Cache System

[Sparky McDibben]

Hey team,

I need some help.

Spoiler: Context

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My current campaign is one where there isn't much high-level magic in the world, but a lot of fairly low-level magic. Ergo, I'm kind of nixing a lot of magic items and replacing them with mundane stuff that is useful but non-renewable (like rope, ammo, etc). The goal is to give the adventurers a reason to be excited about mundane stuff: "Rope? Great! We're going to need that later when we scale Wyvern's Tooth."

I'm trying to come up with a system for caches left by other adventurers - buried supplies, stored weapons, etc. Each cache has three slots.

Spoiler: System:

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My current thought is to set up three tiers of caches:

• Level 1: Useful for non-combat survival, but mundane
• Level 2: Useful for combat, but mundane
• Minor magical items

I would generate new caches before each session. My procedure would be roll 2d6 arranged in a d66 grid. So the Level 1 Cache Table might look something like this:

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	50' of hemp rope	1d4 days of trail rations	Map to random hex labeled "Treasure?"	Bag of 1,000 ball bearings	Bag of chalk	1d4 torches plus oil
2	Crowbar	Climber's kit	Grappling hook	Hunting trap	Letter to Graf von Holleswig, dated 200 years ago	1d4 flasks of oil
3	Hunting trap	1d6 vials antitoxin	1d4 vials basic poison	Randomly determined lore book	1d4 x 10 iron spikes	Healer's kit
4	Signal whistle	Tinderbox	1d4-1 days of water	Signaling mirror	Magnifying glass	1 set of manacles
5	Compass	1 musical instrument	Jeweler's tools	Dice set	Herbalism kit	Forgery kit
6	Tinker's tools	Clue to Mouths of Madness	Clue to the Black Stele	Clue to Gnoll Rampage	Note: "Contact Mercedes (Brimstone) about dynamite"	Clue to Crooked Toes Massacre

The thing I need help with is coming up with 36 Western-themed minor magical items that don't obviate survival-focused play (decanter of endless water, bags of holding, etc.) Any ideas? Also, any commentary on the system and procedure outlined above would be welcome.

[The_Jette]

Have you considered homebrewing some feather tokens? The RAW ones are pretty good for a normal campaign, but I could see a feather token (horse) that would summon a pack horse. Or, feather token (well) that creates a well of drinking water wherever it's placed. You could even make it so that it only lasts a certain amount of time, but I would avoid using the argument that it doesn't work because there's no water in the area. Even in deserts, there's usually water underground. Still, that's the kind of item that would be pretty mundane in most settings (where a cleric would just cast create water), but would be really useful in a low magic campaign.

[Sparky McDibben]

Have you considered homebrewing some feather tokens? The RAW ones are pretty good for a normal campaign, but I could see a feather token (horse) that would summon a pack horse. Or, feather token (well) that creates a well of drinking water wherever it's placed. You could even make it so that it only lasts a certain amount of time, but I would avoid using the argument that it doesn't work because there's no water in the area. Even in deserts, there's usually water underground. Still, that's the kind of item that would be pretty mundane in most settings (where a cleric would just cast create water), but would be really useful in a low magic campaign.

These are good ideas; thank you so much!

[Luccan]

Bending Lenses

This pair of slightly bent, brass-framed spectacles are magically enchanted to allow an attuned individual to peer around and over objects without needing to put themselves in the open. If you are within 10 feet of the edge of an object, you can see as if standing 10 feet on the other side of the nearest edge unoccupied by the object itself. This also applies to natural phenomenon and magical fields that block a character's vision, such as fog or a darkness spell, provided the user is not themselves inside the phenomenon or range of the spell

Probably needs some cleaning up, but could be useful depending on how you run stealth. In dungeon scenarios not needing to turn a corner to see what's coming could be crazy useful.

[Sparky McDibben]

Bending Lenses

This pair of slightly bent, brass-framed spectacles are magically enchanted to allow an attuned individual to peer around and over objects without needing to put themselves in the open. If you are within 10 feet of the edge of an object, you can see as if standing 10 feet on the other side of the nearest edge unoccupied by the object itself. This also applies to natural phenomenon and magical fields that block a character's vision, such as fog or a darkness spell, provided the user is not themselves inside the phenomenon or range of the spell

Probably needs some cleaning up, but could be useful depending on how you run stealth. In dungeon scenarios not needing to turn a corner to see what's coming could be crazy useful.

Absolutely; it fits neatly into the paradigm of "using a mirror to locate a sniper" kind of stuff you'd see in the Old West. I dig it!

[Unoriginal]

Hey team,

I need some help.

Spoiler: Context

Show

My current campaign is one where there isn't much high-level magic in the world, but a lot of fairly low-level magic. Ergo, I'm kind of nixing a lot of magic items and replacing them with mundane stuff that is useful but non-renewable (like rope, ammo, etc). The goal is to give the adventurers a reason to be excited about mundane stuff: "Rope? Great! We're going to need that later when we scale Wyvern's Tooth."

I'm trying to come up with a system for caches left by other adventurers - buried supplies, stored weapons, etc. Each cache has three slots.

Spoiler: System:

Show

My current thought is to set up three tiers of caches:

• Level 1: Useful for non-combat survival, but mundane
• Level 2: Useful for combat, but mundane
• Minor magical items

I would generate new caches before each session. My procedure would be roll 2d6 arranged in a d66 grid. So the Level 1 Cache Table might look something like this:

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	50' of hemp rope	1d4 days of trail rations	Map to random hex labeled "Treasure?"	Bag of 1,000 ball bearings	Bag of chalk	1d4 torches plus oil
2	Crowbar	Climber's kit	Grappling hook	Hunting trap	Letter to Graf von Holleswig, dated 200 years ago	1d4 flasks of oil
3	Hunting trap	1d6 vials antitoxin	1d4 vials basic poison	Randomly determined lore book	1d4 x 10 iron spikes	Healer's kit
4	Signal whistle	Tinderbox	1d4-1 days of water	Signaling mirror	Magnifying glass	1 set of manacles
5	Compass	1 musical instrument	Jeweler's tools	Dice set	Herbalism kit	Forgery kit
6	Tinker's tools	Clue to Mouths of Madness	Clue to the Black Stele	Clue to Gnoll Rampage	Note: "Contact Mercedes (Brimstone) about dynamite"	Clue to Crooked Toes Massacre

The thing I need help with is coming up with 36 Western-themed minor magical items that don't obviate survival-focused play (decanter of endless water, bags of holding, etc.) Any ideas? Also, any commentary on the system and procedure outlined above would be welcome.

I advise you to take a look at the Hand of Fate and Hand of Fate 2 equipment lists, they're pretty flavorful.

[Vogie]

I'd take a look at Len Pelletier's Weak Magic Item Generator at https://www.lordbyng.net/inspiration/ - There are plenty of effects you won't use in a western setting (like the plane-related effects) but items with limited numbers/uses of small effects that fall within those categories.

Also, make sure enough of the items are there to tell a story of your world. There should be quest pickup items, quest generating items, and exposition devices in these loot caches.

[Twelvetrees]

Western-themed, you say?

How about spurs that can give a temporary boost to a mount's speed, a sheriff's badge that gives a minor bonus to initiative, or a pistol that causes nearby creatures to become frightened? Maybe a black cowboy hat that gives the wearer proficiency in Intimidation?

If you want more generic magic items, I'll point you in the direction of the Homebrew Compendium. Here's a short list of links to minor magic items from it:

3 Dozen Minor Magic Items by sandmote
15 New Common Rarity Potions by JamesIntrocaso
"Mundane" Magitech Adventuring Gear by Flashy
Magic Items That Are Better Than Nothing by flannel
Single Use Magic Items started by maxweasel
List of Mostly Useless Magic Items started by TheFlyingBrick

[Randel]

Ideas:

Dowsing Rod - A Y-shaped stick carved with runes. Can be used to locate places to dig for water.

Unsinkable Rod - Based on the superior Immovable Rod, this flat hardwood rod has a button on one side which if pressed causes the rod to become nigh impossible to submerge in liquid or quicksand, instead floating upon the surface as if it was solid ground. If activated under water or in quicksand, it will quickly rise to the surface able to support up to 2,000 lbs of weight.

Helter Smelter - A small portable furnace that can be used to smelt metal bars from the raw ore. Used by miners and prospectors. Starts each day with a limited number of charges which are expended during the smelting process.

Bullet with your name on it - A bullet or arrow with someone's name written on it. If fired at the bullet's target, it will almost certainly hit. If a person owns their own bullet and keeps it on their person, they can carry it as a good luck charm to ward against other bullets (with the bullet with their name on it shaking a little every time another bullet comes close to hitting them). Legend has it that nobody can have more than one bullet with their name on it.

Survival Tattoos - These magic tattoos act similarly to a Robe of Useful Items, containing pictures of various mundane survival items which can be removed as used as needed. In addition to the regular items, the tattoo contains a silver bowl holding 500 gp worth of diamonds. If the owner is alive, they can retrieve any of these items at will. If the owner is dead, a spellcaster capable of casting Raise Dead can use the diamonds as the material component for the spell. Alternately, a spellcaster can remove the tattoos from a dead owner by succeeding a skill check, at which point the tattoos vanish and a magic needle appears next to the corpse. If another person attunes to the tattoo, they gain access to all the unspent items.

Concealing Cactus - A large wooden jar which when the command word is spoken casts an illusion to make it look like a common barrel cactus.

Donkeyskin Jacket - A jacket made of donkeyskin. When worn, the user can cast Tensor's Floating Disk at will, though they can only have one such disk active at a time.

[Sparky McDibben]

Also, make sure enough of the items are there to tell a story of your world. There should be quest pickup items, quest generating items, and exposition devices in these loot caches.

Already done, but good callout. Thanks!

Western-themed, you say?

How about spurs that can give a temporary boost to a mount's speed, a sheriff's badge that gives a minor bonus to initiative, or a pistol that causes nearby creatures to become frightened? Maybe a black cowboy hat that gives the wearer proficiency in Intimidation?

Already had the hat (reflavored Helm of Dread from XGtE) but I dig the spurs!!! Thanks!

Concealing Cactus - A large wooden jar which when the command word is spoken casts an illusion to make it look like a common barrel cactus.

Donkeyskin Jacket - A jacket made of donkeyskin. When worn, the user can cast Tensor's Floating Disk at will, though they can only have one such disk active at a time.

I like both of these! I think I'll make the jacket require attunement, but also it doesn't cast the disk; you take it off, lay it down, and the jacket just floats along magically supporting a ton of weight. Great ideas! Thanks!

[DwarfFighter]

If you want for the acquisition of items to have value for the PCs, you and the players need to be on board with a system or style of play that makes those items worth finding.

I suggest introducing a system of items that are not normally consumables wearing out and breaking, and get your players to embrace that system too.

For example: Using a rope to scale a wall has a chance of wearing the rope to such a degree that, although the task is completed successfully, the PCs will recognize the rope as being worn to the point of no longer being reliable. When using a crowbar to force a door, the force applied bends the crowbar to uselessness. The PCs will quickly see the value of having two coils of rope, and when one of them breaks they will be happy to find a new (for them) rope in a cache!

I seem to recall that in 3.x, Dark Sun had a system for weapon breakage: If you rolled a 1 to hit, you could elect to re-roll the attack roll but your weapon would then break. I found that interesting because it made the weapon breakage a player choice instead of a "gotcha!", and there was an positive effect (re-roll a failed attack) to go along with the negative (weapon cannot be used until repaired).

-DF