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Message: <blockquote data-quote="toucanbuzz" data-source="post: 8183887" data-attributes="member: 19270">Mystery features that are uncovered over time with use or questing.Not every item should have a mystery, but you need to scatter enough items that do to make it be known: this is something special. One of my favorite 3rd edition books is Weapons of Legacy. These weapons started out with a mundane power, but if you uncovered the backstory to the weapon and completed rituals to unlock its power, they became potent artifacts whose powers scaled with your levels. If you keep the mystery going (I wonder what's going to happen if I do this ritual or I gain this level), you keep the item epic and interesting. Visuals. If you hand the PC a visual with blanks to fill in, there's something special about this item. I've attached my Curse of Strahd items with the DM item sheet (I'd remove powers and replace with blanks for players to discover as they go). In my DM notes (not attached) would be the rituals and stories. The Sunsword from that setting would be a type of Legacy item as above for 5E rules.A Unique Name. The Shield of the Encroaching Forest (Forest Kingdom Campaign by Nelson, 5E version) sounds a lot cooler than a Shield +1. That's because it is. Not only does it look like a shield of vines, you can command it to animate the vines to ward off missiles and to transform your group into actual trees for a bit. Each power you add makes the item rarer (this one is Very Rare), but simply change this to tree transformation and you've still got a pretty unique item. Utility. Items that allow you do non-combat things that are beyond any of your character powers can be pretty cool. Players will be looking for a chance to use those powers, like the above Tree transformation. This can lead to some interesting, unique play that never would have come up if you hadn't "spruced" up your magic items.</blockquote>

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