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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6281349" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Compendiumpart 7/10Rods & Staves: Briar Staves still hold up in terms of being distinct, and having plot hooks for owning them as well as powers. Your druid should be very happy to have one, as it means you have an excuse for extended holidays to recharge between adventures.  Deluge Rods also seem cool, thanks to their drawbacks that make their powers a little less of a no-brainer. Not a bad pick at all. Rods of Deadly Function are sufficiently versatile and quirky to fit in with the old classics. Have fun figuring out what all the buttons do. Rods of Revealing only have one trick, but it's a good one, eliminating invisibility and illusions just like that. Another reason why even specialists should have a few spells of other types, to make sure they can't get completely no-sold. Rods of the Wild are another interesting multipurpose one, albeit a little lower-key. Having totem animals to play with is a good way to make fighty classes a little more flexible. Staves of Earthen Might are just another of your themed selection of spells with limited charges. Ho hum. Easy enough to whip up a few more of those. Miscellaneous items: Acorns of Acuity still don't impress me that much. Using up a hand to gain their benefits, and being easily lost makes them much less useful than a ring with the same power level. Alchemist's Glass doesn't seem too impressive, but perfect miscibility and easy separation has all sorts of interesting uses if you're a chemistry student. Maybe that's why the philosopher's stone is impossible to create normally. Amulets of Astral Projection seem s good way to get players going extraplanar without so much risk, or breaking the game with high level spellcasters. After all, if you get killed, you just snap back. Why should demons have than benefit and not you? Amulets of Deception are on that definitely deserve to be in a best of. Tricking scrying attempts is more useful than simply blocking them, as it gives you more control and doesn't immediately alert the people looking at you. Autonomous Harps are still amusing looking, but fairly boring in mechanical effect. Make them intelligent and they'll be another irritating comedy sidekick to put in your game. Please don't say the wizard has fallen in the pit trap again. Bands of the Iron Monkey let you catch arrows like a trained Monk, which doesn't seem hugely thematic unless you're talking about an oriental campaign. But then, it's not as if those are rare either. Bardic Cups are actually fairly complex to understand, but simple to use. You just have to know what all the indicators mean. It certainly helps make magic feel more mysterious when they pull stuff like this. Belts of the Camel are another handy but boring one. We still have to worry about food and the weather, no matter high level we get, but there are many ways of mitigating that. Boots of the Woodland still don't impress me. I don't have much time for weaker, more specific versions of already existing items. Caine's Flagons of Shadows on the other hand, still seems like a pretty neat way of achieving it's effect, even if it's not a hugely impressive effect in the overall scheme of things. But then, style can be more important than substance, especially for tricksters. A Cape of the General is for all those who prefer to hang back and play tactician, with extra benefits for elves. Well, the smug gits do like to incentivise what they would do anyway. Chalices of True Seeing are another one where they put more effort into the description than the power. But then, everyone knows what true seeing is for. You have to really work at keeping no-selling interesting. Chromatic Flutes are another thematically cool but not too powerful one, mainly because playing an instrument to produce illusions makes it really likely people will try to disbelieve them or shoot directly at you to disrupt the effect. It's all about plausible deniability. Circlets of Convocation still seem like an awesome idea with obvious pitfalls, and therefore very tempting to use in game. They definitely deserve to be here. Clay of Sculpting is exceedingly flexible stuff, and so an invitation for PC's to have fun solving their problems with it. As a reusable item, this could wind up one of your real mainstays whenever you have a puzzle to deal with. Cloaks of the Desert still seem exceedingly situational in use. Meh. Coffin Clamps of Aziell Moonchild are even more specific, but at least they're really good at what they do, and have a cool backstory. No vampire hunter should be without them. Deathglance Lockets are another one from the scrying screwage article. I'm completely unsurprised they remembered this one fondly and decided to recycle the whole lot of it. Dragon's Goblets are one I don't remember from first time around, but I'm glad they did reprint them, as they have a selection of abilities and drawback that connect together quite well. Dwarven Rune Steins are also cool, and as they have lots of powers, but you only get to use each power once, they'll really force you to look for clever solutions to your trials. (and hope they're the one the DM intended. ) Very fairytale. Extradimensional Anchors are another one trick antiscrewage effect that will still likely be popular with wizards everywhere. Just make sure you leave a place in your tower so you can get in and out, for you never know when not being able to teleport away from danger will be a problem instead. The Eye of Horus still has powers that are interestingly opposed to it's goals. I guess sometimes you've got to be sneaky to catch a thief, as brute force doesn't work if you don't know where to aim it. Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows add your cha bonus to damage. The kind of substitution effect you can reskin in a million different ways. Girdles of Hate double your favored enemy bonuses, which is only useful if you have one anyway. Pretty sure there's a prestige class from the magazine which synergizes perfectly with that. Goggles of Scrutiny are just another minor perception bonus. Do we really need so many of them repeated? Golden Beholders, on the other hand, still feel pretty unique. Both weapons and spying devices, they definitely reward smart thinking. If only they were a little less bulky. Holy Bone Shackles are still unusable unless you can resist the urge to make batman references every time they show up. It's almost as bad as monty python for breaking the mood. Horns of the Planes are still the perfect way to plop players into whatever adventure you want to do at the time without worrying about the hassles of travel. If you want a Sliders campaign in D&D, you could do a lot worse. Black & White Elipsoid ioun stones are another one from the antiscrewage article. Assurance that your mind isn't being read is worth a hell of a lot, especially when playing poker. Masks of the Reaper may make you scary, but without other powers to back that up, you'll be nothing more than a scooby doo villain. One brave puppy will be your undoing. Mirrors of Captured Images are still handy, but dwarfed by modern media in terms of storage capacity. That's still a danger with magic items these days. You never know when technology will seem more magical than magic. The Obi of the White Lotus Master makes your monk moderately more badass, but it's another one that won't help unless there's decent raw material to work with in the first place. Search for the hero inside yourself. Quivers of Plenty are one of those basic but effective logistics removers. Eventually, you'll save more money by buying one of these than using regular arrows, so go for it. Requiem Jars are very specialist indeed, and more for use by enemies than PC's. Not one I would have reused. Robes of the Burning Serpent are even more exclusively for antagonists. Still, they have style, and evil masterminds love that. But remember, turning into a giant snake never helps. Seriously, read the evil overlord's handbook please. The Rose of Kings isn't that great for adventurers, but a perfect one for ensuring honest politicians. Which is probably why it keeps on getting lost or stolen, so heroes have to go and rescue it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Sand of Set might be made by his clerics, but they're not exclusive like the robes. Anyone can sprinkle it to summon some serpent servants. So step right up folks. Scorpion Bracers give you reasonable poison resistance. Pass them on once you've become transhuman and can completely ignore that kind of stuff anyway. Scout Goggles are one I remember, having great utility for a party, but also more than a few risks. The kind of thing that keeps adventurers playing it smart, instead of getting soft because the magic sorts out all the everyday details. A Shell of Amplification is still better than modern microphone systems, since it doesn't require bulky speakers, but you never know what the future will bring. This might still be superseded by reality. Silver Collars of Adentrius are another vampire specific one that's incredibly handy as far as it goes, but how often will that be. Well, with so many horror themed issues to choose from, it's not surprising vampires wind up a bit overdone. Snake Charmers are another one I'm surprised to see again, given how utterly banal I found them. Tastes obviously do vary in this case. Spider Masks are still pretty decent, if nasty magical items, especially if you want to be mysterious and intimidating. Careful when looting the bodies of your enemies. Even if you can use their evil magics, do you want too? Spy Glasses are your own portable window, which is always handy. Question is, are they two way or not, as that makes a big difference in how easy you are to catch out. Sylvan Cloaks are still very much overdone. We already have elven clothes right from the corebook. We don't need several more variants on the idea. Thespian's Masks are another one trick pony I'm rather bored to see repeated. A hat of disguise does all this and more and is fully core. Shoo, you amateurs. Tiaras of Bast are another pretty limited one. But then, given the popularity of cats, they'll still be more useful than one that lets you communicate with all reptiles, for example. Vampiric Goblets may seem cursed at first, but they're actually quite useful as a hit point storage system. That contrasts amusingly with all the items that seem cool at first, but are actually a real pain in the ass, especially once you realise the problem and want to get rid of them. Ventriloquist's Mouthpieces are still a one-trick pony, albeit a handy one. Meh. Vestments of Judgement still feel like they're designed to push you into hard choices, what with only working once a month, and people dying a lot more frequently than that. Oh well, just have to make more of them, then you can share the load of responsibility instead of carrying it all yourself and get more done. War Mugs of the Ogre Magi on the other hand, are just handy everywhere, all the time, and amusing on top of that. They even make a perfect replacement for a judges gavel. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Order in the house, or I'll beat some sense into you! Z'hentra's Tools aren't useful at all to most PC's, since they're pretty much only good for torture. I'm not normally one for destruction of magic items, but these'll just push your Pc's into being Hard Men making Hard Choices if they keep them, which is an incredibly slippery slope.</blockquote>

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