Making magic items meaningful

Ea, the Tiefling Warlock, Bob, the Human Barbarian, and Yesyra, the Wood Elf Ranger confront the sorcerer, Berrian, to try to convince him to see the madness inside of him. Or, if he’s too far gone down that path, kill him. Suddenly, the ground shakes as the elven sorcerer summons a huge elemental colossus, which rises hundreds of feet in the air. The heroes scatter, assessing the situation and planning how to confront the monster.

Ea, using glasses which grant her the ability to detect magic, a gift from a reclusive Lich whom the heroes had helped, sees that there were three weak spots on the creature that they needed to destroy to bring it down, one on its chest, one on its back, and one on the top of it’s head. She tells her companions and they leap into actions

Bob starts to scale up the Colossus’ leg, Yesyra fires potshots at the chest while dodging its swinging arm. Ea remembers that she picked up a Balloon Pack way back in Feathergale Keep. This was weeks of fighting to save the world ago, and on a completely different plane of existence. She activates the pack and flies around the Colossus, blasting magic at the weak points until it eventually collapses to the ground, defeated.

I told this story before Christmas and said that I had an idea for a blog post about how to overcome the problem of players carrying around with them bagsful of magic items that they never use, then surprising you with it when you’ve forgotten they even had it.

This is that blog post.

Magic items have always been part of DnD. DnD began as a dungeon crawling game, where the loot and magic items you earned from crawling through huge dungeons was the main motivation for the characters to do that in the first place. This still informs the design of DnD. A large section of the DMG is given over to magic items, and they feature in pretty much every supplementary book. Homebrewing magic items is actively encouraged and there is a large section of the community which spends a lot of time making very good quality items.

But I don’t always think magic items are a particularly good storytelling tool. Sometimes it can feel like the only reason a character is interesting and unique is that they have an interesting and unique magic item, but that has little to do with the character and more to do with what the DM decided to give the player. I much prefer Feats or other abilities innate to the character as a way of customising a character than just piling magic items onto a player.

But magic items are cool. They certainly have a place in the game, and can lead to some really great storytelling and gameplay moments. There is something about remembering you have a cool item in a clutch moment and saving the day (see above). So how do I think we can use them better? Firstly, make them something the players will use regularly. Secondly, give them a downside or a limitation. And thirdly, give them some personality or backstory. I want to frame this advice around an item that I made for my first campaign (the one which concluded with the story above).

The Item was a +1 silver longbow. Three times per day, the wielder could turn a hit from this bow into a critical hit, but they had to decide whether to use this ability before making the shot, so if they shot wide, the effect was lost.

This bow was owned by Thurl Merosska, the Leader of the Feathergale Knights, whom the characters were infiltrating. His daughter, Svara, in an act of rebellion against her controlling father, secretly stole the bow from his office and gave it to Yesyra, the wood elf ranger, with whom she had fallen in love. Svara asked Yesyra and her companions to kill her father and set her free from his tyranny.

Something the player will use regularly:

This is a +1 longbow, with some cool extra abilities. It’s probably a little overpowered, given how reliable a Ranger’s shooting becomes at higher levels, and with spells like Hunter’s Mark around, but the more powerful the players, the bigger the monsters you can throw at them, so who cares?

It is objectively better than Yesyra’s old longbow, so there is no reason for her not to use it. And use it she did, for the rest of the campaign. It didn’t sit at the bottom of a bag all adventure gathering dust. It became part of her character. She was Yesyra Sureshot.

Of course, just giving a player a powerful weapon, piece of armour or item that will just increase the power level of your players isn’t particularly interesting. It doesn’t make the game more dynamic, it just makes the players better at what they’re already doing. Which brings us to point two:

Something with a downside or limitation:

Rangers don’t get a whole lot of choice in combat. There is a bit of spellcasting, but with limited spell slots and spells to choose from, you’re basically casting Hunter’s Mark and focus firing on the biggest enemy until they die.

This bow gave Yesyra some tactical thinking to do. Do I use my charges now on this enemy or this fight, or save them until later when we’re fighting something bigger? Do I risk using a charge attacking this creature when it has high AC, because getting rid of it will swing this battle in our favour, but risk wasting a charge on a miss?

The bow changed how the player played the game, because she had to think tactically and manage her resources, which is what I think makes combat in DnD fun. There obviously isn’t a downside to this weapon particularly, but cursed items do exist in DnD and are probably some of the more interesting magic items, because players have to measure the upside of the items’ power versus the downside of the curse. A job made harder if you, the DM, doesn’t tell the players what the downside is!

Something with personality or backstory:

The players eventually fulfilled their promise to Svara and turned on Thurl. While most of the Knights were off on a mission, the players stormed Feathergale Keep. They battled their way to the audience chamber and confronted the leader of the Knights. They fought, and Yesyra, using his own silver bow, secretly given to her in the ultimate act of betrayal by his own daughter, killed Thurl Merosska.

This was an epic moment. Svara became a recurring NPC and traveling companion. Yesyra treasured the bow, not just because it was powerful, but because it came with a heroic story that will forever connect her to the one she loves. It meant something to her character. It wasn’t just some item to rattle around in the bottom of a bag, it was her bow. It was part of her story.

Of course, you can take this literally and give your magic items actual personalities. I’m doing this in my current campaign to try out making the magic items part of the story itself. The items literally talk to the players using them, and each have different personalities. They are helping to shape the story. Maybe in a few months time I’ll write a follow-up to this blog about my experience with these much more powerful and interesting magic items.

In the meantime, remember: something they will use regularly. Something with limitations or downsides. Something with personality or backstory. Let’s not have items rattling around in the bottom of bags anymore!