The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide contains over 400 magic items for you to choose from when rewarding your players for their adventurous exploits, but sometimes, you want something built from the ground up to suit your unique campaign.

This article is here to help when the urge to homebrew magic items strikes. Within, you'll find useful tips using the guidelines from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide to advise you when it comes time to create that custom magic item.

• Nail Your Homebrewed Item's Pitch
• Power and Balance
• The Initial Design
• Refining Language
• Playtesting

Nail Your Homebrewed Item's Pitch

Artist: Justyna Dura

Before you start writing out your homebrew item, you need to come up with a concept for what the item is and does in simple and evocative terms. This will be your reference point for the mechanics, helping you picture the item and what it's supposed to do as you develop the wording for its rules.

Try and keep this pitch to a single sentence that evokes as much of the item's functionality as possible, for example:

• A brass gauntlet that captures spell slots for later use.
• An amulet that grants the wearer Advantage on Constitution saving throws made to maintain Concentration.
• A suit of armor that enhances the wearer's Strength the more Hit Points they lose.
• A ring that randomly redirects spells that target the wearer.
• A sentient sword that possesses the spirit of an elven bladesinger.

With this concept in mind, you can start looking through existing magic items to see if there's anything similar to what you're visualizing. This serves three purposes:

1. It saves you time homebrewing a brand-new item that might already exist.
2. It gives you something to reference in terms of mechanical language when you reach that stage of designing your item.
3. You can figure out what item type should be used and what properties, such as charges or attunement, might be appropriate.

Chapter 3 of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide provides advice for modifying existing magical items, such as altering their form or combining two or more items. Additionally, chapter 7 features several tables of magic item properties that can be used to modify and customize existing magical items.

Power and Balance

If you want to make your own item from scratch, the first thing you should think about is how powerful you want to make it and how to keep it balanced so it won't disrupt your game.

Balance is achieved when the item isn't a strictly better choice than other comparable items or class features. If there's no reason not to use an item, say because it has no downside or cost to using it, then a player may feel obligated to use it even if they don't want to because not doing so would be an actively detrimental choice.

In order to determine how powerful your item should be, you can follow these steps.

1. Determine at what level you want your players to find the item.
2. Reference that level against the Magic Item Rarities table in chapter 7 of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide to determine an appropriate rarity.
3. Look up similar items of the same rarity and how powerful they are.

This will give you a solid starting point for your first design as well as language building blocks for wording the rules of your item.

Placing Limits on Your Items

It's important at this stage to think about any costs or limitations that would thematically fit your item. Should it use charges or require attunement? If it does require attunement, can anyone attune to it, or does it have prerequisites? These will give you options on how you might tone down the effectiveness of your item so it's not overpowered.

Chapter 3 of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide includes some advice on balancing magic item power. For example, a Rare item shouldn't be able to cast a spell higher than level 5 and shouldn't provide a bonus greater than +2. These are guidelines, not hard rules, but are good limits to keep in mind.

The Initial Design

Artist: WAYNE ENGLAND

So you've got a concept for your item and a rough idea of how powerful it should be. Now, it's time to work on your initial design.

D&D Beyond features a Homebrew tool that can create anything from feats to spells to magic items. By using this tool, you can configure your perfect magic item creation to work with D&D Beyond character sheets.

Going back to your list of similar rarity items, you can start plucking out snippets, building your magic item from the pieces. This will be a messy process with mismatched and unclear language, but we don't worry about that yet. The goal here is to have something that looks like a usable item, regardless of how precise the language may or may not be.

It's at this stage you can start thinking about getting feedback on your item, as having a fresh set of eyes can be invaluable early on in the design process. When getting feedback, try to be specific both in what kinds of feedback you're looking for and at what stage in the design process you're at. Some good questions to ask people might be:

• “How do you think this item is supposed to be used?”
• “Does this item seem appropriate for its rarity?”
• “Is this item too similar to existing items?”
• “Do the mechanics match the flavor?”
• “How might you break or abuse this item?”

When gathering feedback, don't overlook the source of feedback that matters the most: your players. They'll be the ones using the items you make, so getting their opinions is crucial. Crafting homebrew is an organic process that involves iteration and refinement, so getting your players in on the process early can help you reach a point where everyone is happy sooner.

Refining Language

So you've taken your initial pitch and got it to the stage where you have something that technically works from a rules standpoint, but the language is not the most elegant. Once again, we turn to our trusted method of looking at existing items.

By referencing the wording of other magic items, you can get a feel for the type of grammar and formatting that Dungeons & Dragons uses to clearly convey how an item works. This can be a slow process that requires a lot of iteration as you dial in the perfect terminology and phrasing for your item, but it's worth it in the end as it ensures once you hand that item to your players, they'll hopefully not need to ask you how the item works.

Some questions you can ask yourself when refining your item's language include:

• Could you phrase it with fewer words?
• Is there any unnecessary repetition?
• Is everything the player needs to know explicitly stated?
• Have you used too much flavor text?
• Can any of the mechanics be interpreted in multiple ways?

This stage benefits from getting several opinions as the goal is ultimately to make something that reads clearly to whoever you give the item to. This is where the final stage of making any magic item comes in: Playtesting.

Playtesting

Artist: Chris Seaman

Playtesting is, as the name would suggest, the process of testing the homebrew item you've made through actual gameplay. However, most DMs don't have the opportunity to hand out a homebrew item across multiple ‘test' campaigns and then gather a wide spread of feedback. Instead, playtesting usually occurs within the campaign for which the item is intended, and as such, a slightly different approach must be taken.

Too Much of a Good Thing

When playtesting a magic item within your campaign, you should start by picking a version of the item that is slightly underpowered rather than overpowered. It's a lot safer in terms of not derailing the campaign this way, and also, it's much more satisfying for the players if the homebrew item they've received gets stronger rather than weaker.

Once you've got the initial version and are ready to add it to your campaign, have a conversation with your players. Explain that the item isn't finalized, is very likely to change over the coming sessions, and you're looking for their feedback on what changes are needed.

Expect the Unexpected

As your players use the item, keep an eye on how they use it and if they find any exploits or unintended uses that are a detriment to the overall fun of the game. The goal isn't to limit the player's creativity, just to ensure that your homebrew item adds to the fun of the game rather than detracting from it.

This includes making sure the item isn't too strong, doesn't overshadow another character's class or subclass ability, or discourage the players from doing something that would be more enjoyable. For example, perhaps your players are excited about a plan where they scale the castle wall, silently take down the guards, and then infiltrate the noble's tower. However, they remember that they have the Circlet of Greater Teleportation you gave them that will allow them to teleport directly to the noble.

The item renders the plan they're excited about moot. This is the sort of thing you want to avoid where possible; magic items should help solve problems but not cancel out all challenges, which is why limitations are important. When you see situations like this, it's a good opportunity after the session to ask your players how they might change the item to make things more enjoyable or why they used the item rather than carry out the plan.

Homebrew is a Conversation

Once you've gathered your player's feedback and come up with changes, you should take those changes to your players before implementing them. Playtesting should always be a conversation between you and your players so there are no unpleasant surprises. Approach your players before a session and say, “Here are the changes I've made to this item. What do you think?” This keeps them involved in the process of making the item, and thus, the game overall is more fun. As you iterate through this process, you'll eventually land on an item that everyone finds fun to use.

Avoid the Sunk Cost Fallacy

If you and your group can't reach a design for the item that everyone agrees is appropriate, it's worth considering abandoning the idea and moving on. In such a situation, once again, you're going to want to discuss it with your players and enlist them to figure out how to resolve removing the item from the game.

Perhaps the item could be destroyed by a monster or stolen by an enemy? Find an option that everyone can agree upon so that the act of taking away a magic item doesn't feel unreasonable.

The Final Product

Much like how crafting a magic item in-game can be a long and complicated process, so can making a homebrew item out-of-game. But in both cases, it's also a satisfying and creative process that allows you to express yourself and add something personal to the game.

By approaching homebrew items as an ongoing process, a conversation between you and your players, you can not only create something unique, but also collaborative, expanding your game world with the help of your players. Stay tuned for the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, which is full of advice and tips on making magic items, as well as hundreds of ready-made magic items to inspire you!

Davyd is a moderator for D&D Beyond. A Dungeon Master of over fifteen years, he enjoys Marvel movies, writing, and of course running D&D for his friends and family, including his daughter Willow (well, one day). The three of them live with their two cats Asker and Khatleesi in south of England.