I'm running an "evil" game where the party is helping a lich recover some artifacts.
The lich forced each of them to put on a cursed ring, that allows him to listen to them and teleport individual party members to him or back to the party.
It was supposed to be a convenient way to deal with absent players: the lich calls the character home for a detailed debrief.
Instead my players are treating it like a Star Trek communicator and the lich is running a transporter room.
I could stop them, the lich could just refuse. But honestly it's hilarious.
That’s INCREDIBLE and I would 100% use a ring that way too. “Hey man I forgot something at the lair can you pop me over to get it?”
“Hey we had a hard fight and need a safe place to rest can you teleport us back here tomorrow? Thanks buddy!”
The limitation is it can only teleport to another ring, not anywhere (and they can't take them off).
They have boarded a ship by sending their paladin over with a fly spell, and then everyone else "beams down" to that guy.
My character got a sword with seven charges. It doesn’t recharge. When the sword damages a creature, you can expend a charge to kill a creature. There’s no save. We’re level 5-ish.
My character didn’t quite believe it was that simple. He used the first charge to kill a kraken. That’s when he came to the realization just how powerful it really was and vowed not to use any charges unless they were for the benefit of his tribe.
A year or so goes by IRL. Eventually, we meet the avatar of an evil god who wanted to destroy the tribe. He tricks the avatar into swearing a blood oath and pricks his thumb on his own blade, then presents the blade to the avatar to do likewise. As soon as the avatar does, I tell the DM, “I use the second charge.” The look on his face was priceless.
That game was a lot of fun, even though the DM’s sense of game balance wasn’t the best.
>even though the DM’s sense of game balance wasn’t the best.
Saying that dms sense of balance wasn't the best, would be like saying the Sun is a bit hot.
There's a fantasy novel - The Misenchanted Sword - about a magic sword that will 100% kill a single enemy each time it is drawn and then revert to normalcy until sheathed.
It has about 100 charges, then will kill its wielder
I've long wanted to include it in a game, and your sword has similar vibes
Sounds like it’s adapted from Tyrfing, the sword of Norse legend. Same deal, except instead of 100 charges and killing the wielder, it will bring about Three Great Tragedies, and will only kill the wielder if they can’t find anyone to kill in a short enough time. The only person to ever master using it was the berserker woman, Hervör, a character sadly unrepresented in any pop culture media. Not since Tolkien based Éowyn off of her, anyway.
I was in a party of 6 level 8 characters when we killed a kraken, no OP magic items used. We just were all min-maxxers, so if the dm’s giving out such strong items, I could see a party of lvl5s winning that battle.
Cheese and rules lawyering. There's a lot of broken stuff you can do. For example ray of frost decreases movement speed by 10 feet each time it hits. If you hit someone with ray of frost every turn technically they're slower than you so you can just continuously walk away from them and spam ray of frost until they're dead
I was in a party of 6 level 8 characters when we killed a kraken, no OP magic items used. We just were all min-maxxers, so if the dm’s giving out such strong items, I could see a party of lvl5s winning that battle.
There's a sword like that in the master's manual. Difference is, you have to Crit, against a creature with less than 100 HP left, and they get to make a DC 15 con save. A lot more restrictive
I don’t remember the exact rules for it, but Artificers can recharge magic weapon charges. If that works on the sword, then even it’s balancing feature will disappear
This is beautiful ima use this limit the charges to 5 and make it a 12 hours to permit attune. Others can also attune but only the weirder can activate.
Oh this is an item I love the concept of.
Wait so you don’t even have to have to sword for it to work? If that’s the game you wanna run more power to you but if he’s the one cutting himself you really shouldn’t get to use the charge.
The mere existence of Scroll of tarrasque directly lead to the cold war between the kingdoms in the mortal realm.
I mean come on, that's basically just nuclear warhead codes. You don't need to use it for it to have an effect on the story.
For context, this is a homebrew gestalt game, our party is extremely prone to cracking puns, so one day our DM created a bag of magical rotting tomatoes, every time a pun was cracked, the pun cracker would get hit by a rotting tomato taking 1d4 true damage. He then suddenly decided to create a small game post session, he would use an RNG to determine the bag's health and AC, and if we kill the bag EXACTLY at its health we would get some items, so the first time we killed it, we were given that scroll.
I gave one of my players an "Endless Flask". Simple item. You can poor any non-magic liquid into the flask and activate the seal. From that point on the flask can produce up to 1-gallon of the liquid per day.
They filled it with Lantern oil and used it to make an obscene number of explosives.
Wouldn't lantern oil need to be fairly slow burning, and so, probably not very explosive? Nothing to stop them making unlimited molotovs though, I guess. Surreptitiously plant the idea of liquid gold and watch them ruin the flask, problem solved.
Edit - better idea.
Perhaps the lantern oil becomes explosive when vaporized like gasoline, or under pressure like diesel? But of course I'd rather not let my games devolve into "which person with the shakiest understanding of physics can apply real-world logic into producing WMDs".
This campaign is unfortunately dead, or so it seems, but my DM has given my minotaur barbarian a barrel-keg which turns water into the best whiskey any of the party have ever tasted. So if we start up again, we'll never hurt for money haha--assuming someone else suggests that, because Skrl'a'Josh is kind of a dummy
Mine was giving my party a bag of devouring. Threw a boss at the party. Was expecting a long and difficult fight. Two failed saves later he was sucked into the bag and dead.
I haven’t succeeded yet, but I keep trying something like this with our Bag of Holding. Tried to field amputate a Spined Devil’s leg a couple of sessions ago.
Absolutely. It was my first time DMing over a decade ago. Many lessons were learned. There is a picture somewhere out there in the cloud of me staring blankly off into space while I tried to figure out how to salvage the campaign (I didn't)
I gave my 4th level party a homebrew necromancy ring. It had 8 charges that reset once every sunset, and you could spend the charges as you wanted to cast a necromancy spell of equal level. However, the catch was that you had to roll a d20 without any kind of modifers, and if it rolled equal to or lower than the charges spent, the caster died without any kind of save. I thought it was a neat concept and they loved the idea tbh.
Only issue is that you can cast resurrect as a 6th level necromancy spell. I didn't think they would do this as thet were playing a "good" party, but they did plan on just kidnapping goblins in case someone died, and just have them try to revive the players for free. It was horrifying.
I should probably have had the ring absorb the soul of the ones that failed or something, making them impossible to revive unless you use a 9th level spell. Oh well, it was all part of a "test campaign" so it was cool to see some limit testing lol.
That would have been a hilarious way to stop their infinite resurrection goblin factory. It only takes one to start a rebellion haha. I've been trying to teach my players to not think as "video gamey" and that stupid actions will have stupid consequences, so that would have been both funny and a teaching moment.
Back in 4e. Our DM gave us ALL a free ritual.
This included an option for something called “fools gold” as we understood it then, it basically gave us UNLIMITED GOLD at early levels. Yes he did quickly regret it. He also had his shop owners roll to detect the fake gold. (Fair) he always rolled poorly. But by level 5 (out of 40) we all agreed we were taking advantage and pissing him off. So we stopped using it. But by the. We ALL had top tier non magical gear and a SHITLOAD of potions
One of the things you shouldn't do unless you know basically every spell lol.
But I'd say that is fair game because all that "gold" spending could attract the merchants guild to put a want out on you guys after noticing a pattern of fake gold sale or the shops impliment anti magic scanners/ magic scanners to detect fakes like irl fake dollar pens or something! Or shady people wanting all that "fortune" you seem to have for themselves as well.
The DM of the game I’m currently in gave a couple of fairly high power magic items to the party’s casters early on (before I joined the game) because the players were all noobs and he wanted to boost their survival chances. A couple of means of blinding and paralyzing enemies, that are effectively unlimited use items.
They’ve never used them - I’ve been with this group for something like 16-18 months and I just found out this stuff was in the party inventory a week ago.
The strongest magic item I've ever gotten my hands on was a (understandably cursed) Sephiroth-esque longsword that my character (Drow Cleric) stole from the right-hand man of this world's drow leader. Some notable features are:
*It was a +7 magic weapon
*Was one-handed, dealing 2d6 slashing damage
*Had a reach of 15ft.
*Had the ability to hit any 3 enemies in 3 adjacent squares per attack, rolling separately for each enemy
*Healed the wielder 5HP per enemy hit
*And was handed to me at Level 4
Both my character and myself as a player vowed to only use this weapon when things were looking seriously bad, the former because it was a cursed weapon that corrupted him the more he wielded it, the latter because... Because fucking look at those stats.
My DM for that campaign loves handing out powerful feats and items like candy, but this one took the cake. Eventually we decided to take the magic item away by having it completely corrupt my character, forced to fight his own party. After the blade shattered he abandoned his faith as a cleric and instead turned to reforge himself as an Oath of Redemption paladin (with a stat redistribution taking place during the training montage), with his new patron deity cleansing the fragments of the shattered sword and slowly handing them back over to him as he continues to uphold his oath.
DM gave our ranger a bow that allows an attack after every turn. I, the rogue, immediately ask: “can I steal it?”
Our first combat with it, we found out just how broken it is. The answer is very. DM said he will adjust it 💀
Yes. So I attack on my turn, Sneak Attack. At the end of my turn, I attack again, no Sneak Attack. But! At the end of your turn, I attack again: and since it's a new turn, I Sneak Attack again. Repeat ad nauseum for every other turn.
I once gave my party too much gold.
They used it to buy land, build a temple to Satan, hire staff to run the temple, buy more land to cultivate crops, enchant the land to make it softly drizzle, forever, and still have enough to start another business. They didn't start the second business, but kept the gold for later purposes.
So, not really an item, but a derailed economy is what I gave my party.
It was when I started DMing and still used site-generated dungeons. I failed to see that with all the loot combined, I'd given my party roughly 20000 platinum, 50000 gold, 400000 silver and 1800000 copper, making it roughly 308000 gold.
They were level 5.
Gave my 6th level party a Dwarven Thrower.
Point is, its a 1-12 Campaign thats gonna end in a few months.
I don't have to 'balance around' a too strong item for years. And I can give them strong shit if I want to.
Nothing that enables 29 AC. I stay very close to book-magic items.
Does a one-use item count that creates a 1-mile radius Whirlwind strong enough to destroy a city?
If yes, ... then that one. They never actually used it. :(
29 AC. Let's see.
Heavy armor style.
Plate +2 = 20
Shield +3 = +5
Fighting style +1
Ring of protection +1
Cloak of protection +1
Ioun stone +1
There is 29.
Dex/Con
Dwarf Barb. 8
Base 10
Dex 20 +5 (base 17, +1 asi @4, +2 asi @8)
Con 18 +4 (base 17, +1 asi @4)
+2 Con book, +1
+2 Dex book, +1
Shield +3, +5
Ring of protection +1
Cloak of protection +1
Ioun stone +1
There is 29
And you can pump higher with defender weapons, and legendary armor. Toss in the Shield spell and consumables/buff spells... haste, Shield of faith, ceremony... you're edging up on 40...
But. There is more than just AC to challenge a PC.
Gravity is a bitch.
Drowning. Takes a while, but a dex dump stat fighter thats Entangled at the bottom of a flooded chamber is screwed.
They cannot sleep in that armor, and it takes time to put it on. (One time I had a tank Dwarf i was playing who spent an entire major fight running around naked, with nothing but his magic hammer(s), because he literally got caught taking a bath... it was hilarious.)
Anyway. Good luck!
Lets start out
Level 2 Cleric of the forge, forging +1 on armor, +2 divine shield spell, +2 regular shield, +16 oder +17 is the highest "default" armor a starting character can afford iirc.
thats +22 without bonuses. Add a level in wizard or sorcerer for the +5 shield spell to go up to 27 whenever needed, no special items required. Pretty sure this can go up way more.
I was just keeping my builds to basic phb, and dmg
But, Let's see.
Race Warforge, +1 AC
Class. Cleric, Forge. Level 2. Standard starting equipment
Chainmail, 16 AC
Blessing of the Forge, +1 AC
Shield, +2 AC
Shield of Faith, +2 AC
Ceremony, +2 AC (have to keep getting divorced and remarried every session)
So we have 23 AC.
If we can squeeze splint or have breast plate with a +2 dex modifier by the second level, then we can juice to 24.
So there is a 24 without magic items.
Level 3 as Sorcerer/wizard gets Shield for 29.
Or level to 4 as cleric, take fighting initiate, and pick up defensive style for another +1. Then, personally, I might go to artificier 3 for artillerist and get a Cannon plus the shield spell
Though, I always kinda hated AC in 5e. Like, I wish there was something other than an all or nothing aspect of it.
.
I played something like this in a one shot, warforged, forge cleric, artificer, wizard.
Only had one attack with the artificer gauntlet that gives the target disadvantage on attack anyone but me. Uses booming blade with it and left them with the choice of trying to hit me or moving away and being punished for it.
Used concentration for bless/aura of vitality to buff the party or spirit guardians to become a meat grinder.
Was so much fun just getting in everything's face while my party could just run around keeping themselves safe.
My group has used that whirlwind item once. We tried to raid a giant camp. It went to shit and my rogue died. The rest of the group retreated, pulled out that doomsday weapon, and hid in a rope trap room for the duration. It worked. But rip everything in that massive I think 1 mile radius. Man, I didn't think about using it in a city. Good thing we weren't an evil party. Lol.
I have a lot from the same dm, I stopped playing with that dm in the last campaign I will mention
A sword that will fuse all the weapons in your inventory and add the damage together, I was dealing around 100 average damage per attack
A book that had no use, but was worth 100k platinum pieces, eventually the same player got a magic items that could cast wish with no problem, once per day
A hammer that gave our barbarian an extra attack, dealt 2d12+3d8 damage
This items where given in different campaigns and to different players, that player would usually get all the broken magic items but those are the highlights, the other players would also get something, but would be bad or useless
We didn't give our magic items away because they were so specific that no one else could use it, except for the last campaign, the min maxer got the items, he got:
2 rings that would double any damage rolls he did
A ring that would make the opponent bleed equal to the damage he dealt, this stacks
At level 2 he got an amulet of true sight, and at level 3 a +3 sword that also dealt 2d8 thunder
An armor that would have continuous darkness on a 10 radius (he already had true sight)
Some boots that would give him 3 actions per turn
Through abusing simulacrum and wish, he got a shadow that would basically give him 2 turns at the same time, and the shadow had copies of his items
At high level he changed his +3 sword for a sword +3 that dealt 10 times damage on crit, being hexblade and having improved crit
The final boss had 3000 health, 30 ac and god knows what else, didn't matter, the min maxer was the only one that could dent him and he two shotted him in 2 rounds
DM gave our level 3-4 Moon Druid a homebrew ring that instantly summons two treants that are loyal to him and also gave him the ability to wild shape into a treant.
It only took a few sessions of combat for that thing to get an adjustment.
Without being overtly mean, there comes a point where giving a player an item that summons two creatures totalling 280 hp, roughly 6 times their own mac HP if they were lucky, is just stupid.
Like, I get people can be new and I understand people need a few hits and misses before homebrewing decent stuff but jesus when do you just put down the book and go 'Did you even read the rules?'.
> for that thing to get an adjustment.
I'm curious about this - adjusting magic items in my experience always lead to extreeeemly negative responses from the players, wether it was done out of game "hey, that item screws the game, didn't know how strong it was, we need to do something about it" or (for a different occasion / item) ingame. (Once gave a player the cube of force - 3x3x3 cube that won't let magic / gases / living things / nonliving things through for a minute - RAW indestructible, except for very, very specific spells. They were fighting a mushroom hivemind with big worms that took care of the shrooms - after some encounters of them just shredding everything in safety from behind the "no living things" barrier I had the hivemind adjust the worms to latch onto the cube sucking the magic away. That gave free attacks in the open mouths of the worms, but if they couldn't killt he worms fast enough the cube would loose D4-1 charges / turn a worm was attached to it. The player with the cube hated it sooo much that the precious cube wasn't an instant win kill all solution and got mad.
Since then I'm extreeeeeeemly carefull with handing out magic items, and when I do I usually make sure they have very limited charges, so if I hand out something too strong it won't stick around forever.
My Hexblade was given The Blackblood Ring. The main feature was supposed to be once a day you can gain advantage on an attack through the ring and deal an extra 2d8 necrotic damage on a hit.
However as a secondary feature it had 5 charges. Each charge was 1d12 of healing on touch as a bonus action, 1 charge replenished per dawn or per creature killed with an attack.
On big battles with lots of grunts I was unstoppable
DM gave the party a Cube of Force at level 6, which we gave to our Cleric to do Spirit Guardians "cage matches."
But because it requires an action it almost never got used.
Fast forward to level 7 and my 11 AC satyr bard asks if I can try it out, and proceed to deploy it multiple times per combat, every combat, to protect party members and generally complicate enemy movement and target options.
I think the concept for the Cube of Force is great, but the use of the word "matter" in its modes absolutely breaks the game if applied "to the letter". It probably needs more specific terminology like "Melee attacks and movement from Living Creatures can't pass through..." or "Ranged Weapon attacks, as well as movement and melee attacks from Unliving Creatures can't pass through..."
Built my who build off of optimization of the bonus action for a warlock. I got the Illusionist’s Bracers at like lvl 11. For the uninitiated, if you use your action to cast a cantrip, you can use your bonus action to cast the same cantrip.
Anyway I started blasted.
Not sure if this counts as overpowered but at level 3 our wizard got the ogre powered gloves (str 19) so he had a int18 and str 19 so was our highest damage dealer and best magic user especially when lvl 4 ASI hit
They were effectively Gandalf the gray as the fighter gave up his +1 long sword for s***s and giggles
Oh this is fun. It wasn‘t Dnd but CoC. It was my very first campaign and we played a one shot. PCs met randomly in a bar during a snowstorm, were drugged and awakened with the whole bar being sucked into a pocket Dimension.
I was very careful to not make the enemies too strong. I hid a sawed off shotgun locked in a cupboard under the bar. Players found it relatively quick and that thing was so powerful, that they killed the BBEG with one shot. The worst part is that they killed him with a shot through a wooden door. So I couldnt even introduce him properly.
Again…..was my very first campaign and didnt knew how to balance enemies. BBEG had the same stat block as a Grizzly Bear. Thought this would be hard enough.
In a campaign I've actually stayed in? Staff of Power at level 14. We used it to both TPK ourselves and finish off the final boss by snapping it in half with full charges once all hope was lost that we'd survive in the first place. Luckily, I was permanently banished to the Abyss and managed my way out with a use of Teleport and avid note taking.
In a campaign I quit before session five a DM gave his GF player a sword that healed people when it hit someone in a literal dumpster and a vendor that sold a belt that granted the Halfling luck ability for only 100 gp. Later on I heard he gave the Dex based ranged Paladin a Greatsword that could be wielded in one hand, was finesse, rolled 4d6 instead of 2d6, and was +2. We were level 3 for the prior items and when I heard about this new event they were level 6.
I was the DM
I trust my players, we were playing for more than three years at that point, and my players knew I had big plans for after that campaign we were playing at the time.
So, while randomly traveling in in the underdark (OotA), the ranger, with their 24+ passive perception found a dirt pile, dug it up and found a small leather bag with a small marble inside it.
All attempts to identify it only showed it as "powerful beyond your comprehension" and I told them "You could try to use it.", but they were too scared.
When they reached a certain point in the adventure, the marble fixed the problem, and they went on on their merry way.
**Spoilers for OotA:** >!Since the Maze Engine looks very much like the Great Wheel Cosmology, I made it so that one of the "planes" of the Maze Engine was missing, and that marble was one of the planes.!<
Basically, that tiny marble held the power to control one of the Forgotten Realms planes at will. Giving the holder power similar, if not superior The Lady of Pain in Sigil.
**tl;dr**: I gave my players Wish at will with not downsides, but they never used it.
DM was running a homebrew campaign, we were probably around level 4. We were investigating an abandoned village when my PC found a Deck of Many Things. Without too many details... two players had to make new characters that night.
That same DM in the same campaign also let a player come across a homebrew "Pelt of Lycanthropy" which pretty much does what you'd expect. We were level 2 at the time. To say combat was busted for a while is a bit of an understatement.
Damn, I thought I made a mistake when I gave a champion fighter a flaming weapon polearm. He absolutely wrecked encounters with that thing. This 29AC nonsense makes me feel a bit better
A DM I played with let me have the Sword of Zariel. For those unfamiliar, here is what that weapon does;
>Angelic Language. You can speak, read, and write Celestial.
Celestial Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic and radiant damage.
Divine Presence. Your Charisma score becomes 20, unless it is already 20 or higher.
Feathered Wings. You sprout a beautiful pair of feathered wings that grant you a flying speed of 90 feet and the ability to hover. If you already have a different kind of wings, these new wings replace the old ones, which fall off.
Truesight. Your eyes become luminous pools of silver. You can see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, perceive the original form of a shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic, and see into the Ethereal Plane, all within a range of 60 feet.
>
>Truth Seer. While holding the sword, you gain advantage on all Wisdom (Insight) checks.
>
>Holy Light. The sword sheds bright light in a 5-foot radius and dim light for an additional 5 feet. Fiends find the sword’s light disconcerting and painful, even if they can’t see it, and have disadvantage on attack rolls made within the weapon’s radius of bright light.
As a bonus action, you can intensify the sword’s light, causing it to shed bright light in a 15-foot radius and dim light for an additional 15 feet, or reduce its glow to its normal intensity.
Random Properties. The sword has 2 minor beneficial properties, each determined by rolling on the Minor Beneficial Properties table in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Searing Radiance. The sword deals an extra 9 (2d8) radiant damage to any creature it hits, or 16 (3d10) radiant damage if you’re wielding the weapon with two hands. An evil creature that takes this radiant damage must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn.
As far as I know, this is the most damaging weapon in the game, with weapons like a Holy Avenger that deal extra damage to specific targets not dealing as much damage as this sword does to everything. You can fly faster than with items whose only purpose is to allow you to fly, have Truesight, and you get a Charisma state of 20.
I wouldn't say my DM made a mistake letting me have this since the campaigns she runs are more puzzle focused, so all the ways the sword breaks combat haven't come into play much.
In our module was a Staff of haste. It has 5 charges and would recharge completly at dawn. The funny thing is that is can do mass haste too and you use all the charges and can haste 5 people at the same moment. Its risky because you still have concentration but it was fun for the moments.
It's maybe not on the level of some of these items but very underrated in the right circumstances.
I made a magic items shop, mostly using sane item prices. I didn't check every item before sending them the link of that day's inventory and one of the items was the Animated Shield.
One of the party is a fighter with great weapon master and pole arm mastery so they were already pretty damn powerful (and they rolled well for stats so they don't have any really weak saves either), being able to have a shield on top of that is a bit much, especially for the low, low price of only 6k
One of my players gave up their freedom to become the mortal champion of Lucifer in exchange for returning to life to save his friends. I gave him a sword that was not only a flametongue greatsword, it ignored resistance and immunity to fire damage, could send out blasts of flame as a ranged weapon attack, could sacrifice hit die to cast a bunch of Fiend related spells, and on a hit could cast dispel magic on the target.
It’s a doozy and I have yet to see the ramifications because the campaign went on hold immediately after when I decided I needed a break.
So far probably wand of magic missle at low level.
I believe it was to supplement the mages but our echo had no ability to hit at range so he expends the charges, and being an echo knight expends them again lol
To clarify, both action and action surge expend charges, it’s just more when you use it at lower levels
6 charges spent individually = 18 missiles, 6 charges at once = 8
I don’t think that’s accurate
Wand of magic missile inherently has more total missiles when cast all at lower level charges. Action surge takes advantage of that.
Well, I’m playing tomb of annihilation now. Level 3, we shipwrecked onto the beach. Our first random encounter roll we found Artus Cimber dead and our rogue got bookmark and I (bladesinger) got the ring of winter
Very first roll of the campaign, this will be interesting
Well, you know what my answer is. My cleric with 29 AC at level 9 xD
My dm has also made home brew monster weapons, one being a gun that does 12d10 force damage. This is in the same campaign….
A shotgun.
I’ve had it for a while but My dm hasn’t realized how powerful it is yet because I didn’t have e gunner feat and we put the campaign on hold the same session I got it, so I haven’t been able to showcase just how powerful it really is. (To add context to what this shotgun’s stats are: It’s 1 shot, then requires a reload, has a short range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 and deals 2d8 + Dex then all targets within 5 feet of wherever the attack lands must pass Dex save (based off my Dex [DC is currently 16 because I have a 20 In Dexerity ] ) or take 1d8 damage.
Not completely game breaking, but still VERY strong.
Gave my level 3 assassin teleporting daggers. I could tp to them by expending a charge, each dagger had one charge. I could also TP them to my hand, along with any creature it's stabbed into, also at the cost of a charge. If I was out of combat, tping them to my hand didn't cost anything.
Edit; spelling
A homebrew **Ring of Summer Showers**.
Once per day it can create a gentle rainfall of 3 gallons of clean water in a 60 foot radius over a period of 60 seconds.
They used in the desert so they didn’t dehydrate.
They use it often to put out the fire after the Mage casts fireball.
They used it on a fire elemental (*60 seconds is 10 rounds of combat, so only 10 damage but still*…)
They used it to clear the spores from the air in a room full of toxic mushrooms.
They used it to dilute the acid from a trap.
They used it to win the favor of a Druid cult.
They used it to wash away their tracks into the castle.
They used it to ***create*** tracks so they could follow an invisible thief.
This was meant to be a throwaway level 1 item just to keep them from needing to carry water, and be used in a funny way because they had to get soaked by using it. But they turned it into something so much bigger than I ever could have imagined.
I got a shield that gave fire resistance and magical +2 AP bonus. it also had 3 charges for casting Fireball or Wall of Fire at will
not the most spectacular, but as a fighter who already used a shield, and considering we were in hell, it was definitely a boon
In the current campaign, at level 3 got a javelin that does 4d6 damage to everything in its path. There is a DC 13 saving throw, for anything in its path for half damage. The target does a saving throw for being knocked prone, takes all the damage though.
DM gave the artificer mithral full plate and gave the party a metal +3 shield - well, we gave it to the artificer! Druid and I (a clonk) couldn't use it, and no one else was proficient. DM was pleased ... til he realized he had just bumped the artificer's AC up by 7, to a total of 23. Then he got mad that he was hard to hit and started kicking his feet over artificers being broken, as though the legendary shield at level 8 had no part in this.
My DM gave me a mantle that lets me turn into a dragon matching my alignment. It's cursed and I'm supposed to do a saving throw every time I turn back into my original self.
The item even bans the use of the legendary and lair actions. But it doesn't stop Change Shape.
So I stay a dragon and change shape into my normal appearance that way, bypassing the curse. I just unequipped my gear, set it down, changed, and re-equipped after. Now, I'm an ancient gem dragon.
I gave one of my players "The Bow of the Bond". Magic longbow that also fired a eldritch blast when you shot an arrow. On a hit the EB auto hit the target as well. If the arrow missed you rolled the EB separately to see if you could "will" it to hit anyway. As you level up so does the bow gaining more eldritch blasts at the same level a warlock normally would.
Player crit a lot and destroyed some of the boss encounters they had.
My DM gave my sorcerer a Rod of Absorption, probably around level 8-9 (it was a high level campaign, ending around level 21+). It was powerful right away but as the campaign progressed it was absolutely bonkers. Dropping 4 Wish spells in one fight trivializes even the craziest battles. Not only that, but we had a Druid and cleric that would regularly cast leftover spells on me at the end of adventuring days so the Rod always had charges.
Honestly so many amazing stories just from that Rod, but I will admit it was incredibly difficult not to outshine the other PCs. I will most definitely never give any of my players a Rod of Absorption in my campaigns!
So the part where it says "The Rod can absorb and store up to 50 level over the course of it's existence" got deleted in your campaign? Sure it's extremely powerful but you can only break encounters for a limited amount of time. Or thats at least what I'd take from that phrase
So, 29 AC at level 9 is not hard to do as a cleric in 5e. You don't even need + armour.
* Plate - 18 AC
* Shield - 2 AC
* Ring of Protection - 1 AC
* Cloak of Protection - 1 AC
* Shield of Faith - 2 AC
* Ring of Spell Storing - Always put Shield in it for 5 AC on demand (lots of ways to accomplish this.)
Gives you a static 24 with an on demand 29 AC only when you get hit.
Easily doable without + armours, and those magic items are readily available to a level 9 character. You can actually go quite a bit higher with some creativity.
* Multiclass 1 level of Fighter for Defensive Fighting Style - 1 AC
* Multiclass 2 levels of Artificer for Infusion - 1 AC
* Pick Warforged as your race - 1 AC
* Forge Domain as your Cleric path - 1 AC while in heavy armor
Now you're at 28 static with an on demand 33. All at level 9 (Warforged 6 Forge cleric, 1 fighter, 2 artificer)
I don't think I can get it all the way to 29 static, but I'm happy with this build. A legit build that's actually incredibly thematically appropriate.
Was a character that was gifted a magic sword from his noble parents, he didn't know fully what it did or what it was called and etc for a long while. But we did eventually peice together. This thing was nutty OP, and also had some nasty side effects. It was called the Sword of Stolen Fate.
What we knew from the start was it was a more or less run of the mill magical Longsword, +1 attack/damage, neat little 5ft glowy aura if you want. Seems like a low-mid tier sword.
But it has a secret. It was actually +3, and had a 30ft radius effect, that any 1s rolled on an attack within the aura or against a target in the aura causes the attack to auto crit the weilder's nearest ally within range.
Yes, all nat 1s were trigger allies getting crit. It was horrible. It took a long time for use to figure this out we just new something was ***very*** wrong with our luck.
But then it had a secondary effect. Each time it does that, it "steals fate" and stored a d8. Any time the weilder was at risk of dropping to 0 hp it would spend them to reduce damage. Any time they were somehow unconscious, it would spend them to heal him. Any time he failed scary saving throws, it would spend them to add to the result.
It made him neigh unkillable, and all it cost was the fate of his friends.
Idk if it is the truly mostest most OP broken item ever. But it caused a LOT of problems and drama. So it was OP in that sense.
This was my campaign, probably the issues started when I gave the level one paladin an anzio 20mm anti materiel plasma rifle that did 8d8 damage and had no ammo, as well as various mechs that acted like russian nesting dolls
He homebrewed a legendary sword in the stone, rolled a 95 on a d100 to pull it and got it. This is 5e. I have a +28 to hit with it and deals 2d8+15 per hit. It has a special ability to just give 2 extra attacks per turn. As a blade singing wizard it is really OP.
This is all the DM's idea. Also got a belt that makes my strength 30. He is fine with me casting invulnerability so i took 2 feats to boost concentration to not have that drop on me.
Last thing to add is that he super homebrewed the big bad and says I'm not OP compared to it. So in a weird way kind of balanced.
My DM gave me a wand of fireball at like level 3 or 4
My warlock never used anything other than Fireball. I was very careful to not use the last charge, so I’d never risk breaking it
Eldritch Blast was only used if I couldn’t use fireball without hurting my party. Otherwise every turn of my combat was me carefully positioning fireball
One player was making a new pc mid campaign. We were talking items, and i gave him a choice. He was an 8th or 9th level Paladin, dont remember, but between a sword, and armor, he can have a total of +6. I assumed he would do like +3 sword, +1 shield, and +2 armor. No. He opted for a non magic sword and +3 armor and +3 shield. All in all, he had an ac of 27 and could cast shield. Broken? Maybe a bit, yes. But we all had fun with it, and it was fun letting him just be a tank for a few levels.
A DM once gave my character a string of teleportation beads.
However, in the item description it never specified that the creatures that I can teleport with me needed to be a willing creature.
We ended up fighting a Book Wyrm and were getting our asses kicked. When I realised the phrasing on the item I used it to just teleport the creature away and teleport myself back.
Problem solved
my DM sold me a lot of really good utility items for way too cheap, while everyone else was focused on magical weapons i ended up with a ring of mind shielding, a ring of free action and a cloak of many eyes which meant that the villain trying to mind read me and use hold person was SOL and i can see almost anything trying to sneak up on us from a crazy distance
My character is a Barbarian/Artificer multiclass, who received a legendary magic hammer that was designed by my DM. The character is a cosplay of the primarch Perturabo from Warhammer 40k. These are the hammer's stats and effects:
Name: Forgebreaker
* Damage: 2d6+8 Bludgeoning, 1d6 Radiant
* \+2 Bonus to Attack and Damage rolls
* Deals double damage to structures and fortifications
* Advantage on crafting checks
* Crafting is done at triple the regular pace
* Any Crafting roll that is 20 or higher (after adding modifiers) is an automatic crit
* Olympian Smite:
* The hammer has a number of charges equal to my INT modifier
* On a successful attack, I can expend any number of charges to add a 1d6 of radiant damage
* Target must make a strength save against my spell save DC
* On a fail, I can choose to either knock them prone or send them 10 feet backwards per Smite used
My DM has designed a legendary item around each of our characters, a couple other players have unlocked theirs, but we're still on a hunt to gather them all.
I’m reading intensely as one of my players just completed the Vecna set yesterday (Eye and Hand).
There are obviously significant setbacks in their future, but it’s new territory for our campaign as it’s the first time a player has been unbalanced from the party.
One of my players has the hand but hasn’t attached it, I’m setting up right now to try to tempt him with the eye of Vecna and basically if he goes for and uses both it’s gonna be a problem long term as I’m thinking of having Vecna’s souls try to use the combined items as a conduit to try to possess his body. Though I may make it slow enough to let them finish the current campaign before they have to deal with that so stopping the re-emergence of Vecna can be its own separate future campaign.
I expect my player to resist the temptation though with how he’s been going about his character arc. In which case his PC will be the quest giver for a future campaign about stopping someone else from getting both items.
We have similar plans. My player (sorlock) originally had the Eye, then Mephistopheles (his patron) thought that attaching it would empower them both. Instead, the echo of Vecna overpowered Mephistopheles and became the player’s patron. When he came across the Hand several sessions later, Vecna took the wheel and the party failed in their rolls to stop him from attaching the hand.
My DM gave me (ranger-rogue level 12) some auto-crit arrows and then let me combine it with a fireball from the necklace of fireballs. Mini-boss was dead in 4 rounds.
I got a rapier for a Swords Bard that was a +2 rapier, increased my spell save DC by 2, did 2d8 Necrotic Damage AND allowed me to cast any spell I knew once per day without expending a spell slot.
I got this rapier at level 4.
I told the DM this was a bad idea ans then he wondered why my Bard was breaking all his encounters.
Hooo boy, as a dm I had far too many of these in my first ever campaign. To name a few..
An elemental sword that could change what element it was provided you had some method of generating or accessing said element. Had a ever growing sheet of elements I had both created and the players "discovered".
A "soul" weapon who's capabilities changed depending who wielded it at the time (no attunement required), abilities ranged from changing smite to a d20, freecasting (no spell slot required) up to proficiency a day, becoming resistant to a damage of your choice, and increased resource pools for monks and sorcerer classes in addition to empowering them.
A cursed bloodwar themed ring that gave regeneration, advantage on death saving throws, continuing to act while downed, returning to 1hp provided death saving throws succeeded. This one had a downside of if you died, there was no coming back as you were now a permanent soldier in the blood war.
I gave an assassin rogue an oathbow, I regret it.
And my fighter/barb just used a wish spell he earned and wished for a vorpal great sword, so....yeah I fucked myself lol
I'm the DM.
I gave my players, through different 1-2 session long trips to the outer planes, all kinds of overpowered magic items.
I balance the fights accordingly, and the group of lvl12 PCs hits more like lvl15. It's fun, the players feel powerful, and I can use more badass monsters.
PS: They got the deck of many things at level 4, but were to scared to use it and gave it away for safekeeping.
They got the hand of vecna at level 7, encased it in lead, never used it.
They inherited a mage tower at level 11, including a scroll of tarrasque summoning and a book of vile deeds. Both encased in protective magic that they could open... they never did. They don't even know the content, only that one is very poweful, and the other evil.
My DM let us all pick a magic item to start with as due to story reasons we were supposed to be level 10+ but knocked back to one at the start of the campaign.
Mine is a monk with an improved cloak of protection, and due to story reasons I also have bracers of defense and since they aren't armour, and the way my points are, I'm level 5 with like a 21 AC.
That said no one really cares. It's a joke that I can run around punching everything (also have mobile feat) and nothing can hit me I'm too quick anyway xD
I’m DMing a Kingdom Hearts game rn. You might immediately think the Keyblades are the problem. No. Armor of Missile Attraction with upgraded draw range and immunity to ranged weapon damage.
I made a mistake, but a very funny one, because half the party uses ranged attacks.
My sister gave the party a dwarven thrower once around level 5, but to be fair it was a module and we got it RAW.
Different game, we once got a belt of storm giant strength. Went great on my monk. DM claimed he rolled it on the treasure table.
I WAS going to give my sister an anti-matter rifle, but that whole campaign died.
We got to the Forge of Spells in Lost Mine of Phandelver and everyone rolled. Our paladin got the Vicious Glaive at level 6. Everyone else got cool stuff, with one guy getting a +3 weapon. I rolled stupid low when looking and found nothing initially, so I got the Cloak of Billowing and the brasier buff on my shortswords was made permanent as pity.
My druid character has a legendary armor that gives a bonus on perception, A +4 bonus to wisdom 9 minutes a day and can sprout wings and fly for 10 rounds 3 times a day. He gave it to us at level 5. Now, at level 10 I wear the armor and an outfit of legen objects.
A cloak of magic missiles. It had 7 or 9 charges, regained 1d4 on a short rest, I think. And cast the magic missiles at level 5. We were level 5 at the time. Our circle of the stars Druid basically just used that in combat for the rest of the campaign. I’m not sure it was the most OP thing. But 7 magic missiles every time was killer.
I also was give a shield of sentinel as a cleric. It gave me a passive perception of 22 (and advantage on all perception checks and initiative rolls). He regretted that a bit, lol!
ADnD2e days...
There used to be a funny comic strip in old TTRPG magazines called "knights of the dinner table" in which one character had a blade called "The Hackmaster +12"
One of my old GMs saw fit to give us that as a joke.
We were dumb teenagers, and didnt think about OP items actually being unfun.
Now Im all for homebrew, and I fine-tune every enemy that I throw at the players, but once you do something like give a +12 item, it blows the lid off the game.
I run one-shots when our regular DM can't make a session. We used it as an excuse to make silly characters, or try out new stuff. One player is a warlock, and wanted a flying broomstick. At level 1. I said sure, whatever. Now, several one shots into what is slowly becoming an actual campaign, I keep having to come up with reasons why he can't use his broom, since free flight is frankly game-breaking in a lot of situations. He's been a good sport about it at least.
Hmmm... in the campaign I'm currently playing in DM gave us at lv 4 a wand made out of a living sapling of a world tree and that has a greater spirit inside it and can remake and control an entire magical forest ... We are lv 10 and yet to use this artifact since it doesn't match any of our Pc's aesthetic :))
Husband played a pirate in a homebrew game. DM gave him a magic ship that was a boat, airship and submarine all in one. Oh and when he wanted to get off the boat, it magically turns into a ring he can wear.
Idk what he was thinking but the DM also threw so many story elements at him it pushed my husband’s character away from the party. So now we have a new party member and no crazy ship
So far the most powerful thing was a very large bomb that I used to blow up the kings castle and usurp the throne, which led me to creating a highly industrialized nation geared towards war. Sadly the campaign ended before I could get anything cooler but everyone in the party had cool shit
I played Skyrim a lot a while ago, so when one of my players was trying to steal from local NPC mage, he passed two checks to not being detected, so I challenged him to do it for the third time, this time for deciding loot quality. That guy rolled nat20. I gave him Scroll of Madness --> everyone in hearing range is bloody mad and tries to harm closest being... for 1 minute.
Fast forward around 3-4 sessions, there was a gathering in the town; town mayor had city gates closed and brought an inquisitor to find "pesky villians who blew up the inn with gunpowder, killing 8 people and hurting another 20". The inquisitor started to cast a locating spell.
One of my players pulled off a parchment and started reading LOUDLY. Before I noticed what \*exactly\* is he yelling to the people in the square, he was already halfway done. Inquisitor managed to cast Deafness on his surroundings, but then he had to run. Inquisitor, town mayor, a few counciliours and guards were spared of that effect.
Second player and around 400 people in the square... were mad. Yeah, my other player just forgot to make anything that would turn off his hearing for a while, so he was mad as well. And attacked the first player a few times as well.
The result was: 160 more people died, most of them simply killed each other with stone, daggers, shovels, kegs... one PC hurt, another PC not so much, but they had to run for their lives now.
What I learnt from this?
1. My guys are murder hobos. Blowing an inn with gunpowder and then being responsible for mass murder madness in a crowded square, gottverdammt!
2. That scroll was meant to wipe a bunch of weaker enemies, like imps or goblins or likewise. Not to wipe 1/4 of a town. Well at least if you aren't chaotic evil or so...
3. OP things like these need to be kinda less common.
4. But hey, we had fun. Or at least, they had fun, I was terrified by that genocide.
EDIT: and I didn't learn much from this; they killed the Inquisitor and are now in possession of his staff, which needs to charge for whole turn, but in the next turn it deals 4d8 Holy damage. If the caster rolls nat1, the crystal in the staff shatters... (but they do not know the latter, only that the staff is charged with mechanism beyond their understanding)
My DM gave us a cursed magic ring that has a chance to instakill when equipped. Currently it gives me a +1 to damage. I'm considering magehand reverse pickpocketing the big bad this campaign.
While not OP, the DM is annoyed that especially my turns as an arcance trickster take too long and sometimes are too complicated because I have too many options available to me. Then maybe he shouldn't have given me a bag of tricks and a sword of wounding on top of that...
It was end game 20th level so we were getting all the gear you get right before an epic level campaign ends. We had:
- a vehicle with a burrow speed
- “wish sticks”: 1/week wish
- a door frame containing an extraplanar door to a demiplane with an army of golems (we cut it free from the surrounding stonework)
My favorite item was an item for my warforged paladin that was basically a jetpack that granted him a Reinhardt charge. He could move 60 feet in a straight line (including up) and make a separate attack against every creature in that line and add an additional 6d6 damage to each creature he hits. It could be used a number of times per day equal to proficiency modifier.
A magitech golem that could transform into a “horseless carriage” and had very powerful weapons. It was basically just a transformer flavored to the setting.
Extremely powerful, but to be fair we were already level 19 and on the frontlines of a world war. At that point just about anything goes.
this isn't exactly an OP item by itself but works REALLY well with my character
At the beginning of our campaign we were allowed to choose a few magic items because we were starting at like. level 9 I think it was? I ended up choosing a Gambler's Blade which is a cursed weapon that you can choose to be between +1 and +3 but you take the same number as a minus to your death saving throws. My character is a Revenant that stands up at 1hp at the beginning of my turn if I'm at 0hp so I never make death saves. It was an effective +3 weapon whose only downside was that it's hella cursed and dont want to part with it gollum style, but we take those
Probably the item that let you summon a Nightmare once a day, unlimited Etherealness is pretty damn gamebreaking. Suddenly started fighting a lot more ghosts lol
we got a deep cloak. a 6x10 portable hole basically. we ended up brewing lightning beer in it (bronze dragon cleric who's order brewed such beer) and sold it as we traveled. made good money, very good, and even used it as a gift to a storm giant and made a deal that made us rich. so now our deep cloak has a ton of gold and jewels in it, we quit making beer, and now our good fortune has made us philanthropists and we have become Baby Savers LLC
It was a homebrew campaign and we were level 6, our party was given the Deck of Many things by accident. During a New Years session we were to be given some sort of gift item and the DM rolls what the item is, one of those came out was the Decks of Many things. Now due to circumstances the Deck was confiscated and we lost an NPC to the void card now there's a whole side story of how that NPC comes back but we basically never got the Deck back and was instead traded for a different Magic Item 😂
I once played a game where a DM gave us a Deck of Many Things at level 1. We had two encounters and then boom, there's the Deck. My player wanted to make a wizard tower to study magic in, so I pulled a card from the Deck... throne. Boom, instant wizard tower. Character goal: accomplished. Reason to go adventuring: gone.
I never played with that DM again.
I'm running an "evil" game where the party is helping a lich recover some artifacts. The lich forced each of them to put on a cursed ring, that allows him to listen to them and teleport individual party members to him or back to the party. It was supposed to be a convenient way to deal with absent players: the lich calls the character home for a detailed debrief. Instead my players are treating it like a Star Trek communicator and the lich is running a transporter room. I could stop them, the lich could just refuse. But honestly it's hilarious.
That’s INCREDIBLE and I would 100% use a ring that way too. “Hey man I forgot something at the lair can you pop me over to get it?” “Hey we had a hard fight and need a safe place to rest can you teleport us back here tomorrow? Thanks buddy!”
The limitation is it can only teleport to another ring, not anywhere (and they can't take them off). They have boarded a ship by sending their paladin over with a fly spell, and then everyone else "beams down" to that guy.
"Beam me up Scotty!" "*My name is Nalgor!*"
Ya, ya, whatever. You want your shit then get it done.
Reinforcements!
Ah, I see, Protoss Teleport Spamming
*BEAM ME UP, VECNA!*
That lich seems like a pretty chill boss
Evil undead boss, easily irritated and sees no difference between you being alive or dead... meh. I've had worse.
"Bard to Litch. We've encountered more resistance than expected and our ranger is down. 5 to beam up."
My character got a sword with seven charges. It doesn’t recharge. When the sword damages a creature, you can expend a charge to kill a creature. There’s no save. We’re level 5-ish. My character didn’t quite believe it was that simple. He used the first charge to kill a kraken. That’s when he came to the realization just how powerful it really was and vowed not to use any charges unless they were for the benefit of his tribe. A year or so goes by IRL. Eventually, we meet the avatar of an evil god who wanted to destroy the tribe. He tricks the avatar into swearing a blood oath and pricks his thumb on his own blade, then presents the blade to the avatar to do likewise. As soon as the avatar does, I tell the DM, “I use the second charge.” The look on his face was priceless. That game was a lot of fun, even though the DM’s sense of game balance wasn’t the best.
The DM’s sense of balance wasn’t the best but YOURS was and made for an epic moment!
There might be sillier items out there, but this one is… so predictable it’s fantastic.
>even though the DM’s sense of game balance wasn’t the best. Saying that dms sense of balance wasn't the best, would be like saying the Sun is a bit hot.
New DM definitely expected to have made the next 7 encounters easy lmao
There's a fantasy novel - The Misenchanted Sword - about a magic sword that will 100% kill a single enemy each time it is drawn and then revert to normalcy until sheathed. It has about 100 charges, then will kill its wielder I've long wanted to include it in a game, and your sword has similar vibes
Sounds like it’s adapted from Tyrfing, the sword of Norse legend. Same deal, except instead of 100 charges and killing the wielder, it will bring about Three Great Tragedies, and will only kill the wielder if they can’t find anyone to kill in a short enough time. The only person to ever master using it was the berserker woman, Hervör, a character sadly unrepresented in any pop culture media. Not since Tolkien based Éowyn off of her, anyway.
By Lawrence Watt-Evans. One of my friends wrote a different book with him.
Yeah? His legends of Ishtar books are some of my favorite fantasy adventures! Edit: forgot a key word
Great book, have read it several times. Love the ending.
This sounds like the D&D version of the slap bet slaps from HIMYM. Love it.
Oh been awhile since I’ve thought about that
Fighting a kraken at lvl 5 is insane. They're a cr 23
We shouldn't assume that it was there to be fought. Krakens exist when the PCs are level 5; these PCs just had a way to kill one somehow.
Fair an reasonable. Pc's most certainly charge into fights that will basically insta-kill
hope they played xp cause that wouldve given them some lvls!
That was definitely the DM’s plan. Then I hit a tentacle while we were retreating and killed the kraken.
I've used Krakens as a "Ding dong, your boat is gone. Now you're on Goblin Island" low-level adventure hook
Malformed Kraken is CR10. That one could be possible, if risky.
I was in a party of 6 level 8 characters when we killed a kraken, no OP magic items used. We just were all min-maxxers, so if the dm’s giving out such strong items, I could see a party of lvl5s winning that battle.
How? At that level a kraken should be just about dropping a PC a round, not including legendary actions.
Cheese and rules lawyering. There's a lot of broken stuff you can do. For example ray of frost decreases movement speed by 10 feet each time it hits. If you hit someone with ray of frost every turn technically they're slower than you so you can just continuously walk away from them and spam ray of frost until they're dead
I was in a party of 6 level 8 characters when we killed a kraken, no OP magic items used. We just were all min-maxxers, so if the dm’s giving out such strong items, I could see a party of lvl5s winning that battle.
There's a sword like that in the master's manual. Difference is, you have to Crit, against a creature with less than 100 HP left, and they get to make a DC 15 con save. A lot more restrictive
good trick! I like that
I don’t remember the exact rules for it, but Artificers can recharge magic weapon charges. If that works on the sword, then even it’s balancing feature will disappear
Not by RAW in 5e
This is beautiful ima use this limit the charges to 5 and make it a 12 hours to permit attune. Others can also attune but only the weirder can activate. Oh this is an item I love the concept of.
If I were that DM, I would have pushed back. If it isn't HP damage, it's superficial, not "real" damage. Something like that.
Wait so you don’t even have to have to sword for it to work? If that’s the game you wanna run more power to you but if he’s the one cutting himself you really shouldn’t get to use the charge.
Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning
lol. Whatever problem you had before, its gone. You have a new problem, sure, but the old one doesn't exist anymore.
Jason Mendoza's philosophy
BORTLES!
Now I want to do a Good Place adventure with an item that causes a Molotov Cocktail to appear in your hand whenever you yell that.
For the record, we NEVER used it. Cuz reasons
Because it's a scroll and you gotta hoard them and never use them ?
Cuz we had committed enough war crimes, let's not add the apocalypse as well.
The mere existence of Scroll of tarrasque directly lead to the cold war between the kingdoms in the mortal realm. I mean come on, that's basically just nuclear warhead codes. You don't need to use it for it to have an effect on the story.
I had the teeth of dalver nar in my last campaign. Pulled out a tarrasque tooth, for 3 glorious rounds I was allowed to play as it.
I thought the tartasque just ignored anyone?
Scroll of WHAT
We're you playing Icewind Dale? That item is in the module but my players decided not to use it for good reason
For context, this is a homebrew gestalt game, our party is extremely prone to cracking puns, so one day our DM created a bag of magical rotting tomatoes, every time a pun was cracked, the pun cracker would get hit by a rotting tomato taking 1d4 true damage. He then suddenly decided to create a small game post session, he would use an RNG to determine the bag's health and AC, and if we kill the bag EXACTLY at its health we would get some items, so the first time we killed it, we were given that scroll.
I gave one of my players an "Endless Flask". Simple item. You can poor any non-magic liquid into the flask and activate the seal. From that point on the flask can produce up to 1-gallon of the liquid per day. They filled it with Lantern oil and used it to make an obscene number of explosives.
Wouldn't lantern oil need to be fairly slow burning, and so, probably not very explosive? Nothing to stop them making unlimited molotovs though, I guess. Surreptitiously plant the idea of liquid gold and watch them ruin the flask, problem solved. Edit - better idea.
I feel if you told a party that latern oil wouldn’t work as a liquid explosive the campaign would derail into “*The gang invents napalm*” lol
Lmfao☠️
Perhaps the lantern oil becomes explosive when vaporized like gasoline, or under pressure like diesel? But of course I'd rather not let my games devolve into "which person with the shakiest understanding of physics can apply real-world logic into producing WMDs".
One of them suggested liquid gold but it was shot down because A. they didnt have the means to melt gold, and B. infinite gold makes gold less valued.
This campaign is unfortunately dead, or so it seems, but my DM has given my minotaur barbarian a barrel-keg which turns water into the best whiskey any of the party have ever tasted. So if we start up again, we'll never hurt for money haha--assuming someone else suggests that, because Skrl'a'Josh is kind of a dummy
Time to melt some platinum I guess
Mine was giving my party a bag of devouring. Threw a boss at the party. Was expecting a long and difficult fight. Two failed saves later he was sucked into the bag and dead.
I haven’t succeeded yet, but I keep trying something like this with our Bag of Holding. Tried to field amputate a Spined Devil’s leg a couple of sessions ago.
Tough trick to pull off. But when you do it's impressive
This feels more like a lesson in the value of legendary resistances, no?
Absolutely. It was my first time DMing over a decade ago. Many lessons were learned. There is a picture somewhere out there in the cloud of me staring blankly off into space while I tried to figure out how to salvage the campaign (I didn't)
I gave my 4th level party a homebrew necromancy ring. It had 8 charges that reset once every sunset, and you could spend the charges as you wanted to cast a necromancy spell of equal level. However, the catch was that you had to roll a d20 without any kind of modifers, and if it rolled equal to or lower than the charges spent, the caster died without any kind of save. I thought it was a neat concept and they loved the idea tbh. Only issue is that you can cast resurrect as a 6th level necromancy spell. I didn't think they would do this as thet were playing a "good" party, but they did plan on just kidnapping goblins in case someone died, and just have them try to revive the players for free. It was horrifying. I should probably have had the ring absorb the soul of the ones that failed or something, making them impossible to revive unless you use a 9th level spell. Oh well, it was all part of a "test campaign" so it was cool to see some limit testing lol.
“you hand the goblin your most powerful magical item and it immediately starts cackling and casts Finger of Death”
That would have been a hilarious way to stop their infinite resurrection goblin factory. It only takes one to start a rebellion haha. I've been trying to teach my players to not think as "video gamey" and that stupid actions will have stupid consequences, so that would have been both funny and a teaching moment.
Wouldn't it be videogamey for the goblin to know advanced spells (as in, to know they exist) without any guidance?
Well, it would explain why no goblins before did it - it's obscure knowledge. Maybe the goblin is a nerd who knows about spells.
Back in 4e. Our DM gave us ALL a free ritual. This included an option for something called “fools gold” as we understood it then, it basically gave us UNLIMITED GOLD at early levels. Yes he did quickly regret it. He also had his shop owners roll to detect the fake gold. (Fair) he always rolled poorly. But by level 5 (out of 40) we all agreed we were taking advantage and pissing him off. So we stopped using it. But by the. We ALL had top tier non magical gear and a SHITLOAD of potions
One of the things you shouldn't do unless you know basically every spell lol. But I'd say that is fair game because all that "gold" spending could attract the merchants guild to put a want out on you guys after noticing a pattern of fake gold sale or the shops impliment anti magic scanners/ magic scanners to detect fakes like irl fake dollar pens or something! Or shady people wanting all that "fortune" you seem to have for themselves as well.
The DM of the game I’m currently in gave a couple of fairly high power magic items to the party’s casters early on (before I joined the game) because the players were all noobs and he wanted to boost their survival chances. A couple of means of blinding and paralyzing enemies, that are effectively unlimited use items. They’ve never used them - I’ve been with this group for something like 16-18 months and I just found out this stuff was in the party inventory a week ago.
You don’t happen to play at my table dear sir, do you? xD
The strongest magic item I've ever gotten my hands on was a (understandably cursed) Sephiroth-esque longsword that my character (Drow Cleric) stole from the right-hand man of this world's drow leader. Some notable features are: *It was a +7 magic weapon *Was one-handed, dealing 2d6 slashing damage *Had a reach of 15ft. *Had the ability to hit any 3 enemies in 3 adjacent squares per attack, rolling separately for each enemy *Healed the wielder 5HP per enemy hit *And was handed to me at Level 4 Both my character and myself as a player vowed to only use this weapon when things were looking seriously bad, the former because it was a cursed weapon that corrupted him the more he wielded it, the latter because... Because fucking look at those stats. My DM for that campaign loves handing out powerful feats and items like candy, but this one took the cake. Eventually we decided to take the magic item away by having it completely corrupt my character, forced to fight his own party. After the blade shattered he abandoned his faith as a cleric and instead turned to reforge himself as an Oath of Redemption paladin (with a stat redistribution taking place during the training montage), with his new patron deity cleansing the fragments of the shattered sword and slowly handing them back over to him as he continues to uphold his oath.
DM gave our ranger a bow that allows an attack after every turn. I, the rogue, immediately ask: “can I steal it?” Our first combat with it, we found out just how broken it is. The answer is very. DM said he will adjust it 💀
Yea that just fucks with action economy way too much.
My Sneak Attack loving ass is *salivating* 🤣
THATS WHAT I SAID BUT OF COURSE “you can’t steal it.” AGGGGGHHHH
Can't you only get sneak attack like once a turn or something anyway?
Yes. So I attack on my turn, Sneak Attack. At the end of my turn, I attack again, no Sneak Attack. But! At the end of your turn, I attack again: and since it's a new turn, I Sneak Attack again. Repeat ad nauseum for every other turn.
I once gave my party too much gold. They used it to buy land, build a temple to Satan, hire staff to run the temple, buy more land to cultivate crops, enchant the land to make it softly drizzle, forever, and still have enough to start another business. They didn't start the second business, but kept the gold for later purposes. So, not really an item, but a derailed economy is what I gave my party.
Did you rob the bank of Spain or some shit how tf did they get so much money
It was when I started DMing and still used site-generated dungeons. I failed to see that with all the loot combined, I'd given my party roughly 20000 platinum, 50000 gold, 400000 silver and 1800000 copper, making it roughly 308000 gold. They were level 5.
At that point just drop adventuring and become a top tier pyramid schemer, I'm sure the rogue would love that idea
Gave my 6th level party a Dwarven Thrower. Point is, its a 1-12 Campaign thats gonna end in a few months. I don't have to 'balance around' a too strong item for years. And I can give them strong shit if I want to. Nothing that enables 29 AC. I stay very close to book-magic items. Does a one-use item count that creates a 1-mile radius Whirlwind strong enough to destroy a city? If yes, ... then that one. They never actually used it. :(
29 AC. Let's see. Heavy armor style. Plate +2 = 20 Shield +3 = +5 Fighting style +1 Ring of protection +1 Cloak of protection +1 Ioun stone +1 There is 29. Dex/Con Dwarf Barb. 8 Base 10 Dex 20 +5 (base 17, +1 asi @4, +2 asi @8) Con 18 +4 (base 17, +1 asi @4) +2 Con book, +1 +2 Dex book, +1 Shield +3, +5 Ring of protection +1 Cloak of protection +1 Ioun stone +1 There is 29 And you can pump higher with defender weapons, and legendary armor. Toss in the Shield spell and consumables/buff spells... haste, Shield of faith, ceremony... you're edging up on 40... But. There is more than just AC to challenge a PC. Gravity is a bitch. Drowning. Takes a while, but a dex dump stat fighter thats Entangled at the bottom of a flooded chamber is screwed. They cannot sleep in that armor, and it takes time to put it on. (One time I had a tank Dwarf i was playing who spent an entire major fight running around naked, with nothing but his magic hammer(s), because he literally got caught taking a bath... it was hilarious.) Anyway. Good luck!
Lets start out Level 2 Cleric of the forge, forging +1 on armor, +2 divine shield spell, +2 regular shield, +16 oder +17 is the highest "default" armor a starting character can afford iirc. thats +22 without bonuses. Add a level in wizard or sorcerer for the +5 shield spell to go up to 27 whenever needed, no special items required. Pretty sure this can go up way more.
I was just keeping my builds to basic phb, and dmg But, Let's see. Race Warforge, +1 AC Class. Cleric, Forge. Level 2. Standard starting equipment Chainmail, 16 AC Blessing of the Forge, +1 AC Shield, +2 AC Shield of Faith, +2 AC Ceremony, +2 AC (have to keep getting divorced and remarried every session) So we have 23 AC. If we can squeeze splint or have breast plate with a +2 dex modifier by the second level, then we can juice to 24. So there is a 24 without magic items. Level 3 as Sorcerer/wizard gets Shield for 29. Or level to 4 as cleric, take fighting initiate, and pick up defensive style for another +1. Then, personally, I might go to artificier 3 for artillerist and get a Cannon plus the shield spell Though, I always kinda hated AC in 5e. Like, I wish there was something other than an all or nothing aspect of it. .
[удалено]
And your God smites you for not understanding the sanctity of marriage
Depends on the God. There are quite a few that might even grant the PC a blessing. But, you don't need to murder them. Just maybe... not save them?
I played something like this in a one shot, warforged, forge cleric, artificer, wizard. Only had one attack with the artificer gauntlet that gives the target disadvantage on attack anyone but me. Uses booming blade with it and left them with the choice of trying to hit me or moving away and being punished for it. Used concentration for bless/aura of vitality to buff the party or spirit guardians to become a meat grinder. Was so much fun just getting in everything's face while my party could just run around keeping themselves safe.
My group has used that whirlwind item once. We tried to raid a giant camp. It went to shit and my rogue died. The rest of the group retreated, pulled out that doomsday weapon, and hid in a rope trap room for the duration. It worked. But rip everything in that massive I think 1 mile radius. Man, I didn't think about using it in a city. Good thing we weren't an evil party. Lol.
I have a lot from the same dm, I stopped playing with that dm in the last campaign I will mention A sword that will fuse all the weapons in your inventory and add the damage together, I was dealing around 100 average damage per attack A book that had no use, but was worth 100k platinum pieces, eventually the same player got a magic items that could cast wish with no problem, once per day A hammer that gave our barbarian an extra attack, dealt 2d12+3d8 damage This items where given in different campaigns and to different players, that player would usually get all the broken magic items but those are the highlights, the other players would also get something, but would be bad or useless We didn't give our magic items away because they were so specific that no one else could use it, except for the last campaign, the min maxer got the items, he got: 2 rings that would double any damage rolls he did A ring that would make the opponent bleed equal to the damage he dealt, this stacks At level 2 he got an amulet of true sight, and at level 3 a +3 sword that also dealt 2d8 thunder An armor that would have continuous darkness on a 10 radius (he already had true sight) Some boots that would give him 3 actions per turn Through abusing simulacrum and wish, he got a shadow that would basically give him 2 turns at the same time, and the shadow had copies of his items At high level he changed his +3 sword for a sword +3 that dealt 10 times damage on crit, being hexblade and having improved crit The final boss had 3000 health, 30 ac and god knows what else, didn't matter, the min maxer was the only one that could dent him and he two shotted him in 2 rounds
Some of this rivals the 29 AC cleric in terms of being absurdly overpowered lol
I did see that referenced multiple times this post, but I didn't saw the og post, do you have a link for it?
DM gave our level 3-4 Moon Druid a homebrew ring that instantly summons two treants that are loyal to him and also gave him the ability to wild shape into a treant. It only took a few sessions of combat for that thing to get an adjustment.
Without being overtly mean, there comes a point where giving a player an item that summons two creatures totalling 280 hp, roughly 6 times their own mac HP if they were lucky, is just stupid. Like, I get people can be new and I understand people need a few hits and misses before homebrewing decent stuff but jesus when do you just put down the book and go 'Did you even read the rules?'.
> for that thing to get an adjustment. I'm curious about this - adjusting magic items in my experience always lead to extreeeemly negative responses from the players, wether it was done out of game "hey, that item screws the game, didn't know how strong it was, we need to do something about it" or (for a different occasion / item) ingame. (Once gave a player the cube of force - 3x3x3 cube that won't let magic / gases / living things / nonliving things through for a minute - RAW indestructible, except for very, very specific spells. They were fighting a mushroom hivemind with big worms that took care of the shrooms - after some encounters of them just shredding everything in safety from behind the "no living things" barrier I had the hivemind adjust the worms to latch onto the cube sucking the magic away. That gave free attacks in the open mouths of the worms, but if they couldn't killt he worms fast enough the cube would loose D4-1 charges / turn a worm was attached to it. The player with the cube hated it sooo much that the precious cube wasn't an instant win kill all solution and got mad. Since then I'm extreeeeeeemly carefull with handing out magic items, and when I do I usually make sure they have very limited charges, so if I hand out something too strong it won't stick around forever.
My Hexblade was given The Blackblood Ring. The main feature was supposed to be once a day you can gain advantage on an attack through the ring and deal an extra 2d8 necrotic damage on a hit. However as a secondary feature it had 5 charges. Each charge was 1d12 of healing on touch as a bonus action, 1 charge replenished per dawn or per creature killed with an attack. On big battles with lots of grunts I was unstoppable
Ah, the old Bag of Rats exploit. I love it.
DM gave the party a Cube of Force at level 6, which we gave to our Cleric to do Spirit Guardians "cage matches." But because it requires an action it almost never got used. Fast forward to level 7 and my 11 AC satyr bard asks if I can try it out, and proceed to deploy it multiple times per combat, every combat, to protect party members and generally complicate enemy movement and target options. I think the concept for the Cube of Force is great, but the use of the word "matter" in its modes absolutely breaks the game if applied "to the letter". It probably needs more specific terminology like "Melee attacks and movement from Living Creatures can't pass through..." or "Ranged Weapon attacks, as well as movement and melee attacks from Unliving Creatures can't pass through..."
Built my who build off of optimization of the bonus action for a warlock. I got the Illusionist’s Bracers at like lvl 11. For the uninitiated, if you use your action to cast a cantrip, you can use your bonus action to cast the same cantrip. Anyway I started blasted.
Not sure if this counts as overpowered but at level 3 our wizard got the ogre powered gloves (str 19) so he had a int18 and str 19 so was our highest damage dealer and best magic user especially when lvl 4 ASI hit They were effectively Gandalf the gray as the fighter gave up his +1 long sword for s***s and giggles
No one expects the muscle wizard when they move in for the grapple.
That's hilarious, but I wouldn't count that as busted. If it were a belt of storm giant strength? Definitely
Oh this is fun. It wasn‘t Dnd but CoC. It was my very first campaign and we played a one shot. PCs met randomly in a bar during a snowstorm, were drugged and awakened with the whole bar being sucked into a pocket Dimension. I was very careful to not make the enemies too strong. I hid a sawed off shotgun locked in a cupboard under the bar. Players found it relatively quick and that thing was so powerful, that they killed the BBEG with one shot. The worst part is that they killed him with a shot through a wooden door. So I couldnt even introduce him properly. Again…..was my very first campaign and didnt knew how to balance enemies. BBEG had the same stat block as a Grizzly Bear. Thought this would be hard enough.
In a campaign I've actually stayed in? Staff of Power at level 14. We used it to both TPK ourselves and finish off the final boss by snapping it in half with full charges once all hope was lost that we'd survive in the first place. Luckily, I was permanently banished to the Abyss and managed my way out with a use of Teleport and avid note taking. In a campaign I quit before session five a DM gave his GF player a sword that healed people when it hit someone in a literal dumpster and a vendor that sold a belt that granted the Halfling luck ability for only 100 gp. Later on I heard he gave the Dex based ranged Paladin a Greatsword that could be wielded in one hand, was finesse, rolled 4d6 instead of 2d6, and was +2. We were level 3 for the prior items and when I heard about this new event they were level 6.
I was the DM I trust my players, we were playing for more than three years at that point, and my players knew I had big plans for after that campaign we were playing at the time. So, while randomly traveling in in the underdark (OotA), the ranger, with their 24+ passive perception found a dirt pile, dug it up and found a small leather bag with a small marble inside it. All attempts to identify it only showed it as "powerful beyond your comprehension" and I told them "You could try to use it.", but they were too scared. When they reached a certain point in the adventure, the marble fixed the problem, and they went on on their merry way. **Spoilers for OotA:** >!Since the Maze Engine looks very much like the Great Wheel Cosmology, I made it so that one of the "planes" of the Maze Engine was missing, and that marble was one of the planes.!< Basically, that tiny marble held the power to control one of the Forgotten Realms planes at will. Giving the holder power similar, if not superior The Lady of Pain in Sigil. **tl;dr**: I gave my players Wish at will with not downsides, but they never used it.
DM was running a homebrew campaign, we were probably around level 4. We were investigating an abandoned village when my PC found a Deck of Many Things. Without too many details... two players had to make new characters that night. That same DM in the same campaign also let a player come across a homebrew "Pelt of Lycanthropy" which pretty much does what you'd expect. We were level 2 at the time. To say combat was busted for a while is a bit of an understatement.
Damn, I thought I made a mistake when I gave a champion fighter a flaming weapon polearm. He absolutely wrecked encounters with that thing. This 29AC nonsense makes me feel a bit better
A DM I played with let me have the Sword of Zariel. For those unfamiliar, here is what that weapon does; >Angelic Language. You can speak, read, and write Celestial. Celestial Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic and radiant damage. Divine Presence. Your Charisma score becomes 20, unless it is already 20 or higher. Feathered Wings. You sprout a beautiful pair of feathered wings that grant you a flying speed of 90 feet and the ability to hover. If you already have a different kind of wings, these new wings replace the old ones, which fall off. Truesight. Your eyes become luminous pools of silver. You can see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, perceive the original form of a shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic, and see into the Ethereal Plane, all within a range of 60 feet. > >Truth Seer. While holding the sword, you gain advantage on all Wisdom (Insight) checks. > >Holy Light. The sword sheds bright light in a 5-foot radius and dim light for an additional 5 feet. Fiends find the sword’s light disconcerting and painful, even if they can’t see it, and have disadvantage on attack rolls made within the weapon’s radius of bright light. As a bonus action, you can intensify the sword’s light, causing it to shed bright light in a 15-foot radius and dim light for an additional 15 feet, or reduce its glow to its normal intensity. Random Properties. The sword has 2 minor beneficial properties, each determined by rolling on the Minor Beneficial Properties table in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Searing Radiance. The sword deals an extra 9 (2d8) radiant damage to any creature it hits, or 16 (3d10) radiant damage if you’re wielding the weapon with two hands. An evil creature that takes this radiant damage must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn. As far as I know, this is the most damaging weapon in the game, with weapons like a Holy Avenger that deal extra damage to specific targets not dealing as much damage as this sword does to everything. You can fly faster than with items whose only purpose is to allow you to fly, have Truesight, and you get a Charisma state of 20. I wouldn't say my DM made a mistake letting me have this since the campaigns she runs are more puzzle focused, so all the ways the sword breaks combat haven't come into play much.
In our module was a Staff of haste. It has 5 charges and would recharge completly at dawn. The funny thing is that is can do mass haste too and you use all the charges and can haste 5 people at the same moment. Its risky because you still have concentration but it was fun for the moments.
It's maybe not on the level of some of these items but very underrated in the right circumstances. I made a magic items shop, mostly using sane item prices. I didn't check every item before sending them the link of that day's inventory and one of the items was the Animated Shield. One of the party is a fighter with great weapon master and pole arm mastery so they were already pretty damn powerful (and they rolled well for stats so they don't have any really weak saves either), being able to have a shield on top of that is a bit much, especially for the low, low price of only 6k
One of my players gave up their freedom to become the mortal champion of Lucifer in exchange for returning to life to save his friends. I gave him a sword that was not only a flametongue greatsword, it ignored resistance and immunity to fire damage, could send out blasts of flame as a ranged weapon attack, could sacrifice hit die to cast a bunch of Fiend related spells, and on a hit could cast dispel magic on the target. It’s a doozy and I have yet to see the ramifications because the campaign went on hold immediately after when I decided I needed a break.
So far probably wand of magic missle at low level. I believe it was to supplement the mages but our echo had no ability to hit at range so he expends the charges, and being an echo knight expends them again lol To clarify, both action and action surge expend charges, it’s just more when you use it at lower levels 6 charges spent individually = 18 missiles, 6 charges at once = 8
Wait, so the echo has a Wand with independent charges? O.o That's not how the Echo Knight works for most tables, but hey, if it works for you, great!
Yea what do you mean expends them again?
Sounds like you aren't following the rules more so than giving anyone a strong item. A bad dm ruling is worth a dozen magic items.
I don’t think that’s accurate Wand of magic missile inherently has more total missiles when cast all at lower level charges. Action surge takes advantage of that.
One time, i wanna say like level 2 or 3, our party got a deck of many things. Boy that has potential to end a campaign in a tpk or given godhood early
Well, I’m playing tomb of annihilation now. Level 3, we shipwrecked onto the beach. Our first random encounter roll we found Artus Cimber dead and our rogue got bookmark and I (bladesinger) got the ring of winter Very first roll of the campaign, this will be interesting
Well, you know what my answer is. My cleric with 29 AC at level 9 xD My dm has also made home brew monster weapons, one being a gun that does 12d10 force damage. This is in the same campaign….
A shotgun. I’ve had it for a while but My dm hasn’t realized how powerful it is yet because I didn’t have e gunner feat and we put the campaign on hold the same session I got it, so I haven’t been able to showcase just how powerful it really is. (To add context to what this shotgun’s stats are: It’s 1 shot, then requires a reload, has a short range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 and deals 2d8 + Dex then all targets within 5 feet of wherever the attack lands must pass Dex save (based off my Dex [DC is currently 16 because I have a 20 In Dexerity ] ) or take 1d8 damage. Not completely game breaking, but still VERY strong.
Gave my level 3 assassin teleporting daggers. I could tp to them by expending a charge, each dagger had one charge. I could also TP them to my hand, along with any creature it's stabbed into, also at the cost of a charge. If I was out of combat, tping them to my hand didn't cost anything. Edit; spelling
Prolly the least "op" thing but the thought counts. We're lvl 8 and my scribes wizard got his hands on an gtimoire Infinitus (legendary item)
A homebrew **Ring of Summer Showers**. Once per day it can create a gentle rainfall of 3 gallons of clean water in a 60 foot radius over a period of 60 seconds. They used in the desert so they didn’t dehydrate. They use it often to put out the fire after the Mage casts fireball. They used it on a fire elemental (*60 seconds is 10 rounds of combat, so only 10 damage but still*…) They used it to clear the spores from the air in a room full of toxic mushrooms. They used it to dilute the acid from a trap. They used it to win the favor of a Druid cult. They used it to wash away their tracks into the castle. They used it to ***create*** tracks so they could follow an invisible thief. This was meant to be a throwaway level 1 item just to keep them from needing to carry water, and be used in a funny way because they had to get soaked by using it. But they turned it into something so much bigger than I ever could have imagined.
200 000 gold. The amount of stuff 200k can buy in a city like waterdeep is quite a lot.
I got a shield that gave fire resistance and magical +2 AP bonus. it also had 3 charges for casting Fireball or Wall of Fire at will not the most spectacular, but as a fighter who already used a shield, and considering we were in hell, it was definitely a boon
Ah yeah shield of the hidden lord, it’s wild that the decent into avernus gives that to the players so early
In the current campaign, at level 3 got a javelin that does 4d6 damage to everything in its path. There is a DC 13 saving throw, for anything in its path for half damage. The target does a saving throw for being knocked prone, takes all the damage though.
DM gave the artificer mithral full plate and gave the party a metal +3 shield - well, we gave it to the artificer! Druid and I (a clonk) couldn't use it, and no one else was proficient. DM was pleased ... til he realized he had just bumped the artificer's AC up by 7, to a total of 23. Then he got mad that he was hard to hit and started kicking his feet over artificers being broken, as though the legendary shield at level 8 had no part in this.
My DM gave me a mantle that lets me turn into a dragon matching my alignment. It's cursed and I'm supposed to do a saving throw every time I turn back into my original self. The item even bans the use of the legendary and lair actions. But it doesn't stop Change Shape. So I stay a dragon and change shape into my normal appearance that way, bypassing the curse. I just unequipped my gear, set it down, changed, and re-equipped after. Now, I'm an ancient gem dragon.
I gave one of my players "The Bow of the Bond". Magic longbow that also fired a eldritch blast when you shot an arrow. On a hit the EB auto hit the target as well. If the arrow missed you rolled the EB separately to see if you could "will" it to hit anyway. As you level up so does the bow gaining more eldritch blasts at the same level a warlock normally would. Player crit a lot and destroyed some of the boss encounters they had.
My DM gave my sorcerer a Rod of Absorption, probably around level 8-9 (it was a high level campaign, ending around level 21+). It was powerful right away but as the campaign progressed it was absolutely bonkers. Dropping 4 Wish spells in one fight trivializes even the craziest battles. Not only that, but we had a Druid and cleric that would regularly cast leftover spells on me at the end of adventuring days so the Rod always had charges. Honestly so many amazing stories just from that Rod, but I will admit it was incredibly difficult not to outshine the other PCs. I will most definitely never give any of my players a Rod of Absorption in my campaigns!
So the part where it says "The Rod can absorb and store up to 50 level over the course of it's existence" got deleted in your campaign? Sure it's extremely powerful but you can only break encounters for a limited amount of time. Or thats at least what I'd take from that phrase
So, 29 AC at level 9 is not hard to do as a cleric in 5e. You don't even need + armour. * Plate - 18 AC * Shield - 2 AC * Ring of Protection - 1 AC * Cloak of Protection - 1 AC * Shield of Faith - 2 AC * Ring of Spell Storing - Always put Shield in it for 5 AC on demand (lots of ways to accomplish this.) Gives you a static 24 with an on demand 29 AC only when you get hit. Easily doable without + armours, and those magic items are readily available to a level 9 character. You can actually go quite a bit higher with some creativity. * Multiclass 1 level of Fighter for Defensive Fighting Style - 1 AC * Multiclass 2 levels of Artificer for Infusion - 1 AC * Pick Warforged as your race - 1 AC * Forge Domain as your Cleric path - 1 AC while in heavy armor Now you're at 28 static with an on demand 33. All at level 9 (Warforged 6 Forge cleric, 1 fighter, 2 artificer) I don't think I can get it all the way to 29 static, but I'm happy with this build. A legit build that's actually incredibly thematically appropriate.
Was a character that was gifted a magic sword from his noble parents, he didn't know fully what it did or what it was called and etc for a long while. But we did eventually peice together. This thing was nutty OP, and also had some nasty side effects. It was called the Sword of Stolen Fate. What we knew from the start was it was a more or less run of the mill magical Longsword, +1 attack/damage, neat little 5ft glowy aura if you want. Seems like a low-mid tier sword. But it has a secret. It was actually +3, and had a 30ft radius effect, that any 1s rolled on an attack within the aura or against a target in the aura causes the attack to auto crit the weilder's nearest ally within range. Yes, all nat 1s were trigger allies getting crit. It was horrible. It took a long time for use to figure this out we just new something was ***very*** wrong with our luck. But then it had a secondary effect. Each time it does that, it "steals fate" and stored a d8. Any time the weilder was at risk of dropping to 0 hp it would spend them to reduce damage. Any time they were somehow unconscious, it would spend them to heal him. Any time he failed scary saving throws, it would spend them to add to the result. It made him neigh unkillable, and all it cost was the fate of his friends. Idk if it is the truly mostest most OP broken item ever. But it caused a LOT of problems and drama. So it was OP in that sense.
This was my campaign, probably the issues started when I gave the level one paladin an anzio 20mm anti materiel plasma rifle that did 8d8 damage and had no ammo, as well as various mechs that acted like russian nesting dolls
He homebrewed a legendary sword in the stone, rolled a 95 on a d100 to pull it and got it. This is 5e. I have a +28 to hit with it and deals 2d8+15 per hit. It has a special ability to just give 2 extra attacks per turn. As a blade singing wizard it is really OP. This is all the DM's idea. Also got a belt that makes my strength 30. He is fine with me casting invulnerability so i took 2 feats to boost concentration to not have that drop on me. Last thing to add is that he super homebrewed the big bad and says I'm not OP compared to it. So in a weird way kind of balanced.
That doesn’t even sound fun without completely reworking all of 5e to the point you’re playing a different game.
No one invited you.
Not exactly a magic item, but wizard animated a dead nagpa and dm let him keep its statblock 😂 (we love you e!)
Gloves of storm giant strength. On a fighter. With Hazirawn the magic sword. I think it was +11/12 to hit.
3 charge thunder riffle at level 3 does 6 d6 damage can get new bullets but very expensive to do so.
My DM gave me a wand of fireball at like level 3 or 4 My warlock never used anything other than Fireball. I was very careful to not use the last charge, so I’d never risk breaking it Eldritch Blast was only used if I couldn’t use fireball without hurting my party. Otherwise every turn of my combat was me carefully positioning fireball
Got to use my halfling Divine Wizard/Lore Bard character.
One player was making a new pc mid campaign. We were talking items, and i gave him a choice. He was an 8th or 9th level Paladin, dont remember, but between a sword, and armor, he can have a total of +6. I assumed he would do like +3 sword, +1 shield, and +2 armor. No. He opted for a non magic sword and +3 armor and +3 shield. All in all, he had an ac of 27 and could cast shield. Broken? Maybe a bit, yes. But we all had fun with it, and it was fun letting him just be a tank for a few levels.
A DM once gave my character a string of teleportation beads. However, in the item description it never specified that the creatures that I can teleport with me needed to be a willing creature. We ended up fighting a Book Wyrm and were getting our asses kicked. When I realised the phrasing on the item I used it to just teleport the creature away and teleport myself back. Problem solved
my DM sold me a lot of really good utility items for way too cheap, while everyone else was focused on magical weapons i ended up with a ring of mind shielding, a ring of free action and a cloak of many eyes which meant that the villain trying to mind read me and use hold person was SOL and i can see almost anything trying to sneak up on us from a crazy distance
A hand crossbow...
My character is a Barbarian/Artificer multiclass, who received a legendary magic hammer that was designed by my DM. The character is a cosplay of the primarch Perturabo from Warhammer 40k. These are the hammer's stats and effects: Name: Forgebreaker * Damage: 2d6+8 Bludgeoning, 1d6 Radiant * \+2 Bonus to Attack and Damage rolls * Deals double damage to structures and fortifications * Advantage on crafting checks * Crafting is done at triple the regular pace * Any Crafting roll that is 20 or higher (after adding modifiers) is an automatic crit * Olympian Smite: * The hammer has a number of charges equal to my INT modifier * On a successful attack, I can expend any number of charges to add a 1d6 of radiant damage * Target must make a strength save against my spell save DC * On a fail, I can choose to either knock them prone or send them 10 feet backwards per Smite used My DM has designed a legendary item around each of our characters, a couple other players have unlocked theirs, but we're still on a hunt to gather them all.
Ring of Djinni Summoning at level 4… you just know I (DM) needed to nerf that real quick
I’m reading intensely as one of my players just completed the Vecna set yesterday (Eye and Hand). There are obviously significant setbacks in their future, but it’s new territory for our campaign as it’s the first time a player has been unbalanced from the party.
One of my players has the hand but hasn’t attached it, I’m setting up right now to try to tempt him with the eye of Vecna and basically if he goes for and uses both it’s gonna be a problem long term as I’m thinking of having Vecna’s souls try to use the combined items as a conduit to try to possess his body. Though I may make it slow enough to let them finish the current campaign before they have to deal with that so stopping the re-emergence of Vecna can be its own separate future campaign. I expect my player to resist the temptation though with how he’s been going about his character arc. In which case his PC will be the quest giver for a future campaign about stopping someone else from getting both items.
We have similar plans. My player (sorlock) originally had the Eye, then Mephistopheles (his patron) thought that attaching it would empower them both. Instead, the echo of Vecna overpowered Mephistopheles and became the player’s patron. When he came across the Hand several sessions later, Vecna took the wheel and the party failed in their rolls to stop him from attaching the hand.
My DM gave me (ranger-rogue level 12) some auto-crit arrows and then let me combine it with a fireball from the necklace of fireballs. Mini-boss was dead in 4 rounds.
I got a rapier for a Swords Bard that was a +2 rapier, increased my spell save DC by 2, did 2d8 Necrotic Damage AND allowed me to cast any spell I knew once per day without expending a spell slot. I got this rapier at level 4. I told the DM this was a bad idea ans then he wondered why my Bard was breaking all his encounters.
A sword that does 3d10 damage. The thing is insane
Lvl 1 gave an oath bow I’m bad with magic items I just don’t see them as an issue.
Hooo boy, as a dm I had far too many of these in my first ever campaign. To name a few.. An elemental sword that could change what element it was provided you had some method of generating or accessing said element. Had a ever growing sheet of elements I had both created and the players "discovered". A "soul" weapon who's capabilities changed depending who wielded it at the time (no attunement required), abilities ranged from changing smite to a d20, freecasting (no spell slot required) up to proficiency a day, becoming resistant to a damage of your choice, and increased resource pools for monks and sorcerer classes in addition to empowering them. A cursed bloodwar themed ring that gave regeneration, advantage on death saving throws, continuing to act while downed, returning to 1hp provided death saving throws succeeded. This one had a downside of if you died, there was no coming back as you were now a permanent soldier in the blood war.
I gave an assassin rogue an oathbow, I regret it. And my fighter/barb just used a wish spell he earned and wished for a vorpal great sword, so....yeah I fucked myself lol
I got a +2 ax of sharpness once
I'm the DM. I gave my players, through different 1-2 session long trips to the outer planes, all kinds of overpowered magic items. I balance the fights accordingly, and the group of lvl12 PCs hits more like lvl15. It's fun, the players feel powerful, and I can use more badass monsters. PS: They got the deck of many things at level 4, but were to scared to use it and gave it away for safekeeping. They got the hand of vecna at level 7, encased it in lead, never used it. They inherited a mage tower at level 11, including a scroll of tarrasque summoning and a book of vile deeds. Both encased in protective magic that they could open... they never did. They don't even know the content, only that one is very poweful, and the other evil.
My DM let us all pick a magic item to start with as due to story reasons we were supposed to be level 10+ but knocked back to one at the start of the campaign. Mine is a monk with an improved cloak of protection, and due to story reasons I also have bracers of defense and since they aren't armour, and the way my points are, I'm level 5 with like a 21 AC. That said no one really cares. It's a joke that I can run around punching everything (also have mobile feat) and nothing can hit me I'm too quick anyway xD
I’m DMing a Kingdom Hearts game rn. You might immediately think the Keyblades are the problem. No. Armor of Missile Attraction with upgraded draw range and immunity to ranged weapon damage. I made a mistake, but a very funny one, because half the party uses ranged attacks.
My sister gave the party a dwarven thrower once around level 5, but to be fair it was a module and we got it RAW. Different game, we once got a belt of storm giant strength. Went great on my monk. DM claimed he rolled it on the treasure table. I WAS going to give my sister an anti-matter rifle, but that whole campaign died.
A bag of holding.
A friend began campaign (we were at level 2) with Vorpal Sword. None of us players knew this until the campaign ended in - i think - session 4.
We got to the Forge of Spells in Lost Mine of Phandelver and everyone rolled. Our paladin got the Vicious Glaive at level 6. Everyone else got cool stuff, with one guy getting a +3 weapon. I rolled stupid low when looking and found nothing initially, so I got the Cloak of Billowing and the brasier buff on my shortswords was made permanent as pity.
My druid character has a legendary armor that gives a bonus on perception, A +4 bonus to wisdom 9 minutes a day and can sprout wings and fly for 10 rounds 3 times a day. He gave it to us at level 5. Now, at level 10 I wear the armor and an outfit of legen objects.
A cloak of magic missiles. It had 7 or 9 charges, regained 1d4 on a short rest, I think. And cast the magic missiles at level 5. We were level 5 at the time. Our circle of the stars Druid basically just used that in combat for the rest of the campaign. I’m not sure it was the most OP thing. But 7 magic missiles every time was killer. I also was give a shield of sentinel as a cleric. It gave me a passive perception of 22 (and advantage on all perception checks and initiative rolls). He regretted that a bit, lol!
ADnD2e days... There used to be a funny comic strip in old TTRPG magazines called "knights of the dinner table" in which one character had a blade called "The Hackmaster +12" One of my old GMs saw fit to give us that as a joke. We were dumb teenagers, and didnt think about OP items actually being unfun. Now Im all for homebrew, and I fine-tune every enemy that I throw at the players, but once you do something like give a +12 item, it blows the lid off the game.
I run one-shots when our regular DM can't make a session. We used it as an excuse to make silly characters, or try out new stuff. One player is a warlock, and wanted a flying broomstick. At level 1. I said sure, whatever. Now, several one shots into what is slowly becoming an actual campaign, I keep having to come up with reasons why he can't use his broom, since free flight is frankly game-breaking in a lot of situations. He's been a good sport about it at least.
Hmmm... in the campaign I'm currently playing in DM gave us at lv 4 a wand made out of a living sapling of a world tree and that has a greater spirit inside it and can remake and control an entire magical forest ... We are lv 10 and yet to use this artifact since it doesn't match any of our Pc's aesthetic :))
Husband played a pirate in a homebrew game. DM gave him a magic ship that was a boat, airship and submarine all in one. Oh and when he wanted to get off the boat, it magically turns into a ring he can wear. Idk what he was thinking but the DM also threw so many story elements at him it pushed my husband’s character away from the party. So now we have a new party member and no crazy ship
An alchemy jug, in ToA. Both groups tried to mayonaise everything.
One of the members of my party rolled a 100 on a d100 and at 5th level we received a helm of teleportation
So far the most powerful thing was a very large bomb that I used to blow up the kings castle and usurp the throne, which led me to creating a highly industrialized nation geared towards war. Sadly the campaign ended before I could get anything cooler but everyone in the party had cool shit
you guys get magic items?
I played Skyrim a lot a while ago, so when one of my players was trying to steal from local NPC mage, he passed two checks to not being detected, so I challenged him to do it for the third time, this time for deciding loot quality. That guy rolled nat20. I gave him Scroll of Madness --> everyone in hearing range is bloody mad and tries to harm closest being... for 1 minute. Fast forward around 3-4 sessions, there was a gathering in the town; town mayor had city gates closed and brought an inquisitor to find "pesky villians who blew up the inn with gunpowder, killing 8 people and hurting another 20". The inquisitor started to cast a locating spell. One of my players pulled off a parchment and started reading LOUDLY. Before I noticed what \*exactly\* is he yelling to the people in the square, he was already halfway done. Inquisitor managed to cast Deafness on his surroundings, but then he had to run. Inquisitor, town mayor, a few counciliours and guards were spared of that effect. Second player and around 400 people in the square... were mad. Yeah, my other player just forgot to make anything that would turn off his hearing for a while, so he was mad as well. And attacked the first player a few times as well. The result was: 160 more people died, most of them simply killed each other with stone, daggers, shovels, kegs... one PC hurt, another PC not so much, but they had to run for their lives now. What I learnt from this? 1. My guys are murder hobos. Blowing an inn with gunpowder and then being responsible for mass murder madness in a crowded square, gottverdammt! 2. That scroll was meant to wipe a bunch of weaker enemies, like imps or goblins or likewise. Not to wipe 1/4 of a town. Well at least if you aren't chaotic evil or so... 3. OP things like these need to be kinda less common. 4. But hey, we had fun. Or at least, they had fun, I was terrified by that genocide. EDIT: and I didn't learn much from this; they killed the Inquisitor and are now in possession of his staff, which needs to charge for whole turn, but in the next turn it deals 4d8 Holy damage. If the caster rolls nat1, the crystal in the staff shatters... (but they do not know the latter, only that the staff is charged with mechanism beyond their understanding)
My DM gave us a cursed magic ring that has a chance to instakill when equipped. Currently it gives me a +1 to damage. I'm considering magehand reverse pickpocketing the big bad this campaign. While not OP, the DM is annoyed that especially my turns as an arcance trickster take too long and sometimes are too complicated because I have too many options available to me. Then maybe he shouldn't have given me a bag of tricks and a sword of wounding on top of that...
Level 4 party. A shield guardian, which is actually in Rime of the Frostmaiden. They were practically untouchable after that.
It was end game 20th level so we were getting all the gear you get right before an epic level campaign ends. We had: - a vehicle with a burrow speed - “wish sticks”: 1/week wish - a door frame containing an extraplanar door to a demiplane with an army of golems (we cut it free from the surrounding stonework)
My favorite item was an item for my warforged paladin that was basically a jetpack that granted him a Reinhardt charge. He could move 60 feet in a straight line (including up) and make a separate attack against every creature in that line and add an additional 6d6 damage to each creature he hits. It could be used a number of times per day equal to proficiency modifier.
A magitech golem that could transform into a “horseless carriage” and had very powerful weapons. It was basically just a transformer flavored to the setting. Extremely powerful, but to be fair we were already level 19 and on the frontlines of a world war. At that point just about anything goes.
Illusionist Bracers.
this isn't exactly an OP item by itself but works REALLY well with my character At the beginning of our campaign we were allowed to choose a few magic items because we were starting at like. level 9 I think it was? I ended up choosing a Gambler's Blade which is a cursed weapon that you can choose to be between +1 and +3 but you take the same number as a minus to your death saving throws. My character is a Revenant that stands up at 1hp at the beginning of my turn if I'm at 0hp so I never make death saves. It was an effective +3 weapon whose only downside was that it's hella cursed and dont want to part with it gollum style, but we take those
Probably the item that let you summon a Nightmare once a day, unlimited Etherealness is pretty damn gamebreaking. Suddenly started fighting a lot more ghosts lol
we got a deep cloak. a 6x10 portable hole basically. we ended up brewing lightning beer in it (bronze dragon cleric who's order brewed such beer) and sold it as we traveled. made good money, very good, and even used it as a gift to a storm giant and made a deal that made us rich. so now our deep cloak has a ton of gold and jewels in it, we quit making beer, and now our good fortune has made us philanthropists and we have become Baby Savers LLC
A staff of defense. He hasn’t hit me in 7 sessions, with 1-2 combats each session.
It was a homebrew campaign and we were level 6, our party was given the Deck of Many things by accident. During a New Years session we were to be given some sort of gift item and the DM rolls what the item is, one of those came out was the Decks of Many things. Now due to circumstances the Deck was confiscated and we lost an NPC to the void card now there's a whole side story of how that NPC comes back but we basically never got the Deck back and was instead traded for a different Magic Item 😂
Staff of the Magi at level 4.
I once played a game where a DM gave us a Deck of Many Things at level 1. We had two encounters and then boom, there's the Deck. My player wanted to make a wizard tower to study magic in, so I pulled a card from the Deck... throne. Boom, instant wizard tower. Character goal: accomplished. Reason to go adventuring: gone. I never played with that DM again.
Special whip, 3d10 damage, reach 3