D&D 5E Dawn Take You All

[NotActuallyTim]

It has to be some pretty powerful magic item to justify using up two teleports (one to go to where it is dawn, one to come back) to recharge an item. And it only really works if you are familiar with a teleportation circle or location where it happens t be dawn at the time you want to recharge your items.

Helm of Teleportation. 3 Charges, each can be used to cast teleport, recharges 1d3 each dawn.

Talk about a travel hazard.

 

[Wuzzard]

I'd rule that every 24 hours the item recharges. This could mean that a wand gains some charges even though the PCs have been on the run for over a day, are exhausted, and have been unable to fit in a long rest. Much easier than saying that it recharges with the dawn although that is a fanciful means of recharging. If I recall correctly, there have been items in D&Ds past that recharge with the light of the moon or for each hour in a thunderstorm. It does make for a better story than just recharging every 24 hours.

What if your world has 26 hour days?!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Then I'd have it recharge every 26 hours. Basically, whatever a day is, that's when it recharges.

Thinking about it, I think recharging at dawn is just an easy way to recharge the items rather than having to track each hour. If you use it at 9pm, you might expect it to recharge at 9pm the next day with my system, but with the current system it resets at dawn the next day.

I'm sorely tempted to set my next campaign in a world with a vastly different length of day - either 1 hour, or 1000 hours.

 

[devincutler]

Then I'd have it recharge every 26 hours. Basically, whatever a day is, that's when it recharges.

Thinking about it, I think recharging at dawn is just an easy way to recharge the items rather than having to track each hour. If you use it at 9pm, you might expect it to recharge at 9pm the next day with my system, but with the current system it resets at dawn the next day.

I might have to think on this some more. I don't want to have to have everyone tracking times when they recharge an item. It will lead to situations like "Hey guys, have we been going for about 24 hours? I think my wand is ready for a recharge.". It's easier I think to just have a single point in time to recharge items.

Recharge at dawn comes with all sorts of issues. I really would rather it be every 24 hours, and I may end up doing that in my game.

Not only do you have the esoteric but real issue of teleportation allowing you multiple dawns per day, you also get the following:

Any person worth half a copper will always assault an enemy right BEFORE dawn. Why? You get to use your recharge at dawn stuff right before the battle and then again during the battle. If you time it right, you can use all your 1/day magic items twice in the same minute or so!

Ruling that items recharge when the first rays of the sun hit them is inordinately unworkable. What happens underground or in buildings?

This is not an issue that is new to 5e. It happens in 3e as well. What I ended up ruling was that an item or spellcaster gets attuned to the dawn time he has recently spent the most time in. Temporarily teleporting to a new location won't change his dawn. On the other hand, living in a far off land will change the dawn after maybe several weeks.

 

[Dausuul]

I'd rule that the items recharge as soon as the sun peeks over the horizon.

So, what you want to do is find a place where there's a series of mountains running north-south, each higher than the next. Stand behind the lowest mountain and your items charge when the sun clears the mountain. Then race over to stand behind the next mountain, which is taller, so the sun hasn't cleared it yet. Recharge again. Repeat.

You need a really fast mount, though.

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, if you were somehow moving at a sustainable 1037.69 MPH (1670 kph) and assuming the planet you're on is comparable to earth, your magic items would never recharge.

Realistically, nobody is going to be able to move fast enough to accomplish that in D&D, so even with teleporting into another time zone where "dawn" had already passed, the worst you'd have to do is wait 24 hours for a recharge. Theoretically if you could teleport often enough you could produce the same results as traveling at over a thousand miles per hour. I don't know why you'd want to.

I suppose you could peg the item to where it was made. That'd be interesting. Also be a sort of neat way to hide a quest in that as people travel they find the recharge time of their weapons moving to sooner or later times. When you reach "true dawn", you know you've reached the appropriate longitude wherein your magical item was created. Then using other things you've learned about your magical item, such as materials, stylings or you'd know if you needed to go north or south. Would be a neat way to resolve the dying wish of an ancient warrior/dragon/mage who you got the magic item from. "I ask only one thing, return this to it's maker." *dies*.

 

[Henry]

Not saying it would NEVER be an issue, but I've played in three different 5e games this year, and it has not once been an issue, nor has there been a situation where it could have been a useful exploit. Teleportation itself becomes an issue long before some one figures out how to exploit "dawn" in a magic item.

 

[MechaPilot]

No reason a given setting couldn't introduce that rule. It would be pretty cool! (Though it would mean the extra headache of tracking time of day at the table.)

It definitely sounds cool, but it also brings up potential pacing issues, especially if you end up with a party that has clerics of both the sun and moon deities.

That said, you can always add in little requirements to flavor things. I recall suggesting that to my DM on one occasion.

The character was a druid who needed to set aside all manufactured things when she prayed for her spells. All manufactured things, including her clothes. This wasn't much of a problem for her since she was basically a nudist before encountering the party, but it did make for some amusing moments.

 

[Ristamar]

For attunement based magic items with recharging daily powers, a quick solution is to require a long rest in addition to the default recharge point. Simple and easy.

 

[Jester David]

There's no perfect system.

Recharging at dawn keeps things simple and has story reasons: new day, a transition, and the magic is restored. And if you adventured all day and slept all night (aka "the norm") your magic items are recharged when you are. It's a story and world based reason.

Recharging after a long rest takes the above but ties it to the PCs activities, so adventurers exploring during the night don't get a recharge early, and ones who rest in the middle of the day are ready to go. But then you have the oddity of your wand recharging because you took a nap. And it encourages a 5 minute workday since you can adventure and then rest a few times in a 24-hour span.

After 24-hours keeps things consistent. So you can't get a quick reset by using an item during the night or resting during the day. But the later you use an item the longer it takes to recharge - if you used it right before bed it's not usable the next adventuring day either. And it requires you to track each item separately and they all recharge at different times.