Game-Changing Magic Items

[Zuras]

What tier-appropriate items have you seen completely break encounters and/or radically change the play style of a character at your tables?

Specifically, I am wondering about otherwise level-appropriate items, not times the 1st level Wizard got their hands on a staff of the Magi.

For example, the most significant uncommon magic items I have seen in Tier 1 are the Hat of Disguise and Helm of Telepathy. In both cases they duplicate spells the players already had access to, but providing at-will castings of Disguise Self and Detect Thoughts led to he players in question infiltrating/mind reading all the time.

In neither case did the item break every social encounter, but they were used so heavily that both characters were remembered more for their magic items than anything else. They were basically the Rogue with Expertise in Insight and a Helm of Telepathy and the Rogue with Expertise in Deception and the Hat of Disguise.

Again, these were game-changing items, not game breaking. In a later games I had a Warlock player pick up mask of many faces to do the same thing, but obviously getting the ability without the opportunity cost of an invocation is 100% better.

As far as encounter-breaking items...it may only be rated as Rare, and seems appropriate for high Tier 2 and Tier 3 PCs, but once you hand out a Sunblade to your party, don’t expect to threaten them with Vampires or Drow ever again.

Anybody have similar stories for other items?

[Maelynn]

Bag of Tricks. Especially the one with the Giant Elk in it.

The Ranger who got her hands on it uses it to the max every day, so we often have quite the menagerie running around.

Imagine having a Giant Elk running rampant in a Goblin camp.

O, and one time she left her remaining Boar in her room while going on an errand, only to discover upon her return what a Boar could do to a room when they're left alone and, well, boared.

[Darkstar952]

The Tier 3 Wizard in my game got a cube of force, at first I didn't think much of it but I soon realised that very few enemies had a means of bypassing or negating the cube of force.

The wizard and normally the cleric were able to sit within the cube totally safe from whatever enemies they were facing, could also effortlessly block choke points.

It really changed up how I had to go about designing the encounters, so not game breaking but certainly encounter breaking.

[Zuras]

The Tier 3 Wizard in my game got a cube of force, at first I didn't think much of it but I soon realised that very few enemies had a means of bypassing or negating the cube of force.

The wizard and normally the cleric were able to sit within the cube totally safe from whatever enemies they were facing, could also effortlessly block choke points.

It really changed up how I had to go about designing the encounters, so not game breaking but certainly encounter breaking.

I’d forgotten about the old cube of force! Yeah, saw a 9th level Cleric with one, it definitely punched above its weight in terms of how the encounters played out. “Rare” seems to be underselling its utility.

[darknite]

Cube of Force was the item my PAM took when offered any Rare item in SKT. Setting it to keep living creatures out and having a 10' reach broke lots of encounters.

[Rukelnikov]

The cube of Force is indeed pretty powerful, it becomes broken when you have a familiar that can ready its action to activate the cube when an spell or attack is incoming.

As for the thread in question, mobility items break the game violently:

Winged Boots are just Uncommon in rarity, yet turn at least 50% of enemies into trivial or severely less challenging foes.

[Contrast]

I feel like the good old Bag of Holding is probably the item as a player I'd least like to ever be without which is interesting mostly in that it doesn't really in itself do all that much. It just solves a load of other problems by allowing you to carry around anything and everything you might ever need.

Ours is currently mostly used by my bard to carry around impractically large musical instruments (prior to acquiring it there were a series of miniature travelling harpsichords and the like which got abandoned in various dungeons when we had to climb a slope...).

[Dork_Forge]

The cube of Force is indeed pretty powerful, it becomes broken when you have a familiar that can ready its action to activate the cube when an spell or attack is incoming.

As for the thread in question, mobility items break the game violently:

Winged Boots are just Uncommon in rarity, yet turn at least 50% of enemies into trivial or severely less challenging foes.

Flying is a game changer, but once the party hits 5th level the DM should be prepared to deal with flying PCs (or even earlier, after all there's two race options that enable level 1 flight).

[Tallytrev813]

Never happened in a campaign i played, but i read somewhere of a DM who gave the party Daern's Instant Fortress early, and they were throwing it at enemies and speaking the word for like 10d10 damage AOE or something?

[Rukelnikov]

Flying is a game changer, but once the party hits 5th level the DM should be prepared to deal with flying PCs (or even earlier, after all there's two race options that enable level 1 flight).

Yeah, but there's a difference between spending your highest slot on a concentration spell to make 1 PC fly for a couple minutes vs having pretty much at will flight.

[solidork]

Personally, I think the Crystal Ball that allows unlimited Scrying would be the most game warping magic item in certain types of games. The game suddenly becomes all about scrying on things, which requires a huge amount of DM quick thinking/planning to accommodate.

[Hypersmith]

Never happened in a campaign i played, but i read somewhere of a DM who gave the party Daern's Instant Fortress early, and they were throwing it at enemies and speaking the word for like 10d10 damage AOE or something?

It's a normal part of the item. So if a DM is giving it out, they should be prepared for that

[darknite]

Yeah, but there's a difference between spending your highest slot on a concentration spell to make 1 PC fly for a couple minutes vs having pretty much at will flight.

That said, flight at will is a lot of fun and epic to boot. I haven't seen Winged Boots break encounters outright, just impediments like unscalable cliffs or the like, and makes it harder to keep BBGs in unassailable high ground positions. Flying characters are often easy to isolate since they dart away from the rest of their grounded party.

[Misterwhisper]

Instant fortress completely changed our campaign.

My high charisma rogue started a traveling bar and merchant store thanks to 3 alchemy jugs and an instant fortress.

[OverLordOcelot]

Staff of the Woodlands allows a druid to Awaken plants and animals once per day without the hefty cost normally associated with it. Mechanically this means they can usually have at least one helpful creature with them and can often turn the balance of a fight that involves beasts by awakening an enemy beast. Storywise the part can now do things like awaken their mounts and have them respond intelligently to threats, have a base populated by awakened creatures, and the like. It's quite an interesting effect.

[Moltenbrisingr]

Vorpal Swords. Instant beheading....

[Zuras]

Vorpal Swords. Instant beheading....

Yes, but on an appropriate high Tier 3/Tier 4 character, how much difference does it make between a Vorpal Sword and a generic +2? Does the fighter play significantly differently once she starts packing a Vorpal Sword?

[ProsecutorGodot]

Cloak of Displacement. Put it on a 20 AC Fighter/Paladin and see how often they're getting hit. When I retired one of my characters I made sure to take one of the cloaks with him (our DM has since learned not to hand out multiples) because it was becoming problematic.

Also, massively underrated in my opinion, Periapt of Wound Closure. You can lessen the burden on your healers and increase your effective daily health through short rest healing. Obviously this depends on how many short rests your party is typically taking but even without that increased healing becoming stable when you aren't killed in a single turn is nothing to scoff at for an uncommon item.

[No brains]

Probably falls under the mobility header, but Helm of Teleportation changes campaigns. Not only can players port to the safe side of an ambush, but they can travel instantly between continents if they've collected enough garbage.

[DarkKnightJin]

Cloak of Displacement. Put it on a 20 AC Fighter/Paladin and see how often they're getting hit. When I retired one of my characters I made sure to take one of the cloaks with him (our DM has since learned not to hand out multiples) because it was becoming problematic.

Also, massively underrated in my opinion, Periapt of Wound Closure. You can lessen the burden on your healers and increase your effective daily health through short rest healing. Obviously this depends on how many short rests your party is typically taking but even without that increased healing becoming stable when you aren't killed in a single turn is nothing to scoff at for an uncommon item.

Likewise, my Eldritch Knight got a set of +1 Mithral Plate. And the DM was not happy with my dude suddely running around with AC 22.
Then he *also* won a Potion of Speed. Base AC of 24, up to 29 of he felt he needed to use the Shield spell. My dude wasn't getting touched in that fight.
And the 'no Disadvantage on Stealth checks' bit came in handy more often than you'd think, too.

[Cheesegear]

(Level 5) Fighter 2/Barbarian (Bear) 3 got his hands on Adamantine Armour (Plate).
+1 AC from Fighter Fighting Style.
Shield

AC 21.
Half damage from all sources (except Psychic).
Immune to crits.

At Level 5. :smallsigh:

[Kane0]

What tier-appropriate items have you seen completely break encounters and/or radically change the play style of a character at your tables?

Specifically, I am wondering about otherwise level-appropriate items, not times the 1st level Wizard got their hands on a staff of the Magi.


Every time we do a one-shot I am forbidden from taking flying items because the DMs invariably fail to take them into account when I make martials. Most notable example being winged sandals on a level 10 fighter, there was a goblin prancing around on a rooftop controlling a golem with a magic rod so I just flew up and minced him.

In another game we came across a couple orbs that essentially functioned as walkie-talkies, like sending stones. We made it our top priority to find the full set and that was half the campaign, other goals be damned.

Ring of spell storing is another item i'm not allowed to have anymore. It's just so damn handy for someone that isn't a caster, or has their concentration available for some Bless or whatever.

If you have ever heard the expression 'when all you have is a hammer...' then you probably know why one of my group got quite a reputation after they got their hands ona Ring of the Ram.

Daern's Instant Fortress is pretty incredible when used properly, especially indoors. In a similar vein, Feather Token: Tree will never again exist in any game my table is involved with.

Animated shields offer so much in the right hands...

[ad_hoc]

Important to point out that rarity does not directly correspond to item power or 'level appropriateness'. 5e doesn't have a measure for the latter.

It's entirely fine for low level PCs to get powerful items, they may not even change the game much. Played a game where the party found the Sun Blade at level 3.

The treasure tables are a good way to see how magic items are designed I think.

Lower level hoards have items from tables which aren't as powerful, those items usually, but not always going from low to high rarity.

But, low level hoards still have a chance for more powerful stuff.

Magic items aren't required in 5e, and a table of 'level appropriate items' is also not needed.

[Aprender]

It's not over- or under-powered, but I like it when cursed items play an unexpected and positive role in a game.

A shield of missle attraction is great in the hands of a raging barbarian that hangs out near squishies...

[poolio]

Never happened in a campaign i played, but i read somewhere of a DM who gave the party Daern's Instant Fortress early, and they were throwing it at enemies and speaking the word for like 10d10 damage AOE or something?

I did that! It was a lot of fun and i did trivialize a lot of encounters lol, got to the point where the DM and i were pretty much in unspoken agreement that it had to go, so first chance i got i jumped into a monster large enough to swallow me whole, in this case a purple worm, and did my trick one last time.

[RulesJD]

1. Anything that provides Non-concentration Fly (Boom, Carpet, Boots)

2. Anything that provides Non-concentration Invisibility (Robe, Ring)

3. Cloak of Displacement

4. Weapons that add so much damage they are effectively auto-criting (Hazirawn)

[RulesJD]

(Level 5) Fighter 2/Barbarian (Bear) 3 got his hands on Adamantine Armour (Plate).
+1 AC from Fighter Fighting Style.
Shield

AC 21.
Half damage from all sources (except Psychic).
Immune to crits.

At Level 5. :smallsigh:

Can't Rage while wearing Heavy Armor, so that isn't right.

[AdmiralCheez]

I'll throw in another vote for Displacer Cloaks. My group's first 5e game abruptly crashed to a halt after we thought the party should all buy these things (I mean, they are pretty great). Well, after a few sessions of every enemy having disadvantage on every attack roll on every character, it suddenly became very un-fun for everyone, and we started a new game. It just didn't make sense in-character to abandon or sell them, and thieves stealing them or some magic force disabling them just didn't seem plausible.

[OverLordOcelot]

I'll throw in another vote for Displacer Cloaks. My group's first 5e game abruptly crashed to a halt after we thought the party should all buy these things (I mean, they are pretty great). Well, after a few sessions of every enemy having disadvantage on every attack roll on every character, it suddenly became very un-fun for everyone, and we started a new game. It just didn't make sense in-character to abandon or sell them, and thieves stealing them or some magic force disabling them just didn't seem plausible.

Displacer cloaks are powerful when they work, but are REALLY easy to shut down. You don't need 'thieves stealing them' or to invent 'some magic force' to disable them. Simple grappling renders the grappled person unable to move, which shuts down the cloak. Darkness, obscurement (like fog cloud or cloudkill), and invisibility all cancel out the disadvantage for any PCs that don't see through it. Any damage turns off the cloak, and there are a variety of ways to do damage without rolling to hit - AOEs do that, things like fireball, insect swarm, and a dragon's wing buffet will all do some damage, which shuts off the cloak. Thematic minor AOEs, like high heat from magma, debris flying around in the wind, necromatic draining, abstracted minions (ex: Bone Devil fight in Lost Laboratory of Kwalish), and the like also work. A lowly kobold sorcerer minion can spam magic missile at the start of the enemy's turn to let everyone hit, and fire elementals can move through party memebrs, automatically doing a small amount of fire damage.

And all of this can be done in a very thematic way (and really should come up more often). The necromancer sending his horde of zombies to pin the party, the poisonous demon fighting in the middle of cloudkill (which negates it two ways), dragons using their default abilities (legendary action to wing buffet just before the dragon's turn), dangerous environments, and the like all make a lot of sense in a high adventure fantasy game.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Can't Rage while wearing Heavy Armor, so that isn't right.

I actually looked this up when I read the comment. You can rage while wearing Heavy Armor, you simply don't gain the 3 listed benefits that follow. Bear Totem is separated in benefit.

We know this isn't intended (https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/801126631926468608), but a Bearbarian can wear heavy armor and gain his damage resistances through the Totem Spirit feature. They just lose Advantage on Strength checks and saving throws, the Strength bonus to damage rolls and their fast movement feature.

It's obviously the DM's call on whether they want to follow RAW or RAI on this.


Displacer cloaks are powerful when they work, but are REALLY easy to shut down. You don't need 'thieves stealing them' or to invent 'some magic force' to disable them. Simple grappling renders the grappled person unable to move, which shuts down the cloak. Darkness, obscurement (like fog cloud or cloudkill), and invisibility all cancel out the disadvantage for any PCs that don't see through it. Any damage turns off the cloak, and there are a variety of ways to do damage without rolling to hit - AOEs do that, things like fireball, insect swarm, and a dragon's wing buffet will all do some damage, which shuts off the cloak. Thematic minor AOEs, like high heat from magma, debris flying around in the wind, necromatic draining, abstracted minions (ex: Bone Devil fight in Lost Laboratory of Kwalish), and the like also work. A lowly kobold sorcerer minion can spam magic missile at the start of the enemy's turn to let everyone hit, and fire elementals can move through party memebrs, automatically doing a small amount of fire damage.

And all of this can be done in a very thematic way (and really should come up more often). The necromancer sending his horde of zombies to pin the party, the poisonous demon fighting in the middle of cloudkill (which negates it two ways), dragons using their default abilities (legendary action to wing buffet just before the dragon's turn), dangerous environments, and the like all make a lot of sense in a high adventure fantasy game.

This does rely on the assumption that you are able to grapple the target. A rogue with expertise in acrobatics or a 20str fighter with proficiency (perhaps also expertise) in athletics has a reasonable chance of not being grappled. Monsters that have an innate ability to grapple usually rely on an attack roll to cause the condition.

I used the 20 AC fighter in the example, but it was actually my Rogue who retired that was causing more problems. Keep in mind the discussion was for tier appropriate items, meaning that this is for those receiving a cloak of displacement at levels 5-10. You're correct, of course, but a lot of what an adventurer deals with at that point is still pretty well handled with an almost always up pseudo dodge action.

[Laserlight]

That said, flight at will is a lot of fun and epic to boot. I haven't seen Winged Boots break encounters outrigh.

Winged boots are astonishingly low level. Fortunately the only person who got them was our paladin, who wasn't sneaky and tended to charge into melee, so in that case, it didn't break encounters. If I'd had them....

[Nagog]

Idk if this is a canon magic item in D&D, as I initially encountered it in Pathfinder (and the DM had a habit of... bending the rules for stuff like this), a key that could turn any flat surface into a door to a small homestead. Similar to a Portable Hole, but larger and with a door that can close. We were attacked by a horde of Vampire Goblins, so we cracked that open and invited them inside one by one and slaughtered them. While cheesed and definitely not RAW, we were also 1 wizard and 2 rogues fighting ~40 vampire goblins, so if we hadn't cheesed it we probably would have had a TPK on our hands.

[Sparky McDibben]

Once let the ranger come across winged boots and an oathbow (several levels apart). Never again.

[Mitsu]

Ring of Free Movement is stupidly powerful item on martial class, especially on Paladins or worse- Vengeance Paladins with their saves and Misty Step.

Ignore difficult terrain, can't have speed reduced, immune to being paralyzed or restrained or grappled.

"Become Unstoppable".

Another great item is Wand of Fireballs. If given early you can hurl upcasted 9 or 8th level Fireball or up to 7 (!) normal fireballs. And don't give it to Sorcerer or they will do Quicken Fireball and then use Action to use Wand of Fireball for double fireball.

[Zuras]

Ring of Free Movement is stupidly powerful item on martial class, especially on Paladins or worse- Vengeance Paladins with their saves and Misty Step.

Ignore difficult terrain, can't have speed reduced, immune to being paralyzed or restrained or grappled.

"Become Unstoppable".

Another great item is Wand of Fireballs. If given early you can hurl upcasted 9 or 8th level Fireball or up to 7 (!) normal fireballs. And don't give it to Sorcerer or they will do Quicken Fireball and then use Action to use Wand of Fireball for double fireball.


Using the wand still counts as casting a leveled spell, so they can’t cast it twice in a single turn.

I agree that a Wand of Fireballs/Lightning Bolts is powerful if players get their hands on one at 5th level, but once they are 7th level or higher, does it prove to be much of a difference? It is handy vs hordes for characters without good AoE abilities, like Bards and Paladins, and can be handy to conserve spell slots if your DM is avoiding the 5 minute working day and putting you through 6-8 encounters, but when I have seen them in play, my reaction has been “that’s pretty cool”, not “LOL, wonder how the DM is going to deal with that trick”.

The only exception was the Tempest Cleric with the Wand of Lightning Bolts. A max damage 8th Level LB is no joke. However, I’ve seen other strong combos that still didn’t seem the least bit overpowered. In Tier 3 I’ve seen an Arcane Trickster use Magical Ambush with a wand of fireballs to blast enemies with disadvantage on the save every time, and it was hardly noteworthy at all, compared to the damage he could do to a single target with Sneak Attack.

In my experience, wands/staves with AoE spells can be game changers for smaller parties without access to AoE spells, but otherwise are just good, not game-breakingly amazing.

[Rukelnikov]

The only exception was the Tempest Cleric with the Wand of Lightning Bolts. A max damage 8th Level LB is no joke. However, I’ve seen other strong combos that still didn’t seem the least bit overpowered. In Tier 3 I’ve seen an Arcane Trickster use Magical Ambush with a wand of fireballs to blast enemies with disadvantage on the save every time, and it was hardly noteworthy at all, compared to the damage he could do to a single target with Sneak Attack.

I wonder how, given than a 15th lvl rogue is adding 8d6, with an extra 1d8 from longbow and +15 from stat +SS, thats 1d8+15 above what a fireball does to a single target, just getting 2 enemies with the FB would yield greater damage.

Even then, I don't think a Wand of Fireballs would break the game past the early levels.

[AdmiralCheez]

Displacer cloaks are powerful when they work, but are REALLY easy to shut down. You don't need 'thieves stealing them' or to invent 'some magic force' to disable them. Simple grappling renders the grappled person unable to move, which shuts down the cloak. Darkness, obscurement (like fog cloud or cloudkill), and invisibility all cancel out the disadvantage for any PCs that don't see through it. Any damage turns off the cloak, and there are a variety of ways to do damage without rolling to hit - AOEs do that, things like fireball, insect swarm, and a dragon's wing buffet will all do some damage, which shuts off the cloak. Thematic minor AOEs, like high heat from magma, debris flying around in the wind, necromatic draining, abstracted minions (ex: Bone Devil fight in Lost Laboratory of Kwalish), and the like also work. A lowly kobold sorcerer minion can spam magic missile at the start of the enemy's turn to let everyone hit, and fire elementals can move through party memebrs, automatically doing a small amount of fire damage.

And all of this can be done in a very thematic way (and really should come up more often). The necromancer sending his horde of zombies to pin the party, the poisonous demon fighting in the middle of cloudkill (which negates it two ways), dragons using their default abilities (legendary action to wing buffet just before the dragon's turn), dangerous environments, and the like all make a lot of sense in a high adventure fantasy game.

Okay, yes, technically there are ways around it, but we didn't want to have to rebalance every single fight in the game to include being grappled, AOE damage, magic missile spamming, and all that, just to counteract some magic items that we regretted buying. That's a level of meta just as bad for us as simply erasing them from our sheets. It was just better for our group at the time to start a new game with the lessons we learned. After all, it was our first game in the system, and we were still getting used to it.

[OverLordOcelot]

This does rely on the assumption that you are able to grapple the target. A rogue with expertise in acrobatics or a 20str fighter with proficiency (perhaps also expertise) in athletics has a reasonable chance of not being grappled. Monsters that have an innate ability to grapple usually rely on an attack roll to cause the condition.

Obviously that specific option is not going to work as well on characters who have specialized antigrappling builds, but saying 'one of the many things you listed doesn't work on characters who focused significant character resources on blocking that specific ability' isn't really saying that much. I didn't say 'grappling by single enemy against party members optimized to defend against it negates the cloak all of the time', I listed grappling as one of the things that can disable the cloak's ability.

'Usually' is entirely up to the DM unless they build encounters by rolling from the list of all monsters. Off the top of my head Gelatinous cube, water elemental, trapper, slithering tracker, and Kuo-Toa all have non to-hit roll grapples. And there's nothing that stops enemies from coordinating their to-hit roll grapples with something else that negates displacement, so having a mind flayer blast the group before it's tentacled minion try to grab them also works.


I used the 20 AC fighter in the example, but it was actually my Rogue who retired that was causing more problems. Keep in mind the discussion was for tier appropriate items, meaning that this is for those receiving a cloak of displacement at levels 5-10.

Actually, this isn't about those receiving *a* cloak of displacement, in your example the whole party each got one, which is rather excessive for levels 5-10 unless the party is using magic item buying AND is using up most of their magic item budget on the cloaks.


You're correct, of course, but a lot of what an adventurer deals with at that point is still pretty well handled with an almost always up pseudo dodge action.

What the adventurer deals with is up to the DM. If the DM hands the party easy fights that don't use basic, thematic abilities then sure, the cloaks are godlike and the campaign isn't going to provide a challenge. But if the party finds themselves facing the kinds of challenges that are in published modules, then they'll encounter AOE damage, legendary/lair actions, minions, invisibility, blocked vision, and effects that use saving throws. I mean, any regular drow has an innate ability that negates the cloak for anyone who can't see in magical darkness, this doesn't require a deep dive for unusual enemies.

[OverLordOcelot]

Okay, yes, technically there are ways around it, but we didn't want to have to rebalance every single fight in the game to include being grappled, AOE damage, magic missile spamming, and all that, just to counteract some magic items that we regretted buying. That's a level of meta just as bad for us as simply erasing them from our sheets. It was just better for our group at the time to start a new game with the lessons we learned. After all, it was our first game in the system, and we were still getting used to it.

If you don't want your enemies to use basic abilities that are in the game by default it's your call. But deciding that it's some kind of evil metagaming for enemies to actually use AOE abilities, first level spells, and innate abilities seems a bit off to me.

[AdmiralCheez]

If you don't want your enemies to use basic abilities that are in the game by default it's your call. But deciding that it's some kind of evil metagaming for enemies to actually use AOE abilities, first level spells, and innate abilities seems a bit off to me.

Bottom line: yes, we could have added and tweaked a whole bunch of encounters to the campaign specifically to get around and counteract some magic items we shouldn't have bought in the first place. Yes, we could have all just agreed to erase them from our sheets, refund the money we spent on them, and move on with the game.

In the end, we did neither. We decided to try one of the published adventures one of us had picked up. No one felt bad about starting a new adventure, and we all learned something about magic item balance.

[Zuras]

I wonder how, given than a 15th lvl rogue is adding 8d6, with an extra 1d8 from longbow and +15 from stat +SS, thats 1d8+15 above what a fireball does to a single target, just getting 2 enemies with the FB would yield greater damage.

Even then, I don't think a Wand of Fireballs would break the game past the early levels.


In a Tier 3 party, throwing out an 8d6 fireball on some mooks is par for the course. It might be a little surprising when the Rogue does it instead of the Wizard, but it’s not particularly memorable, compared to the other things a Tier 3 Arcane Trickster is usually up to (insane crits, completely ignoring damage from a Meteor Swarm, tying the BBEG’s shoelaces together while he’s monologuing, etc.

[Rukelnikov]

In a Tier 3 party, throwing out an 8d6 fireball on some mooks is par for the course. It might be a little surprising when the Rogue does it instead of the Wizard, but it’s not particularly memorable, compared to the other things a Tier 3 Arcane Trickster is usually up to (insane crits, completely ignoring damage from a Meteor Swarm, tying the BBEG’s shoelaces together while he’s monologuing, etc.

It may not be memorable, but should outdamage single target attacks regularly, catching 2 enemies should be enough to outDPR single attacks, 3 should be enough to massively outdpr them

[OverLordOcelot]

I agree that a Wand of Fireballs/Lightning Bolts is powerful if players get their hands on one at 5th level, but once they are 7th level or higher, does it prove to be much of a difference? It is handy vs hordes for characters without good AoE abilities, like Bards and Paladins, and can be handy to conserve spell slots if your DM is avoiding the 5 minute working day and putting you through 6-8 encounters, but when I have seen them in play, my reaction has been “that’s pretty cool”, not “LOL, wonder how the DM is going to deal with that trick”.

I agree, even at 5th level it's just letting you do a thing you can already do more often. The 'more often' is a LOT more often at that level, and is still noticeable at 7th, but by the time you're at 9th level you really don't run out of fireballs for the spots that need them.

Also note that the '6-8 encounter' adventuring day is not supposed to be 6-8 full combats, just 6-8 things that use resources. Some of them should be traps, environmental hazards, and social situations, they're not all 'fireball solvable'. If you're going through 6-8 significant combats a day, then the wand would probably stay useful a lot longer, as you'd be doing a lot more 'magic artillery' during the day.

[Zuras]

I agree, even at 5th level it's just letting you do a thing you can already do more often. The 'more often' is a LOT more often at that level, and is still noticeable at 7th, but by the time you're at 9th level you really don't run out of fireballs for the spots that need them.

Also note that the '6-8 encounter' adventuring day is not supposed to be 6-8 full combats, just 6-8 things that use resources. Some of them should be traps, environmental hazards, and social situations, they're not all 'fireball solvable'. If you're going through 6-8 significant combats a day, then the wand would probably stay useful a lot longer, as you'd be doing a lot more 'magic artillery' during the day.


Yeah, in my experience, a much larger percentage of the 6-8 encounters per day can be overpowered with a Hat of Disguise and +12 to Deception than a Wand of Fireballs, thus my conviction that the Hat is significantly more game changing than the Wand.

[bobofwestgate]

The Tier 3 Wizard in my game got a cube of force, at first I didn't think much of it but I soon realised that very few enemies had a means of bypassing or negating the cube of force.

The wizard and normally the cleric were able to sit within the cube totally safe from whatever enemies they were facing, could also effortlessly block choke points.

It really changed up how I had to go about designing the encounters, so not game breaking but certainly encounter breaking.

I'll double down on Cube of Force. My Trickster cleric bubbling up with the cube, summoning his duplicity illusion and walking it around to heal allies and inflict wounds on enemies while his real body was safe inside the force field was pretty burly. The only downside is that duplicity takes the cleric's concentration.