Our Top Magic Items For Clerics & Druids In Dungeons and Dragons 5e

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miss an episode in this week's episode we are taking a look at our top magic items for clerics and druids in dungeons and dragons 5th edition if you look up on the screen right now you're going to see the criteria that we use to pick our magic items we've chosen magic items from the rarity of uncommon all the way up to legendary and we've chosen a couple from each rarity we've also thrown in a few wild card choices and a few extra choices based on the fact that druids and clerics although having a lot of similarities also have a few magic items that are very specific to one or the other so we're going to go over our favorite choices for magic items for these two classes and take a look at why we like them so much yeah clerics and druids have a lot of overlap they're both wisdom-based primary spellcasters that go all the way up to ninth level spells and depending on their subclass choice they can be interested a little bit in weapons armor and spell casting magic items and they tend to have more reserved and less flashier interest in magic items i personally found that choosing cool magic items to reward my clerics and druids with has been really really difficult in my own campaigns so we really had to rack our brains to find some good choices because between you and me there's a lot of options that are not exciting for them and it's very easy to just give them plus one armor and plus one weapons and call it a day meanwhile your other characters in your party are playing around with some really fancy magic items that feel like they make a difference for their characters so we have scoured through uh mostly the dungeon master guide list but also a few other sources uh to see which magic items stood out the most to us for clerics and druids there's a lot to discuss today so let's get rolling so kicking things off at the uncommon rarity i recommend your cleric or druid take up the staff of the python this is a fantastic uncommon staff that i've awarded in several of my campaigns to both clerics and druids and it's always been a crowd-pleasing hit this magical staff requires attunement and it can be used with a command word as an action to transform the staff entirely into a giant constrictor snake the giant constrictor snake is a challenge rating two beast found in the monster manual and it's notable because it's actually huge size so it takes up a big presence on the battlefield and it has a constrict attack that can be used to restrain enemies the clerical druid can use a bonus action to cause the snake to revert back into staph form and otherwise they can mentally command the snake which obeys its their commands the only risk is that if the snake is reduced to zero hit points it turns back into a staff and staff and shatters so there's a little bit of a risk involved with the magic item because if they use the snake recklessly they're gonna lose their item entirely but beyond that they can shift it in and out of snake and staff form at will one of the things that i actually like about the staff of the python is that well the magic item is very clearly inspired by the the biblical story of moses turning his staff into a snake and it really captures that feeling quite well i don't see why the staff couldn't be carved to depict a different animal of some kind perhaps having the head of a lion a tiger or a bear and transforming into an animal of that type i love this item and it's always a pleaser it works really really well at giving the cleric or druid a great companion to have in battle throughout the entire campaign my choice for uncommon item is actually out of the adventure module for horde of the dragon queen and that is the insignia of claws this one is a little bit more specified towards the druid player than the cleric player the insignia of clause allows you to add plus one to the attack roles and damage rules of your unarmed strikes or natural weapons this means that a druid who changes into their wild shape form gets a bonus to their attacks in their animal form not only that but the attacks become magical for the purposes of bypassing magical resistance this is a great item to award a relatively low level druid giving them a little bit more punch to their wild shape this item gives the druid the option of making their attacks feel like they have a magical weapon even though most druids are not going to be swinging swords or axes in their wild shape which is really the weapon they're going to be using this adds that magical property to it not only that but even though it is only a plus one to their attack and damage rules i could see later on in the campaign allowing this item to become empowered to a plus two and eventually a plus three which would increase the rarity of the item but also make the druid continue to feel powerful as they progress through a game aside from wild shaping druids it's possible that low-level clerics and druids might not be too interested in magical weapons and instead choose to focus on their spells and while shaping but one thing that any cleric or druid should not forget is that they are proficient in shields and they should probably carry one around to protect themselves giving their bonus to that ac of plus two however there's a great magical shield that i also really enjoy awarding to clerics and druids which is the sentinel shield this is an uncommon shield and it awards advantage on wisdom perception checks as well as initiative rules considering most clerics and druids tend to have lower dexterity scores but often do want to act sooner in combat this is a great boon for clerics and druids that often tend to roll low on initiative counterbalancing that very low dexterity score that they often have while still giving the opportunity to act sooner in combat and building on their amazing natural high wisdom scores and great perception checks watch out for the clerical druid that gets the shield and then also takes the observant feet you're never going to sneak a trap past that character again the sentinel shield is an item that is really great for any character that wants to wield a shield or has the ability to and one of the best things about it is that it doesn't require attunement this just means that it can be an added perk on top of all of the other amazing magic items that do require attunement and if we're looking at the druid who maybe doesn't want to use a metal shield i often like to re-flavor that shields can be made out of wood as well so depending on whether you're awarding this to a druid or a cleric you can have a beautiful metal shield or a beautiful wood carved shield that either player could pick up and use finally one more magic item as an honorable mention that we talked about in our video for sorcerers warlocks and wizards is the pearl of power it does allow these characters to attune to it and use it once per day to regain a third level spell slot so for those spell casting characters they may prefer a nice item like this instead as we move into the rare magic items one thing to keep in mind about both clerics and druids is that both of them make excellent healers but sometimes the weight of being a healer can eat up your spell slots that you would have rather used on other things this is why my favorite choice for a rare magic item is the staff of healing this takes the burden off of using your spell slots for healing and allows you to have a magic item that fills that role meaning that the cleric or druid still gets to be the healer of the party wielding this awesome staff that they can use to bolster the party's hp when necessary the staff comes with 10 charges and allows you to use one charge to cast cure wounds two charges to cast lesser restoration and five charges to cast mask your wounds you can also up cast cure wounds by spending additional charges either way this staff is going to be essential for a party that is seeing a lot of combat and maybe some deadly foes that they're facing one thing to keep in mind about the staff of healing is because it is such a great device to keep the party alive it ends up being more of a party magic item that everybody gets to benefit from that happens to be in the hands of your cleric or druid for this reason it is good to probably award another magic item that makes that player character feel unique and special as this magic item is really for everybody now an interesting alternative to the staff of healing that can be used by both clerics and druids is the necklace of prayer beads this is a pretty unique item because you as the dungeon master can actually customize the arrangement of this item it has 1d4 plus 2 beads and you can either roll randomly to decide what beads are in the necklace or you can choose them yourself each of the beads has a single spell that it can be used to cast once per day the magic is restored each day at dawn and the necklace of prayer beads can have multiple beads of the same type to give extra castings of those spells so the different beads give access to the spells bless cure wound lesser restoration branding smite wind walk planer ally and greater restoration so you can configure this item as a dungeon master to address any sort of gaps that you might see in your party and what's interesting about this is that you can use this to kind of blend the spell lists across the cleric and druid so if your druid doesn't normally have access to bless you might give them that by having it in bead form if your party needs some really fast world transportation you might have the wind walk bead on there if your party might need to summon up an extra extra planar ally you might have the bead of summoning which lets them use the planar ally spell so you might say that this particular necklace of prayer beads is attuned to the deva estario and can only be used to call up that deva who will then use their powers or help with the party as long as they make an appropriate offering to the gods in order to prove their purity and commitment to the cause of justice so again this magic item has a lot of great creativity and customizability within it that is going to give a cleric or druid a couple extra powers that they might not normally have access to or you can just load them up with extra healing powers but i would rather focus on the unique elements of the necklace of prayer beads and then let the staff of healing take that role otherwise and again we have another one that is more geared towards the druid players in your party and that is going to be the staff of the woodlands the staff of the woodlands is a magical quarter staff that adds plus two to attack and damage roles but it also adds plus two to spell attack roles the staff of the woodlands has 10 charges and it regains 1d6 plus 4 charges every day at dawn if you use up the last charge you roll a d20 and on the one the staff is destroyed the staff has a number of notable spells in it such as animal friendship awaken bark skin locate animals or plants speak with animals speak with plants and wall of thorns and the staff also has pass without trace which you can use without expending any charges as a final note about the staff you can plant it in the ground and it turns into a 60-foot tall tree you can then use an action to turn it back into a staff this might be useful if you just need some shade on a sunny day the staff is mostly geared towards talking to animals and communing with nature in many various ways but the two main spells that stand out to me are wall of thorns and awaken we had a druid in our campaign who used this staff for two months of down time to create an army of awakened trees it was a really fun little project that they got to work on that the staff allowed them to do and then we got to march an army of trees into battle towards the end of the campaign it's a really fun magic item for any druid to have that just opens up a world of possibilities and options that really speak to the nature of the druid some of the magic items that we've talked about so far have introduced conjuring up beasts or trees or celestials to fight for you and another one that's worth mentioning here in the rails rare slot are the various elemental command items available at the rare slot the stone of earth elemental command the brazier of commanding fire elementals the sensor of commanding air elementals and the bowl of commanding water elementals all of these magic items can be used once per day to cast conjurer elemental to summon up an elemental of the appropriate type what's notable about all of these ones is that none of them require attunement either so this is a great way for your cleric or druid or really any member of the party to have an extra elemental companion that fights for you and joins you in battle on a regular basis keeping on the theme of elemental magic and moving into the very rare magic items there are two items that stand out to me that i want to talk about together and that is the staff of frost and the staff of fire now these two items have a lot of spells within them that you may find on the sorcerer or wizard spell list and you might think oh these are great items for a sorcerer or wizard and although they can be you may miss that they are also able to be attuned to by a druid so adding the elemental magic to a druid and giving them access to spells they may have otherwise not been able to take spells like cone of cold or wall of ice fireball and burning hands these are spells that really speak to the elemental nature of a druid but that they don't normally have access to so putting one of these stabs in the hands of your druid player is going to just give them a whole new range of powerful magic to play around with and get to try out at the table both staffs carry 10 charges and allow you to cast the various spells on them much like the staff of healing and several other staffs that we've looked at and really at the end of the day what druid doesn't want to cast fireball it's a well sought-after spell and giving it to the druid just seems appropriate both clerics and druids often take up causes where they will be fighting against evil spellcasters seeking to corrupt and destroy either the natural order or the divine order and they will need a little bit of protection against enemy spell casters of their own enter the rod of absorption my recommended very rare item for both clerics and druids at this level because it has two really great effects first of all the rod of absorption can be used as a reaction to absorb the energy of a spell that targets the character using it and only the character using it it doesn't work against area of effect spells or spells that target several creatures the spell is completely negated and the spell's energy is stored in the rod the rod can store up to 50 levels worth of spells and when you become attuned to it you know how much it has absorbed already when the rod of absorption absorbs a spell and has those levels stored within it though you can then convert that energy into spell slots of your own regaining spell slots of up to fifth level so when you absorb the finger of death that the big bad evil guy just threw at your cleric you now have seven levels worth of spells that you can turn back against them with your own magic as you see fit one of the things to ask your dungeon master about as well is whether or not you can use the rod of absorption to protect yourself against counterspell and whether or not your dm will allow you that if you're targeted with counterspell well you're casting a spell to immediately use your reaction to absorb that spell's energy there's a little bit of debate about whether or not you can cast counter spell while you're casting another spell but it's also debatable whether or not you can use the rod's power while you are also casting a spell as a reaction so check with your dungeon master on that one but it could be a great defense against counterspell in particular one thing to watch out for is that the rod of absorption is effectively a consumable magic item once it's absorbed 50 levels worth of spells and you've used up all that energy it's done and once you have absorbed 50 levels worth of spells you can't absorb any more so you kind of get this swan song of your wrought absorption where you get to use it to cast spells from it but it's not going to protect you against any incoming spells nevertheless 50 levels worth of spells is a lot and it can make a major difference in many campaigns if we're looking at clerics and druids one thing to keep in mind about both of these classes is that they both are allowed to wear medium armor they're both proficient in it some clerics have the option to wear heavy armor but most are going to be wearing medium armor as their baseline with druids not wanting to wear metal armor what are they going to do about protecting themselves well a great very rare magic item choice might be the dragon scale armor and this armor which is magical medium armor that has a base ac of 14 plus your dex mod up to two and with an additional plus one as its magical property is a great choice for any spell caster if you pair that with a shield or one of the magical shields that we talked about you could get an ac as high as 19. excellent for spellcasters now on top of that this dragon scale armor will also grant you resistance to a damage type represented by the type of dragon scales it's made out of for example if it is made out of a red dragon you're going to have resistance to fire damage the dragon scale male actually becomes more relevant if you're in a campaign where you're facing off against dragons because there are two other properties that the dragon scale male gives you first of all it gives you advantage on saving throws against the frightful presence and breath weapon attacks of dragons and as an action you can hone your senses to locate the closest dragon within 30 miles of you all in all this is a great choice that both druids and clerics can dawn to increase their ac and in a campaign where they're facing off against dragons it becomes even more useful and even more valuable to those characters just make sure that you remember that it is dragon's scale male and not dragon scale which is the heavy armor version i could imagine reflavoring the dragon scale male armor though to be any type of armor maybe even plate armor and a druid that gains proficiency in heavy armor i would allow them to wear that after all it's made of dragon scales not metal so it's a really cool and badass look for a clerical druid and an opportunity for both to wear heavier armor because if you're a druid the best non-metallic version of armor that you can wear is hide or leather armor which doesn't really give you a great ac at all so this is a great counterbalance to that finally we come to our legendary magic items and at this level of play it's really tough actually to find something for clerics and druids but i always come back to the talisman of pure good and the talisman of ultimate evil both of these magic items can technically only be used by clerics or paladins but i could see allowing druids to attune to them as well slightly re-flavoring it the powers of these items are pretty simple you have to have the correct alignment otherwise you get damaged if you handle them and they give you a plus two bonus to spell attack rolls while you're attuned to the item the final property though is that each that the both the talisman of pure good and the talisman of ultimate evil have seven and six charges respectively you can use one of these charges and point at a character of evil or good alignment whatever is the opposite of the talisman that you're using and a fissure opens up beneath them and destroys them utterly and completely unless they succeed on a dc 20 dexterity saving throw once you use up all the charges the talisman is destroyed but this is a great way to end some pretty evil or some pretty righteous enemies that your cleric might have in store for them we don't normally think of clerics as necessarily wielding such absolute automatic death type powers and i'd be very cautious about the circumstances that they i gave this out certainly i'll want to make sure that my end game bosses have legendary resistance to save themselves from getting pulled into a fissure but otherwise it's a pretty cool power to give a high level clerical druid who particularly one that doesn't always want to be stuck in the support role and would rather bring down the wrath of heaven or the anger of hell when we're talking about legendary choices at this high level of play there is a much higher chance of character death especially if you have a pretty reckless party which makes clerics and druids pretty useful members of a reckless party that is dying a lot if you are a gracious dm and you want to help out your party because they just can't seem to survive a battle you might want to award them with the rod of resurrection this rod has five charges and allows you to use one charge to cast heal and five charges to cast resurrection it regains one charge every day at dawn this means that if you have a party that can at least last five days without losing a member the rod of resurrection will be endlessly useful to bring that party member back onto their feet at this high level of play both of these spells are already available to clerics and druids but being able to cast them without needing a spell slot might be essential for some really tough battles that you can expect they will be facing at the end of the campaign if you have party members dropping a lot this is an essential tool that can just give them the edge for those of you who are gracious enough to bless your party with the rod of resurrection finally coming full circle with our elemental theme for both clerics and druids i think these work these items work well are the rings of elemental command like the other various elemental items that we discussed in this episode they come in four different varieties one for each of the four classical elements and each of these rings are legendary items that require attunement each also has five charges beyond using the charges to cast spells and i will note that the cost for the various spells in these rings is not very intuitive with spells like chain lightning only requiring three charges so despite the fact the spell the rings only have five charges the costing for the spells inside them is a little bit wacky and inconsistent with other magic items so just watch out for that beyond that they all have passive properties that usually grant you resistance or in some cases immunity to a form of damage the ring of fire elemental command grants outright immunity to fire damage but the ring of air command grants resistance to lightning damage but also grants a flying speed of 60 feet kind of a perfect magic item for a tempest cleric don't you think so i really like these rings of elemental command they're a fantastic capstone item and although within the specifics of the clerics and druids kind of awarding all four rings of elemental command is an interesting way to reward a party of four and maybe they can all be combined to some and captain planet in a cool way if you did want to summon captain planet with the rings you would also need to homebrew a heart ring which maybe could have some healing spells or something of that sort tied to it it could have some enchantment spells in it like it could grant you resistance against being charmed and frightened and then you would also have the ability to maybe cast like charm person and dominate person some kind of barty sort of thing because that's love that's love so this has been a look at our top magic items for clerics and druids in dungeons and dragons 5th edition if you have any favorite magic items that we missed tell us about them in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters big thank you from both kelly and i to all of our patreon supporters for your continued participation in our amazing community if you enjoy the content that we create here on youtube and on twitch and elsewhere please consider becoming a patron of our work by following the links in the description below and clerics and druids are both excellent healers and if you want to see a campaign with no healers and watch a party struggle with that you can check out our live play shadows of drakenheim which is tuesday nights at 6pm eastern at twitch.tv dungeon underscored dudes you can find all the previous episodes of that campaign right up over here and we have plenty more guides to the magic items spells and classes of dungeons and dragons 5th edition right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that 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: 168,687

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

Id: 50ZDp2J-dv4

Length: 26min 47sec (1607 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 05 2020