DMs! If one of your players mentions wishing their character had a certain ability or that they don& #39;t like the way X thing about their class works... make a note of it. Because you can turn that into
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✨" title="Funken" aria-label="Emoji: Funken">fun things
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✨" title="Funken" aria-label="Emoji: Funken">down the line.
This thread brought to you by the fact that I HAVEN& #39;T done so and now would find that info really useful.
So: why? Well, when I& #39;m handing out magic items, I tend to go a couple of different ways. I don& #39;t do entire randomness any more, because I prefer giving players things they& #39;ll actually use (and loading them down with useless items just adds admin overhead).
I DO still like the odd randomly pulled item, because I don& #39;t know everything and they may well come up with something CLEVER or, better yet, something FUN.
But, generally, I have a particular character in mind for the items I choose, or pick items of such general utility they& #39;re bound to land somewhere.
BUT I think a campaign benefits from a few hand-crafted items for the characters. And THOSE are where you can have some fun tailoring something for a character and their player.
And that& #39;s a great opportunity to & #39;fix& #39; things that they snag on or give them access to COOL THINGS they couldn& #39;t get otherwise.
So how about some examples?
So how about some examples?
Well, the Hexblade in my current campaign e.g. found it restricting that it would take a bonus action to summon his pact weapon. So I gave him a speed dial! He can & #39;favourite& #39; one weapon form, which he can call forth as an object interaction, giveing him more combat versatility.
Likewise, he& #39;s an aasimar who gets great mileage out of his radiant consumption ability. But the action economy on that was also quite restrictive, particularly as he levelled up. So I did some neat stuff to modify that and make it more fun and crunchy.
All of that wrapped up, by the way, in an item of Narrative Significance – a necklace he found belonging to his missing sister.
This is where you can play around with stuff like this without worrying too much about perfectly balanced abilities. Obviously, if it feels unpleasantly game-warping, that& #39;s a further conversation to have with that player.
But for small-ish stuff like this, that makes them a bit better at doing the things they like doing? Go for it! It& #39;s specific to them, which has the added bonus of making a deeply personal item to their character feel more personal to them the player.
Another example: @babelfishwars& #39;s rogue was given a magical rapier by her father – the very fact that HE gave that to HER, given their, uh, trying in-game relationship, was significant. And it had been comissioned to resemble a narwhal, her family& #39;s & #39;heraldic& #39; animal.
(We& #39;d decided that, since unicorns were real in D&D, it tracked that narwhals were mythical, probably inspired by stories of short-sighted fisherfolk seeing unicorns swimming in the sea.)
I picked some abilities that fit her character and play style. Some straight synergy, plus some specific things like giving her access to a few choice spells, which is something that had come up in conversation.
Hell, if you have a character who& #39;s always getting hit with stun effects and it& #39;s gone past a joke and is just getting unfun in combat, give their personal item an ability which makes them harder to stun or faster to recover from it. *cough* not that that& #39;s come up in my game.
Anyway, this thread is running long but, last thoughts: this fits well with making these specific items one that grow with the character over time. I think the Wildemount book has some good rules on this, but I& #39;ve ended up doing much the same thing.
At certain key story moments, more abilities have & #39;unlocked& #39; which a) helps a personal item scale with the character so it stays relevant, b) reflects changes in their ability set and play style, and c) is just cool.
Anyway, if your players want to do things and they don& #39;t seem unreasonable... make a note of it because you can probably wrap that into something later on, and they will hopefully feel seen and that will feel special.