Creating magic Weapons and Armor

[Smitty006]

So I've been DMing in 5e for a few weeks now, normal growing pains but I don't miss 3.5 at all at this point except for one thing, weapons and armor.

I loved crafting magic armour and weapons and it feels like there is no place for that in 5e, I mean I realize you can modify existing stuff, but I'm hesitant to go as far as 3.5 allowed when it comes to changing a die amount or stacking bonuses. Has anyone else fooled around with building custom weapons and armor or even enchanted for their players and how far did you go with it?

Also as a second question, How do you deal with players buying equipment, given how proficiencies work , the starting equipment, and how the basic weapon tables in the PHB are very small, it seems like there is never a need to buy new weapons and armor.

[Alucard2099]

As far as creating magical items, I would say that you can alter them to your will, provided that they work in your games setting. Take, for instance, a sword. You can make the sword have Vicious, and you can still increase the damage. This would make it a much stronger weapon so you would need to restrict when your players could have it.

As for your second question... I would say that they can buy new weapons, pending materials, make them a bit stronger, but increase the difficulty of the monsters to compensate. Your players will feel more powerful, but it wont really have that much effect on battle.

[Easy_Lee]

I added an NPC to my game who can identify magical items and transfer effects from one item to another (usually overwriting its current bonuses, if it has any). Beyond that, the DMG offers some guidelines on required spells for producing an item, but it's really up to the DM what can be made, required materials, and how long the process will take.

Some ideas I have on the subject:

A skilled blacksmith ought to be able to modify magical items into different shapes and sizes. If one of my players wanted to alter a halberd, taking the blade off and creating a sword or dagger from it, I'd allow him.
Sufficiently skilled magic users ought to be able to transfer magic from one item to another, given time and the proper reagents (item dependent)
A blacksmith ought to be able to use a magic scroll combined with the proper materials to make a magical item with some benefits of the spell scroll (materials would depend on item, ruby or fire opal for fire effects and the like, and he may need assistance from a spell caster)

Basically, if your players have time and want to make magic items, I'd say let them as long as you make an adventure out of it.

[borg286]

There has been quite a bit of designing effort put into making magic weapons practically inaccessible to players, and solely in the hands of the DM to hand out. This is to give more control of the power level of the game in the hands of the DM. With players able to buy weapons outside of common, this gives more optimization knobs to the players. I, like you, miss the customization and moldable space that items gave you. But as an optimizer I can say that when there is a choice, there is often an optimal choice for a given goal. These optima result in defaults, which results in an arms race between optimizers/players and the designers, with the DMs helplessly taking friendly fire. I felt that they swung too far and made gold useless because the only thing on the market is potions of healing and the gloves of giving a jack.
4e tried to solve it with wish lists, but the arms race continued. 5e is trying to solve it by saying magic items are LOTR rare, and label everything common, rare, really rare, uber rare, this-doesn't-exist rare.

[Balor777]

I felt that they swung too far and made gold useless because the only thing on the market is potions of healing and the gloves of giving a jack.
4e tried to solve it with wish lists, but the arms race continued. 5e is trying to solve it by saying magic items are LOTR rare, and label everything common, rare, really rare, uber rare, this-doesn't-exist rare.

Very nice said.The grey area for me too is what do you actualy do with gold.
I would definately allow the "bestow magic" feat that would allow a caster casting an evocation spell that he knows over a weapon as some hours ritual for many days with cost of materials equal to 3edition DMG to craft a elemental weapon.And abjuration spells to get some bonus for armor.
At the same time allowing enemy npc to carry "some" magic items too.Maybe like this.It could be even temporar for 1 week or so for less cost time to bestow.This way
you wont be afraid that PC will stack them selfs magic items from NPCS.
I dont know.
Just a quick thought.

[MadGrady]

I don't feel like gold is useless, as my games do allow the purchasing of magic items, wondrous items. I took about an hour the other night and sat down with the rarity cost table provided as a suggestion the DMG and set some static costs for primary magic items (weapons, armor, potions, and scrolls).

I also based the rarity on how big of a city they had to be in to have access to such items. The rarer the item, the bigger the city.

As a DM, I am able to control their access since I also control their access to the wealth needed to obtain the items. Past that - they players can buy whatever they want as long as they have the cash.

So far, it's worked fairly well. They may not be able to handcraft an item anymore, but neither are they restricted to 0 items.

[Easy_Lee]

Gold isn't necessarily useless in your game world if you don't allow the purchase of magical equipment. Players can just spend the money on things like mansions, castles, rare or magical pets, elven maids, armies, etc.

I do think magical equipment needs to be there, though, if for no other reason than to reduce the utility gap between casters and certain martials. Without purchasable magic items, I would have the players assemble expeditions to go out looking for a specific item they've heard of. The more your players work for an item, the more they'll value it.

[Theodoxus]

I stole the Mojo item concept from Kirthfinder and built two artifacts for my players. The first is a personalized weapon, that increases in power as they level, bestowed upon them by their patron god. It follows the basic guideline for magic weapons, increasing in power where the DMG suggests it should, and intermittent levels adds neat things, like expertise in a commonly used skill, doubling long rest class abilities, etc.
The second artifact is armor, a captain's coat, specifically, that also increases in power as they level, but each coat has the same boosts; starting with AC as X armor (going from leather to chain to breastplate), then adding magical +1 to AC/Saves, eventually up to +3. Finally, they add resistance to 2 energy types and immunity to a 3rd. The coats were built by 8 different beings working in conjunction to overcome the ultimate menace in the campaign, and were given to pirate captains in the hopes they'd work together... but pirates aren't like that (the creators were otherworldly and didn't understand humanoid foibles) The players have managed to capture 4 of the coats, and have unlocked some of their powers... it's been a lot of fun.

As for gold, it's a pirate campaign, the vast majority of their gold goes to either buying or upgrading ships or spending it on raising their infamy in port towns. They haven't been able to amass much, certainly not enough to purchase additional magic items, even if they were available. One reason we all like the Mojo concept for this campaign.