D&D General Ioun Stone house rule - attunement

[touc]

Looking for pitfalls or considerations when considering changing the attunement rules to Ioun stones as I'm running a slew of adventures that hand out Ioun stones (Six Faces of Evil, Candlekeep adventures). In previous campaigns, my gamers largely ignore them as they individually don't tend to be worth the attunement slot, especially now that we're at Tier 3 levels. The house rule is largely derived from "Congenio's Ritual" from an old post.

Congenio’s Ritual (must be performed at a Temple to a god of magic/fate)

Over the course of a tenday, you perform a ritual at the Temple with at least a 5th level cleric of the faith for 4 hours per day (light activity) to permanently (and irrevocably) devote one of your attunement slots to Ioun. Then, you immediately, and only once, attempt consecutive DC20 Intelligence (Arcana) checks, each taking 8 hours of uninterrupted rituals at the temple. Success allows +1 Ioun stones to be used in that Ioun attunement slot. Any failure or interruption, or taking any break (light activity such as eating and drinking does not interrupt, but a Short or Long Rest would) ends the rituals, which cannot be retried.

Ioun stones slotted this way cannot stack effects. I'd go this route for the cool factor. This would bring the Xanathar's Guide sleep deprivation rules into play. I would also rule that only spells that cumulatively last 8+ hours can aid the character, so if someone were able to cast Enhance Ability repeatedly for 8 hours, this would help as well as the powerful Foresight spell. I have a house rule on Guidance that keeps it from being useful here (a creature can only benefit from one caster's Guidance 1/short rest) unless you had an army of casters.

Alternately, I'm considering rarity. Rare stones (4) require no slot, Very Rare (7) are 3 to a slot, and Legendary require 1 slot as usual. I'd go this route for the easy-to-implement factor.

 

[Coroc]

If the adventure hands out ioun stones like candy, then this makes sense eventually. Important is that the effects do not stack, but you took care of that issue. I see no big problem here.

 

[Silam]

An idea I heard from someone forever ago (probably from 2e, but I don’t recall) was that some powerful king or whatnot had a crown with a bunch of ioun stones encrusted into it. The crown floated slightly above the wearer’s head and spun on top of it.

Maybe something like this could be a way to combine multiple stones into a single item and therefore single slot. The DMG does say I believe that combining existing magic items is a simple and effective way to create new ones. This is effectively the same outcome as the house rules you proposed (except that the ritual is irrevocable and permanent, whereas this crown thing is just another item you can don and doff).

Another idea would be to look into Arcana Unleashed’s evolvable magic items… perhaps the item can even be something with empty slots that the characters can fill in as they find the stones, and this makes the item grow to the next level of rarity / power.

If a crown doesn’t fit, it could be something else… bracers that spin around the wrist, perhaps? Maybe even a boomerang? It’s got to be something that could spin

 

[Kobold Stew]

An Ioun stone is a significant buff to a character -- the equivalent of a feat when optimally assigned. If you're giving them out like gum, then making players have to choose which ones to activate becomes a potentially interesting event in game.

There are two in-game problems with the ritual I see:
1. the obstacles you have written in are just flavour: are you actually going to have mosters appear during the 8-hour uninterrupted rituals? If not -- if it's not going to cost anything, then it's not really an interesting choice: players will just go for the max they can. Consider the implications instead of allowing players to roll a second and subsequent time (another 8 hours), but any failure invalidates the whole ritual. How far do you push it, then, becomes a real choice players have to make.

2. Secondly, the stacking of effects is going to be gamed: it's even clear that's what you want to happen, with the mention of 8-hour Enhance Ability.

It is clear you want them to have the bonus. Just give it to them; it's your table. "Players may choose to dedicate one attunement slot to Ioun stones. A player who chooses this rolls 1d4 and that is the number of Ioun stones they can use in that slot at a given time; this can only be done once." Add a ritual if you wish.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Don't make it random (unless you also roll random hit points at level up). Just pick whether you want the dedicated Ioun attunement slot to allow 2 or 3 attunements and make that the rule. Then make the ritual cost at least as much as a resurrection, and probably more like a true resurrection.

 

[Milieu]

The whole thing that made Ioun stones cool in the first place was that they didn't take up a normal magic item slot. In previous editions, you could equip 1 magic item each for your head, eyes (goggles/glasses), neck (amulet, necklace, etc.), torso (shirt), body (robe/armor, over the shirt), waist (belt), shoulders(cloak/cape/mantle, over the robe/armor), arms/wrists (bracers/bracelets), hands(gloves/gauntlets), fingers (one ring on each hand), and feet (boots). Ioun stones not only didn't take up one of those slots, but you could use multiple stones at the same time, 1 of each type.

So having them take up a whole attunement slot in 5e is a little...I can see why they want to be careful about balance, but it's at the expense of what makes the stones special. I would keep it simple and just say you can attune to N stones for 1 attunement slot, but no stacking multiples of the same type.

An idea I heard from someone forever ago (probably from 2e, but I don’t recall) was that some powerful king or whatnot had a crown with a bunch of ioun stones encrusted into it. The crown floated slightly above the wearer’s head and spun on top of it.

I think you mean the Wyvern Crown of Cormyr.

 

[Silam]

I think you mean the Wyvern Crown of Cormyr.

Interesting. I had never heard of that one. I was under the impression that the person who told me about this ioun stones encrusted crown was referring to some homebrew thing, but it might have been this.

 

[touc]

I think you mean the Wyvern Crown of Cormyr.

Ah, that's an interesting idea. A quest for something epic, albeit maybe with a drawback?

There are two in-game problems with the ritual I see:...

Yeah, I put the idea out to my players (they've got 2 stones currently and have a quest lined up where a rival pirate captain came into a slew of stones, handed out 1 to each of his closest comrades they heard). Originally they were just going to fence the stones but if there's a way to make them desirable, they're all for that. However, as we have no INT-based character in the group, the ritual wasn't appealing at all. Big risk to permanently lose a slot to 1 stone.

It is clear you want them to have the bonus. Just give it to them; it's your table...

True, I do! I just want it to be more than "I give it to you." The Wyvern Crown angle might be my best bet: something that can hold multiple stones (maybe not 10...) along the lines of "X" rares, "Y" very rares, and maybe 1 legendary (max).

We're at 12th level (from 1st in a year long campaign) and I've promised my group we're going to 19-20th, so epic stuff doesn't worry me too much going forward. They're going to need it.

 

[cbwjm]

If you do want to still have limits, then I'd follow your easy alternative, maybe mix and match so that an attunement slot can hold 3 points then rare (1 point), very rare (2 points), legendary (3 points) which allows 3 rare, a rare and very rare, or a legendary.

 

[MarkB]

Maybe keep the attunement requirement, but add an easement rule that switching attunement from one Ioun stone to another one requires only one minute of concentration. That way, they can mix'n'match as most appropriate rather than using more at once.