Dungeons & Dragonsoffers numerous sources for new and iconic magic items for you to add to your games. While artifact-level magic items can be some of the most memorable or destructive available to players, legendary items are more attainable while retaining their powerful effects.
It is also fun to make legendary magic items of your own, tailoring them to your campaign or bringing to life an item inspired from a book or movie. Since most legendary items have unique effects and take on many different shapes, a few tips can help you avoid getting lost in the broader concept and finer details.
10Use Monsters As Inspiration
One way to both telegraph the intent of the item while giving you a direct reference is by naming it after a specific monster. Like the Efreeti Chain or Potion of Giant Strength, these items can be a quick way to add a range of effects that are clear to the player.
This can be a dragon cloak that sprouts wings and grants fire immunity, or an amulet containing a nothic’s eye that allows you to sense hidden knowledge. With an entire Monster Manual to choose from, it can be simple to rip effects straight from a statblock and apply them to an item.
9Center It Around A Single Spell
Some legendary magic items are filled with various effects, while others only have a single, simple effect. The Ring of Invisibility is one such item, which grants unlimited uses of invisibility, allowing players to ignore restrictions such as material components or limited spell slots.
You can give the effects of certain spells to an item and give it power, especially if you don’t include daily charges or limited uses. While this can be used as a weapon if you just allow infinite castings of Fireball, players can get more creative with unique effects from spells like Control Weather, Daylight, and Fabricate.
8Make It Especially Dangerous To One Creature Type
One way to make a legendary magic weapon especially powerful without breaking every combat encounter is by focusing it against a specific creature type. Holy Avenger is a legendary sword that targets fiends and undead, dealing a whopping 2d10 extra radiant damage against them.
This doesn’t have to be just creature categories like undead, constructs, or aberrations; instead, it should focus on creatures that share a specific ability, such as Shape-Shift. It’s best this item targets monsters commonly found in your campaign, otherwise it might become underused.
7Give It A Unique Shape
While a flaming sword or magic cloak can make an iconic legendary item, it can be worth it to make something that isn’t worn or wielded at all. Some items, like the Apparatus of Kwalish or theDeck of Many Things, are wholly unique and don’t resemble most other magic items.
Anything small enough to be carried can be a magic item, such as a horse’s saddle, flask, or anything from the Adventuring Gear section of the Player’s Handbook. The type of item can also be inspiration for its effects, like a saddle summoning a powerful mount that appears under it.
you may also create magic items meant for vehicles, such as sails for a ship or reins used while driving a carriage.
6Subvert A Rule
When making your own effects, it can be a struggle to decide what to add to make it feel powerful while not overwhelmingly broken. One way to add a legendary tier effect is by allowing the item to ignore a core mechanic of the game or bend it to the player’s will.
The Vorpal Sword, for example, can automatically kill a creature regardless of its hit points by rolling a 20 on the attack roll. These effects can be a bow that shoots through cover, a ring that allows you to choose your initiative, or a spear with no maximum range.
5Tune It To A Specific Character
If you are creating a legendary item to place in a campaign, one way to make the item especially iconic to your table is by creating it with a specific player in mind. You can then place the item somewhere specifically for them to find, or perhaps an NPC provides a hint or offers it outright.
This item might beimportant for their backstory, or has an effect that complements their abilities, or can only be attuned by a creature that shares their class. This can also be an item shared by the whole party, such as a portable base or vehicle.
While you don’t have to make a legendary item for every player at your table, it’s important to make sure you aren’t focusing the spotlight on only one character.
4Create A Set
Another way an item can be legendary is by being the rarest version of a set of items of various rarities, such as the Ioun Stones, which float above a character’s head. This requires slightly more work, creating multiple items instead of one, but can allow you to get more creative with their effects and design.
It’s easiest to start from the ground up, creating the lowest rarity version of the item with a simple effect and continuously making it stronger. Groups of items could be coins made from unique metals such as mithril or adamantine, or different arrows featuring various elemental effects.
3Level Up Effects
Not all legendary magic items are wholly unique or creative, and sometimes just allow players to level up without actually having to gain experience. This is by fiddling with numbers and increasing the power of rolls or defenses by adding stats together.
This includes increasing the attack bonus, changing resistance to immunity, bonuses to AC and DC, or increasing movement speed. You can also combine this with subverting rules, allowing the item to increase a player’s stats beyond the maximum to give them super strength or heightened intelligence.
2Create A Ring
One of the more common shapes for legendary magic items, beyond swords and armor, is in theform of rings. The reason for this is that it is the easiest way for a character to take advantage of the item’s effects while avoiding being able to wield only one weapon at a time or wear only one suit of armor.
If players are wearing multiple rings at a time, they can make sure the item stays safe even if they aren’t attuned to all of them simultaneously. Rings also typically only affect the wearer, protecting them from harm or altering their form rather than acting as a weapon or form of mobility.
1Stack Effects
You don’t need just one powerful effect to make an item legendary; instead, stacking a number of small effects together that make it as strong as multiple items simultaneously. This allows players to get around attunement by having access to more spells or effects than usual.
This includes the Staff of the Magi, which gives whoever wields it access to nearly twenty spells and 50 charges to cast them with. One way to create an item like this is by combining uncommon and rare magic items together into one legendary item.
