely you can make note of the effects to ensure that they don't completely invalidate the plot and then just go from there I myself like to give people magic items let them run through the whole encounter curb stomping every unfortunate bandit that didn't notice the adventurer wearing the dick of slapping and then modify encounters from there to bounce the game onwards it lets them get that empowered feeling of walking into the club with all the new Debbie chap emerge that they just bought and it lets me gauge for how powerful that merch puts them beyond what they used to be now when it comes to creating your own magical items a lot of the same rules apply you want to be careful with number inflation you want to make sure that you don't give the party a Super Robot Megazord that can end Tiamat in a single QuickTime event and most importantly you want to make sure that the thing is fun and interesting enough for the party and not just discard like it was another paw in their Ponca lection I enjoy creating simple items that don't have world shattering consequences because they're easier to balance and I don't feel like having a wink over how extreme and totally powerful my modded items are things like an axe infused with a compass so that when it's thrown it always tucks itself north or a verse robe of useful items that you can put things into a plate that cures diseases an elven wine that automatically invokes trances and elves that drink then a perfectly normal playing card deck the ideas are endless and these small minor magical items with a limited use on the surface have all seen interesting creative use by my players in one way or another because the secret to creating magical items is that players just like getting new stuff the only thing I want to warn you about and I say this from experience is do not fall for the trap of cursed items take it from tiny baby DM shabby once you start adding cursed items to your games it never stops I have made so many cursed evil destructive items in my old homebrew games that my players would just start sucking every item that even had the hint of magic on them into the fires of Mount Doom better to be safe than to put on the cloak of I can't believe it's not invisibility and walk up into a camp of orc Huntsman with a smile on your face that is perfect for getting punched by an orc I will say however that in defense of cursed items when used in moderation they add a nice gimmick to the world that reminds you that not every artificer makes their items with eventual acquisition by a spunky adventurer in mind especially for those players that ruin the game for themselves by reading up on every single magical item until all the Wonder and mystery is gone having a new homebrew item adds a breath of fresh air and convinces them to stay on their toes especially when they charge into the central room of culture space climb up at center dais and are greeted by a perfectly normal set of playing cards but that about do it I hope you enjoyed this video leave a like comment subscribe ring the bell don't touch any of my magical items they will be cursed and maybe support me on patreon so that I can finally afford that ancient cosmic jetpack but yeah dabio

Channel: Davvy Chappy

Views: 160,462

Keywords: Davvy, Chappy, Dungeons, and, Dragons, DnD, D&D, 5e, 5th, Fifth, Edition, Game, Tabletop, Wizards, of, the, Coast, Magic, Item, Items, Guide

Id: pb4SH7WCuRU

Length: 6min 12sec (372 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 16 2019