Scaling weapon/armor enchantments with Proficiency?

[SkipSandwich]

Was wondering what people would think about scaling the effects of at least some magical enchantments with the wielder's proficiency? Some examples of enchantments under this system would be as follows;

+X Magic [Weapon/Armor/Shield]: X= one half wielder's proficiency bonus

[Weapon] of [Element]: deal +Xd4 [Element] damage on hit where X= one-half wielder's prof bonus

[Weapon] of Truestriking: gain a bonus of +1dX on attack rolls, where X=2*proficiency bonus (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12).

Shield of Deflection: as the monk's deflect arrow feature, but roll is 1dX + Str mod, where X=2*Prof bonus.

Shield of Bashing: When the wearer of this shield performs a melee weapon attack, they may bash with the shield as a Bonus Action, this is a melee weapon attack dealing Bludgeoning damage equal to 1dX + the wearer's Str modifier, where X=2*Proficiency bonus.
Spiked Shield: as Shield of Bashing, but dealing piercing damage.

Shield of the [Color] Dragon: Provides Resistance to the associated damage type of its color dragon when worn. Once per short rest the shield can be commanded as an action to breathe either a 15ft cone or 30ft line of elemental energy dealing Xd6 damage of the associated type, where X=Proficiency bonus. Creatures within the area must make a dex save (DC=8+wearer's prof bonus+wearer's Con modifier), on a successful save they take only half damage.

Armor of False Life: provides 1dX temp hit points, which can be refreshed as an action where X=2*Prof bonus. Hit points last until depleted, the armor is removed or the wearer undergoes a long or short rest.

Trollskin Armor: The wearer of this armor recovers X hit points at the beginning of each of thier turns, to a maximum of one-half of thier total hit points, where X=The wearer's proficiency bonus. Receiving any amount of Fire, Acid or Necrotic damage disables this healing for 1 round.

[Lonely Tylenol]

The first bullet (+X to hit/damage/AC, where X is 1/2 proficiency, generally rounded down) is actually pretty popular in some homebrew circles. The rest aren’t generally seen, mostly because those items with special effects tend to focus on more impactful effects with narrower windows (where Truestriking is just an honestly very large to-hit bonus at later levels which is, what, always on? Precision Attack on crack, but not really giving an interesting new ability). Generally, the items that scale (at least, when legendary) also have distinct “tiering” in these new abilities, as well.

That said, I like the principle, but not the execution on some. Trollskin Armor is great, but Armor of False Life isn’t. Trollskin Armor scaling with you makes you feel tougher, the regeneration is great, and it creates a defined window of opportunity for enemies to shut it down. On the other hand, the bonus HP on Armor of False Life could be flat and would detract from gameplay less if it was. Similarly, Shield of the [Color] Dragon provides a new effect that feels cool when it scales, but Weapon of Truestriking doesn’t add anything really new and kind of messes with the existing balance of power in the way that it improves what you already do.

Another method you can explore is a magic item giving you [prof mod] uses per long rest for a flat impactful ability, or something to that effect, which lets you use proficiency scaling in a way that doesn’t rely on numerical bonuses, which this edition will always be stingy about.

Keep at it, though! See where the idea can take you. Also, try posting some of this to the Homebrew subsection when you’ve made it a little more concrete. :smallsmile: