Top 10 Worst Very Rare Magic Items in DnD 5e

in today's video we'll looking at some of the very rare tier magic items which are some of the hardest to find items in the game right under legendary and artifact items and ranking some of the worst ones that are either too weak to be considered very rare magic items or outright useless and star off at number 10 we have the spear backbiting which was introduced in the tales from the yawning portal Adventure book this is one of the first of few curse items that will be appearing on this list usually cursed items come with drawbacks for players while bestowing them with unique benefits to tempt the player to even use the item to begin with in this instance the spear backbiting is a plus two magic weapon that is meant for throwing rather than attacking this is because the spear gains an additional hit dice whenever it's thrown making its base damage to D6 plus2 while also gaining an increasing throw range of 5090 rather than 2060 and once you hit or miss the weapon whenever you throw it the spear flies back to your hand immediately ready to be used again this is a fantastic way to give your players a reusable Throne item as it deals more damage than pretty much any other Throne item in the game since it's basically like throwing a plus two great sorted enemies however as this is a cursed item we do have to weigh the benefits of this item over the drawbacks that come with it while you're attuned to the spear backbiting you gain an unwillingness to part with the weapon and will always keep the weapon Within Reach at all times until you remove or break the curse with the remove curse or something similar so you can unat tune to it you also have disadvantage on any attack rols you make with weapons that aren't the spear but the most debilitating part of this curse is what happens whenever you critically fail your attack Rolls made with this weapon when this happens the spear bends or flies and attempts to hit you in the back which forces you to make an additional attack roll against your own AC dealing damage as if you had made the attack so the price you pay for a pretty strong throwing weapon is being forced to use that weapon at all times with the 5% chance for the weapon to backfire and try to hit you in terms of curses this isn't terrible especially if you manage to have a way to give yourself advantage on your attack rolls with this weapon to minimize the backfire chance such as with a samurai Fighters fighting Spirit subass feature granting them advantage in all attack roles for the turn you might also have a way of gaining resistance to piercing damage such as through the Barbarian rages feature if you're choosing to swing it over and over since your rage bonus and Reckless attacks don't actually affect the spear whenever you throw it coincidentally enough you can also circumvent having disadvantage on all attack roles when using other weapons while iTune to the spear by using Reckless attack and give yourself Advantage which cancels out both and changes the attack roll into a normal one so if you want to use the sphere at long range and the great sword for enemies that are too close to make a range attack against you can actually do both without suffering the negative downsides of having disadvantage on any of your walls and if you don't mind using the spear all the time you can always take the crossbow expert feet which allows you to make range attacks without suffering disadvantage by having hostile creatures within 5T of you so while the downsides of this magic item are definitely harmful there are easy enough ways around these negative aspects of the spear that it only takes number 10 spot on this list and at number nine we have all the dragon scale male variant from The Dungeons Master's guide these sets of armor require tment and come in a variety of colors which correspond to the type of dragon they're related to granting the weer a plus one bonus to their AC and advantage on saving throws against a dragon's frightful presence and breath weapons however every variant of this armor also contains two key differences that distinguish them from one another the first is differences in regards to the resistance each set of armor provides while also corresponding with the color of the dragon that made up the armor so a set of black dragon scale male would Grant you resistance to acid damage a set of red dragon scale melt would Grant you resistance to fire damage etc etc the other key difference is that each variant of dragon scale male grants you special abilities that you can use once per day to discern the distance and direction of the closest Dragon within 30 Mi of you with the color matching whatever variant of the armor you're currently wearing at the time so what's wrong with this item well for starters it's a plus one AC on a set of very rare scal male which is not very good considering scale male in general is only the second best set of medium armor in the game right under half Blade armor and by the time your campaign gains access to very rare magic items you already have access to plus two armor usually whenever a set of armor has less of an AC bonus than the normal Enchanted armor of that tier there's often effects that mitigate and balance out the loss of that bonus you can argue that the damage type resistance you gain for wearing this armor might be more than enough to circumvent the lower AC bonus of the armor which is fair when you consider that you also have some protection against a dragon's frightful presence and breath weapon arguably they're two deadliest weapons in their Arsenal however unless your campaign allows for multiple Dragon encounters rather than the occasional Dragon encounter you're not going to make that much use of the protection or the ability to sense a dragon within 30 Mi of you as for the damage resistance there's already armor and rings that you can it tune to that give you resistance to specific damage type that are only considered rare quality but this could be a good way to give yourself resistance to two damage types at once overall the dragon scale male is okay at best and a straight downgrade at worse as it mostly functions as a plus one scale mail with resistance to a single damage type but the worst part about this magic item is the fact that it does require you to have access to dragon scales which you can obtain from either a slain dragon or as a gift from a dragon meaning that you would most likely have to encounter at least one Dragon before you're able to craft this armor if one isn't available by other means such as a very rare Magic item Trader or something it also doesn't help that each new source book that comes out introduces more types of armor that just power creeps the dragon scale male by giving the wearer the ability to do things that are generally more useful Gloom rot armor which was introduced in the book of many things is a set of armor which grants you three charges of the combom motion spell that recharges at a rate of 1 D3 every Dawn and permanent advantage on saving throws to avoid and end the effects of being frightened so long as you're wearing it and is only considered to be of rare quality meanwhile anti-magic armor introduced in the same Source book allows the wearer to give them cell's advantage on a single saving throw against a spell once per done while flat out giving you the ability to also cast the anti-magic field spell requiring no Spell components once per Dawn which is a very powerful eighth level spell which shuts off all magical effects including from spells and magical items while within the Spells radius so while the dragon scale male and its variance might not be that great compared to other types of magical armor of the game the reason it only takes number nine this list is because it's a specialized armor that's meant for fighting one particular type of enemy with and at least has some general use via its damage type protection and at number eight we have the ston maker War pick this is a weapon which requires a tement and was introduced in the book of many things while attuned to it you gain a plus one bonus to attack and damage rolles with it and comes with two properties the first property allows you to cast the meld into stone spell once per Dawn while the other property gives the warpick a chance to petrified weakened enemies the way this works is the warpick has 1 D6 plus one charges that you can spend one at a time whenever you score critical on a creature that has fewer than 100 hit points if they fail a dc-15 constitution saving throw petrifying them for 8 hours there's no way to regain any of those charges so once you've used them they're gone for good this is basically a worst version of power word kill that requires you to fulfill a lot of conditions before you can actually pull off a petrification except in this instance petrifying a creature doesn't actually kill it just takes it out of the combat but because of how inconsistent this effect is you really don't want to try and fish for a critical hit against an enemy you might want to imprison or keep alive there are much easier and reliable ways to do so and if you want to take someone out of combat then you're better off letting your spellcasters take care of that with a simple hold person or hypnotic pattern spell two out of many excellent crowd control options but the worst part about this magic item is its plus one bonus to attack rolls in damage unlike armor very rare weapons can actually have a plus three bonus rather than plus two meaning that the effects of this weapon should be a lot stronger than it actually is meld into stone also isn't that great of a spell into normal circumstances so there's a very good chance that this property goes fairly unused in comparison to most other weapons of this tier and to make matters worse this magic item is actually powerc by an already existing weapon in the DMG the n life stealer this weapon is a plus two with 1d8 plus one charges and has the exact same effect as a storm War pick except it instantly kills instead of petrifies and only expends a charge if the creature is slain while both of these magic weapons aren't amazing if I had to choose between the stone War pick and the nine Liv stealer the nine Liv stealer would win every time since nine times out of 10 you're already going into combat with the intend to kill while the stone War pick can technically take out enemies non-lethally its drawbacks and lack of consistency are just too much of a downgrade to make the petrification feature worth taking up one of your three atement slots what keeps this item from being any higher on this list however is the fact that unlike some of the other entries on this list it does have some general use that you might get out of it with its meld into stone property as well as the ability to take something out of combat when or if the petrification decides to work and at number seven we have the force Breer weapons this is one of the new magic items introduced in the book of many things and can only be crafted on weapons that deal bludgeoning damage as for what it does it grants a plus two bonus to attack and damage Rolls made with weapon and comes with the additional benefit of allowing the wielder to instantly destroy structures of force such as those created by force cage or wall of force spells if the structure is large or smaller then the Magical Force completely shatters while huge or larger structures will only have 20 cubic feet of it destroyed there's not really much to say about this weapon other than it's an incredibly Niche tool to have as it would only really function in times where you might be encountering a lot of magical barriers such as traversing in evil wizards magic Tower since spells like force cage and Wall of force aren't typically used very often against players when it does come up however the force breaker is amazing fortunately this item has two saving Graces that keep it from being any lower on this list the first is the fact that it's a plus two weapon meaning you're not losing much when it comes to the bonuses it has in comparison to a normal plus three weapon of the same tier the second Saving Grace is the fact that it does not require you to attune to the weapon in order to make use of it allow you to pocket the weapon until you need it while you have a plus three great sword and since one of the weapons you can have Force breaker on his sling you can also give this to one of your backline party members on the off chance they need to break someone out of a force cage from range so while this weapon might not much have going for it the fact that you can just pocket it until it's needed does give the force breaker weapon a tiny bit of flexibility when compared to other magic items on this list and at number six we have the sword of sharpness this very rare sword comes from the dungeons Master's guide and does quite a few things firstly whenever you hit an object with a sword it always deals the max amount of damage secondly it allows you to speak a command hand word of the sword causing it to shed bright light in a 10t radius while shedding an additional 10 ft of dim light outside of that and you can speak the word again or shoot the sword to put it out but the most important thing about the sword of sharpness is its ability to deal an extra flat 17 slashing damage and chop off limbs whenever you roll a natural 20 for either effect dealing an additional 14 extra damage flat regardless of whatever blade this effect is put on is an excellent effect to have but the fact that you have to roll a natural 20 is what makes this weapon kind of Niche similar to how you need to critically hit with the stone War pick in order to activate its petrification effect and even if you do unlike the stone War pick where the enemy has to make a saving throw you have to roll another natural 20 in order to activate the effect that slices off the creature's limb statistically speaking you only have a one in 400 chance to actually pull off both effects at once which is not favorable and while not necessarily the biggest deal the wording on this magic item implies that it only works whenever you roll a natat 20 and not whenever you just score a critical hit meaning you can't really cheese the effects with class features like the champion Fighters improved critical subclass feature the only saving grace this weapon has is the fact that dealing an extra 14 slashing damage on his own is infinitely better and more consistent than rolling an additional damage dice whenever you land a crit and if this weapon had any bonuses to attack and damage roles this wouldn't be so bad but because it applies to pleaser weapons by default the overall usefulness of the sword of sharpness just kind of makes it a bit inconsistent and in accurate to use when compared to much better items as a rarity so takes number six on this list and at number five we have demon armor this is a set of plus one plate armor that comes from the dungeons Master's guide and is another cursed item it grants you the ability to speak Abyssal and comes with a set of CLA gauntlets that turn your unarmed strikes into magical weapons that deal slashing damage with a plus one bonus to attack and damage Ralls while also providing your unarmed strikes a damage die of 1d8 the drawback of this Arbor you have disadvantage on attack rolls against demons and you're more susceptible to their spells and special abilities by having disadvantage against them and if you think you can just take off the armor before heading off into a demon field hunt you'd be wrong because the curse also prevents you from taking off this armor in the first place unless someone uses something like remove curse spell in order to suppress the curse long enough for you to take it off on the surface being able to make such strong unarmed strikes on a character that normally doesn't get them like monks sounds pretty neat however the biggest problem with demon armor isn't so much the stats or the curse itself rather the utility of this armor plate armor is heavy armor that only a few classes can be proficient in and the classes that are proficient in heavy armor can already use weapons that deal much better damage Palin and Fighters are the main two classes that start with heavy armor proficiency and can very easily use a plus three great sword which deals 2d6 damage over the demon armor 1 to8 damage that it does which is much less preferable so in most cases Dawning the demon armor can be SE as an active downgrade over what you can already get with non-magical weapons overall the demon armor is pretty terrible as has a set of plus one plate armor since you'd have plus two armor and plus three weapons available by the time VAR rare items start becoming available neither of which require you to attune to them and even if you were to find some way for a monk to wear heavy armor for some bizarre reason there's a pretty good chance that your Monk's Marshal art die will already be 1 to8 as levels 10 to 15 in the typical range for the rare items to start making it appearance so whatever way you look at it the demon armor is a terrible item with terrible stats that also has a debilitating curse that makes you wor works at fighting and defending against demons making it not even worth taking as the negative effects far outweigh the benefits you would get otherwise and it's only really a number five on this list because there are even more items to cover that are just worse than a set of demon armor and at number four we have Arcane propulsion arm which originates from the Eon rising from the last war Source book what it does is allow a creature with a missing hand or arm to attune to it and gain a fully functional replacement limb as it magically forms a perfect copy whatever hand or arm you're replacing you can also use your action to detach the arm for whatever reason it will also remove itself whenever you unat tune from it but the best thing the Arcane propulsion arm does is it gives you a rocket punch like ability with a range of 2060 if you throw the arm which causes the prosthetic to detach itself and fly at the target of the attack before immediately returning and reattaching itself back to you the damage this deals regardless of whether or not you're using it normally as a punching option or as a rocket punch is 1d8 force damage on hit and also counts as a magical melee weapon while there aren't any downsides to use in this magic item the only worthwhile benefit of this item is the 1d8 force damage which isn't even that great since most weapons can already deal 1 to8 damage by this point however because this damage is force most creatures in the game won't be able to resist it which is still a plus but since this count as a magical melee weapon it doesn't qualify as a monk weapon meaning you can't use some of your key points with it and since it doesn't count as a simpler Marshall weapon you also can't make the arm a monk weapon via the dedicated weapon monk feature introducing tsh's cauldron of everything which gave classes a whole bunch of optional features like the one mentioned overall this is more of a fun weapon rather than a good one 1d8 damage without any other bonuses is kind of weak for something that's supposed to count as a very rare Magic item which normally would have a plus three bonus by default but the reason this item takes number four on this list and not any higher is because of two factors the first of which it's Force damage we've already covered the second thing is the fact that because for all intents and purposes the Arcane propulsion arm is attached to your own body meaning you can basically count this as a weapon that you can sneak into places that you normally wouldn't be able to by passing off the arm as a mundane prosthetic so while this magic armor is just a fancy common item you can already get there are some Niche situations where having a rocket punching arm can be useful not to mention how cool it is to have and at number three we have the bracelet of rock magic this is a magical gold bracelet introduced in Tales of the yawning portal and is yet another cursed item while wearing the bracelet you gain immunity to the Petrified condition while also to cast The Flesh to Stone spell three times as an action the spell used in this way has a dc-15 constitution saving throw against whatever creature you're using it on on a failed save the creature becomes restrained and now it has to effectively make death saving throws by Saving against the spell three times where the effect will instantly end however if the creature fails the saving throw three times they become petrified for the duration of the spell or until the effect is cured if you manage to concentrate on the spell for the entire duration of 1 minute once you've used the spell three times you can no longer cast it but can now instead cast stone shaped 13 times as an action which is not as good but can still be useful for shaping stones into Idols or improvised weapons or something whereafter the bracelet will become inert and the gold turns into Le free spells are always nice whenever it comes to magic items however since you can't choose which of the two spells you can cast and must use flesh to Stone before you can use Stone shape this kind of limits what you can use the bracelet for at any time and while three chances to turn a creature into stone is nice by the time you gain access to this m magic item most creatures will have high enough Constitution that they can very easily beat a dc15 constitution saving throw with no problems but what about the curse this weapon has does it make worth taking this item in a way it does since it doesn't directly affect the creature that's wear it in to explain the bracelet doesn't like it when you try to petrify creatures that have a strong relationship to Earth and stone such as stone giants and dwarves using the bracelet to cast flesh to Stone doing so causes three things to happen first the dwarf or make their saving door against the spell Advantage the second thing happens whenever such a creature successfully saves against the spell which is your atun with the bracelet instantly breaks and tries to cast the spell on you which you make at disadvantage the final thing that happens if you fail your saving throw against the spell that's it you're petrified instantly instead of having the chance to make the saving throw at the end of your turns and if there's no immediate way to cure yourself of petrification then that's basically instant death in a lot of cases in short as long as you don't use flesh to Stone spell against a creature that is tune with the Earth and stone then this curse shouldn't really be a problem but it does mean you have to be careful not to use the bracelet on the wrong person or risk instant death for your misuse of it however even if we don't count the curse the item in general is just not very good simply due to the fact that it only has the charges that come with the bracelet rather than having charges that it can regain at dawn like so many other magic items have which further restricts how and when you can want to use this item because of this there's a very good chance that you waste the only three charges of Flesh to Stone you have on a single creature simply because they either got lucky with their saves or just have too high of a constitution score to even be affected since dc-15 is such a low saving throw at this point of the game which makes the bracelet of rock magic pretty terrible overall and at number two we have the bag of devouring a very rare wondrous item that can be found in the dungeons Master's guide it closely resembles the bag of holding another magic item that's useful for carrying large amounts of stuff with you but the bag of devouring is anything but that in fact the bag of bouring is actually a feeding orifice for a gigantic extradimensional creature it fully consumes any plant or animal matter that's placed inside making them unable to be retrieved ever again while any inanimate objects placed inside the bag of devouring will be swallowed and spat out into a different plane of existence once per day and any creature that dares to reach inside of the bag will have a coin flips chance of being pulled inside of the bag with the only way to get out is by using its action to try and make a successful dc15 strength check to attempt an escape and if that doesn't work another creature can use their action to reach in and pull you out but also get subjected to the 50/50 chance of being pulled in when doing so and the DC for the strength check for pulling their friend out of the bag is 20 instead of 15 and if any creature starts its turn inside of the bag of devouring they are simply devoured body destroyed and unrecoverable as a last resort however if you manage to pierce tear or otherwise destroy the bag of devouring everything inside is transported to a random location on the astral plane this magic item can either be used to bait your party into thinking they have a bag of holding when really they've been carrying a bag of devouring that's been taking and eating anything and everything including important magic items that been placed in there or alternatively if your party knows they're in possession of a bag of devouring they can use the bag as bait or Decoy for undesirable companies such as a group of Bandits or guards however at the end of the day this item serves very little purpose other than consuming important items or people and if one of your party members gets pulled inside it's very possible to cause an entire tpk if everyone gets unlucky on the strength pulls to pull their friends out but while this magic item is a bit on the unfund side of things since losing important items is never fun it can still work as a bit of a plot device for example you might give your players a very powerful item early on and then trick them into placing inside of a bag of devouring they thought was a bag of holding which could start a treasure hunt like quest to recover the item after it's been spat out somewhere else having at least some use even plot related ones is why magod Varan takes number two spawn on this list since if you believe it the next item is even worse and the number one pick for this list is the hammer of runic Focus which was introduced in the book of many things it's a Warhammer that requires Attunement and come with three charges that restores at a rate of 1 D3 per Dawn you may expend one charge as a bonus action and slam the hammer on the ground creating a 15t radius circle of glowing runes centered on the point of impact for 1 minute or until you either create a new Circle or use your bonus action to dismiss it while you're inside this Rune the hammer gains a plus three bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls made with a hammer well the idea of the Warhammer covered in Ruins is admittedly a cool concept everything else about this weapon is just unnecessary requiring a tement for weapon that doesn't do anything special unless you use a bonus action to give yourself a plus three is probably the worst effect you can have on a very rare tier weapon especially when you consider that weapons of this tier Grant a plus three bonus to attack and damage Rolls by default and don't require Attunement and doesn't need any actions to give you these bonuses and that's not to mention the fact that hmer runic Focus requires you to expend charges that have an inconsistent recharge rate in order to activate in the first place if the circle of runes affected your party members in some way by affecting their weapons too then this item would actually be pretty good but because this item has too many restrictions and limitations and is instantly Power by just buying or making a plus three Warhammer a baseline weapon you can find the DMG the hammer of runic focus is definitely the worst magic item on this list all right and there you have it are there any magic items you feel would fit this list better are there some fun ways to use some of the items on this list that may not have been shown or talked about or do you have any topics for future videos just like this one if so I'd love toar about them down in the [Music] comments

Channel: TheD&DLogs

Views: 24,426

Keywords: D&D, Dungeons and Dragon, s Dungeon & Dragons, D&D Beyond, DnD, Wizards of the Coast D&D, Heroes Campaign RPG, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, rule, rules, d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, d4, DM, PC, tips, tricks, advice, guide, dice, book, PHB, VGTM, dungeons and dragons, 5th edition, best, overpower

Id: uf_GQssaMJs

Length: 23min 21sec (1401 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024