How about a purse of shinies? Put something shiny and of value in it and it is sacreficed to summon an increasing ammount of Kobolds to do your shiny stealing, trap creating and digging bidding. That and maybe do cute dances for you if you give them even more shinies
Oh! By the way, just a heads up! I'm gonna start work on Monsters Misguided book 2 for the next video and I'm planning on it being a longer episode (somewhere around 20 minutes), so that means next upload will be a long ways off! Okay, that's all. When you don't see me upload a couple weeks from now, that's why. I got a big thing cookin'. See you then!
It's also worth considering exactly why you want to have a magic item improve over time: Part of the excitement of adventuring is the potentially limitless potential of new cool magic stuff you can find on the trip, so wearing the same armor from level 4 to level 18 can diminish that quite a bit. I would reserve mechanics like this for items that are deeply connected to a character and their backstory. If the player is a swordsman who early in his quest avenged his murdered father and reclaimed his family's sword, then I would *absolutely* consider making said weapon a special item that increases in power with the character. Or perhaps the armor was forged as a gift representing the eternal gratitude of a town the party saved and you want the symbol of this accomplishment to be a permanent mark on the party. While wielding the axe of an orc warchief and former BBEG is cool, it doesn't need to be a permanent thing, there will be other BBEGs that are considerably more powerful and keeping that forever would diminish the perceived power of new villains.
I agree that an important backstory item or something else that will be important for a long time should have these rules. You don't want your players going "Yeah, this is really important to my character, but it's really weak and I'll have trouble with it in combat, so I'll just let it collect dust in my inventory forever"
its not bad why is use actual abilities to balance other abilities. its saying its bad to use a rusty screw or just old that you had from a factory to size the new screw that is now more new or shiny. nothing wrong with that
i had an idea like that once: one of my player was a Dragonborn conquest palladin devoted to Tiamat, and i made a quest just for him. Tiamat chose to reveal a magical item to 5 warriors devoted to her across the realms, and the goal of each of these warrior would be to claim their artifact but also to find the other contestants and battle them for their items, each item collected would trigger an evolution of their respective artifact, and the one to collect all five would be the new champion of Tiamat
I do love the idea of Self-leveling items however I will say if I were to implement it it will only be one per character. Cause I can already imagine a character with two or three self-leveling items and the amount of abilities and powers they would have would be insane.
I think you can handle two or three items depending on what abilities you give them. I mean the water abilities would be great if they are in an area with a lot of water but it effects one person and if everyone has them then yeah great again in water but in mountains caves deserts plains none of those areas would the water breathing and swim speed give them a real tangible benefit. just saying varied abilities mean only one player really gets a boost at a time. or if your concerned about making it a book keeping headache just giving them ether a plus to armor with maybe a plus to a few skills or maybe just give it resistance to outright immunity to some hazards. or maybe some bonus healing on a short rest or something that has a weak but maybe useful for some checks like a passive fire or necrotic aura around you to help with getting out of a grapple or some kind of entangle spell. I mean already I could think of a few abilities that would be good to have on them that aren't really game breaking or anything just tools to keep for when the time is right.
This really could help. I've been thinking of giving more magic items, but they're always tossed aside, like in some video games. I want the players to really bond with their items like real warriors would
I had a great ax for my fighter. He was a dragon slayer and wanted every time he defeat a dragon he would absorb a part of its power. Started with a frightening presence. Soon he had naturally forming scales. Then he gained the breathe weapon of an ancient dragon. I kept the scales because even though he had armor on he still found a way to use the scales for other things
Also, always look for comparable weapons in pop culture and favourite genre media! If they worked, it may work for your adventures too Example: a simple +1 longsword could have a sheath that gives the wearer resistance to slashing and piercing damage, like Excalibur; or a simple Moon touched weapon starts to malfunction and replicates The Hobbit's Sting magical effect, of shedding light only when a certain creature is near. This could be upgradable to work both effects, maybe with different colours for the moontouch and 'Sting' effects.
Idea for such an item: Battle Mage's staff A relic of a long forgotten war of epic proportions, this powerful staff (not meant for low level players) works like a normal staff, but with a unique enchantment. A gem imbedded in the staff catches runoff magic and allows the user to unleash the held power in a powerful melee attack, Mage's Fury. A perfect safeguard for when an enemy targets your wizard. The attack does 1D4 bludgeonning damage plus one point of magic damage per charge. The staff gains charges equal to the level of the spell cast, with the maximum charge being equal to the player's level, therefore getting more powerful as they level up. However, the staff can't hold charge forever and will lose charge after a long rest, or half every in-game hour, rounded down. If you want, you can allow a side quest to "repair" the ancient staff and allow it to hold its charge. For example, you could have the gem that holds the charge be cracked and the party need to locate another staff or replacement gem. Either way, this can give your mage a fall back in case you have a particularly clever kobold rush the glass cannon hiding behind the paladin.
Set Items. I once created a pair of magical scimitars for my Bard, they were called Song and Dance. Separately, they had minor magical benefits, but wielded together unlocked new powers in each other. Finding one sword sets players off on a quest for the other, rewarding the wielder with a cool new magic item and 'leveling up' the one he already has.
I did make a self leveling set of semi divine items that self leveled, being that they were required to kill the final boss. I made them a little over powered on purpose but in addition to level, you also had to complete certain task, and not piss off the weapons since they were all sentient. This made it so that they felt a real sense of accomplishment when they got the item to level up, and pushed them to actually challenge thing that would be difficult even with the weapons. The weapons sentience also made them the perfect quest givers.
So I made an item for a player once when dming Pathfinder. It was called Chaos Edge, and it had the drawback/ability to transform into random weapon types based on a few dice rolls, it also did 1d6 extra damage against lawful creatures or 3d6 against paragons of law, as the player kept making allies of chaos and defeating lawful opponents it gained new abilities. The first extra ability was that it could fire an Allip (basically a crazy ghost) at a target or location causing a round where targets 15 ft potentially lose a turn (will/wis save) while they listen to the the ghost babel. And the target hit takes 1d4 temp wisdom reduction if it fails a will/wis save. I think that ability was a once per day. Unfortunately that's as far as we got in that campaign so I didn't get the chance to get to the final tier which I think I planned on it once per day creating a zone like an anti magic field but wild magic instead and increase the bonus damage and ability uses.
I actually already do this! I love customly making items for party members, and have done so for each of my games so far. Your videos have greatly improved the quality of the items as well, but I normally tie the upgrading of an item to a plot point for the character wielding it, which tends to mean some type of sidequests or character specific moment. Of course, I'm still a newer DM, only having ran 3 games so far, and each one is more homebrew than the previous one. It's a blast.
This just got gears moving through my head, I have a few players wanting custom items, but wanted to give them a unique feel, they love the idea! Thank you so much, these TT stuff is awesome
We have a similar idea for weaponry, only weaponry though. You basically dive into the weapon's inner world and train with it, rolling raw ability checks until you and the weapon get along more. If you have a specific weapon mastery feat you cut down on training time and can do more complex stuff. An example would be the paladin of the group having a Morning Star that she has personally upgraded into having ice damage since level 1 and now she can switch between it a Morning star or a flail when she wants and she has some neat abilities she can burn her spell slots to use like freezing enemies if she whacks them with the weapon in flail form. It's pretty neat.
Made a pair of snakeskin gloves for my groups rogue Which was well received by him. It gave him an extra 1d6 of poison damage on a melee sneak attack. Then it fused to his skin and became a tattoo in the shape of a snake made of the snakeskin. Eventually he took on a few snake like abilities like dark vision and poison immunity. Since then my group have LOVED the idea of leveling items.
Loved it! I for sure want to implement this kind of idea into my homebrew settings. I think the idea of them being a living thing that flows with magic or whatever equivilates to magic in a given setting is a really great idea, since the volatility of the item as mentioned near the end of the videois a real thing, and is made much easier to handle when you have one foot on the breaks with something like "awakening power" or a quest that makes your item level up.
I once ran a game where a warlock's patron was an ArchFey traped in two magic swords fused into one. That sword scaled in level allowing the player to pull the power of one of the two swords changing the damage type to radiant or necrotic and changed his spell list to the celestial or fiend spell list depending which sword is used. At its highest tier, the player could pull the swords apart and gained the duel wielding feat for the duration. How I balanced it was with it having a certain amount of uses per either long rest or short rest. I do not remember everything about this item though, our group split up just after the Quarantine started.
Thank goodness this came out. One of players is a lvl 4 bard and somehow we just went through an odd series of circumstances where he was given a magic key tar by a kenku rockstar... we’re playing curse of Strahd...needless to say this video will help me greatly.
I put an obscure black orb with no reflection into my campaign. I initially didn't have much of an idea of what to do with it... until the Warlock grabbed it. On a whim I said, "You touched it with your bare hands? Make a Wisdom Saving Throw, please." She did and failed and I bullspitted some astral projection of her floating in space speaking with a disembodied voice that had no real interest in her... at the time... Now, it's turned into something she kept, and slowly the more time goes on I let her have teeny tiny abilities. Add Necrotic Damage to physical attacks. Cast Blindness/Deafness once a day. So on and so forth. She's become my unknowing experiment and she freaks out from every little thing that happens... I love it. xD
I had actually been doing something like this with a kid I've been DMing for. He's a Lizardfolk/Horned Lizard Barbarian to-be-Battleranger. He kept switching between his Greatsword and his Javelin/Shield. So I convinced him through the blacksmith to let him hone his greatsword by plucking off 1 of his barbs and crafting it into the blade, taking 1d4 per barb pulled. With more barbs and levels I plan to tailor the bone greatsword into a spiney greatsword that will match his playstyle as he develops
I've been doing something like this in my game. One of my players said it would be cool to have a weapon of legacy, so I looked it up and got to work. Now som magic weapons level up when they are used to continue their legacy. So basically the weapon has a backstory and at given levels the weapon gives it's user a quest or task that relates to its backstory, once completed the weapon levels up. An example of this could be the dwarven great sword Rend, which starts out with critting on a 19 or higher and applying a bleed, it's backstory is about defending the hill dwarves so it's tasks would be something like slaying some high ranking enemy of the hill dwarves, upon completion of the task Rend levels up and gains the ability to be used as a one handed weapon.
I like this, it's a almost the same thing as in PoE2:deadfire where they make so any unique eqip can be buffed up to +5 and acquire several special abilities in exchange of money and rare resources
My server makes wonderful use of leveling items. We call them Vestiges (because obviously we completely ganked the idea from Critical Role) and they're usually only rewarded to players who have a good balance of RP and Questing.... my character actually got the first Vestige of the server but when he received the item it wasn't meant to be anything special. He's a ranger (at the time he was a hunter, since then he's soft reset into a Horizon Walker) and wound up on a mission to hunt the Great White Stag. He led his party through the mountains (which only later became a favored terrain) to hunt this beast (which was already his favored enemy) and after a whole lot of stress they finally caught up to the stag... his love interest (they didn't know they liked each other at the time, but they're actually getting married soon, it's adorable) convinced the rest of the party to let him have the killing blow. He fought every bone in his body screaming to ask for a trophy as his wish and used the wish to revive the person they came to help. In his selfless act, the stag was impressed and bestowed upon him a collar made from its antlers which allowed him to cast resistance and guidance..... after a few months of this item being his most prized possession and his overuse of Guidance, he was on a different mission in one of the layers of hell and the stag revealed itself to only him through the collar but it was emaciated and beaten. Turns out, he had been unwittingly drawing directly on the Stag's power through these antlers and was slowly killing it permanently. In order to counteract the damage, the stag asked him to enter into a lasting bond where they could PROPERLY exchange power... breaking this bond will kill the stag and the stag's life is now tied to his life so if he dies the stag dies.... the collar became a crown and now gives him a similar ability to Monk's Deflect Missiles (like 6 levels after they get it) which can be used to protect allies within a certain distance, an ability that marks three objects so he always knows what direction they are and can teleport to them if he's within 120 feet (he marked the weapons of the 3 people he considers his family. 2 of them are bladelocks so they can always call their weapons to them, the third is a cleric so we just hope she's never separated from her weapon when we need to find her) and the last ability is when he casts a specific homebrew spell, it puts him under the effects of Blur for 1 round. These abilities replaced the cantrips he had before but I can't wait to see what my next mission will get me..... the mission has been hinted at as a young asshole hunter with no respect for nature having found another stag and is willfully torturing the beast in the same manner my character unknowingly did
you can also use a mixture of abilities that do and don't require attunement say bracers of archery grant you a +2 bonus to ranged attacks normally and when it levels up it would gain 2 new abilities, first new ability could be extra damage on a critical or something, like add 1d4 piercing damage 3/day when you strike a critical while using a bow/crossbow with this item, and than the second new ability could require attunement, and attuning to the item could allow you to choose the damage type the arrow does between fire/ice/electricity/poison, with further levels increasing the damage bonus, adding new damage types, or even just flat out removing the crit limit when attuned or just removing the need to crit entirely, also make sure to state in your new item limitations such as the extra damage does not get doubled on the crit to prevent rules lawyers from ruining a perfectly (or not perfectly) balanced item
I use this mechanic and have SEVERAL items that I've made using this mechanic. Now most of the time, I have used several different methods to determine how this stuff levels up, or evolves.. it mostly depends on what I'm bestowing. On a rare the occasion, I've had items only get a minor bump when that player uses the item for a length of time, as a type of "Mastery" they have with the item.. their natural magic that resonates with the item, or their own natural magic that seeps into it, giving them a bonus when they use it. > Can be very lazy with making the weapon/armor magical and +1 (in their hands). > Can also allow them to gain a bonus to a feature that they commonly use when they have that weapon at the ready. Regardless of which I choose, I will tie it to them using it consistently and usually breaking a milestone (increase in proficiency bonus), or when they complete a trial (something challenging that I am impressed with them succeeding in). Another that I use, are Exalted weapons.. which are weapons that evolve and can be awarded early on, and will improve as time goes on. They can "awaken" when its best for the character to need a power-boost and they hung onto the weapon (which they're likely to if you give them a very, VERY unique description). = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EXAMPLE TIME! (Warning. This will get wordy) I had a session with a bit of a pirate-themed campaign. I decided on the setting at whim (and ended up having to improv SO much on the spot). But One player was playing a noble warrior (Fighter with noble background). This warrior was searching for her brother that 'shamed' the family name (and also had the HIGHEST strength of the party by a wide margin: her 18 to the next best being 12). I knew she needed to be given more to bounce off of, which came in the weapon "Murandeel". this great-sword had a blade that reflected almost like it was solid water. When it was first found, I explained that the blade near the guard had this property, and looked like metal throughout the rest of the blade. She found a big, pretty sword basically, so she kept it. Occasionally, she had instances of difficulty sleeping, remembering a man, clad in armor that she could never remembered meeting. Eventually she remembered a name--Elnoril. During a tough fight that she had gotten through, which dealt with a few fear effects messing with her, a voice came to her, soothing. She then met the man clad in armor, Elnoril. He was a Champion of Tyldra, the Goddess known to be the Duelist of the Waves. He fell in battle a long time ago, and his spirit lingered within his trusty weapon. From this point on, on occasion other party members could faintly see a wisp that danced around her, but this spirit was directly tied to the weapon, and the more heroism she shown, the more of his power that could return to him. By this point, the blade was mostly this "solid water" appearance, and was much more noticeable by others. What made this sword memorable for that player, was that I gave the spirit of Elnoril one minor quirk, he was VERY passive-aggressive about being dead. He accepted his fate and failures, but he certainly found it to be a sore spot, and would take jabs at his wielder whenever she enjoyed the luxuries of life. Gave the player something to bounce off with, and on a few occasions, helped the party get information about the BBEG. This weapon I have most features written down, only really missing the "capstone" level-up feature.. but throughout that campaign, that player got: > Immunity to being charmed or frightened (which if she rolled anyway for forgetting, I would have Elnoril chide her, and it would immediately end the effect). > Gained a 1/day Haste spell through it. She always wanted a way to get into the fight quickly, which this helped her with. Her Con' was high enough to not easily break Concentration. I LOVE introducing these types of weapons, and have a few more, but I definitely will consider the idea of weapons that naturally level-up in some method to benefit a player that chose to keep a piece of equipment for so long (and through several levels).
For me as im making a specific Vestige for each of my players (basically your level up magic its Thing) so it always helps when I can talk to other dms and run things by them and see if it may be too powerful or too weak compared to the other items, the same can go for encounters and puzzles though what im describing is your playtesting part you talked about
I had an idea a while back for a pair of cursed glass eyes with multiple irises. that if placed in one’s eye sockets gives initially a lager dark vision but blindness beyond that. Eventually it gets blindsight and true sight after doing some horrendous acts like gouging our a number of clerics’s eyes. Each of these stages have a shorter range of sight but still considerable and can be swapped what “setting” is on with a free action on their turn
Making self-leveling items is so much fun! I do my best to conceal the next upgrade so when the player's item gets upgraded, it's an amazing surprise. I've had to nerf things I've handed out, but I do my best to communicate why and then provide "fair compensation" for the lost capability
In my current game, I've got a paladin PC with a magic sword that I'm planning on eventually turning into a Holy Avenger. At the moment, it's basically just a +1 magic sword, with the sword reaching its full potential around level 12 (Holy Avenger is on Table I of the Magic Item table, and the earliest you can roll on that is for CR 11). I'm planning the intermittent boost for level 8: increase the bonus to +2, and add 1d10 radiant damage against fiends/undead. Given that a Holy Avenger already includes a high-level upgrade, I'm not planning on adding anything else.
What I've done for my campaign is include a special mineral in the world that allows for these 'leveling items', or other magical traits. Each character in my campaign I tailored a magic item to their playstyle starting around third/fourth level, and introduced them as plot points in that character's backstory throughout the campaign, the Fighter's magic sword being wielded by his father's killer that started his adventuring in the first place, the Wizard's circlet being a magic item that he'd stolen from his teacher before running away on his adventures to study its forbidden powers, that sort of thing. Then, as the players are leveling up, I decide on conditions that need to be met to awaken the items to greater power that further tie them back towards their backstory, turning each magic item into a plot hook, and adventure throughout the campaign. That method though is built pretty heavily around this being the 'main magic item' of the player, with features that are formed to their playstyle as they progress, so if it doesn't end up being a hit, it can backfire pretty badly
The sword Starsong: allows the weirder access to a spell point, each spell point can cashed in as a first level, and scales with the amount cashed in (2 for level 2, so on and so forth). For every second level the weirder hits, the sword gains an additional spell point, meaning by 20th level, you can cast an additional free tenth level spell, or any combination with those numbers. Give it to a paladin, they are now a super strong spell sword that gets rewarded to use more of their limited kit. Stat the sword as a long sword and make the +1 upgrade requirements whatever you find fair. A piece of an asteroid, purified metal, whatever.
I made these evolving items for my players. They lvled up when they reached a certain milestone in their character development. Final evolution being a minute long transformation based off the innovation of fire/ice/wind\etc spells. Players loved the he'll out of them.
Had an idea for a dagger that contains the spirit of a vampire. It would deal 1d4 piercing damage and 1d4 necrotic damage. After consuming enough blood, it would morph into a shortsword and eventually a rapier. If the wielder is wounded, the necrotic equivalent would heal. And maybe some Warlock spells. Still working on it, though I'd definitely use Sir Christopher Lee for the voice.
I actually did give a cultist pc of mine a levelling sacrificial dagger. It got xp on its own table whenever he sacriced someone after the appropriate ritual, eventually gaining the ability to mark someone as a bonus action. The amount of xp gained was based on cr and the creature type, depending on the strength of the creature's soul with things like celestials demons and humanoids giving a ton of xp while undead, beasts and plants gave barely if any xp. It was really fun to try and balance it and make the entire xp table (it got one small buff every level from the ability to cast fear at first level once to 1d6 instead of 1d4 damage die). It was fun until the pc tried to kill the wild magic sorcerer who i mentioned in passing as a joke would give him a ton of xp because at that point the sorcerer had a demon and ancient eldritch diety living inside him, mainly to poke fun at myself and the player.
idea i just had: dagger of stabby {a +5 dagger gained at lv 5} level up 1{gained after lv 10}: gains senescence {becomes an npc when not in combat as well as giving the user 1 lv in warlock locked into pack of the blade in later level if they want it} level up 2{level 15 with a side quest to help him find his memories}: becomes sword of stabby { becomes a short sword with all the same stats as a +10 short sword. also if they get the free level in warlock they gain burning hands three times per long rest but re-flavored as "spray of blade" and instead of burning it dose piercing/ or slashing magical damage in a cone with the ability to burn flammable things removed} level up 3 {after completeing his side quest} : becomes the deity of blades blessing the party with +2 to all piercing, slashing, and hacking attack for the rest of the campaign, makes the user her champion, and if the user has levels in warlock they become a celetrical warlock , pack of blades, with a +10 to all attacks made with anything classified as a dagger, sword, or bladded, the "spay of blades" five times per day and their elderige blast doing piercing, slashing, or choping/ holy damage. as well as the holy blade of the deity of blades allowing the warlock to learn once per day cantrip from the cleric, paliden, druid, or bard list at the cost of not learning one spell that day.
At my campaign the martial adept has one of the legendary swords from “The Tome of 9 swords” material, and thee sword named Kamate has 3 levels of ascendance that complete by completing some rituals, at the moment Kamate has 2 complete rituals going to his max stage.
The easy option for non-complicated items is to make properties of the item dependent on proficiency bonus, or on “level divided by X”. Examples: - Has charges equal to your half your level rounded down - Casts a spell at a level equal to your proficiency bonus - Armour which grants AC equal to your proficiency bonus - An item which can store a spell of a level equal to prof bonus - Item can effect a number of creatures equal to half your level in a particular class, rounded down.
oooh this is giving me ideas. I am planning on running an Eberron Campaign and one of the NPCs my players will be running into a lot is an Artificer that makes all the Magic gear and Items for the Mafia my players will be working with. the party consists of three half-casters, with two of them being subclasses of martial classes (arcane trickster and Eldritch knight) and the third being a Bard. This video gave me the idea of giving each of my players leveling magic items that they have to take to the previously mentioned NPC artificer to upgrade their magic items to a higher level.
I'm super angry right now, this video is super well done, I've been subscribed for about two years now and stupid RU-vid hasn't been telling me about these new videos.
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount introduce some weapons that level up with you called Vestiges of Divergence and Arms of the Betrayers that you can always tweak. I made a cursed Glaive for a hex blade out of a Mace of the Black Crown and Sword of Vengeance.
I made a weapon that 'levelled' not because it actually did so with the player, but it had different abilities you could add onto it's attacks at the cost of spell slots... ranging from it being 'guiding' (1st level slot) or just ressing the person it would kill with the attack (9th level slot). So that is also an idea, make the magic item use spell slots for its effects, meaning when a character gets a new slot tier, they get access to a new level of the item.
I implemented a charm system that both I and my players have severely under used. The system as is let’s you have 3 sizes of charms, small medium large; 3 small, 2 medium, and 1 large. Small charms can take spells equal to 2nd level or lower and have ~3-5 charges daily. Medium charms could take 3rd level or lower with same ~3-5 charges, however you could substitute filling it with a spell for having a temporary increase to a stat for a short time; a plus one for a save in the heat of a moment or on deaths door, one charge of it however. Large charms could take 4th and lower spells, 3-5 times a day, or bestow a +2 to a stat passively, +4 on a charge. It’s under utilized idk, maybe because you had to craft it yourself or we couldn’t really agree with a size comparison. No matter what it’s been a year since I introduced it and only 3 charms have been made, one of which was a hexing charm to use against enemies.
I worked with my DM on a custom, transforming artificer weapon/artifact that 'leveled' based off of the infusions put into it. It can take any number of infusions that can be used on spellcasting foci or weapons, transforming and gaining abilities based on the infusion(s). Infusing it with 'Reloading weapon' involves transforming into a ranged weapon, 'Enhanced Focus' along with that causes you to fire your spells from the weapon. Alongside this would be 'milestone' abilities. It would gain abilities based on rare materials or items incorporated into its design. Taking the crystal off a Rod of Retribution and making it into the focus of the weapon might allow you to channel lightning; based on your particular character and their playstyle (e.g. melee/ranged/spells) you might add lightning damage on hit with attacks made with the weapon, or it might allow you to cast a nerfed version of Lightning Bolt twice a day, or even a free 'Absorb Elements' only for lightning damage - the idea is that you work with your DM to figure out what would work for your character. Draft of it we made on D&D Beyond; sadly my character died to an ambush before she could complete it. www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/1522183-weapon-of-artifice
I once had a fighter who used a flame tongue sword as their signature weapon so I decided to upgrade it with a +1 to hit and damage,a extra d6 of fire damage and a cast of burning hands at level 3 it was a little powerful but keep in mind fire is one of the most resisted elements.
an alternative is instead of leveling, magic items improve based on deeds done with or involved that item. For example, the player used a +1 long sword to kill an cultist before they could open a portal to release the ancient evil, now the sword might give a bonus protecting from effects of creatures that are tied to that ancient evil, or it deals extra damage type etc
Something I'm working with in my latest game: Cinnabar Moth Blades: Design wise, they look like bright red metal butterfly swords. They count as daggers OR martial weapons for the purpose of adding your proficiency bonus. They have the finesse, light, and thrown property. When unattuned, they do 1d6 slashing damage. when attuned, you get a damage bonus, listed below, and you can choose if the damage is slashing or fire. These are more inspired by the sentient weapons from Explorer's guide to Wildemount, but meant for more low level campaigns. I designed these for a sort of lol-so-random murderhobo player with the intention that the spirit possessing the blade would be an extension of that player's worst flaws, desiring destruction and chaos for the sole purpose that they can. If all goes well, the player should instinctively fight this will and develop some sense of reason... Hopefully. Fuck if I know what will happen next. Unattuned: no bonuses Dormant: (upon attuning for the first time) +1 to atk and dmg rolls. the wielder becomes proficient if they are not already. The wielder can feel the presence of Pandora (the spirit within the blades. yeah I know, not the most creative) but cannot communicate with them. Pandora may mentally push the player to do awful things, but will not affect them physically, EXCEPT when they turn down a challenge. The first time the player attempts to turn away from, say an NPC with no sense of self preservation, the player has to make a DC 15 wis save. failing, they reflexively draw one of the blades and hold it directly under the NPC's chin in a flash. the player can decide what happens from there. Awakened: (upon leveling up, or maybe in place of a milestone level up) +2 to atk and dmg rolls. The wielder gains the ability to cast feather fall once per day through the blades requiring no verbal or material components. Upon reaching this stage, the wielder gains the ability to communicate back and forth telepathically with Pandora. Pandora is a Chaotic Evil drow who uses she/her pronouns. As I mentioned before, she only wants the death and destruction of everyone and everything (not explicitly the wielder, but they can figure that out on their own). Her reasoning: she can. Pandora may offer a quest of some sort related to your campaign to destroy something powerful. Exalted: (upon completing Pandora's quest) +3 to atk and dmg rolls. The wielder also gains the ability to recall one of the weapons as a bonus action if thrown. The weapon disappears in a flash of red light and maybe a little smoke (thinking Houdini splicer fx) and reappears in the wielders hand. this can be done from any distance as long as you are on the same plane. The weapon does not collide with anything on the way back. At this point the weapon corrupts the player, permanently infusing part of pandora's conscious into the player's mind. the player cannot unattune from the weapon unless they are killed, or the weapon is destroyed as shown below. Pandora can speak through the player's voice at any time, and will often try to use they player's body, so long as they fail a DC ~12-15 wis save. Pandora's affects also permanently alter the appearance of the wielder, this change cannot be undone, even after unattuning. This may be different depending on the character, but so long as they have both of their eyes, you can have one turn pitch black with a solid ruby-colored iris. Destroying the blades: DM's discretion. Usually involves an elaborate quest of some sort. A couple ideas: - Find pandora's physical remains and stab them with the blades. - Ancient dragon breath. - Some ritual performed by 12 powerful figures. - Or potentially (this one's the most interesting but the hardest to pull off) the blades can only be destroyed by a blow from another equally powerful cursed weapon. You can repurpose and reflavor this however you want if you'd like to use it in your own game. have fun.
This works better for hexblade warlocks. I can't say I ever ran a game that saw the item reaching 20, but I did add a small system that the player could customize the leveling of the item by doing specific tasks and quests. I never got a chance to flesh out the item, but I had fun coming up with ways that the hexblade got stronger.
I made items that where also npc’s the leveling idea really helps It was meant to be used by warlocks as a way to talk and bond with the patron like a genies Bottle or a ring from a demon and the greater the bond the stronger the item became
im thinking this could be a interesting concept for me season 3 campaign. perhaps as a "soul bound" item the party will get as starting magic items. amazing work again man iv already implemented a variant of your magic crafting system in my campaign and it is working out very well for us. My one player is currently on a quest to fuse his sun blade and sun eater sword into a god tir blade with the help of other items cuz of it.
Just remember that with armor and weapons, you also need to cover the basic bonus' as well. The basic increase to the bonuses is a major thing as you continue into later levels. I've done some leveling items with an "Evolving Attunement" thing where there are several points of increase based on the users level, with a basic ability and other things gained with attunement. A lot of the concepts kind of evolved out of the 3.5 stuff, largely the equipment upgrades from one of the later dragon magazines, the Weapons of Legacy book, legendary weapons from Unearthed Arcana, and a few other places. The first one I created was basically Sting from Lord of the Rings with a few more upgrades, and made it quite good against Spiders and spider like creatures.
I'm trying to incorporate scaling items in my campaign, part of the leveling process I was thinking of was including side quest or certain parameters that need to be met (fighting certain monsters, getting a material that the item magically consumes and grows stronger, or even behaving in a certain way.)
Some easy ones to consider is using the character's proficiency bonus as a measuring stick; if they kept the item after their proficiency goes up, there's a chance they'll discover that the item levels-up. (obviously not at every improvement, or do, don't let me tell you how to run a session). Also if they rise to the next tier of play. Those are two easy ones to use. But definitely looking into a unique material that the weapon used, a blessing of some sort, or an instance where the player made a big breakthrough (either an achievement through difficult odds or something tied to their character/backstory). The idea of people, when pushed to their limits in extreme circumstances, can natural create a sort of magical effect is always a hugely fascinating to consider. Pair this with the Witcher Series' idea that curses can be put onto a person just by having enough intent (their words being taken very literally) can make it a second-side of that coin.
I started using magic items that gained more power as players moved through the story and even hidden ways an item could gain power. One I homebrewed was a Greataxe called the Fell Shadow Axe, it had three slots in the blade that needed to be filled by powerful black crystals called Fell Crystals. For each crystal added it would increase the axe's power and unlock new abilities. I should also add there are different colors of Fell Crystal, with black being extremely rare, so it'll take awhile to unlock the full potential of the axe.
I gave my party magical rings from 4 demideities of the elemental forces of nature that essentially turn them into benders from Avatar, with the intent that they grow more powerful over time. It's a gimmick related to the plot, basically. While wearing their respective ring, they get resistance to their damage-type, their spells of that damage-type gain their spellcasting modifier to damage AND ignore resistances (treating immunity as half damage), and they get an elemental cantrip for Fire, Water/Ice, Poison/Acid or Air(Lightning), as well as a 1st and 3rd-level spell, except the Wizard, who already had fireball so the ring only gives him 5th-level Flame Strike, and the rings have charges that let them cast these spells without spell slots (Though they can use spell slots if they run out of ring charges, which reset at dawn), using a number of charges equal to the level of the spell. Every few level ups, the rings gain +2 maximum charge. I was thinking that at level 16 and 24 (I'm running an Epic Level game, btw), the party will gain more powerful spells to use via their rings. The Rogue will have a field day, as he's only an Arcane Trickster, so he gets a few low-level spell slots and that's it, and the Warlock will have some additional firepower outside of Mystical Arcanum one-offs, Eldritch Blast and creating Bonfires under people pinned against a wall.
Im a huge fan of leveling items; Generally I bench mark about 1 minor quirk when they first get any magic item. Ability’s That you think might be to strong might enhance or create a new quirk; Things like..while attuned if your away from a body of water for 24 hours your need for hydration doubles as you begin to dry out, or actually gaining gills for the water breathing ability while wearing it. Meaning it becomes very fishy to others looking at it. For two examples of small little quirks to balance powerful Abilites
I had an idea of a Goliath barbarian character who wields this super old and damaged great sword covered in gashes and chips from various battles and misadventures that usually lines up with a scar on the barbarian. As such he tries to get the old sword enchanted and repaired to be as good as the +3 burning swords of smite the party keeps getting and the sword eventually starts to become a sentient weapon formed out of shared memories. Kinda like Japanese yokai made from household objects
A friend who DMs one of our two campaigns wanted to give each of us sorta these character "augment slots", so it's like we get either a Magic item or a Supernatural/Special ability for our character, that we can choose to upgrade with our next progression augment, or take on a new one. This doesn't count against items we pick up or abilities from circumstance, there are like Character Bound type deals, and I'm loving it. We don't have a system from what I understand, but at our current early level, so we each have 1 'Augment' I've run two characters at this point, my First character (Barbarian Goliath) had a Magic Item of dual Hand axes so they probably were going to get upgraded later, he also essentially received a cursed power like the others, and it was buffed pretty hard because he had some rare monster parts/items on his body, I honestly was suprised at how strong it was, so figured I'd limit its use. My second character (HB Artificer, Warforged) has received a Augment upgrade, a special ability that produces cover whenever he casts a spell of a varying level, the cover type & cover HP vary on the spell slot level as well. I really liked this addition, not for the in-game mechanic, but because it suits his theme, I based him on ISIC from battleborn, even drew him up; My group members are spook'd by him a bit xD
While I never have DMed before, I have designed some weapons for my group to use at some point. One that really was the strangest, but most interesting was a scythe that with every kill it claimed it would change damage dice, starting at a d6 and maxing out at a d12. At the end of combat though, the weilder would have to make a Con save 15. If they fail it, they take damage equal to the last hit the scythe dealt out. (Aka, 6 to 12 hp)
I gave my player a dagger that he got at the beginning of the campaign that was made of super rare materials he collected in his backstory. The dagger started out as rare and is now legendary cause It became a Darwin dagger. The dagger essentially gains abilities depending on situations he uses it in. When he fought a demon lord and then after fought some ice devils the dagger gained the ability to combust into flames. When he fought fey with it I gave it the ability to cast faire fire and etc. I like this kinda of item level up cause it spontaneous keeping the player not knowing what they’ll get.
I just thought of a different types of leveled up mariner’s armor where it shifts to each element instead water (except maybe fire). One for earth where you get the earth glide feature and can breath dirt for curtain amount of time. Summon flippen earth land sharks that are elementals instead of beasts.
I designed an entire sidequest based around a magical katana with a monk's soul trapped inside it, with milestone-based powers unlocking as the wielder got to know the monk by meditating with the sword. ...the player who found it wanted to sell it because the base damage was too low.
This actually works pretty well with a warlocks pact or hexblade weapon An example being something my gm giving me an area of effect spin to win attack that i can do once per combat encounter
One tip i have is when building a leveling weapon it enhancement bonus should be no greater then the players proficiency bonus. leveling the weapons enhancement by one every time the players proficiency changes will kid it use full all campaign.
I had my players in a campaign where a Mystical dragon pulled magic weapons from time and space along with a super weapon that had unknown capabilities they had to research to unlock, and granted them to the PCs. they decimated just about everything they came across, so to drag back some of that power i had the super weapon contain a benevolent Evil inside. Sure it granted you incredible strength, but it also turned them into an unkillable monster for a short time. The players, like i planned, felt very against the continued use of the super weapon, and set out on a quest to seal it away in a magic rift that shunted it into a subrealm of containment. The super weapon, however, contained the source of power that brought the other magic items to our realm, and so there was the trade off. banishing the evil meant stripping much power from the other items they had acquired, but they went through with it, and that's how I was able to downgrade and balance their Magic Items, though they have the option of recapturing the super weapon in the future and learning how to dominate the soul inside to re-attain the strength they had lost. I'm excited to see what they decide to do.
Always wanted to make a campaign where the players could get their hands on special weapons that essentially feast on what they kill and thus grow stronger if certain beasts are slayn with the weapons that are compatible with them in some way (which would basically allow me to keep that adjustable up to the very point it happens, cos keeping options open is nice). Only physically, so that good characters would be mostly okay with using them as long as it's not against other humanoids and others of that ilk. The campaign would be more of a monster hunter setting, so non-beast enemies would be pretty rare to begin with. Could start out with a sort of hunter guild, the kind that would be in every city and even most villages in a setting where giant beasts roam the land to basically be the defenders next to actual guards and knights. The guild could hand those weapons out to those who have proven themselves and if the players decided to look into those weapons and why the guild seems to be able to produce more, there could be some special lore and possibly even a secret super boss at the very end. Maybe some moral delemma as well, among the lines of the weapons being extremely morally gray and cruel in how they are created but they are the best defense humanity has against the outside world. Could be fun to DM but would need a group for that. One day maybe
Idea: a magical sentient sword created by the same means as magical constructs. It speaks telepathically to whoever is attuned to it. It also has stats and a class of its own, and can level up with the players. If your players are in a pinch, the sword can say “i would like you to point me at that thing over there” and then it casts a lightning bolt. Its basically an npc but with the vessel of a magic item.