Fun with Feats 14: Item Mastery Feats
(art by captdiablo on DeviantArt)
A funny thing about magic in both mythology and fiction is that is pretty much does anything that the writer feels it should. Sure, there are plenty of magic systems in fiction with their own rules for how they work, but all of that can fly out the window the moment the author had a neat idea to solve a problem in the story (or start one), they want to shake things up a bit, or they just forgot.
A result we sometimes see with this is magical items that seem pretty flexible in what they can do. Sometimes a magic item just does whatever the writer wants it to be able to do at the time, and sometimes it has established powers, but then the writer comes up with a clever application for that power or just pull a new power for it out of their patoot with varying degrees of justification.
And that’s all fine and good for storytelling (much to the disagreement of an army of internet armchair writers that think that internal consistency is somehow the point of writing stories), but this gets a little tricky in gaming, where the magical properties of the various doodads the party picks up not only obey the rules of whatever magical system is associated with the world, but with the rules of the game itself. A magic weapon only provides the benefits listed in it’s stats.
However, as we’ve established, a magic item that can do a lot of things isn’t necessarily bad writing, and there is an appeal in a character that can do a lot of things with their signature magic sword or staff or whatever.
Which is where we get the Item Mastery feats. Heavily associated with the Relic Master archetype for fighter, these feats are available to anyone who can meet the prerequisites, and are meant to emulate the vibe of a character being able to do a lot more things with a magic item that on paper has limited usage.
The reasons for why and how are deliberately left vague. Maybe they have a special quality that unlocks the items potential. Maybe the item could always do that and the character is innovative enough to exploit that. Or maybe it’s like the magical equipment of jury rigging a machine to perform a very different function. No matter the reason, these wielders can unlock various other exploits and tricks based on the schools of magic in the items they wield and wear.
So, the feats in this category can be subdivided into two major subsets. The first and most numerous of them are the feats that allow the wielder to replicate the effects of several classic spells that are indicative of a school of magic by fiddling with the workings of a magic item that includes that school among it’s aura. Energy Mastery lets you blast foes with cones and lines of elemental energy based on the elements associated with the item, Concealment and Illusion Master grant invisibility and minor image from illusion items, Teleportation Mastery let’s the user cast dimension door with a conjuration item, and so on.
The other set is pretty much “everything else” but includes the likes of Implement Mastery allowing an occultist to use their implements for the other item mastery feats even if they themselves aren’t technically magic items, or firing beams of various flavors of divine wrath from a holy symbol with the Symbolic Mastery feats.
This set of feats is fun and interesting, and actually gives an excuse to put ranks in Use Magic Device outside of fringe cases and playing a gadgeteer rogue. Honestly I think I see most uses for these feats coming from combat classes that want a little extra oomph from their arsenal, or occultists looking for a neat trick. That being said, the Symbolic Mastery feat in particular is a fun way to give a cleric a ranged attack no matter what domains or spells they like to prepare. Also, notably because the uses per day of these feats are determined mostly by one’s fortitude saves, it neatly ties into the idea that this manipulation of the energies of a magical item is at least in part fueled by the user’s own vital essence. Only a few builds will lean heavily into these tricks, but others can still make use of one or two as a way to make their wielding of a signature item that much more neat.