As an action, you may attempt to temporarily attune to an item in your possession without having to take a short rest. Roll a d20 and add your Proficiency Bonus. On a result of 20 or higher, you become attuned to the item for a number of rounds equal to your Proficiency Bonus or until the item leaves your possession. This does not count against the total number of items you can be attuned to at once. You cannot use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Currently brainstorming this feature. I'm leaning towards making it a feature available to all characters from the start. I feel like making it a feat leaves a lot to be desired with such a high chance of failure with limited uses whereas pretty much every other feat has an always-on benefit or multiple uses.
Also taking suggestions on alternate names.
Changelog:
Changed the number of uses from once per short or long rest to once per long rest.
Changed the wording from "and you lose attunement if the item leaves your possession" to "or until the item leaves your possession."
I use Matt Mercer's Mystic Conflux feat from the Tal-Dorei campaign guide for that. Increasing the number of attuned items has far more balance issues than a temporary, once-daily, instant attunement with only a 10%-30% success rate.
As for it being available to everyone, even at level one, it is more an answer to a type of scenario that was brought up in this thread. In short, it's trying to find a balance of telling a story vs. playing a game.
In a story, there is no reason I can't pick up a magical item and use it right away unless the magic system set by the author of that world itself has that limitation. Previous editions of D&D took that to heart and did not impose an attunement restriction, but rather a "slot" restriction (which is technically still in place just superseded by attunement). Furthermore, previous editions assumed a certain amount of "value" in a player's magical equipment when determining encounter difficulty.
As a game, 5e has built in the attunement restriction to, ironically, allow greater emphasis on the story and give more control to the DM over magic item distribution. Magic items are not even considered in the DMG for encounter tables, being an optional rule for the DM to implement. In games where there is no limit or a much higher limit on how many magic items you can use, the challenges presented in the story become almost inconsequential and more emphasis is put on gaining those magic items rather than growing as a character and telling a story.
The attunement mechanic cannot be ignored without risking balance issues and abuse of the system from the perspective of the game. From the perspective of the story, why can't the squire utilize the magic of the knight's shield who has fallen in battle, or the ax which was previously decorating the wall of the throne room in honor of a previous ruler, or the wand pulled from the grasp of a rotting mummy just before it animates and attacks?
Can this mechanic also be abused? I think not because of the risk and limitations involved, though I am asking for anyone to point out something I missed. You use your action, you have a high chance of failure, and one use per long rest. I even considered the Lucky feat or a Divine Wizard's Portent, but those and similar features only affect attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks, which this is none of those.
Thinking as a player, if I can have an additional, attuned item, then I'd want that all the time. Hiding that behind a prohibitive die roll doesn't seem like it's the right answer (how many high level squires do you have in your world?). And because some people just can't help but metagame, I see them carrying some backup magic items just in case.
I had to look up Mystic Conflux, but it looks like was made as a Feat, so at least there's some cost associated with it (watching other people play D&D just isn't my thing, so I'm unfamiliar with anything related to that). I see how having 4 attuned items could be an issue though; I didn't think of it like that.
A squire picking up his/her knight's shield in order to defend them both sounds awesome, cinematic, and a very memorable experience. Why limit that to a roll that will most likely fail? Since spot-attunement isn't in the rules, the player wouldn't have any reason to think of it or even ask. You can then give it to the player for the length of the battle because it's a dire situation and it fades after the battle is done. Everyone high-fives and your table has a story to tell forever. The other option is to roll a 17+, or whomp-whomp... well, at least you get +2 AC?
I don't see a problem limiting it to a small number of rounds, but even that sounds like it goes against telling a good story (which based on your response sounds like the direction you want to go).
If you want to lock it behind some set of rules (so the players have control) then first, I'd make it automatic (let the players feel awesome) and keep it limited to a small number of rounds. To reduce the amount of times players can do this, maybe tie it to Inspiration (even if it's the only thing you can do with it). You control when people gain Inspiration and they can only have one at a time, so you have management over how often it'll be used during play.
If you don't want to add Inspiration to your game, maybe tie it to Exhaustion instead? RP-wise, it mimics the PC exerting all their will to bring the magic out of the item, and exhaustion is a brutal mechanic.
By the way, I don't want you to think your idea is a bad one, I'm just bringing an opposing argument. I routinely ask people to poke holes in my suggestions at work so I know it's been looked at from many different angles.
Currently brainstorming this feature. I'm leaning towards making it a feature available to all characters from the start. I feel like making it a feat leaves a lot to be desired with such a high chance of failure with limited uses whereas pretty much every other feat has an always-on benefit or multiple uses.
Also taking suggestions on alternate names.
Changelog:
If you want to give this to everyone, is there a reason why you haven't considered just raising the number of attuned items you can have?
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
I use Matt Mercer's Mystic Conflux feat from the Tal-Dorei campaign guide for that. Increasing the number of attuned items has far more balance issues than a temporary, once-daily, instant attunement with only a 10%-30% success rate.
As for it being available to everyone, even at level one, it is more an answer to a type of scenario that was brought up in this thread. In short, it's trying to find a balance of telling a story vs. playing a game.
In a story, there is no reason I can't pick up a magical item and use it right away unless the magic system set by the author of that world itself has that limitation. Previous editions of D&D took that to heart and did not impose an attunement restriction, but rather a "slot" restriction (which is technically still in place just superseded by attunement). Furthermore, previous editions assumed a certain amount of "value" in a player's magical equipment when determining encounter difficulty.
As a game, 5e has built in the attunement restriction to, ironically, allow greater emphasis on the story and give more control to the DM over magic item distribution. Magic items are not even considered in the DMG for encounter tables, being an optional rule for the DM to implement. In games where there is no limit or a much higher limit on how many magic items you can use, the challenges presented in the story become almost inconsequential and more emphasis is put on gaining those magic items rather than growing as a character and telling a story.
The attunement mechanic cannot be ignored without risking balance issues and abuse of the system from the perspective of the game. From the perspective of the story, why can't the squire utilize the magic of the knight's shield who has fallen in battle, or the ax which was previously decorating the wall of the throne room in honor of a previous ruler, or the wand pulled from the grasp of a rotting mummy just before it animates and attacks?
Can this mechanic also be abused? I think not because of the risk and limitations involved, though I am asking for anyone to point out something I missed. You use your action, you have a high chance of failure, and one use per long rest. I even considered the Lucky feat or a Divine Wizard's Portent, but those and similar features only affect attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks, which this is none of those.
Thinking as a player, if I can have an additional, attuned item, then I'd want that all the time. Hiding that behind a prohibitive die roll doesn't seem like it's the right answer (how many high level squires do you have in your world?). And because some people just can't help but metagame, I see them carrying some backup magic items just in case.
I had to look up Mystic Conflux, but it looks like was made as a Feat, so at least there's some cost associated with it (watching other people play D&D just isn't my thing, so I'm unfamiliar with anything related to that). I see how having 4 attuned items could be an issue though; I didn't think of it like that.
A squire picking up his/her knight's shield in order to defend them both sounds awesome, cinematic, and a very memorable experience. Why limit that to a roll that will most likely fail? Since spot-attunement isn't in the rules, the player wouldn't have any reason to think of it or even ask. You can then give it to the player for the length of the battle because it's a dire situation and it fades after the battle is done. Everyone high-fives and your table has a story to tell forever. The other option is to roll a 17+, or whomp-whomp... well, at least you get +2 AC?
I don't see a problem limiting it to a small number of rounds, but even that sounds like it goes against telling a good story (which based on your response sounds like the direction you want to go).
If you want to lock it behind some set of rules (so the players have control) then first, I'd make it automatic (let the players feel awesome) and keep it limited to a small number of rounds. To reduce the amount of times players can do this, maybe tie it to Inspiration (even if it's the only thing you can do with it). You control when people gain Inspiration and they can only have one at a time, so you have management over how often it'll be used during play.
If you don't want to add Inspiration to your game, maybe tie it to Exhaustion instead? RP-wise, it mimics the PC exerting all their will to bring the magic out of the item, and exhaustion is a brutal mechanic.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
By the way, I don't want you to think your idea is a bad one, I'm just bringing an opposing argument. I routinely ask people to poke holes in my suggestions at work so I know it's been looked at from many different angles.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew