Since it's that time of year again (time to throw out the Xmas tree), and since the Xmas tree effect is no longer a thing in 5E, what are the most fun magical trinkets?
And by magical trinkets, I mean (mostly minor) magic items. Especially ones that grant a character more versatility and can even be a character's calling card without making a character more powerful or messing around with bounded accuracy and the like.
For example, our party's elven rogue has an elven cloak that grants her advantage on Stealth checks. My dwarf cleric in fullplate and a shield as a ring of swimming, so ironically, he doesn't sink like a chunk of iron.
Thanks! :-D
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I found this one just the other day:
Weak Magic Item Genorator for 5e
It has options for weapons, armor, and trinkets.
Wow! This is really neat!
I don't plan on much, if any, trans-planar sojourns in my campaign, so a lot of the planar-specific features would have to be reworked, but I really like the idea of items that give a +1 bonus to something and a little treat.
Thanks a lot! :-D
Outside of that, there's a lot of cool ideas if you can get ahold of the old 2e Encyclopedia Magica books. Filed with magic items that I've used for inspiration for my games.
One magic item I gave out was a chest of coins. Half the coins were cursed; any time the coin hanged hands, there was a percent chance it would cause a random contagious plague on the person acquiring it. The coins were cursed by a demon of plagues trying to spread disease in a populated area. When you give it to your players as part of random gold acquired by killing someone or just in a chest, they usually won't think to cast detect magic. My players didn't. :)
I'm not even sure my group of PCs will have detect magic! Most seem to want to try out pure martials for some reason. Maybe an evoker, maybe a paladin.
EDIT:
But I like the idea of magic items with 0 or 1st level spells (1/day) and a +1 bonus. Maybe not randomized like that site, but themed together. I also like some of the other little tweaks, like 4 1d4 cures per day, or gaining temporary hit points equal to the CR of what you killed.
Especially if they're going to be lacking spells of their own.
I found this one just the other day:
Weak Magic Item Genorator for 5e
It has options for weapons, armor, and trinkets.
"The weapon does an additional 1 elemental damage based on the color of the bearer's eyes: (amber: lightning, black: necrotic, blue: cold, brown: acid, green: force, gray: thunder, hazel: poison, purple: psychic, red: fire, white: radiant)"
<3
That's pretty sweet!
I don't think my 12th level cleric's eye color has ever come up. He's a dwarf with stark-white/blond hair, so probably blue. But that's not canon. ;-)
Other nifty magic items I've seen through the ages:
Scroll of Transmute Rock to Jazz :)
Jeweler's eyepiece that functions as a gem of true seeing, but not works on other gems. Tells the user the exact value, any flaws, any magic or curses on the gem.
Water skin of ever-flowing water. This is a classic item reinvisioned. It had at least three settings: off, trickle, geyser. I used the geyser setting in combat to blast opponents, and the trickle setting to set up a small creek/oasis when I was setting up an outpost in the dessert.
You can use some Alice in Wonderland and have mushrooms and cakes of reduce/enlarge person. They may even double or triple the effect, and may or may not be permanent (until another one is consumed).
I once encountered an intelligent sword that claimed to grant wishes, but I had to soak the blade in bard's blood first. The sword hated bards.
A magical chess set that plays like a computer opponent, giving a challenging - but not impossible - game.
That reminds me of a Con game we played in. The set-up was the PCs were the acolyte, apprentice, etc., of the BGGGs (Big Good Good Guys), and they got whooped by the BBEG, and we had to escape the big evil dungeon.
I played a bard pretending to be a wizard. I was also 1st or 3rd level, not 5th or 10th. I had a ring of prestidigitation and kept "casting" Dispel Magic and kept "failing my dispel check."
My friend played the "paladin's" (actually a wannabe fighter) Intelligent magical sword. (He was a law student IRL, so just giving him Int, Wis, and Cha and a voice was all he needed to take charge!) He actually got in an argument with the wannabe pally and got sheathed. I used Pick Pockets (this was 2nd Ed) and swiped the Holy Avenger and slapped a dryad's tree with it.
Jeweler's eyepiece that functions as a gem of true seeing, but not works on other gems. Tells the user the exact value, any flaws, any magic or curses on the gem.
... But only works on other gems. Dang typos.
How about an item that grants complete immunity to x number of hits per day. If x = 1, then the first hit (or anything) that causes damage is ignored with a loud "PING" sound.
I actually had this as a granted ability from a dirty when my fighter multi classed into a cleric. Of course, my character (or I) didn't know about it until it happened in game, and then even had to figure out what was going on. The first time it happened, a dragon tried to bite me in half, and instead of a satisfying crunch, we heard a loud PING and the dragon was very confused why it had pain in its teeth instead of a snack.
The second time it happened, we were climbing down this very long well. The inside of the well came alive with zombie-like creatures trying to grab us. So my character let go and fell some 300 feet to the bottom and landed with a loud ping. The character above me yelled down if I was ok. I said I was, so he let go, too. He landed with a loud splat and had to roll up a new character.
A dirty deity? ;-)
We used to "PING" 2nd Ed. stoneskin spells. It did exactly that, I think. It made a bunch of shells that absorbed attacks.
I think the 5E shield is pretty much the PING you are speaking of. A reaction that grants +5 to AC for 1 round can pretty much negate a whole passel of hits.
lol. Yeah, deity. Damn typos from typing on my phone.
And it was stoneskin, I just couldn't remember the name of it.
It was actually pretty balanced in 2nd Ed, since there was hardly any healing.
Actually, we might have used "TINK" instead of "PING."