Stat-setting items that do something based on underlying stat values

[Segev]

I find the magic items that set your stats to a particular value to be irksome because they disproportionately reward those who sink the stat they most want high. This especially can distort a build that starts at a level where it can get an Uncommon item. This isn't solved by insisting they have to invest in higher stats, either, because that just feels obnoxious and makes it a metagame ruled by scolding people for optimizing, rather than designing the system well in the first place.

That said, I also understand why they do what they do, particularly with the Belts of Giant Strength - they literally give you the Giants' Strength!

What I propose, then, is actually a buff to these items to reward using them when you have a higher stat.

Amulet of Health
rare (requires atunement)
Your Constitution score is 19 while you wear this Amulet. It has no Effect on you if your Constitution score is already 19 or higher. If your Constitution is at least 15 without this item, you do not need to attune it to gain its benefits while wearing it.

Belt of Hill Giant Strength
rare (requires atunement)
Your Strength score is 21 while you wear this belt. It has no Effect on you if your Strength score is already 21 or higher. If your Strength is at least 15 without this belt, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it.

Belt of Stone Giant Strength
very rare (requires atunement)
Your Strength score is 23 while you wear this belt. It has no Effect on you if your Strength score is already 23 or higher. If your Strength is at least 19 without this belt, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it. If you attune to it and have a strength score without it of 19 or higher, you may have your skin take on the stony appearance of a Stone Giant, and gain advantage on Dexterity(Stealth) checks to hide in rocky environments, as well as the ability to hold perfectly still and be indistinguishable from a statue.

Belt of Frost Giant Strength
very rare (requires atunement)
Your Strength score is 23 while you wear this belt. It has no Effect on you if your Strength score is already 23 or higher. If your Strength is at least 19 without this belt, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it. If you attune to it and have a strength score without it of 19 or higher, you gain resistance to cold damage.

Belt of Fire Giant Strength
very rare (requires atunement)
Your Strength score is 25 while you wear this belt. It has no Effect on you if your Strength score is already 25 or higher. If your Strength is at least 19 without this belt, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it. If you attune to it and have a strength score without it of 19 or higher, you gain resistance to fire damage.

Belt of Cloud Giant Strength
Legendary (requires atunement)
Your Strength score is 27 while you wear this belt. It has no Effect on you if your Strength score is already 27 or higher. If your Strength is at least 21 without a Belt of Giant Strength, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it. If you attune to it and have a strength score without it of 21 or higher, you may cast telekinesis once, using your Strength as the spellcasting ability score. You regain the ability to cast it after a short rest.

Belt of Storm Giant Strength
Legendary (requires atunement)
Your Strength score is 29 while you wear this belt. It has no Effect on you if your Strength score is already 29 or higher. If your Strength is at least 24 without a Belt of Giant
Strength, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it. If you attune to it and have a strength score without it of 24 or higher, you gain the
ability to breathe underwater and a swim speed equal to your land speed, and the ability to cast levitate on yourself at will.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power
Uncommon (requires atunement)
Your Strength score is 19 while you wear these gauntlets. They have no effect on you if your Strength is already 19 or higher without them. If your strength without them or any Belt of Giant Strength is at least 15, you do not need to attune these gauntlets to gain the benefits of the Strength score they grant. If you are attuned to them and to a Belt of Giant Strength, you gain the ability to use rocks the size of your head or larger as simple, two-handed, thrown weapons with a range of 60/240 ft. that deal 1d10 bludgeoning damage. The kind of Belt of Giant Strength grants additional abilities:
Hill Giant: None
Stone Giant: You can generate a suitable stone as a bonus action on your turn. Such stones last for up to one minute before crumbling to gravel that soon further disintegrates to dust and vanishes.
Frost Giant: You can generate an icy ball to hurl as a stone as a bonus action on your turn. It does cold damage instead of bludgeoning, and melts away to nothing after 1 minute.
Fire Giant: You can generate a ball of molten magma to hurl as a stone as a bonus action on your turn. It does fire damage instead of bludgeoning, and burns away to smoke after 1 minute.
Cloud Giant: You can generate suitable stones for hurling out of fog you condense out of the air as part of hurling them.
Storm Giant: Instead of hurling stones, you hurl lighting bolts that do ligthing damage and attack every creature in a line between you and your target.

Headband of Intellect
Uncommon (requires atunement)
Your Intelligence score is 19 while you wear this headband. It has no effect on you if your Intelligence is already 19 or higher without it. If your Intelligence without it is at least 15, you do not need to attune this headband to gain the benefits of the Intelligence score it grants.

The Gauntlets of Ogre Power look like they're getting a huge boost, and maybe they are, but they require a synergy with another magic item to get it, and must have both items attuned.


Tweaks, critiques, and suggestions for improvement (or nerfs to bring them into alignment with their item rarities) are invited.

[Cluedrew]

I really like the idea. I've not played D&D at high enough level for this to be a thing, so I can't comment on much but why does the Belt of Cloud Giant Strength have a one smaller window for its bonus than the others? Also I find the "you do not need to attune it to gain its benefits while wearing it" clauses are a bit dry, and like the bonuses more. Unfortunately the only one I can think of is for the Amulet of Health, maybe you could add a tiny bit of health regeneration as well? You could even make it more granular "increase the die size by one for every two points over 15 your constitution is" (vaguely inspired by the song of rest) to avoid people going for the cut of score exactly every time or something.

All the existing abilities are good though 24 strength, Belt of Cloud Giant Strength and Gauntlets of Ogre Power sounds like the start of a fun fighting style on their own.

[Segev]

I came up with the extra powers for the belts and the gauntlets later on; my original thought was more or less just what I have on the Amulet of Health and the Headband of Intellect.

The Cloud Giant jumps up to 21 to put it out of reach of "merely" using Gauntlets of Ogre Power to match it, but to actually let Barbarians who are benefitting from their capstone make use of them. Same for the reason the Storm Giant belt calls for 24. I wanted them to require atunement and not give their special things to people who aren't already upper top tier for Strength because they're the Legendary rarity belts, and they give such very high strength scores.

Thanks for the response and the ideas!

[Eric Diaz]

I like the idea! A simpler version might be something like "when you wear the belt, your Strength score is equal to 17 plus your your (previous) Strength modifier, up to a maximum of 23".

Sounds strange, I'll admit, but the idea is simple: if you have Strength 18 (+4), it becomes 21 (17+4). And so on.

[Durazno]

That makes me imagine an item that just says, "Add your natural modifier to your score." It would turn a 20th level barbarian into Hercules for Strength.

[Herbert_W]

Some of these belts can be stacked and some cannot. Is this intentional?

Suppose that I have a strength of 15. I put on a Belt of Hill Giant Strength, so my strength increases to 21. I put a Belt of Fire Giant Strength over the top - and since my strength score is already over 19 without this belt (becasue of the other belt), I gain its benefit with no attunement.

Some, but not all, of the belts have wording that seems intended to prevent this. The belts of cloud and storm giant strength refer to a character having a certain score without any belt of giant strength, not just without themselves.

It's also noteworthy that this stacking-prevention breaks as soon as a character finds a strength-increasing items that aren't belts of giant strength (some homebrew belts of golem strength, perhaps?). In order to prevent an item from being used in a stack, it should reference the ability score that a character would have without any items, not just without a list of specific items.

[Segev]

The rules for item stacking include the DM determining if you can wear more than one of an item at a time. It is not my intent that belts can stack, but to be fair, if you're spending attunement on a belt of hill giant strength to avoid atuning a belt of fire giant strength, is that really all that different from just attuning the belt of fire giant strength? And if you attune both, that's still weaker than attending gauntlets plus the better belt.

[Herbert_W]

. . . but to be fair, if you're spending attunement on a belt of hill giant strength to avoid atuning a belt of fire giant strength, is that really all that different from just attuning the belt of fire giant strength?

If a character has a strength score of at least 15, they don't need to attune to the first belt in order to use it to increase their strength by enough to meet the threshold for the second belt - meaning that they can get the benefit of the second belt without spending any attunement slots at all.


The rules for item stacking include the DM determining if you can wear more than one of an item at a time. It is not my intent that belts can stack . . .


As-written, these belts are considerably more powerful if they can stack than if they can't. If it's not your intent to let them be combined, then I'd recommend rewriting them to make it clear that they can't rather than relying on DM ruling.

The simplest way to do this would be to change the wording to something like "If your base (i.e., without any items) Strength is at least 19, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it."

[Segev]

If a character has a strength score of at least 15, they don't need to attune to the first belt in order to use it to increase their strength by enough to meet the threshold for the second belt - meaning that they can get the benefit of the second belt without spending any attunement slots at all.



As-written, these belts are considerably more powerful if they can stack than if they can't. If it's not your intent to let them be combined, then I'd recommend rewriting them to make it clear that they can't rather than relying on DM ruling.

The simplest way to do this would be to change the wording to something like "If your base (i.e., without any items) Strength is at least 19, you do not need to attune it to gain the strength score it grants while wearing it."

Good points. Thanks for pointing them out; I'll need to tweak wording a bit to get it in line with what I was aiming for.

Any other concerns or suggestions?

[Yakk]

Honestly, I'd remove the "no effect" and "without attunement". It adds a lot of wording, and leads to some complex chicken and egg stuff.

Just make it require attunement and give a bonus.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power
(Requires attunement)
While wearing these gauntlets, your strength score becomes 19 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* Your lifting capacity doubles
* If you hit with a melee weapon attack using a weapon held in two hands, it deals an extra set of weapon damage dice.
* If you are small, you can wield heavy weapons without disadvantage.
* You can hold two handed melee weapons in one hand; if you do so, the weapon is not considered heavy.

Belt of Hill Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 21 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* Your jumping distance doubles
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 2 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Stone Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 23 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* You have advantage on Stealth(Dexterity) checks to hide in rocky terrain
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d12 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Frost Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 23 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* You are immune to cold damage
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 2 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Fire Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 25 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 19:
* You are immune to fire damage
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Cloud Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 27 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 19:
* You have advantage on wisdom(perception) checks that rely on smell
* Once per day you may cast Detect Magic, Fog Cloud, Light, Feather Fall, Misty Step. Charisma is your casting stat for these spells.
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Storm Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 29 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 21:
* You are immune to lighting and thunder damage and resistant to cold damage
* You can breathe both air and water
* Once per day you can cast control weather, levitate, feather fall, detect magic, lightning bolt. Charisma is your casting stat for these spells
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d12 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 23, your strength score becomes 30 instead of 29.

Headband of Intellect
(requires attunement)
While wearing this headband, your intelligence score becomes 19 if it was otherwise lower. If your intelligence score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* Once per day as a bonus action, you can create the effect of Enhance Ability (Fox's Cunning) on yourself. This does not require concentration.
* You have advantage on Intelligence saving throws and saving throws against illusionary effects.
* The first time you see any illusion effect that can be investigated, you automatically investigate it without using any action. Use your passive investigation with a +5 bonus (15+intelligence bonus+investigation proficiency).

Amulet of Health
(requires attunement)
While wearing this amulet, your constitution score becomes 19 if it was otherwise lower. If your constitution score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* As a bonus action, you can spend a hit die to regain hit points equal to the roll plus your constitution bonus. You cannot do this again until you complete a short rest.
* You are immune to the poisoned condition and poison damage, and have advantage on saves against diseases, poisons, and necrotic damage.
* It requires 5 death saving throw fails for you to die.

[Segev]

Honestly, I'd remove the "no effect" and "without attunement". It adds a lot of wording, and leads to some complex chicken and egg stuff.

Just make it require attunement and give a bonus.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power
(Requires attunement)
While wearing these gauntlets, your strength score becomes 19 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* Your lifting capacity doubles
* If you hit with a melee weapon attack using a weapon held in two hands, it deals an extra set of weapon damage dice.
* If you are small, you can wield heavy weapons without disadvantage.
* You can hold two handed melee weapons in one hand; if you do so, the weapon is not considered heavy.

Belt of Hill Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 21 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* Your jumping distance doubles
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 2 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Stone Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 23 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* You have advantage on Stealth(Dexterity) checks to hide in rocky terrain
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d12 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Frost Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 23 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* You are immune to cold damage
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 2 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Fire Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 25 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 19:
* You are immune to fire damage
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Cloud Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 27 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 19:
* You have advantage on wisdom(perception) checks that rely on smell
* Once per day you may cast Detect Magic, Fog Cloud, Light, Feather Fall, Misty Step. Charisma is your casting stat for these spells.
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d10 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

Belt of Storm Giant Strength
(Requires attunement)
While wearing this belt, your strength score becomes 29 if it was otherwise lower. If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 21:
* You are immune to lighting and thunder damage and resistant to cold damage
* You can breathe both air and water
* Once per day you can cast control weather, levitate, feather fall, detect magic, lightning bolt. Charisma is your casting stat for these spells
* As an action, you can throw a boulder weighing up to 3 pounds. They are strength based thrown weapons that deal 1d12 damage per pound and have a 60/240 ft range.

If your strength score without any magical enhancements is at least 23, your strength score becomes 30 instead of 29.

Headband of Intellect
(requires attunement)
While wearing this headband, your intelligence score becomes 19 if it was otherwise lower. If your intelligence score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* Once per day as a bonus action, you can create the effect of Enhance Ability (Fox's Cunning) on yourself. This does not require concentration.
* You have advantage on Intelligence saving throws and saving throws against illusionary effects.
* The first time you see any illusion effect that can be investigated, you automatically investigate it without using any action. Use your passive investigation with a +5 bonus (15+intelligence bonus+investigation proficiency).

Amulet of Health
(requires attunement)
While wearing this amulet, your constitution score becomes 19 if it was otherwise lower. If your constitution score without any magical enhancements is at least 17:
* As a bonus action, you can spend a hit die to regain hit points equal to the roll plus your constitution bonus. You cannot do this again until you complete a short rest.
* You are immune to the poisoned condition and poison damage, and have advantage on saves against diseases, poisons, and necrotic damage.
* It requires 5 death saving throw fails for you to die.

Some interesting thoughts here. I have not ignored it, but I've been trying to examine what I think of it. The creativity of the added features is neat, and it might be a better way to go.