I'm going to give each of my three players a special custom-made magic item that they'll hopefully be using all the way up until the end of the campaign. I was going to use the Sunblade as a sort of "control" for the rarity/power of the items.
Rare Magic items seem to be a bit all over the place, though. Cape of the Mounteback has one 4th level spell in it which recharges daily, but then Necklace of Prayer beads has a whole slew of spells all the way up to sixth level which you can cast as a bonus action.
I guess I'm just a little stuck on how much power I should be giving these items. I know what kind of spells I want to give my rogue, but I'm not sure how many. If I'm giving him spells up to third level, how many should I give him?
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"The beating sound is not my sympathetic heart, but a time bomb."
If you are first starting off with creating homebrew magic items, I would suggest looking at other (official) magic items as a means of comparing what is a balanced level of power. Even if you want to do something completely different as existing magic items, the official sources will give you an estimation on which numbers should be balanced for a certain level.
For example, starting a player at 1st level off with a weapon with more than +1 on attack and damage rolls would very likely to be unbalanced in an officially published adventure. Same with added damage of more than 1 dice of type d8. So in short, I would find a Sun Blade at level 1 unbalanced, but of course it depends on the adventure you are running and if you are running it with the suggested number of players.
But to put things in perspective, I would think custom made spells can be much more destructive to the balance of fights than a +2 on attack and damage rolls can. This requires a lot more finessed planning and especially testing. Try to think of all the scenarios a rogue might encounter and how these spells can synergize with other abilities. For example, does it allow him to receive almost no damage, escape unscathed in every fight, land critical strikes with very high frequency or grant CC capabilities for multiple enemies for a full round? Any unbalanced choice you make, a PC will be sure to take full advantage of it. Therefore, I would stick to official spells at the very least. Thinking of innate spell casting for the Dark Elves, I would suggest not giving him more than 2 spells up to 3rd level, then possibly another at 5th or 6th level. Also, I would not provide spells of level 3 or higher.
If you want to bind the spells to an item using charges, you can also downtune the amount of uses the item gives if an item turns out to be too overpowered. It is a better alternative than changing how the item works or taking it away (e.g. by letting someone steal it) altogether. I see homebrewed items as character specific, to boost their flavour experience during RP. I would try to make sure you don't have to reconsider. Another option is to create an item that scales with level. Any spell you create based off an existing spell can be edited to provide more damage on different levels of the player.
I do this in pretty much all of my campaigns as a nice immersion/plot device/pc balancing tool. I start off the party at level 1 with 1 trinket that is tied to their character's past/backstory. As they level it grows in power generally somewhere between every 4-6levels. Its great for new players who don't have the system mastery that your more vet players have. You can use their magic item to offset their non optimal build to achieve their character concept the balance isn't against each item rather the overall powerlevel of each PC.
As a DM its important not to get "caught in the weeds" any PC option including magic items can have varying power levels the important thing is to keep PCs overall power level roughly the same compared to the challenges you want to present to the party.
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Hey everyone!
I'm going to give each of my three players a special custom-made magic item that they'll hopefully be using all the way up until the end of the campaign. I was going to use the Sunblade as a sort of "control" for the rarity/power of the items.
Rare Magic items seem to be a bit all over the place, though. Cape of the Mounteback has one 4th level spell in it which recharges daily, but then Necklace of Prayer beads has a whole slew of spells all the way up to sixth level which you can cast as a bonus action.
I guess I'm just a little stuck on how much power I should be giving these items. I know what kind of spells I want to give my rogue, but I'm not sure how many. If I'm giving him spells up to third level, how many should I give him?
"The beating sound is not my sympathetic heart, but a time bomb."
♦Character art commissions♦
If you are first starting off with creating homebrew magic items, I would suggest looking at other (official) magic items as a means of comparing what is a balanced level of power. Even if you want to do something completely different as existing magic items, the official sources will give you an estimation on which numbers should be balanced for a certain level.
For example, starting a player at 1st level off with a weapon with more than +1 on attack and damage rolls would very likely to be unbalanced in an officially published adventure. Same with added damage of more than 1 dice of type d8. So in short, I would find a Sun Blade at level 1 unbalanced, but of course it depends on the adventure you are running and if you are running it with the suggested number of players.
But to put things in perspective, I would think custom made spells can be much more destructive to the balance of fights than a +2 on attack and damage rolls can. This requires a lot more finessed planning and especially testing. Try to think of all the scenarios a rogue might encounter and how these spells can synergize with other abilities. For example, does it allow him to receive almost no damage, escape unscathed in every fight, land critical strikes with very high frequency or grant CC capabilities for multiple enemies for a full round? Any unbalanced choice you make, a PC will be sure to take full advantage of it. Therefore, I would stick to official spells at the very least. Thinking of innate spell casting for the Dark Elves, I would suggest not giving him more than 2 spells up to 3rd level, then possibly another at 5th or 6th level. Also, I would not provide spells of level 3 or higher.
If you want to bind the spells to an item using charges, you can also downtune the amount of uses the item gives if an item turns out to be too overpowered. It is a better alternative than changing how the item works or taking it away (e.g. by letting someone steal it) altogether. I see homebrewed items as character specific, to boost their flavour experience during RP. I would try to make sure you don't have to reconsider. Another option is to create an item that scales with level. Any spell you create based off an existing spell can be edited to provide more damage on different levels of the player.
I do this in pretty much all of my campaigns as a nice immersion/plot device/pc balancing tool. I start off the party at level 1 with 1 trinket that is tied to their character's past/backstory. As they level it grows in power generally somewhere between every 4-6levels. Its great for new players who don't have the system mastery that your more vet players have. You can use their magic item to offset their non optimal build to achieve their character concept the balance isn't against each item rather the overall powerlevel of each PC.
As a DM its important not to get "caught in the weeds" any PC option including magic items can have varying power levels the important thing is to keep PCs overall power level roughly the same compared to the challenges you want to present to the party.