D&D 5e Homebrew Magic Items Guide
When homebrewing your own magic items, it can be a hassle trying to find comparisons and determine its cost/rarity to balance it. This table gives you a bunch of useful information that is either spread throughout the DMG or was not gathered at all. It can help you create a fairly balanced item with an appropriate rarity.
Rarity. The rarity of the item.
CL. The caster level of spells cast by the item, also a good gauge for what level the players should find such an item.
Value (Average). Shows the item’s value based on rarity but also gives the average in parentheses.
Consumables Value. Half of the item’s average value; this is what it’s worth if the item can only be used once.
Max Spell Lvl. The highest level spell that can be cast or replicated by the item.
Max Wep. Bonus. The greatest flat numerical bonus to attack and damage rolls for an item. You can often substitute such bonuses for unique abilities, like having a Legendary item have only a +2 bonus but do a unique thing a Rare item could do.
Average Save DC. The average range of saving throw DCs for items of this rarity. You can bump this number up by 1-2 if the item is consumable; don’t want players to feel like they wasted it!
Charges (daily). If the item has charges, these are the average number of them that items of this rarity have. You can also use this as a gauge for how often you can use the item, bearing in mind that spells usually cost a number of charges equal to the spell’s level.
Here are tips on how to balance item recharges.
Recharge on Rest: Most items don’t recharge based on a character’s rest as items don’t take much out of the character, they just drain their own magic and need time to replenish it. The character’s exhaustion has no bearing on an item… unless it does. If the item exhausts the user, then you could make an argument for it to recharge on the user’s rest.
1-Hour Recharge: An item that recharges after an hour is fairly powerful; it ensures the player can use it whenever they truly need it. I would reserve this for lower-level spell equivalents or smite-like abilities that deal enhanced damage on one attack. Design these items like you might design a Channel Divinity ability.
Daily Recharge: An item that recharges after 8-24 hours is fairly restrictive. It should be designed to be a last-ditch item that players can pull out of their back pocket to deal with a big threat. Keep in mind that players will likely save such an item for a boss or important foe, so try to refrain from designing save-or-suck abilities unless it’s something a big bad would be immune to (like charm). If you don’t and then you give it to a player, they will just keep using the same item to get out of boss fights for free. Area effect abilities are useful as fewer classes have access to those so they will prove useful in a pinch. You can also design daily items to have powerful but unique effects; things you wouldn’t want players doing all the time but can prove useful. A Passwall spell or Control Water might be good candidates as they have niche applications but in those circumstances can prove overpowered.
Charges: An item’s ability should cost 1 charge per spell level of the ability. If its ability isn’t a spell, try to find a spell that’s similar to compare it to. Charges should recharge once a day, but sometimes don’t replenish all of them (usually it’s a dice calculation that can recharge fully if the maximum amount is rolled). Sometimes items require a special circumstance to replenish charges, like needing to be drenched in blood. You can be creative with this but ensure that a player could accommodate for this on an average adventure.
Add Interest. Add something to make the item unique. The rarer an item is, the more unusual features or abilities it has. Think about what the item might passively do, like shedding light, freezing water it touches, emitting a smell, or humming a tune. Perhaps the item has unique properties that are highly specialized, like allowing the wielder to speak Pterafolk, or allowing them to sense snakes, or turning objects blue.
Intuitive Design. Decorate the item so an adventurer could probably guess it’s use by looking at it, but don’t spell it out for them. If it has skulls it probably is evil, frightens, or deals necrotic damage. If it has fiery brass motifs, it probably does something with fire. You get the idea.
Command Words. If it has a command word, try to provide a way to discover it, whether it’s written on the item in an unusual language, or depicts someone/something that is the keyword, or is placed near the item (hopefully in the same room, but at least in the same dungeon). Players can always use an Identify spell to learn the command word if they can’t figure it out, so I don’t think it’s mean-spirited to not spoon-feed information to the players.
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