D&D 5E Created magical items

[Glomb175]

Greetings,

I'm thinking of making some magical items for my PCs to find/buy. Nothing too complex, just something that had advantage against certain enemies or something, But I am interested in giving it a curse, maybe bad stuff keeps happening while they carry it, or an enemy stalks them. Anyone got any stories of items they've made? Or ideas?

 

[Roadkill101]

Well I gave out a +1 war hammer a minor curse such that those who view it desire to posses said hammer. Also a +1 short sword granting the wielder advantage to saves vs. poison. Mostly to just add some flavor to what would otherwise be a boring bog standard magical weapon.
One of the things I like about 5e are the tables to help add effects (for boon or bane) to make magical items feel more unique, especially (for me) when the effects are mostly minor in nature.

 

[Glomb175]

is that in the players handbook? I've never heard of that before. Or do you have a link I could look at?

 

[Ath'kethin]

is that in the players handbook? I've never heard of that before. Or do you have a link I could look at?

Assuming I understand your question, I believe he is referring to the tables on p. 142-143 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

 

[Glomb175]

Ah found it. Thank you

Sent from my HTC 10 using EN World mobile app

 

[ccs]

If your making weapons that are specifically vs certain creatures, you could make the curse that the wielder is drawn to those creatures.
Each day the weapon doesn't taste the blood of its assigned creature have the wielder make a save or have to head towards the nearest such creature. Each day the weapon feeds the save becomes more difficult.

 

[Kalshane]

As others have said, you can use the tables in the DMG as inspiration.

Last game I ran the players found a +1 adamantine warhammer. Looking at the tables, I decided it was a dwarf-forged weapon designed to fight golems. It gave off a low ringing hum (like a tuning fork) whenever a construct was within 60' and made a loud, ringing gong whenever it struck a golem. Not a stealthy weapon at all, but the player of the barbarian loved it, even though mechanically it wasn't really any better than a normal +1 hammer.

Game I'm running now (RoTRL converted from PF to 5E) the BBEG of the first chapter carries a +1 bastard sword. In converting it to 5E I changed it to a vicious longsword that vibrates eagerly when drawn and sends searing pain into the hands of the wielder whenever its special ability is triggered. It also allows the wielder to speak and read Abyssal when touching the hilt.

I also gave a bugbear ranger they encounter in the adventure a custom item called a Bramble Bow. It's made of magically hardened wood and covered with thorns, allowing to be used in melee as a magic morningstar. It also has 3 charges which can be used to cast Hail of Thorns (with each charge expended counting as a slot level) as a bonus action. It regains 1d3 charges every day at dawn.

 

[Eltab]

- Your cursed sword acts like a magnet for petty toughs; if you go into town, it seems like every guy you meet wants to fight.
OTOH, the next time you enter that town, the police thank you for dealing with all the riff-raff and giving them a vacation. In this town, donuts and coffee are free for you if any cops are in the donut shop!

- Reverse Sword of Dragon-Slaying: sword was forged by dragons and does less damage to them than normal (say, uses a die two sizes smaller).

- Boomerang of Returning. (Except as below, works like a thrown dagger.) Throw this weapon at a target. If you miss, roll for every potential target along the straight-line flight path (any creature in a square the boomerang passes through). If it does not hit anything else, the Boomerang auto-hits YOU instead of returning to your hand.

- Arrow of Unerring Aim. In exchange for never missing the target, this Arrow does minimal damage (a similar trade-off to Magic Missile). To calculate damage, assume all dice rolled came up '1'.

- Greatsword of Wet Noodles. If you do not anoint this sword with some substance (chicken noodle soup?) every day upon awakening, when you draw it for combat it wilts and gets flabby instead of being long and sharp. If you attack anyway with it in this condition, it uses d2s* for damage.
*Not a typo!