D&D 5E Help with tier 1 magic items

[Vael]

I tend to kick it to the players, what would they like? Not that I always give them what they want, but I'll definitely mine that area for suggestions.

Still, some generic Uncommon items that are always worth getting:

• Bag of Holding
• Pearl of Power (Artificer and Sorcerer can use it)
• Circlet of Blasting (can be fun additional firepower)
• Goggles of Night, if any PC lacks darkvision
• Any of the uncommon consumables, like Potions of Resistance, etc.

 

[TwoSix]

Where do people stand on protective items? The rings and cloaks of protection, Magic armour etc. these are good for everyone.

Those are generally the last things I give out, and I usually keep them at least a tier behind. My 13th level party has a lot of crazy items, but virtually no magic armor and I think the only really good defensive item is a cloak of protection +1. Defense is really a good place to throw consumables at.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So to summarize

- One ‘major’ item per character maybe per tier - that directly ties to their abilities.

- lots of meaty consumables

- Utility items like immovable rods, bags of holding.

Where do people stand on protective items? The rings and cloaks of protection, Magic armour etc. these are good for everyone.

I usually make AC-boosting items signature items when I offer them - so if the paladin wants magic armor it's basically instead of a magic sword. Then, at higher levels, give the armor other nifty effects like resistances.

 

[Mort]

I tend to kick it to the players, what would they like? Not that I always give them what they want, but I'll definitely mine that area for suggestions.

Still, some generic Uncommon items that are always worth getting:

• Bag of Holding
• Pearl of Power (Artificer and Sorcerer can use it)
• Circlet of Blasting (can be fun additional firepower)
• Goggles of Night, if any PC lacks darkvision
• Any of the uncommon consumables, like Potions of Resistance, etc.

I like all of these except the bag of holding. I've found that giving one out tends to turn PCs into hoarders! Plus they no longer have to worry much about how much stuff they actually have on them, making them much more mobile than they otherwise would be.

 

[TheSword]

These are some awesome suggestions!

It doesn’t feel right to just give out wands of magic missiles, rings of protection +1 etc, sword +1, and armour +1.

I’m converting a Pathfinder AP and these seem to be most of the items that are written in the text. Currently aiming for a 1/3 of magical items and keep consumables about the same.

 

[Mort]

These are some awesome suggestions!

It doesn’t feel right to give out wands of magic missiles, rings of protection +1 etc, sword +1, and armour +1.

One thing I gave out at low level (my group also didn't have a wizard at the time) - was the very well stocked spellbook set of an enemy wizard. They had to figure out an alternative use for it - ended up using it to really get in good with the local mages guild.

The funny thing was when a new player joined and created a wizard. In my "what came before" writeup I made sure to go into detail of the spells that were in that set. He really gave the other players the stink eye (but it was in good fun)!

 

[FrogReaver]

I prefer to use custom magic items. Things like:

A wand of summon chicken.
a bag of returning ball bearings.
An exploding clockwork toy.
A pair of self walking boots.
a set of position swapping Rings.
A self writing book of knowledge.
Spider gloves
Armor of the extra hand

 

[TwoSix]

These are some awesome suggestions!

It doesn’t feel right to just give out wands of magic missiles, rings of protection +1 etc, sword +1, and armour +1.

I’m converting a Pathfinder AP and these seem to be most of the items that are written in the text. Currently aiming for a 1/3 of magical items and keep consumables about the same.

Yea, I would absolutely only give out +1 items as a last resort if you can't think of something more fun. A life-stealing sword that counts as magic and does +1d4 necrotic damage and grants the wielder the necrotic damage dealt as temp HP is way more interesting than a +1 sword.

 

[J-H]

See post 2 on this thread:

D&D 5E - Analysis of "Typical" Magic Item Distribution

Over the weekend, I entered the magic item tables and the treasure hoard generation tables in the DMG into a spreadsheet to determine what is the expected distribution of magic items that would be generated by what the DMG refers to as a "typical" campaign in the last paragraph of page 133, i.e...

www.enworld.org

I rerolled stuff that I didn't like the random for... and sometimes I sub in monster/boss gear, custom items, etc.

There are also some good extra magical item docs on the DM's Guild (including one by me!).

 

[commandercrud]

If you're unsure an item is too powerful, make sure it has a limited number of charges and don't give it that dumb recharges at dawn crap. Then when it's all used up, the problem goes away.