Lv 5 Magic items for the party?

[ShiningCrusader]

Hi everyone. so I'm the Dm for a small group of friend, they are now a group of lv5 characters. okay hers the problem, i do well with encounters and world building, but i suck at giving the proper amount of gold or supplies, so basically they are always broke or have little gold, less then 100 at all times. but now their so hungry for more gold they are willing to do things that their characters wouldn't do, for example, my CG just accidentally killed a war forge in self-defense, but now the party is arguing over if they should sell his mithril corpse to make quick buck, but they all know that would put them a step towards evil, (mostly good party) so being the merciful DM that i am, i going to reward them with a few magic items to make them happy while i figure out how to handle gold better.

so what i'm asking is what magic items should i give a lv5 party that won't make them OP or just be a mockery after what they have gone through? just look for armor or weapons stuff.

[Âmesang]

Assuming one goes with the "no single item worth more than ¼ of the character's starting wealth," that should put the max gold piece value of an item at 2,250 gp; so perhaps that can give you a limit to work with? Though it's not until you hit the 5,000 gp mark that you start seeing the "long-lasting," specific equipment.

…which makes me wonder, has anyone ever had a character wear rhino hide?

[Zanos]

As an aside, I don't think its really Evil to sell a constructs body. Warforged are sentient, so it's probably disrespectful by most people's standards. If he was already dead, making a buck of his corpse is just kinda neutral but gross.

Magic Weapons and Armor have to have +1 enchantments before they can have other effects, and have to be masterwork before they can be +1. +1 weapons have +2000gp added to their cost, and armor costs +1000. So some +1 armor and weapons are probably a good choice, since it'll make them hit a little bit harder and let them hurt ghosts and pierce some creatures damage reduction.

A +1 cloak of resistance is 1000 gp and adds +1 to all saves. Good for pretty much anyone.

+2 stat items are 4k, so probably a bit out of the price range of a level 5 party. Still, you could throw some around.

A Handy Haversack is 2k, and is good for anyone who carries a bunch of stuff.

Pearls of Power start at 1k and provide additional daily casts of prepared spells. Good for casters.

[Doctor Despair]

My friend had a barbarian wear rhino hide partially for the bonus, but mostly for the same reason you're asking: no one uses it, haha. It seems to fit thematically with a lot of beefy melee characters though!

[ericgrau]

Open up magic item compendium, look at the charts of items sorted by cost. Lots of cool stuff there (both in MIC and DMG). Especially wondrous items. You may even want to roll a bunch of cheap items randomly (50-1,000 gp), and let clever players sort through them.

Weapon crystals and level 1 scrolls and potions are nice too. As are alchemical items.

I'm assuming they already have masterwork weapons and armor.

Rhino hide gives a pretty nice chunk of damage for the price. Any character with enough dex to use it yet while also being melee could benefit.

[Hiro Quester]

A particularly helpful treasure might be to roll a list of maybe like three times the party's number of potentially useful items from the MIC (I'd say open the purse strings a bit wider, though; say 1000-3000 gp), then let players choose one item each.

Our DM did this for our party recently after doing a favor for a deity. We were each were pretty happy with that deal. (Though our greedy sorcerer got cursed by touching a second item after selecting his item which added hilarity to the event).

[holywhippet]

I'd take a look at the wealth by level table in the DMG and try to match that up with what you give your players. Keep track of how much wealth you have given them and how much more they should get before next level. You could also borrow an idea from 4th edition where you don't get items piecemeal but instead there is one treasure trove in a given area after you've finished everything that needs doing in that area.

[ericgrau]

You could also do a blend of semi-selection for the permanent items (as few as those may be at level 5 WBL), and completely random for the expendables. Finding creative ways to use completely random 1-off or weird items is a load of fun. But that much randomness might not be what the players want for their main gear.