Magic Item Rarity

[Shrapp Hamnier]

What exactly makes a magic item an artifact? Is it how powerful the item is? Or is it merely that ther is only one of it? The axe found in MoP that gives bonuses against wood, is that a rare magic item based on its abilities? Or is it technically an artifact because it is the only of its kind? Obviously it could be ruled that it could be replicated or there are others out there somewhere, but as it is not included in any list of magic items.

If a wizard made a bow that could turn into a walking staff and back, despite it being easy enough to make a new one, he doesnt and no one else has as of yet does that make it an artifact due to it being the only of its kind, or a common or uncommon item because of the power of its enchantment?

 

[Bupp]

It has more to do with the relative power of the item than actual rarity. Note that the magic items in the DMG to swing the power range of each power wildly.

In my games, I like magic to be a little more special. Therefore each magic item is indeed the only one of it's kind.

You don't find a pair of wings of flying, you find The Wings of Flying.

 

[Shrapp Hamnier]

Ok, that's what I figured. So a followup question now. Is there a simple way to decide the rarity of an item? Some effects are simple enough to determine, but the DMG just says to compare to other magic items if I recall correctly.

For example, this one I cannot decide between rare or very rare.

Swift Shot (any bow or crossbow)

Can be any type of bow or crossbow. Up to one time per round, when you use this weapon to make the attack action, you may make additional attack (ie. if you can normally make 2 attacks, this allows you to make 3). All other rules and limitations still apply, such as a hand crossbow needing a free hand to reload.

 

[Satyrn]

For example, this one I cannot decide between rare or very rare.

My suggestion is to just pick one, it really doesn't matter which

Well, it will affect how much it costs if you use the pricing by rarity guidelines as a hard rule - in which case I'd suggest tossing it into the Very Rare category and price it near the minimum for that category.


I just don't bother sweating details like this. Close enough is good enough.

 

[cbwjm]

Could there potentially be as many of these items floating around as +1 weapons? If not then increase the rarity. That weapon that deals extra damage to wood might be quite rare due to their not really being much of a call for them or perhaps there was a war in the ancient past against a group of treants that has lead to them being only uncommon. Granted, looking at rarity like this kind of borks the item creation guidelines since a relatively simple item could be quite expensive to make but I think that kind of fits the way rarity works in the DMG. You could also look at the relative power to adjust the final rarity level. If you've decided that an item is rare but it has a relatively low impact on power level then you can perhaps reduce it to uncommon instead.

 

[Krachek]

An artifact is an item with significant lore and important enough to make a part of a campaign around it.
It can be considered as an independant npc with its own agenda.
It often has one key ability that cannot be substituted by spell or other mean.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I just don't bother sweating details like this. Close enough is good enough.

Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Vorpal Swords.

 

[Li Shenron]

In older editions (at least 3e) an artifact was distinguished by the fact that it could not be crafted using standard rules. Everything else was craftable, but the lack of crafting rules for artifacts implied that only the DM would be in charge of the if and the how to do that.

Uniqueness is not strictly necessary, although it depends what is meant... there have been artifacts in D&D for which multiple copies existed, but it could be said that each one is unique, or that there are only exactly so many copies of it.

Non-standard powers is also not an exclusive feature of artifacts. A lot of non-artifact magic items have powers that cannot be replicated in other ways, and an artifact could actually even only have pretty standard powers, just a lot of very strong ones.

I think in fact that in 5e "artifact" is merely a title meant to inspire awe, but the rules are not that important. The only rule-explicit feature of artifacts that comes to my mind is that they are indestructible.

 

[5ekyu]

Honestly, when i create a homebrew item - which is often, i generally start with the notion of its rarity. Am i designing a "common" item to fill a niche that needs to be there? Am i building a unique or extremely unusual item that fills a needed story plot point? then i ook at it and build to that expectation...based on :HOW MANY SHOULD THE PCS EVER GET?"

Artifact - they likely never get one except one for brief time as a major plot element.
Priceless - likely one in the party total to keep, maybe one per character at top half of tier 4.
Rare - likely to have one per character by end of tier-3
etc...

Now, truthfully, it also depends on the scale of the game. Except for "plot items" i tend to want "gear" to be a tier behind the characters if they are all going to have even one.

progressing thru tier-2, any item i expect them to get one each - that would emulate at most tier-1 powers.
Thru tier-3 the characters can get a hand on say one item each that emulate tier-2 power levels.
etc.

my general idea is the gear should never "match" the current character power level so that it is always their onw spells and abilities that are the biggest baddest elements they have.

So in short, i start with "how many of there are likely to be gotten into player character hands and when" and work from there.

build homebrew stuff to *your* campaign's specs. Do not try and match the DMG generic specs.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*