Magical earrings, rings and helms

[eyebreaker7]

What slot do they take up? Helm? Ring? Their own special "slot"? I'm thinking of makeing a couple earrings instead of wearing a helm but would that work with the "2 ring" restriction? We are guessing it would be instead of a helm but are curious how others play it? Technically you could wear a helm AND earrings so maybe they fall under the "2 rings" restriction? Some thoughts we're trying to figure out/decide on.

[Ramza00]

Usually earrings are slotless.

[RNightstalker]

What slot do they take up? Helm? Ring? Their own special "slot"? I'm thinking of makeing a couple earrings instead of wearing a helm but would that work with the "2 ring" restriction? We are guessing it would be instead of a helm but are curious how others play it? Technically you could wear a helm AND earrings so maybe they fall under the "2 rings" restriction? Some thoughts we're trying to figure out/decide on.

They're close enough to be considered for face and throat too. If you want to do earrings in the head slot for a different flavor, I wouldn't see a problem with it.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

The way I've always read the 3.5 item rules is that every humanoid* has a certain number of slots they can hold magic items. These spaces are named Head, Eyes, Neck, Cloak, Chest, Belt, Wrists, Hands, Boots, 2xRings, and Armor. When an item is created, it is tied to a specific body slot(as shown by the slot determining the cost) and cannot be moved to a different slot. What physical shape the item is is utterly irrelevant. If you're the person making the item(whether as a DM or a crafting PC), you determine the slot the item takes up. This means you can wear two actual rings in the ring slot, another "ring" that was made for the hands slot, earrings for the head slot, and a nosering for the face slot. Or you can make earrings for the face slot. If a PC finds both head-earrings and face-earrings, then they just need to run multiple ear piercings, which could make for a hilarious bit of RP.

Don't sweat too much whether your ears are part of your face or your head, what matters is the magic, and the magic doesn't care about physical form, it cares about whether it's #head or #face, and if you have anything else with that tag equipped.

*Don't start on the rules for nonhumanoids, they're bad

[MR_Anderson]

What slot do they take up? Helm? Ring? Their own special "slot"? I'm thinking of makeing a couple earrings instead of wearing a helm but would that work with the "2 ring" restriction? We are guessing it would be instead of a helm but are curious how others play it? Technically you could wear a helm AND earrings so maybe they fall under the "2 rings" restriction? Some thoughts we're trying to figure out/decide on.

I made some in one of the worlds I am playing in for another player, because the player wanted earings not a band of intellect, so we ran it past the DM.

This DM usually defaults to my understanding on item creation, as I know the ins and outs about as good as anyone else in our group, and I also DM a campaign, so any ruling I suggest is exactly how I’d rule it in my world.

That said, I ruled as follows:

Earrings could take the spot of the headband, hat, or helmet as the primary spot; but also could be substituted for the one eye lenses or goggles spot or the one amulet, brooch, medallion, necklace, periapt, or scarab spot depending on what was being used on the headband, hat, or helmet spot.

Thus a character has the ability to wear a magical crown, earrings, and necklaces for a formal event.

However a magical helmet would most certainly block the power earings.

This allows for additional flavor and reason in magic items while maintaining the power level of only 13 wearable magic items in certain slots.

I would never allow earrings to not require a slot unless the item was constructed as a functional item in possession of an individual, and not needing to be equipped or worn. Such an item would be much much more valuable, at least 2 times the cost of a slotted magic item.

[Thurbane]

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?585673


Magic Items On The Body

Many magic items need to be donned by a character who wants to employ them or benefit from their abilities. It’s possible for a creature with a humanoid-shaped body to wear as many as twelve magic items at the same time. However, each of those items must be worn on (or over) a particular part of the body.

A humanoid-shaped body can be decked out in magic gear consisting of one item from each of the following groups, keyed to which place on the body the item is worn.


One headband, hat, helmet, or phylactery on the head
One pair of eye lenses or goggles on or over the eyes
One amulet, brooch, medallion, necklace, periapt, or scarab around the neck
One vest, vestment, or shirt on the torso
One robe or suit of armor on the body (over a vest, vestment, or shirt)
One belt around the waist (over a robe or suit of armor)
One cloak, cape, or mantle around the shoulders (over a robe or suit of armor)
One pair of bracers or bracelets on the arms or wrists
One glove, pair of gloves, or pair of gauntlets on the hands
One ring on each hand (or two rings on one hand)
One pair of boots or shoes on the feet

Of course, a character may carry or possess as many items of the same type as he wishes. However, additional items beyond those listed above have no effect.

Some items can be worn or carried without taking up space on a character’s body. The description of an item indicates when an item has this property.


Each item’s description has a Body Slot entry that describes what part of the body it must be worn on to function. A normal humanoid creature has twelve body slots, enumerated here with some examples of the kinds of items that might be worn there (for nonhumanoid creatures, see Size and Shape, below).
Arms: armbands, bracelets, bracers.
Body: armor, robes.
Face: goggles, lenses, masks, spectacles, third eyes.
Feet: boots, sandals, shoes, slippers.
Hands: gauntlets, gloves.
Head: circlets, crowns, hats, headbands, helmets, phylacteries.
Rings (2 slots): rings.
Shoulders: capes, cloaks, mantles, shawls.
Throat: amulets, badges, brooches, collars, medals, medallions, necklaces, pendants, periapts, scarabs, scarfs, torcs.
Torso: shirts, tunics, vests, vestments.
Waist: belts, girdles, sashes.
Each body slot can accommodate only a single active magic item (except for the rings body slot, which allows two active rings, worn one on each hand or both on the same hand). Additional magic items could be worn in the same body slot, but only the first-worn item confers its magical abilities upon the wearer. Some body slots are described as a matched pair of body parts (such as arms, feet, or hands). If an item uses one of these body slots, it takes up both "halves" of the body slot even if worn on only one of the pair. For example, a glove of storing takes up the entire hands body slot, even though it’s only one glove. Similarly, items that come in pairs must be worn together in order to function - wearing a single gauntlet of ogre power has no effect.

I would say the head slot was most appropriate, for my 2 coppers.

[Biggus]

The head slot seems the most logical one to use to me, although the throat or face slot wouldn't be unreasonable. Like most paired items (gloves, boots, bracers) the default would be that a pair of them took up a single item slot.

As MR_Andersom says, they'd take up a body slot unless you paid double for them to be slotless.


Usually earrings are slotless.

Are they? I can't find a single pair of earrings in the DMG or the MIC, what are you basing that on?

[lightningcat]

In one of the books, it mentions that rings could instead be earrings, although they still take up the same slot.

[Thurbane]

Are they? I can't find a single pair of earrings in the DMG or the MIC, what are you basing that on?

Same here - I also checked Magic of Eberron and Magic of Faerun. I vaguely remember seeing some, somewhere, but I may be thinking of an earlier edition.

Found one: Rhapsody of Pain (BoVD p.118) - doesn't specify which slot, through...

[Ramza00]

Are they? I can't find a single pair of earrings in the DMG or the MIC, what are you basing that on?

I am basing the off of pathfinder which actually has some earring items.

Checking 3.5 books and an item database of 55 books that are 3.5 only not pathfinder, none of those books use the word earring in the description or the name of the item.

[Vrock Bait]

Are they? I can't find a single pair of earrings in the DMG or the MIC, what are you basing that on?

I don’t remember which issue, but I believe Dragon Magazine had a slotless earring item. Of course, that rag is so unbalanced that it might as well be Good Dweomerkeeping.

[Thurbane]

Found one: Rhapsody of Pain (BoVD p.118) - doesn't specify which slot, through...

Also found Iyaringu of the Earth Dragon (DrM p.102): occupies same space as hat or headband.

[MR_Anderson]

In one of the books, it mentions that rings could instead be earrings, although they still take up the same slot.


Same here - I also checked Magic of Eberron and Magic of faerun. I vaguely remember seeing some, somewhere, but I may be thinking of an earlier edition...

I believe there is a book that mentions earrings in a passing comment intended as humor, and it had to do with magic item slots. I think it went something like this...

“You can only wear two magic rings, and they could be toe rings or earrings, but only the first two rings worn will function.”

I also believe this was from Advanced Dungeon & Dragons (2nd Edition)

[Thurbane]

In addition to the two actual magic earrings I found, there's also this in Savage Species:


Lack of Anatomy: A creature in this category may have no thumbs or, like a beholder, have no limbs at all. While it is possible for such creatures to wear and use some magic items (a wolf could wear a magic ring in its ear, for instance), they cannot use many weapons and tools common to adventurers.

[Vrock Bait]

I believe there is a book that mentions earrings in a passing comment intended as humor, and it had to do with magic item slots. I think it went something like this...

“You can only wear two magic rings, and they could be toe rings or earrings, but only the first two rings worn will function.”

I also believe this was from Advanced Dungeon & Dragons (2nd Edition)

There’s really no RAW on how you’re supposed to wear magic items, so you could always just wear your magic rings as earrings for flavor anyway.

[Fizban]

What slot do they take up? Helm? Ring? Their own special "slot"? I'm thinking of makeing a couple earrings instead of wearing a helm but would that work with the "2 ring" restriction? We are guessing it would be instead of a helm but are curious how others play it? Technically you could wear a helm AND earrings so maybe they fall under the "2 rings" restriction? Some thoughts we're trying to figure out/decide on.
Magic earrings have no defined slot. There are several magic earrings in various books, and because there is no defined slot, they will usually tell you what slot they take up, if any.

What slot would be most appropriate depends on what the item does, what feat you want it to be craftable with, and how often you intend to use magic earrings in your game.

The item slot system has some problems and it's entirely feasible to just get rid of slots you don't like and add new slots you do like, as long as some items still occupy the same slots and people can't just put whatever they want wherever they want (unless that's exactly what you want, in which case you can figure out what problems will happen and then get rid of the slots). Maybe you don't like that arms have three slots (ring, gloves, bracers) and legs only one (boots), so you combine gloves/bracers and add magic greaves/pants. Maybe you don't like magic goggles, but you do like magic earrings, so you shift some goggle stuff to helmets, and helmet stuff to earrings. Maybe you don't like physical restrictions at all, so you just have a set of ephemeral magical affinities that bond with each item no matter where it's actually worn.

You could even do a system of say, helm/cloak/hands/waist/feet/accessory, with flat bonus items being wearable "under" or "over" another item (so you don't have to re-craft everything all the time, and aren't penalized for the fewer number of slots), and accessories include rings, necklaces, and earrings. That's actually a net gain- 5 slots lost, 5 slots gained for flat bonuses, so the accessory is a bonus, but since you lost two rings and a necklace it's probably fine to have two accessories.

[MR_Anderson]

There’s really no RAW on how you’re supposed to wear magic items, so you could always just wear your magic rings as earrings for flavor anyway.

What is RAW?

EDIT: Found it, RAW (Rules As Written)

There is guidance on how to wear, P218 of Magic Item Compendium.

[Telonius]

Can't get to the book at the moment (working at home on a company computer), but BoEF actually has some rules for magical jewelry (and what equivalent slot they occupy) that are both tasteful and sensible. Third party and, yeah, BoEF, but it's there. Can't remember what slot the earrings were, but I know they were one of the examples listed.

[Thurbane]

Magic earrings have no defined slot. There are several magic earrings in various books, and because there is no defined slot, they will usually tell you what slot they take up, if any.

Do you know of any besides the two I found (Iyaringu of the Earth Dragon, Rhapsody of Pain)? Genuinely interested to see more.

[lylsyly]

Can't get to the book at the moment (working at home on a company computer), but BoEF actually has some rules for magical jewelry (and what equivalent slot they occupy) that are both tasteful and sensible. Third party and, yeah, BoEF, but it's there. Can't remember what slot the earrings were, but I know they were one of the examples listed.

It's a sidebar on page 133. Optional items for each slot. No mention of earrings at all.

[Fizban]

Do you know of any besides the two I found (Iyaringu of the Earth Dragon, Rhapsody of Pain)? Genuinely interested to see more.
Sorry no, probably should have said few rather than several- it's not something I consider important enough to have thought of it as a list. I think there's another in one of the FR books, they like to give high level NPCs gear that's "x+y+z but in a different shape" (and if there's not an earring there's definitely a hair comb and an anklet at least), but that's a big pile to sift through. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one in the Dragonlance books. I know the Warcraft books (I think it was just yet another bonus spell slot item) have at least one and BoEF has been mentioned, I've probably seen more in other third party books.

It does rather annoy me- JRPGs usually have these nice elegant systems that work with any sort of jewelry, but dnd has this mad array of almost but not quite every conceivable slot, which ends up with pidgeonholing alongside slots that have little use. 'S why I just wrote that example.

[Psyren]

The few earrings I found in Pathfinder are slotless if that helps.