Random Magic Items - Evaluate!


Homebrew and House Rules


These are some magic items I threw together to fill a "Blueprint" book that belongs to an Artificer that the Party is heading up against. as one of the team is also an artificer, he may try to make some of these, so i was hoping for some input about balance, if i did the calculations wrong, so on. well, here you are!

Warlord's Quiver
This blackened metal quiver generates magical arrows or bolts, as the wearer prefers. Any ammunition taken from the arrow disappears after being fired, or if handed to another person or taken forcefully. The ammunition the quiver makes is treated for all purposes as +2 arrows or bolts, and add to attack and damage rolls as such.

Abundant ammunition (1st level spell)
Greater Magic Weapon (3rd level spell)
Base Cost: 48,000
Cost to Create: 24,000

Tabard of the Warlord
This gold edged black tabbard bears a design of a Hawk clutching a spear in it's beak and carrying a shield in its talons, all in gold thread. While wearing the tabbard, your movement speed is not reduced by your armor, and you reduce the armor check penalty of any armor worn by 2. The tabbard takes 24 hours to attune to the wearer if removed, as well as for the first time worn.

Effortless Armor (2nd level spell)
Base Cost: 24,000
Cost to Create: 12,000

Warlord's Bracers
These blackened metal bracers look worn and battered, but are still comfortable to wear. With every enemy life you take while wearing these bracers, you become increasingly dangerous and difficult to stop. You gain a cumulative +1 luck bonus on melee attack rolls, melee weapon damage rolls, Strength checks, and Strength-based skill checks as well as DR 2/— each time you reduce a qualifying opponent to 0 or few hit points (maximum 5 bonus and DR 10/—) with a melee attack. A qualifying opponent has a number of Hit Dice equal to or greater than your Hit Dice –4. This bonus lasts until you go 5 minutes without killing a qualifying opponent. The bracers take 24 hours to attune to a wearer, during which they grant no bonuses.

Deadly Juggernaut (3rd level spell)
Base Cost: 36,000
Cost to Create: 18,000

Trumps of the Pattern
These magical tarot cards look exactly like a normal set of tarot cards, save that each of the 13 trump cards are replaced by blank cards, which are replaced by portraits of you and up to 12 allies or locations. These cards allow instant communication between the holders by simply holding up the card of the individual you wished to speak with and concentrating on it,and if both parties are willing, instant travel. Traveling in this way requires trust — placing oneself temporarily at the mercy of the non-traveling host. People watching someone leave via a Trump will notice them suddenly becoming two-dimensional, followed by a burst of color. Contact is broken by passing one's hand over the Trump. Contact is prevented if the person is drugged, deeply asleep, has some form of brain damage (such as amnesia), unconscious or imprisoned in a fashion designed to prevent teleportation, or in an area of anti-magic or on another plane of existance.

Clairvoyance/Clairaudience (3rd level spell) – 22,500
Greater Teleport (7th level spell) – 182,000
Base Cost – 204,500
Cost to Create – 102,250

P.S. - Some of these items are inspired from books i've read (the tarot cards), so i realize that it's not a new idea.


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I see that this is of no interest to anyone. Nevermind then, carry on.


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Don't like the tabard, don't like the bracers. Far too OP.

Not a fan of special class abilities being handed out via magic items, especially when they are a balancing weakness, i.e. you are a heavy fighter, you move slower than a near naked peasant. This is the cost for wearing such heavy armour.

Sorry bro.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
3.5 Loyalist wrote:

Don't like the tabard, don't like the bracers. Far too OP.

Not a fan of special class abilities being handed out via magic items, especially when they are a balancing weakness, i.e. you are a heavy fighter, you move slower than a near naked peasant. This is the cost for wearing such heavy armour.

Sorry bro.

I see you never heard of mithral, bro.


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I'm not your bro, friend.


I'm not your friend, guy.


Seem ok to me might be a bit much if you have someone wearing both the tabard and the bracers but apart from that I would say no worries mate


- Warlord's Quiver

* Maybe I am not that sharp today, but could you explain to me why the quiver would be preferable over a +2 bow so I can gauge it's value properly ? As I see it now it pretty much functions as a bow in all ways, the only possible benefit I see is to enchant a bow to +1 and load it up on special abilities, at the current price it will only be beneficial if you have a +1 bow with +9 equivalent of additional enhancements. I can see how you came by the price, but at an average of 5 encounters per day shooting 6 arrows per round for 5 rounds will be 150 arrows and that will be most likely a generous estimation of how many you will use in a day, so I advise cutting the price by 40%, this would come down to 28,800 gold, round up to 30k and call it a day.

- Tabard of the Warlord

* Sash of the war champion for 4,000 gold increases the armor training and bravery class features by 4 levels but difference is you actually need to have fighter levels, in the case of the tabard it not only bypasses the fighter's class features it also bypasses the need to have proficiency in any armor by stacking it with similar abilities.

Mithral fullplate of comfort +5 could be combined with the tabard and suffer no penalties at all for less than 65,000 gold and have +14 armor bonus, it is prone to abuse with the right archetype combinations. At least add a clause that you need to be proficient with the armor you are wearing to gain those benefits.

That is all I have right now, at a quick glance I think I don't like the other two items much, though I am not a big fan of teleporting effects and DR 10/- seems too much to grant outside of a major class feature.


AnnoyingOrange wrote:

- Warlord's Quiver

* Maybe I am not that sharp today, but could you explain to me why the quiver would be preferable over a +2 bow so I can gauge it's value properly ? As I see it now it pretty much functions as a bow in all ways, the only possible benefit I see is to enchant a bow to +1 and load it up on special abilities, at the current price it will only be beneficial if you have a +1 bow with +9 equivalent of additional enhancements. I can see how you came by the price, but at an average of 5 encounters per day shooting 6 arrows per round for 5 rounds will be 150 arrows and that will be most likely a generous estimation of how many you will use in a day, so I advise cutting the price by 40%, this would come down to 28,800 gold, round up to 30k and call it a day.

- Tabard of the Warlord

* Sash of the war champion for 4,000 gold increases the armor training and bravery class features by 4 levels but difference is you actually need to have fighter levels, in the case of the tabard it not only bypasses the fighter's class features it also bypasses the need to have proficiency in any armor by stacking it with similar abilities.

Mithral fullplate of comfort +5 could be combined with the tabard and suffer no penalties at all for less than 65,000 gold and have +14 armor bonus, it is prone to abuse with the right archetype combinations. At least add a clause that you need to be proficient with the armor you are wearing to gain those benefits.

That is all I have right now, at a quick glance I think I don't like the other two items much, though I am not a big fan of teleporting effects and DR 10/- seems too much to grant outside of a major class feature.

For the quiver, I had actually not noticed the relation between magical ammunition and the ranged weapon (the bonuses don't stack, i now realize) so i'm gonna be altering that a bit to just create infinite ammunition for bows and crossbows.

The tabard was originally designed to be used by a fighter, so I didn't write up any requirements for its use. Thanks for the suggestion about adding a clause about needing proficiency with the armor.

As for the bracers, well it might just be different DM styles, but I rarely fight more than three monsters within five minutes, so it probably shouldn't get up to DR 10/- unless there's a massive fight. I thought that was enough balance for its price, but if there are any suggestions to limit it a bit more, i'd be glad to hear them.

and finally the tarot deck. Well, that was just me designing an item i saw in a book. i can understand not liking items that allow teleportation, but plenty of them exist already. Figured one more wouldn't upset the scales too much. but if you think that it's too powerful, any suggestions for limiting it?


The tarot deck I just like more as a minor artifact, but I suppose the value would be close enough, over 200k is usually about where minor artifacts begin.

Still not so sure about the bracers, the bracers have no direct relation to strength and slaughter, I thematically would like it better if it was a big axe or other oversized weapon, maybe a breastplate. You are right, probably isn't overpowered much though.


The deck is a good communication device. Using it to teleport should torch the sending card.
The quiver, I like. Magic bows tend to not give a benefit to damage.
The bracers suck. 5 min to lose all benifits? Sell pile.
What would be cooler, are bracers that cause rage when they get blood, anybody's blood, on them. The blood would flow throughout the cubist pattern of grooves.

Grand Lodge

I liked the Tarot cards.

Fan of princes of Amber


3.5 Loyalist wrote:

Don't like the tabard, don't like the bracers. Far too OP.

Not a fan of special class abilities being handed out via magic items, especially when they are a balancing weakness, i.e. you are a heavy fighter, you move slower than a near naked peasant. This is the cost for wearing such heavy armour.

Sorry bro.

Until you hit 7th level, when armor training eliminates such problems.

Paladins get spell options, and the other martials generally don't wear heavy armor.


Gorbacz wrote:
3.5 Loyalist wrote:

Don't like the tabard, don't like the bracers. Far too OP.

Not a fan of special class abilities being handed out via magic items, especially when they are a balancing weakness, i.e. you are a heavy fighter, you move slower than a near naked peasant. This is the cost for wearing such heavy armour.

Sorry bro.

I see you never heard of mithral, bro.

Mithral heavy armor still slows you down as it only goes down one weight category to medium.

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