Love/Hate - Magic Items!

[Tony Vargas]

Ioun Stones. Ability score improvements didn't used to be handed out like chocolate at a Hershey's factory tour. Also? Always a big laugh when someone wrote Ion Stones. "What is this, SCIENCE FICTION?"

Why yes, actually, it is science fiction. D&D's Ioun stones, like its contrary magic system, are lifted directly from Jack Vance's science-fiction masterwork, The Dying Earth, in which 'IOUN stones' were retrieved from the remnants of neutron stars.

Magic items in D&D are very much a love/hate thing, for me, too, though not in the sense of loving some and hating others, so much as feeling a fair bit of both for their role in the system.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

I like utilitarian items that are abuse-able.
Decanter of endless water
Ever-Smoking Pipe
Bag of Holding
Portable Hole
Both a Bag of Holding AND a Portable Hole for building booby traps


I dislike items that have a random component AND a potential to hurt the user, or, more importantly, to hurt me when my idiot team mate uses it.
Wand of Wonder
Deck of Many Horrible Deaths Things
Magic Items infused with Wild Magic




FAVORITE homebrewed item from 3.x - Sword of Reincarnation. Any humanoid killed with the sword is subject to the druid spell reincarnation.

 

[Wiseblood]

Love items that do or allow doing. (Neclace of adaptation)

Hate items that enhance or grant extra uses. (+ nything, or wands and such)

There is some overlap though.

 

[Nevvur]

I also love the Immovable Rod.

I hate a pair of Immovable Rods.

 

[aco175]

I also like weapons that return when thrown. Thieves with daggers and fighters with hammers or axes. Usually the fighter had one as a back up weapon or to throw when charging into melee. I like the way 3e had weapons that you could add power to so if you wanted a +1, fire breath, returning, vorpal dagger- you could. It sometimes got out of hand though. One of my parties could not wait to finish an adventure since the reward was the royal mage would enchant their armor or weapon another level.

 

[Oofta]

Hate:
Boots of Levitate. Look ma, I'm a balloon! What,can I go anywhere but up or down? No, of course not. No that's not underwhelming for a rare Item.
Folding Boat. Yippee. A boat. That's only critical to the adventure because I have it otherwise there would be a boat we could rent/borrow/steal.
Girdle of Giant Strength. Is little Timmy bench pressing the cow again? I told Bob to lock up his girdle, Timmy is only 2 years old and gets into everything!
Hammer of Thunderbolts. How often can you hit an enemy when there isn't some ally within 30 feet of them?

Love and Hate
Cloak of Billowing. Just one of the new pointless items from XGTE. Had to put this new category in just for these. For some character's it's going to be fun. Others? Something dumb like this is going to be character defining. I can hear it now "Can I get advantage on my intimidate/diplomacy? My cloak is billowing." "Can I get advantage on my jump check? My cloak is billowing." "Can I get advantage on my Dexterity Save? My cloak..." and so on.

Love:
Winged. I have a confession. Any time I can buy items, these has been on my list unless my character can fly for some other reason. Being able to fly when you really need it (get over the gorge, combat, etc) is awesome.
Holy Avengers. Can't get enough of them. Actually I need two for my next character, darn dual-rapier wielding gnomish paladin build.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I like things that can be used, and which provide a useful effect when used. Longsword +1 is great. Mantle of Spell Resistance is fine. Boots of Levitation are great before level 5, but kind of lame after that. Wand of Fireballs is nice.

I dislike things that are too situational, too limited in scope, or too limited in usage to ever be used. Brooch of Shielding is too situational. Boots of Striding and Springing are too weak. Circlet of Blasting is too weak. Any consumable item is too limited to ever use.

I really like rings of resistance. A ring of fire resistance is exactly the scope of how powerful a magic item should be, giving you a passive defense that would otherwise be hard to attain, which will continue to be useful indefinitely. A ring of psychic resistance is the perfect gift for any totem barbarian, who would otherwise have a glaring weakness.

 

[Eltab]

Scroll of Identify + Wizard ( + enough downtime to keep copying more scrolls) = awesome.

My group found an Armor of Vulnerability (Stabbing). We also figured out a use for it: we are going to gift it to some powerful enemy we want to bribe but who we expect to betray us later. Lucky us, our fighter and barbarian carry battleaxe and greatsword. No rapier (piercing) or warhammer (bludgeoning). The rest of the group will pepper him with arrows (which will mostly bounce off and improve his arrogant overconfidence) then he gets a SURPRISE from the melee combatants.

My personal playstyle likes items that let me interact with the environment more than the pure mechanical "you get a +1 to-hit" -type items.

 

[Lanefan]

I like utilitarian items that are abuse-able.
Decanter of endless water
Ever-Smoking Pipe
Bag of Holding
Portable Hole
Both a Bag of Holding AND a Portable Hole for building booby traps


I dislike items that have a random component AND a potential to hurt the user, or, more importantly, to hurt me when my idiot team mate uses it.
Wand of Wonder
Deck of Many Horrible Deaths Things
Magic Items infused with Wild Magic

You'd hate my game - these things come up all the time, partly because I see the high reward of magic needing to be balanced by a high risk in using it.

(my party just found a wand of wonder which has one extra random element: on each use it's 50-50 which end of the wand is the "business end"... )

And Decks of Many Things in my game have thus far been anything but Decks of Horrible Death; instead trending hard toward being Decks of Infinite Keep Generation...

FAVORITE homebrewed item from 3.x - Sword of Reincarnation. Any humanoid killed with the sword is subject to the druid spell reincarnation.

As in, the victim auto-reincarnates? Love it!

 

[ccs]

3 of my favorites, that almost always appear in games I run:
The Apparatus of Kwalish (sp?)
The Horn of Vallhalla
Longsword +2 - Nope, I don't know why. It's not a power thing. Or a special rules thing. It wasn't the 1st magic item I ever found/read. But for as long as I've played these games a +2 Longsword has sparked in my imagination more so than all other weapons. Not the +1s, not +3s. Or +4, +5, or +x/+y vs. Not specific magic swords - your Holy Avengers, Sun Swords, etc. Just the plain old LS+2.

3 of my least favorites:
+x Armor
Consumables - that mimic spells.
Most items bought/created by the PCs.