Winged Boots

[dickerson76]

DM gave us a chance to commission some Uncommon magic items. It was the first chance I had to look through the DMG at the magic items for 5e. The winged boots give 4 hours of flight (in 1 minute increments), recharging with non-use. With no recharging, assuming fewer than 10 rounds per fight, that's flight for 240 combats! This seems very overpowered for an Uncommon magic item - available at level 1 or higher for 101-500gp. Is there something I'm missing?

[Ouranos]

Flight makes you a big, fat, target to smart opponents, and to top it off as I recall it takes an attunement slot which you're only allowed 3. Severely limiting factor.

[LordFluffy]

Longbows have a 600' range.

Heavy Crossbows have a 400' range.

There are creatures in all CR's with flight speed.

Flight is a big deal, but it's not unanswerable by the GM.

[SharkForce]

you've got it all wrong.

what you really want is a broom of flying. boots are for suckers.

but in answer to the main question, no there isn't anything you're missing (apart from the aforementioned broom). WotC had this sort-of decent idea of making magic items of different rarity, then had the catastrophically bad decision of having it only reflect rarity, which should be based on setting rather than on rules, but using it as a stand-in for power in almost every other situation where they use the rarity system.

as a result we have super-expensive magical superglue, and dirt-cheap personal mobility aircraft complete with built-in autopilot function.

the solution is to completely abandon the rarity system, I'm afraid.

you may find this link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?424243-Sane-Magic-Item-Prices) to be somewhat helpful if you feel like encouraging your DM to fix it.

[XianTheCoder]

Is there something I'm missing?
Nope.... Winged Boots are the single greatest uncommon magical item in the DMG, and should probably be Rare given their utility. It's become the go-to item for just about every character that I have played recently, and it's the bane of every DM that tries to capture/kill any of my characters.


Flight makes you a big, fat, target to smart opponents, and to top it off as I recall it takes an attunement slot which you're only allowed 3. Severely limiting factor.
In 5E how often do you get more than 3 attunable items (I've capped out at 2, which I had for a total of about 2 in-game hours)? I don't play in groups that tend to give magic items freely though, so this is a game-to-game concern.

As for being a big fat target for smart opponents, it really depends on your other abilities. I tend to play a lot of roguish characters or spellcasters, both of which have other abilities that compliment the boots well. Flying and being invisible is tough to beat (you can get out of Faerie Fire range in two rounds max... 1 with rogue levels or if you have speed boosts available to you). The game I am in currently has a DM who loves bringing the long arm of the law down on any non-LG characters, and I've used the boots successfully to get away three times (and this is a DM who's smart and experienced at trying to stop me). So really... it depends on how you use them and what abilities you pair them with.


There are creatures in all CR's with flight speed.
This is really the major thing to worry about... so far I've avoided this problem with invisibility and speed boosts to hide from/outrun them. If you can't do either, and the rest of the party can't fly, then you're in trouble. Generally though, DMs don't start planning against a specific ability unless you've consistently used it to foil them, so don't abust it, and you should be alright.


as a result we have super-expensive magical superglue
For a creative player this is one of the most overpowered/broken items in the game. On the surface it seems silly, but once you sit down and come up with a "top 10 uses" list for it, you suddenly realize just how powerful the item is.

[SharkForce]

For a creative player this is one of the most overpowered/broken items in the game. On the surface it seems silly, but once you sit down and come up with a "top 10 uses" list for it, you suddenly realize just how powerful the item is.

first off, giving out an item that encourages creativity to get power out of it sounds like a much better thing than "here, have as much greater invisibility as you're likely to ever need".

secondly, no, it isn't the most overpowered/broken item in the game. you can do some silly things with it, but in general you are still limited by the material strength of whatever you glued with it.

in contrast, something that gives a bonus to spell DC (through some means or another) is terrifyingly broken in that it can get spells to a point where you either have a bonus to your saving throw, or the spell just works 100% of the time, and nobody needs to get creative or think about it meaningfully. you just get the items that give increased DC, cast a spell that the target isn't good at saving against, and suddenly that encounter with half a dozen gladiators turned into an encounter with half a dozen piñatas, without anyone even trying to break anything, and with absolutely no creativity required ("oh, I'm fighting stuff that qualifies as a 'person'? ok, I cast hold person")

so yeah, restricting access to sovereign glue out of fear that someone might get creative with it? no thanks, that kind of idea can go crawl into a hole somewhere and die a lonely death with no friends. sounds a hell of a lot more fun and a lot less worrisome than a +3 armour as far as I'm concerned.