How to Make Magic Weapons in 5e from other editions

[OminousP]

Hey guys!

I am a DM and I'm converting a 3.5 adventure module into 5e rules so I can play it with my players. (They only want to play 5e right now.) I need some advice.

As far as converting the monster stats, I'm doing fine. It isn't that hard to look them over and make monsters that are balanced for 5e. But with magic weapons I'm having another issue deciding how to make them work without being broken.

For example, one of the best pieces of loot in this mod is a +1 Flaming Longbow. Since a flaming longbow isn't really covered in 5e's DMG, how do you think I should play that one? I don't want the PC's to get overpowered, but I also don't want to deprive them of an awesome prize.

[DanyBallon]

Best advice, is to go how you feel it's right for your campaign. In the case of the +1 Flaming longbow, you could either drop the +1, drop the flaming, rebrand the flaming property as something that ignites the arrows when released, which could set fire to flammable objects, etc.

[bloodshed343]

Drop the +1. Make it a normal bow, except that you can choose to use the Firebolt cantrip in place of an attack, with Dexterity as your casting stat, once per turn.

[bloodshed343]

Other fun magical items that don't interfere with BA:

Lesser/Average/Greater Gloves that let you cast Burning Hands once per short rest as a 2nd level spell. The casting stat modifier is replaced with +3/+4/+5 depending on the level of the gloves.

Lesser/Average/Greater Wands of [Cantrip] that use +3/+4/+5. Magical ranged options for everyone!

Robes that let you cast Mage Armor at-will, or let you use Int in place of Dex for AC.

Armor that gives DR instead of enhancement bonuses to AC.

Armor that gives a swim speed or allows levitation.

Boots of various movement modes.

Ring of Spell Storing

Ring of Regeneration

Etc, etc. There are plenty of ways to add loot without breaking BA. My personal favorite is the gloves/gauntlets of [spell]. And wands. Abilities are more interesting than passive bonuses.

[Knaight]

For the flaming longbow, what I'd probably do is drop the +1, then not have any extra fire damage most of the time. Instead, it lets you fire flaming arrows that ignite things (without having to go through the whole lighting process), produces the light expected, and maybe does a bit of fire damage specifically to things that are vulnerable to it or things that are incorporeal creatures (which wouldn't be likely to extinguish the fire as soon as it hits them, and where cauterizing the wound wouldn't be the sort of thing that can effectively cancel the damage).

It would help to get a complete list of magic items, or at least of magic items that are likely to prove difficult (wondrous items will probably be fine, +x items can be trimmed down or removed entirely, etc.).

[wayfare]

Flametongue is in the DMG, no? Theres precedent for a plus elemental damage weapon.

Two options:

Make it a magic bow that fires arrows that inflict extra fire damage

Or

Make it an infinite ammo bow that fires normal damage projectiles that infloct fire damage

[Mr.Moron]

I personally like magic items with pizzazz.

I'd probably give it some kind of non-weapon flavor ability as just a passive bonus to begin with. Something like it burns anyone but the attuned user who picks it up or touching it flammable items can start a fire.

I tend to like giving players more buttons/resource to push around, so I tend to assign lots of things charges with effects to spend them on. For a basic Firebow I might give it 3 charges max, with minor +damage fire ability for 1 charge and more powerful triggered ability on 2.

[OminousP]

I personally like magic items with pizzazz.

I'd probably give it some kind of non-weapon flavor ability as just a passive bonus to begin with. Something like it burns anyone but the attuned user who picks it up or touching it flammable items can start a fire.

Yes to pizzaz. I'm totally doing the attunement-or-it-burns thing. I should also probably think up a cool name for it...

As far as the flametongue thing goes I know that is in the DMG but the intention of the bow here is different, and a bit less powerful than an extra 2d6 for every hit. I like the idea of '+1 bow w/infinite ammo that does fire damage instead of piercing' for this a little bit better.

[Gritmonger]

Yes to pizzaz. I'm totally doing the attunement-or-it-burns thing.

Wouldn't that apply to anybody who found it and tried to attune?

"It burns!"

"It's okay, keep holding it like that, it'll get used to you..."

"Ow! How long! OW!"

"Oh, just ... an hour or so."

"OW! Dang, that smarts... so, what does it DO anyways? OUCH!"

"Oh, for that you'll have to spend another hour..."

"Yikes! Well, before or after this one?!"

"After. Definitely after."

[jkat718]

One important thing to keep in mind is that the rules include the following clause: "Some magic weapons specify the type of weapon they are in their description, such as a longsword or longbow. If a magic weapon doesn't specify its weapon type, you may choose the type or determine or randomly" (DMG, p. 140), and has a similar clause about magic armor on the preceding page. What this means is that, for the most part, any magic item in the DMG can become any other kind of weapon, as long as it has the same bonuses, and still be viable. For your flaming crossbow example, wayfare has the right idea. Take a look at Flametongue, on page 170. It's a swords that bursts into light-shedding flames that deal fire damage on a hit. Other options include:

The Javelin of Lightning on page 178 (change the damage type, and have it apply to a single bolt rather than a single their of the javelin)
The Necklace of Fireballs on page 182 (make it a quiver or ammunition case that places a Fireball, add per the spell, on the head of the ammo, but has a certain number of charges)
The Ring of the Ram on page 193 (again, change the damage type, and refluff it as a bolt of fire instead of a ram's head)
Possibly the Staff of Fire on page 201 (could be a little bit more powerful than you want, but who says the magic piece of WIS needs to be a staff and not a crossbow?)
The Wand of Fireballs on page 210 (same procedure as the Staff of Fire, really)
Maybe the Wand of Magic Missiles on page 211 (just change the damage type, the spell already makes bolts of energy)


Take a look at the Dungeon Master's Workshop, as well. Pages 284 and 285 have the magic item creation rules, which basically boil down to: look at the chart to see which spell or bonus to give, and limit spellcasting to 1/day.

[Mr.Moron]

Yes to pizzaz. I'm totally doing the attunement-or-it-burns thing. I should also probably think up a cool name for it...

As far as the flametongue thing goes I know that is in the DMG but the intention of the bow here is different, and a bit less powerful than an extra 2d6 for every hit. I like the idea of '+1 bow w/infinite ammo that does fire damage instead of piercing' for this a little bit better.

I think it'd be nice if something changed the experience of using the bow a bit. Just converting to fire damage basically means it's going to both feel and behave identically to a regular bow in all circumstances where the target doesn't have some specific ability that interacts with fire.

In-universe the character is going from using a run-of-the-mill bow like so many generic soldiers to a really quite fantastic and rare marvel of a weapon, and it changes nothing mechanically unless you're fighting Ice monsters or are really fanatically tracking & limiting ammo.

An example of an ability that I think is a bit more interesting without being more powerful on the whole:

Flaring Arrows: The user of this bow may choose to transmute arrows shot from this bow into darts if pure flame, if they do all damage dealt by the attack is fire damage. When the damage die of this weapon rolls a maximum result (8) the attack deals an additional d8 damage. (On a critical hit the extra damage die granted by the critical hit can trigger this ability)

Actually round-over-round it's a fair bit worse than +1/+1 however it feels substantively different than a static bonus and a damage type change. Now that the damage die are explosive when the player makes an attack people are looking for that "8".

This is just an example and it could probably use a secondary function that was a bit more consistent but I think not changing the attack or decision making process in some way could be a missed opportunity.


Wouldn't that apply to anybody who found it and tried to attune?

"It burns!"
...
"Yikes! Well, before or after this one?!"


You either don't have the burning effect turn on until someone is attuned to it, or more sensibly you just don't require attunment have physical contact just arms-length proximity and concentration.

[OminousP]

Maybe I could make it a regular longbow that requires attunement, and casts scorching ray once per day?

[Submortimer]

So, before the DMG came out, we had characters that had magic items. In particular, I had a Shield of Darkness, Which was a magic shield with no + that granted me Resistance to Necrotic damage, Gauntlets of Ogre power (19 Str), and a "Flame Tongue". The Flame tongue was simply a +1 Longsword that dealt an additional 1d6 fire damage, as compared to the new one that has no + but deals an additional 2d6 fire damage. In practice, they're pretty much balanced against each other. In fact, you could potentially translate any special abilities over to 5e with little to no fuss, so long as you kept the actual + of the sword to 3 or below.

+1 Flaming Long bow? +1 Flaming Longbow. Far, FAR from gamebreaking.

[T.G. Oskar]

Shouldn't be so hard, as long as you know when to apply Attunement and know the limits. The trick, of course, is to determine the rarity of the item.

If the item has a name, try to give it that name. That's a given. Then, figure out the level range of the module, because certain items aren't accessible before a certain level, and others shouldn't be given as loot before a certain range. The difference between the two is what matters.

Using the +1 flaming longbow as an example, note what would be the rarity of its components. Fortunately, the components have defined rarities: a +1 weapon is uncommon, while a flametongue sword (the closest thing to a flaming weapon in 5e) is rare. One requires attunement, the other doesn't.

From there, you might notice that a +1 flaming longbow, even with a simple 1d6 additional fire damage instead of 2d6, would be a rare weapon, and thus unavailable before 5th level at the very least. If you drop the bonus (as with the flametongue) and halve the damage but otherwise keep it as a flaming longbow (note that the longbow doesn't need to have a +1 enhancement to gain the benefits of magical effects anymore), you might still find out that the damage could be a bit of an edge before 5th level.

Some of the ideas given are good: for example, the Fire Bolt cantrip could be a good replacement, except the wielder uses its Dexterity (and its proficiency bonus, if proficient with the bow) for the attack roll, the damage does not increase, but you don't need to limit it to 1 attack per round since you could use the Extra Attack class feature to increase the damage (keeps the item relevant, which seems to be a thing in this edition so far), while not boosting the damage any further (i.e., aside from the damage scaling I mentioned before, not add Dex modifier to damage or Int/Cha modifier or even a modifier from the weapon, such as a +1 bonus). By doing so, even though the Fire Bolt deals more damage (1d10 fire), it might not compare to the regular damage from an arrow itself (1d8 + Dex modifier), so it won't break the numbers even if you keep the "fire arrows" limited to as many attacks as you can make (even with the Fighter's Action Surge; note, though, that it only should work with Extra Attack, unless you want the Ranger to use its swift quiver spell to make things work out).

As you might notice from the DMG, creating magic items really depends on being creative, rather than stick to the formula. Doing so might keep you out of balance, but you can instinctively figure out what might work and what might not.

One final bit - some magic items are relatively easy to replace. Generic +X weapons, armor or shields generally are translated by halving the bonus from their 3.5 incarnations (+1 or +2 = +1, +3 or +4 = +2, +5 = +3), stat-boosting items are mostly pre-worked (see: Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Belts of Giant Strength, Headbands of Intellect, Amulets of Health), but they generally set an ability score to a pre-defined maximum (thus, Gloves of Dexterity would set a character's Dexterity to 19, which is how it worked in AD&D 1e/2e in the first place). Any wand will have 7 charges, will recover 1d6+1 charges per day, and will have the potential of being destroyed if consumed. Potions are identical to their 3.5 counterparts, in that they are usable only once. Keep it that way, and translating magic items from one edition to another shouldn't be hard. At the very best, it should give you an idea of how to gauge such translations to be balanced to what you like, rather than what you have to follow.

[Knaight]

Another fun option would be some sort of inverted exploding die system. If you roll a 1 for damage, the special effect kicks in (which might just be a damage die, which can then also explode).