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Magic Items are gleaned from the hoards of conquered Monsters or discovered in long-lost vaults. Such items grant capabilities a character could rarely have otherwise, or they complement their owner’s capabilities in wondrous ways.
You gain one extra spell slot in your daily allotment, at any level up to one lower than the highest level of spell you can currently cast. For example, a 4th-level sorcerer (maximum spell level 2nd) gains either an extra 0-level or 1stlevel slot, and is able to cast any spell he knows of the chosen level one more time each day.
- Sep 22, 2019 However in 5e characters have very few high level spell slots, and not an over abundance of low level ones they already have a massive limitation built in. So what I have done is go through the phb and for most concentration spells I’ve allowed a caster to rid themselves of the concentration requirement by upcasting the spell 1-2 levels.
- The gauntlets' rules text states 'Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)'. So they don't require any prerequisite, beyond having a free attunement slot - and even if you don't have an empty slot you can simply un-attune to one of your previously attuned items and free the slot up for the gauntlets.
Attunement
Some Magic Items require a creature to form a bond with them before their magical Properties can be used. This bond is called attunement, and certain items have a prerequisite for it. If the prerequisite is a class, a creature must be a member of that class to attune to the item. (If the class is a Spellcasting class, a monster qualifies if it has Spell Slots and uses that class’s spell list.) If the prerequisite is to be a Spellcaster, a creature qualifies if it can cast at least one spell using its Traits or features, not using a magic item or the like.
Without becoming attuned to an item that requires attunement, a creature gains only its nonmagical benefits, unless its description states otherwise. For example, a magic Shield that requires attunement provides the benefits of a normal Shield to a creature not attuned to it, but none of its magical Properties.
Attuning to an item requires a creature to spend a Short Rest focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it (this can’t be the same short rest used to learn the item’s properties). This focus can take the form of weapon practice (for a weapon), meditation (for a wondrous item), or some other appropriate activity. If the Short Rest is interrupted, the attunement attempt fails. Otherwise, at the end of the Short Rest, the creature gains an intuitive understanding of how to activate any magical Properties of the item, including any necessary Command words.
An item can be attuned to only one creature at a time, and a creature can be attuned to no more than three Magic Items at a time. Any attempt to attune to a fourth item fails; the creature must end its attunement to an item first. Additionally, a creature can’t attune to more than one copy of an item. For example, a creature can’t attune to more than one Ring of Protection at a time.
A creature’s attunement to an item ends if the creature no longer satisfies the Prerequisites for attunement, if the item has been more than 100 feet away for at least 24 hours, if the creature dies, or if another creature attunes to the item. A creature can also voluntarily end attunement by spending another Short Rest focused on the item, unless the item is Cursed.
Wearing and Wielding Items
Using a magic item’s Properties might mean wearing or wielding it. A magic item meant to be worn must be donned in the intended fashion: boots go on the feet, gloves on the hands, hats and helmets on the head, and rings on the finger. Magic armor must be donned, a Shield strapped to the arm, a cloak fastened about the shoulders. A weapon must be held.
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In most cases, a magic item that’s meant to be worn can fit a creature regardless of size or build. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they magically adjust themselves to the wearer. Rare exceptions exist. If the story suggests a good reason for an item to fit only creatures of a certain size or shape, you can rule that it doesn’t adjust. For example, drow-made armor might fit elves only. Dwarves might make items usable only by dwarf-sized and dwarf-shaped folk.
When a nonhumanoid tries to wear an item, use your discretion as to whether the item functions as intended. A ring placed on a tentacle might work, but a Yuan-ti with a snakelike tail instead of legs can’t wear boots.
Multiple Items of the Same Kind
Use Common sense to determine whether more than one of a given kind of magic item can be worn. A character can’t normally wear more than one pair of footwear, one pair of gloves or gauntlets, one pair of bracers, one suit of armor, one item of headwear, and one cloak. You can make exceptions; a character might be able to wear a circlet under a helmet, for example, or to layer two cloaks.
Paired Items
Items that come in pairs—such as boots, bracers, gauntlets, and gloves—impart their benefits only if both items of the pair are worn. For example, a character wearing a boot of striding and springing on one foot and a boot of elvenkind on the other foot gains no benefit from either.
Activating an Item
Activating some Magic Items requires a user to do something Special, such as holding the item and uttering a Command word. The description of each item category or individual item details how an item is activated. Certain items use the following rules for their activation.
If an item requires an action to activate, that action isn’t a function of the Use an Item action, so a feature such as the rogue’s Fast Hands can’t be used to activate the item.
Command Word
A Command word is a word or phrase that must be spoken for an item to work. A magic item that requires a Command word can’t be activated in an area where sound is prevented, as in the area of the Silence spell.
Consumables
Some items are used up when they are activated. A potion or an elixir must be swallowed, or an oil applied to the body. The writing vanishes from a scroll when it is read. Once used, a consumable item loses its magic.
Some Magic Items allow the user to Cast a Spell from the item. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell level, doesn’t expend any of the user’s Spell Slots, and requires no Components, unless the item’s description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal Casting Time, range, and Duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires Concentration. Many items, such as potions, bypass the casting of a spell and confer the spell’s Effects, with their usual Duration. Certain items make exceptions to these rules, changing the Casting Time, Duration, or other parts of a spell.
magic item, such as certain staffs, may require you to use your own Spellcasting Ability when you Cast a Spell from the item. If you have more than one Spellcasting Ability, you choose which one to use with the item. If you don’t have a Spellcasting ability—perhaps you’re a rogue with the Use Magic Device feature—your Spellcasting Ability modifier is +0 for the item, and your Proficiency Bonus does apply.
Charges
Some Magic Items have charges that must be expended to activate their Properties. The number of charges an item has remaining is revealed when an Identify spell is cast on it, as well as when a creature attunes to it. Additionally, when an item regains charges, the creature attuned to it learns how many charges it regained.
In Monteporte 44, the session began and ended with animated discussions on the rules for attunement to magical weapons. +Rob Conley had created a chart or an excel file listing all the weapons that required attunement from the DMG, and we played around with the concept a bit. We all, I think, liked the general concept of attunement, but were all equally bothered by some of the implications. In addition, since Monteporte was migrated over from a game with different assumptions than went into D&D5, there were many more magic items than seemed typical for a D&D5 party.
Attunement (DMG pp. 136-138)
The basic concept behind attunement is simple. To use a weapon with magical properties in a magical way, you have to spend a period of time – a short rest – bonding with the item in an appropriate way. If you don’t do so, the items functions like a normal, non-magical item of that type, but no nifty stuff can be generated from it. A Sword of Sharpness might act like a regular sword and would cut things just fine, but no other magical abilities would be present, and I’m not even sure it’d damage creatures that are only damaged by magical weapons – the text seems to suggest not. A suit of plate armor that requires attunement would still give you AC 18 for wearing it, but whatever powers it has would not be available to you until attunement is complete. A wand or ring, which otherwise serves no purpose than to give you certain powers, is basically useless. Maybe you could use it as a napkin holder or a stir stick?
Limits on items
The biggest thing that the DMG rules hit you with is that you cannot be attuned to more than three items at a time. Period, done . . . see you later. So you can’t (for example) wear ten Rings of Protection, one on each finger, and another couple on your toes. Firstly, you can’t usually wear multiple of any given item, but also, three is the limit, and the limit shall be three. Not two, unless proceeding directly to three, etc.
This makes any given player decide what she wants to be equipped with, and since you can only detune-attune to an item with a short rest, you can’t just swap out inventory slots and always get the benefit of the good stuff. So you have to prepare. It’s not quite as restrictive as spell slots and long rests, but it’s there to make you think about what you’re doing.
What requires attunement
The magic item lists speak to what requires attunement – sometimes by a particular class – and what does not. There definitely seems to be a pattern to it, and some very useful stuff does not require attunement.
Let’s start with some examples:
Basic Magical Weapons and Armor:Your basic +2 Mace or longsword, or +1 Chain Mail, or +3 half-plate does not require attunement. OK.
Mace of Disruption: Requires attunement. If you smack a fiend or the undead, you do extra radiant damage. If the critter has fewer than a certain number of HP, it must make a saving throw or be destroyed outright. The foes of the affected type are afraid of you. Also, the weapon glows if you hold it.
Mace of Smiting: +1 damage, more against constructs. If you roll a 20, you get extra damage, and can destroy constructs on a lucky roll. Does not require attunement.
Immovable Rod: Hey, the thing doesn’t move. Ever. Does not require attunement.
Gloves of Thievery: Provides a bonus to Sleight of Hand and DEX checks while wearing them. Does not require attunement.
Most any Cloak of X: Protection, Elvenkind, Invisibility. All of these require attunement, but . . .
Cloak of the Manta Ray: Allows you to breathe underwater, and swim pretty fast. There’s another item like this that makes a bubble of air around your head. Neither require attunement.
What’s the Common Theme: The key bit here seems to be that if the item is magical because of itself, such as magic armor, it does not require attunement. If the item has powers that only affect the victim or the environment – that is, the magic is outwardly directed – it does not require attunement. But if the thing is basically casting a spell or giving its blessing to the user – something that if malign would be resisted by a saving throw – then you need to attune to it.
It’s a fine line. The Cloak of Protection is just a cloak, it’s not particularly sturdy. But even it it is sturdy, the bonus to saving throws impacts the wearer as if it were a spell. That requires attunement. The Manta Ray cloak and the bubble-head charm (whatever it is) probably work their magic on the water and air around you, not you. They don’t bestow gills, they create a space of breatheable air.
I have no explanation for the Gloves of Thievery. I’d probably force you to attune to them, but perhaps the skill/DEX boost provided is actually a spell that impacts whatever you’re working on, not you.
Basic magical swords are just magical. The Mace of Smiting is totally outwardly directed. The Mace of Disruption . . . seems like the mace of smiting, but makes creatures afraid of you (not the mace) and casts light. I suspect it’s the fear thing that turns the tables.
Armor that’s just magical is simply better made and enchanted. That’s inherent to the item. But if it also provides extra spell-like abilities, that requires attunement.
Anything that requires conscious activation seems to require attunement.
House Rules?
Wouldn’t be a blog – specifically my blog – without the tinkering. So, here we go. What could we do to tweak out what’s basically a good concept?
More Awesome is More Awesome
The first one is easy. Allow the number of magical items to which you can attune vary by character level. Specifically, something like “you may attune to item equal to your proficiency bonus” would allow two items for beginners, but up to six at very high levels. Another would be you may attune to one item plus half your proficiency bonus. That’s still two items at low level, but four at high levels.
In any case, items tend to grow with power at high levels, so another way might be a slot system. Each rank from Common through Legendary is given an effective number of slots: say 1 for Common, 5 for Legendary. You might get a number of slots equal to 1 plus your proficiency bonus, so slots vary from 3 to 7. So you can attune to seven Common items at very high level, or one Legenary item and two Common ones. Or two Uncommon and one Rare. Still limiting, but if you really want to wear seven common items instead of carrying around that Vorpal Sword . . .
Partial Powers
Not attuning to an item having it behave as completely mundane seems off to me. Of course, that thought was started by Ken thinking that any item of +2 bonus or higher, including armor and weapons, requires attunement. I was thinking that in that particular case, the weapon or armor would still be magical, just provide no bonus. So not attuning to said Vorpal Sword would give you a magical longsword which could damage creatures that are only harmed by magical weapons (if such exist anymore in 5e), but would not suddenly decaptiate anyone.
Gotta Fight, for the Right . . .
One thing that would be interesting for non-attuned weapons would be that yes, you can still use them, but you have to force the item to obey. You’d need to make some sort of saving throw, and I’m thinking INT, WIS, CHA rather than the physical stuff – basically willpower – in order to activate the item’s powers.
In fact, one interesting thing would be to have attunement be a gradual process. Each short rest spent attuning would give you a bonus to the roll to master or attune to the item. You have to successfully use the item in order to claim your next bonus. Eventually, your roll will be high enough that you automatically beat the item’s DC. At that point, you’re attuned permanently unless you voluntarily switch it out – then you have to start again.
That would make it a bit of a process – and narratively interesting – to get to know a weapon or armor or magical device. If the process were intersting/onerous enough, there’s a barrier to switching out.
Naturally, you’d want the DC to go up with item power. So maybe if we use the level analogy above, the DC might be 10 plus twice the slots. So a Common magical item would be DC 12 for mastery, a Legendary one would be DC 20.
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Parting Shot
Attunement brings a very cool dynamic to equipping magical items in D&D5. The core concept is very good, and it forces you to be choosy about what items and powers you can have. It keeps the focus, to some extent, on the character rather than the gear – though some of the Legendary items are truly badass, so there is always going to be a certain cache to having that Hammer of Thunderbolts paired with the Girdle of Giant Strength, which is also good.
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Tuning the attunement rules also provides knobs for campaign-specific flavor. This is also good.
We’ll see what Ken decides to do with it, but I can certainly see options.