 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy and apart from your race in your class, the next biggest thing that mechanically defines you as a person is your big box of swag! So it's time to talk about a highly requested topic, magic items! I'm gonna go over the concept of magic items, the ways and consequences of adding them to your game, and how to balance out your own magic items to homebrew into your own world. As always keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion, so if you feel like I do not understand the power of hoots enough to wield the mighty glory hammer of ancient cosmic destiny, feel free to run your magic items however you want. And really quickly I'd like to give a shout out to my new patrons this month! Mark Bamin, Asa Bokist, Brooks, Journey, Bad Bad Fishy, a guy named Square, Frasier Ferguson, Victor G20, David Alson Bulse, thank you so much for pledging to me, I pledge to you to make you happy. But without a way, let's begin! So a magic item comes into being a whole plethora of different ways, you could be a wizard trained in the magic mechanical arts, able to infuse the life breath of magic into otherwise mundane items, you could be a mighty metal forager, so great that your creations are cast not just in fire but in the fires of destiny, giving them unnatural cutting power or resilience, or it could just be that that item is liked by some god that decided to head to the beach and start blessing everything. You're a lucky rock, you're a lucky rock, you're a lucky rock, whatever the case may be from that point that magical item is gained, it is destined to fall into the hands of an adventuring party that'll praise it for the magical item it is, while also feeling weird about wearing it because shoes with wings do not match the rest of their aesthetic. Magic items are generally used to either round out the skills that a player needs improvement in, to buff up the skills that they already have, or to just do some crazy special ability that can be sprung on the enemy like an uno reverse card. And magic items also come in all shapes and sizes such as a sword that cuts harder, a necklace with beads that turn into fireballs, shoes that can make you fly, a cloak that lets you swim and breathe underwater, a handle that ejects a sword made of pure light that makes a warm warm sound when you swing it, a hat that can disguise as anyone you want, a giant robotic lobster, a perfectly normal playing card deck, it's normal, there's nothing wrong. The shapes and sizes and abilities of what magic items can do are beholden only to either your own imagination, or if you don't have one, the contents of your dungeon master's guide. The only constant is rarity, which decides power, price, and commonality of your magical items. Common magic items are practically everywhere depending on the setting, and if you run a high or wide magic campaign, these are probably used at least moderately by the upper crust of society who can afford them. Uncommon items are just a little bit rare, but still generally easy to get a hold of. Rare items are hard to find, very rare items require a degree of adventuring just to find out where to find them, and legendary items are the stuff of, well, legends. So getting your hands on a mythical object like that isn't going to happen unless the DM makes it happen. Now, adding magical items to your games may seem like a daunting task. I mean, one wrong move and you've gone from a reasonably balanced party to the inspector gadget of taking down bad guys. But it's actually not as difficult as you might think. For the most part, the rarity of an item does indicate how much ludicrous power it could provide the person wielding it, and aside from a few items like the belt of giant strength or the perfectly normal deck of cards, most items can be added in slowly, one at a time, and you'll get a good gauge on what is and isn't too much for the party. Hell, if you check Xanathar's guide, they've got a big old list of super low power mundane magical items that are perfect if you want magic items to be super common in your world. Just slap a flat 100 gold price tag on them, call them baby magic items for children and the magically challenged, and let the party go ham enjoying that orb that can tell you what time it is. The big things that you want to be careful about when adding magical items to your games are things that give numeric bonuses because 5th edition balances itself off of a thing called bounded accuracy. Bounded accuracy is the idea that on your own, no matter what class or race or whatever you're playing, there is only a maximum number that you can possibly reach through ability modifiers, proficiencies and class specific bonuses. Through this, the developers are able to balance the likelihood that an enemy is both able to hit the party and that the party is able to hit it. This works pretty well, but you start to throw the system out the window when you give players magic items that buff stats like their likelihood to hit or their armor. For every one point that you add, you're adding a 5% greater chance to succeed than the game accounted for, so it becomes a 10% on a plus two and a 15% on a plus three. Now 15% may not seem like that much, but in a game like D&D, where you roll all the time, that percentage difference dictates whether you take or deal all the damage. So it's a pretty big deal. Other than that, things that just change abilities that your players have access to like winged boots, letting them fly, Hat of Disguise giving them unlimited disguise selves and perfectly normal playing cards are just rewards for a job well done meant to be given out freely. You can make note of the effects to ensure that they don't completely invalidate the plot and then just go from there. I myself like to give people magic items, let them run through the whole encounter curb stomping every unfortunate bandit that didn't notice the adventurer wearing the dick of slapping and then modify encounters from there to bounce the game onwards. It lets them get that empowered feeling of walking into the club with all the new Dabby Chappy merch that they just bought and it lets me gauge for how powerful that merch puts them beyond what they used to be. Now when it comes to creating your own magical items, a lot of the same rules apply. You want to be careful with number inflation. You want to make sure that you don't give the party a super robot Megazord that can end Tiamat in a single quick time event. And most importantly, you want to make sure that the thing is fun and interesting enough for the party to not just discard like it was another Pog in their Pog collection. I enjoy creating simple items that don't have world shattering consequences because they're easier to balance. And I don't feel like having a wink over how extreme and totally powerful my modded items are things like an axe infused with a compass so that when it's thrown, it always chucks itself north or reverse robe of useful items that you can put things into a plate that cures diseases, an elven wine that automatically invokes trances and elves that drink them, a perfectly normal playing card deck. The ideas are endless and these small minor magical items with a limited use on the surface have all seen interesting creative use by my players in one way or another because the secret to creating magical items is that players just like getting new stuff. The only thing I want to warn you about and I say this from experience is do not fall for the trap of cursed items. Take it from tiny baby DM chappy. Once you start adding cursed items to your games, it never stops. I have made so many cursed evil destructive items in my old homebrew games that my players would just start chucking every item that even had the hint of magic on them into the fires of Mount Doom. Better to be safe than to put on the cloak of I can't believe it's not invisibility and walk up into a camp of orc huntsman with a smile on your face that is perfect for getting punched by an orc. I will say however that in defense of cursed items when used in moderation, they add a nice gimmick to the world that reminds you that not every artificer makes their items with eventual acquisition by a spunky adventurer in mind, especially for those players that ruin the game for themselves by reading up on every single magical item until all the wonder and mystery is gone. Having a new homebrew item adds a breath of fresh air and convinces them to stay on their toes, especially when they charge into the central room of a cultist base, climb up that center dais and are greeted by a perfectly normal set of playing cards. But that about do it! I hope you enjoyed this video, leave a like, comment, subscribe, ring the bell. Don't touch any of my magical items, they will be cursed and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can finally afford that ancient cosmic jetpack. But yeah, Davy out.