How to Make Homebrew Magic Items | 5e Dungeons and Dragons |

well Jim I have a surprise for you made you a little something here what do you think about that bad boy yep I made that for you I bet this cost a bunch of pretty pigs yeah it costs more than you'll ever know what what is that Jim let tell you what let's have a conversation about homebrew magic item creation sounds great Oh Wendy this episode is sponsored by garage quests they make awesome shirts but kind of like the ones we're wearing right now but they also make pins and accessories - yeah we're always on the lookout for new t-shirts these guys are new on the scene and they've got great non-text designs the shirt so well made they feel great and as you can see it look cool - mm-hm and viewers can get 10% off all these shirts with the code web DM 10 so go over there check it out and get you an awesome shirt the link is below in the description and in the comments all right Jim because as players we're never happy you know what we're given let's talk about some homebrew magic items just just how to make it yourself how to kind of get in there mix up your stuff you got to rub some stuff together you got to say some words probably you probably should I mean if brewer can do it and he's a fighter right I mean I realize it's a bygone edition but I mean if he can do it anybody can I mean at least if you have the magical capabilities Oh certainly certainly right what some things to consider when you want to begin making magic items first off like a homebrew magic items in cooking cooking them up and making them work for your campaign it's really satisfying it's a part of the game that that I often forget and so neglect the the fact that you know magic items are a part of this they're they're part of the reward structure for four players they're they're part of the and magic of the place you know the settings that you're playing in your games like so it's something that I I feel like actively remind myself and then when I do I'm just like I don't want to use any of the ones in the dmg necessarily or maybe some of them I want my own I want my custom one you know I want one that reflects my setting and how it's been played and sort of like you know see the items as reflective of an in-game material culture and that they're from a place and and someone in the history of this world created them maybe they're tied to like player backgrounds or player cultures or something they're they're significant in that respect I like the idea of them I like the potential that they have for both world building and and to give the players new options to interact with the game they're just things that I usually forget about in the rush to describe a setting and come up with stuff for you know for players to to get hooked with so you know considering their impact of the item on your game from a from a mechanical point of view what are you trying to do with this item how big of an impact do you want it to have is this gonna be like a centerpiece a character defining item that is you know that you're creating custom because it ties into the story that you've got going on the different plots of the game or an NPC or something that's one thing to consider and yeah and it's one of those where it's like if you've got one that we've got like hype built up around it you know it's the you know magical MacGuffin of whatever and then once someone gets their hands on it it's you know underwhelming or doesn't do what they thought it did or something like that can lead to a bit of dissonance but the opposite can certainly occur to where you create something that's too powerful or to just like throws the game off in ways that you're not really expecting the other thing to consider is the place of the item in your setting and we kind of touched on this a minute ago but it's like think about it for a minute is this a relic from a long lost civilization and and therefore maybe people don't really know what it does or what it is and so it'll be a surprise when it resurfaces is the item claimed by some group or faction or something you're setting and it's like oh you found that well you know this is ours by rights you know these sorts of you know staffs of power weren't just made by anybody they've always been made by our guilt you know we have the proprietary rights to it and you can kind of think of it that way are there competing groups that would be interested in this items discovery are there groups that would be you know would desire the item because of the power it represents or because it has some kind of significance to them and that's a way to make sure that the items you introduce into your game particularly ones you're building yourself are like enmeshed in the game world and and like have a place in it oh yeah well definitely if you're if you're adding that that cultural legacy to items I'm you see even in our own world you know say just look at like say British whatever museum and always a meshed in some version of like hey these people kind of want their stuff back look like a thousand years ago I mean like when you translate that to like magic items now you have a very different world where would you want to go out brandishing that that blade that was only made in that one country yeah where they have you know they have their archaeologists militia that goes out to reclaim everything that was taken from them and the great culling yeah yeah I mean and and and if you're thinking about it from just like those pure world building perspective you know a lot the default for a lot of D&D games is that you are going into places that are no longer inhabited they were once inhabited yeah their ancient their ruins or whatever you know but it's tombs and you're you know you're raiding the grave goods from you know from tombs or you are you know visiting abandoned strongholds and settlements and the like and taking the durable goods that are left over there so there's always been a bit of that parallelism writers go take your stuff nothing you can do them and so I you will want to think about those things because they can either add you know rich complications for your game and can really drive forward sort of sub quests and things like that but it can also be a big hassle because it goes against the expectations of the place of magic items as a reward structure indeed being so there's players who might see that item as like hey this is my reward for playing the game like why do we why are we watch there's all this hassle attached to it you know so it's that's what I mean it's like seeing worth considering how all these things fit together in addition to just like building the item itself and making something that's fun and interesting to play with so well I mean yes especially you know if your players want to want to homebrew it themselves and build it themselves sure I mean you can build a whole whole adventures out of just gathering ingredients Oh certainly right right right yeah and so there's there's a few guidelines that are in the official books for how to handle this and the dmg chapter 9 has guidelines for just like creating a new item it starts with sort of like tips for if you need to change or modify an item you know what what can be substituted for what so for the you know for the authors of the dmg it's a you know something's ring it can be a wand if something is a you know sword it can become an axe so like changing the type of item you know that it is is perfectly reasonable no problem doesn't change anything about the rarity of it for instance also changing sort of the properties of an item you know does it do a certain type of damage changing that to a different type of damage or if it gives you say a bonus to one skill proficiency maybe you don't you just change the skill proficiency then it gives you a bonus to or something so an example that might be like I've got an elven cloak that gives me a bonus to my dexterity stealth checks but you know maybe we take this and change it into a belt and we call it you know an orcish grapplers belt and it's now you know gives you a bonus to you know the athletic strength checks or something like that yeah and and it's in that sense that you're just sort of like taking the magic items that are in the dmg and using them as templates for your own and recognizing that these are just game effects and you can change any one of these to create a different sort of item that you're you know that you can then integrating your campaign world after that the only other thing it really recommends is combining two items to get a different effect and it seems to imply that you know you'd want to combine like items Helms and Helms weapons and weapons that kind of thing but you know what like go nuts and put a ring on your sword yeah like you're putting the effects of the ring on your sword and and work it out right like is if it's a ring that provides a continual benefit then maybe it only provides that benefit when you're you know you have the weapon drawn or something like that yeah dude I can see a Mariners blade with a ring of water walking on it so you draw your sword and run across the sea to the two board the next ship right right right oh yeah that'd be a really good one just but you get your sword knocked out of your hand yeah or swim you she'd your sword and so I think I like that because then you can have you know maybe that particular type of weapon has an always-on ability just from having an ax tuned and wearing it you bear the weapon right doesn't matter that you're actually holding it and then it has a secondary property for what it's actually wielded brandished and used in combat I mean that alone just how is it activated how do you attune to it how do you activate the properties of it are there command words do you have to make certain gestures do you communicate or somehow make contact with the spirit of the magic item or whatever you know magical essence sustains it you know is it semi-sentient is it not does it have a personality or anything all of those are things that can influence the type of magic items that you create you can influence how your players react to them and it's a way to take kind of boring low powered magic items and make them something special and different by just changing little things about them or how you activate them there's some tables in Chapter 7 of the dmg it's right after sort of the description of all the item types and what they do and right before the section on how to roll for random treasure it's a series of four tables that basically give you special features insights into like maybe the history of the item if it has any quirks or minor special powers and it's just like a really cool series of tables that you can to vary things up and turn those weird little you know first first magic items that you get on those first few adventures into something bit more memorable than a plus-one something that's gonna get like forgotten about well yeah I mean you know why just give them a plus-one sword why just give a plus-one especially I mean it doesn't really matter what what the experience level is for a player but if you got a group of people who've been playing for a while yeah like that first magic item like oh I got the got a plus-one dagger yeah yeah yeah yeah and and I think that those are yeah the +1 die or the +1 sword the sort of the standard magic items that you hear about like there's really it's from a diems perspective it can be frustrating to sort of feel like I'm you know I'm trying to create this or we're trying to get immersed in it we're trying to you know have this certain shared experience that we want and for the players to kind of treat the things that they're meant to see as valuable and and a reward and a connection to the world as a snoozefest yeah you know and and like there's some give-and-take there there's obviously you know nobody can use a sword or everybody already has a magic sword then maybe a plus-one isn't gonna be that big of a deal but it's a a way of I don't know you you can do something different with it you can connect those low-level minor weapons and armor and not necessarily armor but like +1 swords and and minor rings and things like that as being tied to certain former cultures in your world like ok you know that all of the +1 swords or great many of them come from when there was a you know an imperial Legion Air Base here and there made rights you know crafted a great many ensorcelled swords and armor and the like and you can find a lot of them but you know this was cheap mass-produced magic and you know a lot of times these weapons are you know they're still sharp they're still good the the magic in them is still there but maybe on a one you know maybe when you fumble with them there's something that might go with it and the weapon is it doesn't like explode in your face or anything like that it doesn't mutate you but maybe it has the you know something where it's like the the bonus in vs itself because the magics old and it's been damaged and and you just notice something's kind of wrong with this sword now you know and so in that sense they're not cursed or anything you can just put the sword down and have to worry about it but it's kind of a almost you almost treat them as disposable weapons you know if you found one just I use this until the enchantment on it breaks or well see I could also see like maybe it has an ongoing enchantment that doesn't go away but like like the sword burst can't rip or something like that yeah the magic kind of pops out really quick yeah and maybe the next day it comes back yeah and but once you roll it a 1 again it sort of like it happens again yeah you know and then until the next dawn so it's it's kind of a minor cursed item yeah another thing I was thinking about and I think this comes from like from remember correctly your your heart breaker rules but like imagine a +1 sword that also has like a daily ability yeah that yeah you got a +1 sword that's awesome until you use this ability it does a thing yeah and then the next dawn it resets as a +1 sword yeah and after you use the thing you don't you know that maybe it's still magical but it isn't that one ability yeah so it becomes a like do I didn't want +1 hit and damaged or do I want do I need this ability right now yeah and so you know it's it gives you some variability but it's still not like overwhelming it's still just once a day yeah you know yeah and a lot of times these sort of minor magic items are interesting ways to introduce not full-fledged magic item effects like granting of whole new powers and things like that but maybe they are ways to interact with class abilities of the player character right so if I've got a magic sword that I found fairly early on and I'm a fighter maybe it modifies what I can do when I action surge maybe it modifies the benefit that I get from weapons style or some fighting style or something like that if I'm a monk or something and using one of these weapons it you know maybe it does something or modifies or adds one of my monk abilities that I can use or maybe it's magic in the sense that it confers the ability to be used on anyone that picks it up so you can have weapons that are usable by people that otherwise aren't proficient in them and it's just like okay I can use this now because the item confers its benefit on me just but virtue of me wielding it so weapon of usage and and you know or it maybe there's something that you know that's not necessarily explicitly magical it it you know enhances the natural abilities of the wielder it for instance maybe it allows them to add double their ability bonus a couple of times per day does a damage or or two hit or something like that and it's it's less that this thing is magical and the magic of it enhances your own ability and so those are some ways to kind of like have minor particularly like magic weapons purely cosmetic stuff is also available like does it leave a trail of something you know as it arcs through the air smoke lightning fire ghosts something it's something truly kind of chilling would be like a blade of bleeding where that's drawn it's always dripping it's just like drips blood yeah you know so maybe it's hard to do disarms against it oh sure yeah something like gives you advantage when defending against being disarmed yeah ironically yeah handle never gets wiped out you know it's like you're thinking of these sort of minor things we were using those tables in the dmg to like inspire you you you know you're now thinking like okay I've got a solid outline for what this magic item should be you know if it's one that you are creating for an NPC or something you just like put it in the game right but if you're putting it in there for a player then you'll want to check out the rules for crafting items in Zanna Thor's guide and they are fairly you know they're not extensive they're they're undoubtedly have holes in them and the like but if you're looking for something fast and useful I think they're they're a good fit they're basically just remind you that you need some sort of recipe or formula and sometimes in the published adventures you'll find there recipe or a formula for magic items that that's in the treasure but especially now that I think artifice or makes use of these recipes as well so it's you want to find that and it can be as as abstract or as detailed as you like you'll need some sort of exotic ingredients in addition to just the mundane ingredients that the item will have or will require and it's sort of an it kind of gives you some guidelines on what exotic ingredients would be at the very least it kind of tells you hey here's the CR range of creatures you might find who have the ingredients you need depending on the power level of the item that you're creating and I'm gonna make a +4 weapon out of goblin team right right that's just a lot of goblins and so just coming it's its guidance its guidelines it asks you to sort of like consider the monster that you might use that's reflective of this item this is also one of those things were just like a quick search on say DM skilled or just Google will reveal all kinds of people who've poured through the monster manuals and been like these are the kinds of things you can find on monsters but you know it's fairly easy to kind of come up with you know what does the item do is the item based around fire then you might need the ashes of a fire elemental or the scales of a salamander or something like that and then finally it reminds you that the point of view of creating these things is not exercising bookkeeping and accounting and like it's to have an adventure to go out and find the monster that you need the ingredients of to craft the thing which part of downtime and to then you know have this unique and special item that you created for yourself in that sense I think like the combination of the two of like the dungeon master creating the item with the players input and then like the character forging it is just I don't know I like that image I like that look it sounds fun it seems like an interesting way to add these items to the game and make them like matter more than just like alright that's what I rolled randomly on the table when it's what you find when you open the dusty chest in the old tomb yeah that's it work Oh most definitely when it comes to two magic items one of our favorite games yeah and we I think we kind of touched on this earlier but I'd like to I'd like to talk about a different way to look at items like doing like single-use items like - like Cyclops like it's something like I mean there are potions it's kind of what that is but like other items like why can't you find a pendant just has one you know whatever in it yeah it's that's it you know you don't need to attune to it or anything it's just you figure out what it is you know the word and it does a thing it does the thing yeah I like them I mean I like them in numenera I like them in cypher I find that single use effects particular scrolls and potions tend to get forgotten about yeah in D&D and I'm not I've always sort of like worried about that I guess yours like why aren't they being used more my handing these out his treasure nobody cares or you know they only use you know potions when they're healing and I think it's probably you know a combination of out of sight out of mind and or you know you have a lot of other things to choose from or it could also be like I only have two of them like I gotta save them what am I gonna do and cipher system solves this by the assumption that you are going to get ciphers out of your ass you know just like everywhere yeah a part of almost every enemy you might fight you can just go searching for them some classes can just generate them you know like they're just tinkering you know decipher because they keep the form and function of ciphers separate right you don't they're not always you know this is this thing and this is what it does it's just here are some effects here are some forms it might take so the deme is free to like think of all the different ways that they might be able to harvest or introduce these single-use items and so in the spirit of that I I think that you can look at things like spell scrolls and potions and alike in your game and you don't necessarily have to go like it's in a bottle it's a little magic liquid in a bottle or it's magic writing on magic paper it could be you know other kinds of alchemical items powders paste screams aerosols injections you know it could they could be symbiotic organisms that have lifespans measured in minutes that you know that you put inside you they could be temporary spells that you learn regardless of your ability to cast spells they could be magical tattoos that get activated or you know once you you're ready to gain the benefits of course you can do scrolls spell Jim's it might be blessings of the gods you know it could be that the the reward you get is you know you can cast you know cure wounds three times or something although those those kind of benefits are also in the the dmg try considering magic food and drink right you know we've got a video where we sort of talk about how you might make those magic foods for yourself but it could be that you're rewarded with you know something like limbus bread or you know even better and then it could also be like I was just sort of thinking all the different ways you could justify kind of like I've got this bonus now that I didn't have earlier and it's you know maybe they're temporal blessings where it's like when you need it most bonus spell will be upon you and that's just you know a fancy way to say when the players ready you'll have this big it could be something as simple it's just like diary rolls or you know a certain number of times you can invoke an event advantage all different things that offer minor little minor benefits and the like but you don't have to worry about you know oh god what I'm gonna have this thing in the game permanently you can have more powerful effects actually be single-use and you know who cares right you just do it once that's gone I always find that people are always crafting magic swords magic armor we're making yeah yeah like you know make them make the small stuff you know you could make a small stuff right like yeah make a magic oil that you put on the sword that does what you need it to and and in some ways like that's what the artificer is right the artificer is the the one who's creating minor magic items to you know for for single-use but I don't think they have to be the only one that does it and and certainly you can hand out treasure and like you know without the need for an artificer to be around oh yeah what are some of your favorite items that you've that you've crafted for your either players or your PC's I used to do a lot more of this kind of item creation whenever I was a younger DM and I'd sort of go through and it's like alright you know these are the magic items that are part of this Kingdom right they're sort of the crown jewels of it and and it was fun for me to come go through all of the major in pcs or major organizations and outline and create custom items for them a lot of those I take from like other game systems and and sort of like figure out oh how can I you know create this magic item that's in say Warhammer Fantasy battle and in D&D how do I translate that it's that sort of where I got started really making a lot of custom items for my campaign and there would be just like page after page after page of items I never really intended for the players to get a hold of a lot of them were way too powerful I think you know they'd be like plus 7 thundering flaming you know kind of weapons but nowadays I find that I do a lot of reading and take just a magic item from the dmg or something and describe it differently and that's worked really well for land between two rivers because the magic items that I've been able to pass out there everything from like a cyborg laser eye which is a circular blasting to various kinds of other magical tech that that works to different degrees and then items like an assassin's dagger that causes the victim to feel no pain when they're struck with it so that they don't know that they've just been stabbed you know they and you know by two feet of poisoned steel is my mosquitos blade right you know it currently I'm working on items that are bio magical in nature so I'm really allowing myself to be inspired by say the tearing winds and 40k and other sorts of like biomechanical hybrid type things because there's a lot of biome answers and and land between two rivers and there's a lot of you know remnants and you know parts of their legacy that are used by everyday people because it's like yeah this thing might be a living creature but it's also a convenient weapon you know it's like it easy to hold and it kind of looks like a spear it's like a spear fish that I could just use on my own you know it's something like that or it's a weird acid spewing insect that just happens to be fine with living on my arm you know or something that that's a you know that highlights the weird bizarre just mutant nature of the magic of vivid man see but I think maybe the long you'll might be the one that I've gotten the best reaction out of you know the party some party most of the party members could breathe underwater one of them couldn't and in lieu of taking a potion of water breathing it's like you're gonna swallow this eel and it's gonna live in your lungs for a while and you know within a week drink this and snort this poison powder and that'll force it out of your lungs because otherwise it'll start chewing its way out or lay eggs in there or you don't want it in there for that long you just want to be able to breathe for a couple hours you know but there are a lot of things like that where I I want items that are grotesque I want to reflect the setting and I want items that have a bit of cost to them like you can use this but you're not gonna be unchanged by it you know even if temporarily for Starbound most times I made like of course I made man made laser pistols Oh certainly right I mean it's it's literally just like basically a wand of magic missiles that you have to use your attack bonus the you know it's literally there's a hammer that you [ __ ] back and trigger enacted because the whole deal was they wanted to make ones for pirates that yeah they didn't need any kind of magic or don't even need a word pick this up and that could be used in the phlogiston could be using the flog song as it was a big thing as needed weapons that are out there so it's forced damage yeah but but the bad thing of course is if you roll one on your d20 well you roll it again and it's basically confirming a crit fail gotcha you roll another one then it explodes and the whole deal is is the pistols have ten charges and then it regains one D six charges per day yeah and so it kind of has to recharge right and so there is a limit to it per day but the thing is is each charge is at D ten and however many charges are in it when it explodes that's what you take so if you are firing for the first time that day you take ten D ten and you know I made sure to tell like Ellery was the one that was Greg's looks like I want to [ __ ] laser pistol I'm like alright just remember when this if this happens this is what's going to happen he's like well at least I have you know my my I have my thief's ability to reduce damage by half it's like I'm sure to always have that but so you know I I had those because I you know once something nice and easy and then later on I made basically what would be I don't know if it would be a legendary item or an artifact yeah but it was the helm of the guardian of the a of the 84th outer gate that that de cool eventually tried to put on yeah it was just a couple of Christmas saves you have to pass to gain control of it because it is a semi sentient item because it's basically the portal is a living thing right it's a living fire elemental that is allowing itself to be the transitory doorway between two planes yeah and so you are basically wearing the helmet that controls it so you have to barter with it certainly and all it really wants us to be used and so that's what I was kept impressing was like just used the power just use it yeah yeah and and he and and to cool was like freaked out by that and he couldn't pass that second save but he the thing goes is there's a threshold for failure and he was literally failing by like one and so it's not like the item can't start to try to take him over because it's like well if he it's I had it where if you fail by three or more sure that the item can start to try to influence you yeah yeah and so he literally failed twice if I won it was like right at the edge and I was like it's one of those moments as a DM he's like all right no I'm gonna try to take this off and they used a wish to take the helmet off oh yeah and I was just as like literally like you're like one pass save away from basically having a ring of fire elemental control yeah and plane shift once a day to the fire plane because you can literally shift to your gate from wherever you are once a day and there's a couple of other things but it was mostly like it was really powerful in the plane of fire yeah and but other than that you know you still like get fire resistance you know there's a lot of benefits in as a DM you have to you can't you can't just go just keep trying yeah you know and he took wish to take the helmet off and then they bartered it away in a whorehouse and hell yeah and like you're just sitting there watching a legendary item get traded off for information yeah but you never I mean you can't yeah yeah and I think that's the that's a fun story right like that is that's the story of a powerful item that got lost you know like it yeah we don't know what happened to it you know and and it's you know it ends up somewhere and and could be all kinds of inadvertent shenanigans by letting a legendary item like that just disappear oh well especially I'm gonna find it yeah well especially when it's the it's the literal backdoor into a very powerful ally of the players and they've made a lot of powerful enemies yeah so you better believe that that helmets gonna pop back up yeah ain't gonna be pretty when it does but that's the that's the way that we you know you can have customizer like drive the story of your game and then sort of like really move a bit forward and yeah if you liked the video give it a thumbs up and subscribe web DM exists thanks to our patreon patrons the web demons if you join the web demons you'll get our weekly podcast show audio discounts that'll save you way more than five dollars a month on books and dice and so much more web DM is a proud partner of DD beyond our favorite supplement for our DMV games we've got a link to them in the description go and check them out if you like our advice for your games then why don't you come check us out and watch us play yeah we've got games on Twitch every week and they're archived on our second youtube channel web do you in place thanks for watching [Music] the use of the tables in Chapter seven to introduce backstory unusual construction history and minor properties mm-hm and then after that they have guidelines on sorta like back to the chapter 9 and the dmg yeah has guidelines for really like actually creating a new item oh yeah yeah so they got like they're basically talking about you know is this a does this grant the character a new ability or does it enhance an existing one of trying to determine like that those are kind of two criteria that they mentioned yeah and anything that doesn't do one of those things they're sort of like maybe it's not really a magic item but they also have a bit of guidelines on just like gauging what it is that the item can do as well as a chart that breaks down like what's the maximum spell level that's appropriate for uncommon item oh yeah by rarity and all that and and so that those are interesting guidelines to read for start creating these new items as well as sort of like the two criteria that they use for attunement yeah it's basically like can this item be passed around between multiple people's they all gain the benefit of it then at any moment yeah and is it like if you would want if you ever acquired like multiples of the same item would the benefits like stack or something in that case they require two minutes yeah like bring a protection or write or cloak of protection or something like that so like mostly though that Chapter nine and in those tables in chapter 7 in the dmg they're guidelines and you'd want to like you know they're good places to start with creating your items but really I think the best inspiration for it is just like what do you need for your campaign what do you want for the party to have access to and then you can you know go and have fun making those items yeah use something that already exists extrapolate to what you want oh yeah everybody has fun yeah

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Keywords: dungeons & dragons, DnD, Web DM, WebDM, d&d, Dungeons and dragons, dungeons & dragons gameplay, new d&d players, tips for new d&d players, gm tips, dm tips, magic items, magic items 5e, d&d 5e best magic items, homebrew magic items, dungeons and dragons magic items, d&d magic items, d&d magic explained, d&d weapons, xanathars guide to everything, artificer

Id: BDIc7VXG7sE

Length: 34min 32sec (2072 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 28 2019