I started playing around with some homebrew creations, nothing fancy but just things that came to mind as I hunted around the tool. Then I made some armor, and then gloves and boots to go with it, then I thought I could make a whole set of weapons, armor, magic artifacts, amulets, rods, etc. and the idea hit me that maybe some god or other patron granted these items to a favored champion. Then I made a list of 10-12 items that would make up this set. I started modestly, one item granting advantage on perception rolls, for example. Certainly not overpowered, but then I thought maybe having the subset of armor/gloves/boots or scimitar/short sword, or whatever might grant its own benefit, extra 1d6 lightning damage or something, then of course finding the whole set of 10 or 12 pieces would grant another bonus, maybe +1 to dex or cha or something.
Is this just a ridiculous exercise in bonus inflation? It's a lot of equipment. Would any self-respecting DM even use such a massive set in a game? What ideas do you have to make a set like this actually balanced in a game or at least not obviously overpowering? I felt like the father in Poltergeist who looks in the mirror and starts slowly at first peeling his face away and then really gets going and appears to become some kind of ghoul. Should I just stop now before anyone gets hurt? Thanks in advance for your thoughts and ideas.
Most of that stuff should require attunement, so that's a hard cap of three active on any given character, unless they're a 20th-level artificer.
What I might do is make smaller 2/3 pieces sets that grant character bonuses, and then if multiple party members have some of these sets active, maybe a party-wide "meta-set bonus" for that.
There's nothing wrong with characters filling up their attunement slots, but remember that they only get three.
5e hates magic items with the blazing, unquenchable fury of a thousand blighted orcs. A twelve-piece set of magical gear would probably result in Mike Mearls or Jeremy Crawford flying to your house to beat you to death with a DMG. According to the base item/loot rules, an entire party of 20th-level characters would be fortunate to claim twelve magic items between them.
Heh. That said, if you like fun in your game, you could do it. I would consider a split between the ancient hero's iconic Hero Gear and their Handy Tools, however. A broad rule of thumb for magic items is that something you have to control, i.e. an item that responds to your will to do a thing, or an item that grants you a specific combat bonus is one that requires attunement. Items that don't require attunment tend to be those that just kinda do their thing, requiring either manual control or some manner of physical invocation - or those items that're just so flippin' weird that even the 5e team had to admit that nobody would ever use them if they required attunement.
The Legendary Hero could have, say, five pieces of attuneable gear. After all, he's legendary, he doesn't play by the same rules as a third-level schlub from Schlubton. His weapon, his shield, his helm, his boots, and his cloak, by way of quick example - each of those is an attuneable item, and each one gives a bonus for each Legendary Hero item you're attuned to (including itself, a'la its base bonus). Then you could have five Heroic Tools the stories about him claim he carried, with simpler effects and no stacking bonuses but also no attunement requirement, that simply tie into the legend.
Make those more about flavor and hype than power, things like "the tales say that the Legendary Hero always had a coin to spare for those in need, but none at all for thieves and brigands" for a belt pouch that can carry any number of coins the player puts into it (y'know, like the Standard Video Game Purse most players assume they have anyways :P), but can only be opened by the person wearing it. A simple item that comes with what amounts to a Chuck Norris Fact for the hero who's stuff you're stealing and serves more to cement the idea of this guy as an ancient super-badass than anything else.
Whether or not a DM uses it is up to that DM, but if you present them with a legend instead of a bunch of gear you want, say "I wrote this story about this old legendary figure, I was wondering what you thought" and give them some well-done worldbuilding backed up by items more interesting than munchkin-y?
Who knows. I know I'd be a whole lot more willing to entertain the idea, though.
helpful comments, thank you very much. Attunement rules are a bit fuzzy for me: they seem to be [strongly?] suggested, but not required for the magic to work. That conclusion might be from my limited searching for attunement rules; I can see that devs created the idea for a reason and expect it to be implemented most often. That's unfortunate, but perhaps the Wizards saw magic becoming too common in Faerun and needed a way to dial it back a bit.
That said, I think a work around for me might be to make my sets as noted above, limited to 3 sets total (perhaps of 2-4 items in each set, don't want to be ridiculous here!) and once a set is complete by a character, the char must attune to the primary item in the set (or all items) to get the SET bonus. And if 3 sets are obtained by the same character and subsequently attuned, the char gets the single bonus of the full 3 set collection.
Of course, I'm just messing around here, not much of a DM so this is mostly an academic exercise, not leading to real in-game circumstances. Thanks again for giving me a moment of your time.
Dealing an extra 1d6 lightning damage is not that crazy. Unless this champion dual wields and has 3 attacks as a 11th level fighter. That means if he hits with all attacks, he deals an additional 4d6 lightning damage. +1 to any stat is a little weird. Mostly because you would (probably) have to attune to it, but the bonuses wouldn't do anything 50% of the time. If you plan to have your players meet this champion, consider what would happen and who would get what item if they killed him. It's better to have to give them the items one by one, over the course of a campaign arc. Perhaps each time they find a new piece they have to fight him. So he starts with his Longsword of Sparks. It is a +1 to hit and damage, and it deals an additional 1d6 lightning damage. Maybe even add a DC 14 con save on a critical hit or you cannot take reactions until the end of your next turn. Depending on the party's level of course. Then when they are going for his helmet, he has both the sword (even though the party has the sword, the champions spirit has a copy of it) and he also wears the helmet. Which grants advantage on perception checks that rely on sight, and made when looking for enemy or potentially hostile creatures. Or it maybe gives advantage (or even immunity) to sight based attacks (such as a medua's gaze) and against blinding effects. Such as blindness/deafness. And so on and so forth.
Giving a lot of magical items in one go can be dangerous. As they reach a new power level VERY quickly. Let's say a level 4 party made up of: A elven wizard. A human fighter. A Tiefling warlock (with pact of the chain!). And a half elf rogue. None of them has any magical items. Nor any abilities that give them a magical weapon. That means that, that single wererat is a VERY VERY powerful foe. And that they should avoid it unless at least level 5 or until their fighter gets a magical weapon. When they get that first magical weapon. The game changes. Even though you can buy a silvered weapon, would a blacksmith just have that ready? And at level 4, would they have the money to buy such a weapon?
If they are level 16 or around that level, magical items aren't always the way out. Yeah, most bigger baddies probably need some magical items. But spells such as say, banishment can hamber a party real good. Say the fighter wants to beat up your 57 hit point level 18 wizard. He might last half a round. Banishment. But what if he doesn't beat the ini? A few traps maybe? Or, give him an ability that allows him to slow down time. If that is his goal, to stop time and do XXXXX. So he has a aquired the ability to slow or at least stop time for certain people. As a reaction to a creature rolling ini he can force them to count their roll as if they rolled say, 5 or maybe even 1.
So I ramble. Basically, yeah. On one dude yep. It is way to good. Because if they kill him, they get access to the items. This counts with wizards as well. If you have a random bandit group. Party is level 7. This level 3 wizard might have a spell that the wizard doesn't. And you have to be careful of such things. Make up a reason for why they can't use all his items or have the master revive him and give him new sets every time. Say the party is mostly good. At least non evil characters. Maybe one. Maybe this guy is a paladin of conquest. And so his armor of void's pull can only be used by a character of evil alignment.
So sorry for the looong text. If you stuck around to read the entire thing, I thank you tenfold! Best the loot and luck to you my friend!
I started playing around with some homebrew creations, nothing fancy but just things that came to mind as I hunted around the tool. Then I made some armor, and then gloves and boots to go with it, then I thought I could make a whole set of weapons, armor, magic artifacts, amulets, rods, etc. and the idea hit me that maybe some god or other patron granted these items to a favored champion. Then I made a list of 10-12 items that would make up this set. I started modestly, one item granting advantage on perception rolls, for example. Certainly not overpowered, but then I thought maybe having the subset of armor/gloves/boots or scimitar/short sword, or whatever might grant its own benefit, extra 1d6 lightning damage or something, then of course finding the whole set of 10 or 12 pieces would grant another bonus, maybe +1 to dex or cha or something.
Is this just a ridiculous exercise in bonus inflation? It's a lot of equipment. Would any self-respecting DM even use such a massive set in a game? What ideas do you have to make a set like this actually balanced in a game or at least not obviously overpowering? I felt like the father in Poltergeist who looks in the mirror and starts slowly at first peeling his face away and then really gets going and appears to become some kind of ghoul. Should I just stop now before anyone gets hurt? Thanks in advance for your thoughts and ideas.
Most of that stuff should require attunement, so that's a hard cap of three active on any given character, unless they're a 20th-level artificer.
What I might do is make smaller 2/3 pieces sets that grant character bonuses, and then if multiple party members have some of these sets active, maybe a party-wide "meta-set bonus" for that.
There's nothing wrong with characters filling up their attunement slots, but remember that they only get three.
5e hates magic items with the blazing, unquenchable fury of a thousand blighted orcs. A twelve-piece set of magical gear would probably result in Mike Mearls or Jeremy Crawford flying to your house to beat you to death with a DMG. According to the base item/loot rules, an entire party of 20th-level characters would be fortunate to claim twelve magic items between them.
Heh. That said, if you like fun in your game, you could do it. I would consider a split between the ancient hero's iconic Hero Gear and their Handy Tools, however. A broad rule of thumb for magic items is that something you have to control, i.e. an item that responds to your will to do a thing, or an item that grants you a specific combat bonus is one that requires attunement. Items that don't require attunment tend to be those that just kinda do their thing, requiring either manual control or some manner of physical invocation - or those items that're just so flippin' weird that even the 5e team had to admit that nobody would ever use them if they required attunement.
The Legendary Hero could have, say, five pieces of attuneable gear. After all, he's legendary, he doesn't play by the same rules as a third-level schlub from Schlubton. His weapon, his shield, his helm, his boots, and his cloak, by way of quick example - each of those is an attuneable item, and each one gives a bonus for each Legendary Hero item you're attuned to (including itself, a'la its base bonus). Then you could have five Heroic Tools the stories about him claim he carried, with simpler effects and no stacking bonuses but also no attunement requirement, that simply tie into the legend.
Make those more about flavor and hype than power, things like "the tales say that the Legendary Hero always had a coin to spare for those in need, but none at all for thieves and brigands" for a belt pouch that can carry any number of coins the player puts into it (y'know, like the Standard Video Game Purse most players assume they have anyways :P), but can only be opened by the person wearing it. A simple item that comes with what amounts to a Chuck Norris Fact for the hero who's stuff you're stealing and serves more to cement the idea of this guy as an ancient super-badass than anything else.
Whether or not a DM uses it is up to that DM, but if you present them with a legend instead of a bunch of gear you want, say "I wrote this story about this old legendary figure, I was wondering what you thought" and give them some well-done worldbuilding backed up by items more interesting than munchkin-y?
Who knows. I know I'd be a whole lot more willing to entertain the idea, though.
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helpful comments, thank you very much. Attunement rules are a bit fuzzy for me: they seem to be [strongly?] suggested, but not required for the magic to work. That conclusion might be from my limited searching for attunement rules; I can see that devs created the idea for a reason and expect it to be implemented most often. That's unfortunate, but perhaps the Wizards saw magic becoming too common in Faerun and needed a way to dial it back a bit.
That said, I think a work around for me might be to make my sets as noted above, limited to 3 sets total (perhaps of 2-4 items in each set, don't want to be ridiculous here!) and once a set is complete by a character, the char must attune to the primary item in the set (or all items) to get the SET bonus. And if 3 sets are obtained by the same character and subsequently attuned, the char gets the single bonus of the full 3 set collection.
Of course, I'm just messing around here, not much of a DM so this is mostly an academic exercise, not leading to real in-game circumstances. Thanks again for giving me a moment of your time.
Dealing an extra 1d6 lightning damage is not that crazy. Unless this champion dual wields and has 3 attacks as a 11th level fighter. That means if he hits with all attacks, he deals an additional 4d6 lightning damage. +1 to any stat is a little weird. Mostly because you would (probably) have to attune to it, but the bonuses wouldn't do anything 50% of the time.
If you plan to have your players meet this champion, consider what would happen and who would get what item if they killed him. It's better to have to give them the items one by one, over the course of a campaign arc. Perhaps each time they find a new piece they have to fight him. So he starts with his Longsword of Sparks. It is a +1 to hit and damage, and it deals an additional 1d6 lightning damage. Maybe even add a DC 14 con save on a critical hit or you cannot take reactions until the end of your next turn. Depending on the party's level of course. Then when they are going for his helmet, he has both the sword (even though the party has the sword, the champions spirit has a copy of it) and he also wears the helmet.
Which grants advantage on perception checks that rely on sight, and made when looking for enemy or potentially hostile creatures. Or it maybe gives advantage (or even immunity) to sight based attacks (such as a medua's gaze) and against blinding effects. Such as blindness/deafness. And so on and so forth.
Giving a lot of magical items in one go can be dangerous. As they reach a new power level VERY quickly. Let's say a level 4 party made up of:
A elven wizard. A human fighter. A Tiefling warlock (with pact of the chain!). And a half elf rogue. None of them has any magical items. Nor any abilities that give them a magical weapon. That means that, that single wererat is a VERY VERY powerful foe. And that they should avoid it unless at least level 5 or until their fighter gets a magical weapon.
When they get that first magical weapon. The game changes. Even though you can buy a silvered weapon, would a blacksmith just have that ready? And at level 4, would they have the money to buy such a weapon?
If they are level 16 or around that level, magical items aren't always the way out. Yeah, most bigger baddies probably need some magical items. But spells such as say, banishment can hamber a party real good. Say the fighter wants to beat up your 57 hit point level 18 wizard. He might last half a round. Banishment. But what if he doesn't beat the ini? A few traps maybe? Or, give him an ability that allows him to slow down time. If that is his goal, to stop time and do XXXXX. So he has a aquired the ability to slow or at least stop time for certain people. As a reaction to a creature rolling ini he can force them to count their roll as if they rolled say, 5 or maybe even 1.
So I ramble. Basically, yeah. On one dude yep. It is way to good. Because if they kill him, they get access to the items. This counts with wizards as well. If you have a random bandit group. Party is level 7. This level 3 wizard might have a spell that the wizard doesn't. And you have to be careful of such things. Make up a reason for why they can't use all his items or have the master revive him and give him new sets every time. Say the party is mostly good. At least non evil characters. Maybe one. Maybe this guy is a paladin of conquest. And so his armor of void's pull can only be used by a character of evil alignment.
So sorry for the looong text. If you stuck around to read the entire thing, I thank you tenfold! Best the loot and luck to you my friend!
The sets sound interesting to throw around. With the attunement being in the way you could make a special exemption for these. Good luck
-Sol