D&D Homebrewery Guide - Equipment

Naming Your Item
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Creating A Unique Item
Items come in all shapes and sizes and can have effects as varied as making a flying death machine to changing your outfit at will. When creating an item, ask yourself: Has a similar item to this already been made by Wizards of the Coast (see the Dungeon Master's Guide pp. 150-214) and do a quick search on the wiki's relevant equipment section to see whether there is an already existing item that is similar to what you are trying to create.

General
Mundane items should be able to be used by all characters. They should not have class, race, or background requirements and they should not provide additional features for being a certain class, race, background.

Mundane Item Description
Adding a description to non-magical items is essential to understanding what the item looks like. Everyone is not going to know what exactly you mean when you call an item a katana, even if the name fits the item you are creating.

Cost
Realistically, changing the cost of mundane weapons does not affect how balanced the item would be, though if an item does have a gold cost that falls too out of line of the standard gold cost for mundane weapons, it likely needs to be adjusted. Weapons should however, usually have a gold cost similar to its weapon counterpart if it has one. Below are the approximate costs of what a mundane weapon should cost based on the 1st party mundane weapons: Considerations for the cost include:
 * Simple melee weapons should usually cost between 1 sp and 5 gp
 * Simple ranged weapons usually shouldn't cost more than 25 gp
 * Martial melee weapons should usually cost between 5 and 50 gp
 * Martial ranged weapons should usually cost between 25 and 100 gp
 * Renaissance weapons costs vary greatly, but they should usually fall between 50 and 500 gp
 * Modern and futuristic items are assumed to be anachronistic in a vanilla D&D campaign, so do not have a purchase cost(—). [1] Specific campaigns in which these items are considered "mundane" may list prices.
 * The materials used. For example: A steel-hafted polearm will cost more than a wooden one. Even if the weapon statistics are the same, it matters when the Dungeon Master needs to adjudicate (such as what might burn, or what is magnetic). It could conceivably matter for a homebrew class's weapon proficiencies, for example if the class is restricted to cheaper wooden weapons.
 * If the item has some versatility (not as in the versatile property!). For example: If the weapon can deal more than one type of damage, this could add an extra 5 gp to its value.

Properties
While weapons can have a variety of different properties, there are some combinations of properties that a singular weapon should not have.
 * Heavy weapons may not have the light property
 * Two-handed weapons may not have the light or versatile properties
 * Light weapons may not have the versatile property

General
Even more so than mundane weapons, a homebrew piece of armour should be unique and not serve the same purpose as another piece of armour, whether homebrew or official. Below you can find a few pointers on how to create a piece of armour.
 * Armour should fit into the general theme of medieval armour (no steampunk armour)
 * Armour should generally fit into its appropriate category (no heavy metal light armour)
 * Light armor should add your Dexterity modifier
 * Medium armour should add your Dexterity modifier, but should have a maximum such as (max 2)
 * Heavy armour should just provide a static Armour Class, such as 15

Cost
A piece of armour's cost should be reflective of how much AC the armor provides, what material the armor is made out of, whether it has any requirements, and whether it has any special properties. See 5e SRD - Armor for the costs of armor of mundane 1st party armour.

Trinkets
While some Player Characters may consider these items to be worthless, they have the potential to both create interesting backstories on how you obtained such an item and they can be used for plot purposes by Dungeon Masters. Remember, these items are meant to be mysterious and whimsical, so have fun using and creating them.

Tools
Tools are specialized equipment that allows you to do things you normally wouldn’t be able to do such as create glasswork, create a painting, or sew a blanket. A tool always has an associated tool proficiency, so you need to describe what the character can achieve with that proficiency.

For example: Proficiency with this tool lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to (whatever the tool does). Any ability check you make with a tool that you are proficient in allows you to add your Proficiency Bonus to the check.

Tools should not state what ability score is required to use them as the use of a tool should not be tied to a single ability score, and Dungeon Masters should interpret how a tool is used. For example: A Dungeon Master could ask for an Intelligence check to come up with on how to incorporate a reloading feature with tinkerer’s tools onto a crossbow and a Dexterity check to see whether you could create such an apparatus. See Player's Handbook pp. 154 for the list of descriptions on 1st party artisan tools.

Poisons
While often hard to obtain without the right contacts, poisons can be extremely useful. The effects of poison and how they are applied vary considerably, but there are some things that should remain consistent across all poisons.

Creatures should be able to apply poisons by contact, ingestion, inhalation, or through an injury, poisons should always require a saving throw, poisons should never just kill a creature, and the price of a poison indicates its cost per single dose. Info on what each how poisons are applied can be found on Dungeon Master's Guide pp. 257.

Mounts and Vehicles
The speed of vehicles is measured in mph and the speed of mounts is measured in movement speed per turn. As a rule of thumb, 1 mile per hour equals a movement speed of 10 feet.

Mounts
Mounts are common tamable creatures that can be used to carry gear and pull vehicles. Creating a mount is fairly straightforward, all you need a creature name, a gold cost, a movement speed, and a carrying capacity. When you are creating the mount think about how its size and physical characteristics translate into stats. See Player's Handbook pp. 156 - 157 for more information on mounts.

Vehicles
See the Dungeon Master's Guide pp. 119.

General Balance
If you are unsure of how balanced a magical item you are creating would be, it is a good idea to look up a relevant 1st party magical item to compare it to. See the 5e DMG pp. 150-214 for the full list of magical items and see 5e SRD:Magic Items for magical items that appear in the System Reference Document(SRD).

Do’s and Don’ts
While you do have a lot of creative freedom when creating a magical item, there are some guidelines you should follow when creating a magical item.
 * Don’t have a magical item gain additional effects or charges based on your level, ability scores, class, race, other equipment, or through other means. A piece of equipment should also not grant additional effects to a PC's already existing traits or features.
 * Do use the standardized durations: 1 round, 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, etc. over durations with round-counting, e.g. 6 turns, 1d4 + 1 turns
 * Advantage on any check is extremely strong. If given, consider making it circumstantial such as you have advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks made against dragons.
 * Do allow an item to have a prerequisite to attune to it. Examples include 15 Strength, class/es, and a spellcaster. Try and avoid homebrew class requirements as well, as it is far too strict of a requirement.
 * Don’t change how much damage a weapon itself deals (a longsword should deal 1d8/10 not 2d8/2d10) or how much Armor Class a piece of armor itself gives (plate should only give 18 AC).
 * Do explain exactly what bonuses a magical item grants. A +2 battleaxe does not inform players what the +2 entails. Does it mean a bonus to spell attack rolls, just damage rolls, or something else?
 * Items themselves shouldn’t have a level requirement, but the Dungeon Master's Guide does state that Player Characters should typically obtain certain rarity magical items when they are around a certain level. See the Magic Item Rarity table for specifics.

Attunement
Remember, a character can only attune to 3 magical items at any time, and Player Characters who attempt to attune to any more must first end their attunement with one of their items before being able to attune to another. Also, if a magical item can be abused by passing it around or if having multiple items with bonuses would make a Player Character too strong, an item should require attunement.

Magical items themselves should never allow you to attune to more magical items, or else a Player Character's power can get out of control. Attunement slots should never be adjusted by player-accessible entities, as only the Dungeon Master should have full control over this power. By giving a Player Character an item that allows for them to attune to more magical items, it prevents the Dungeon Master from fine tuning the power granted to Player Characters by magical items.

Charges and Regaining Powers
So you want to give a magical item the ability to cast spells multiple times or use power from a pool of power, then creating a magical item with charges should suit your need. Charges can be used to use homebrew properties items have or casting spells, in which case the charge cost should typically cost the same as the spell slot level. It is however important to remember that magical items have their own powers, and don’t draw power from you.

As such, magical items should regain a certain amount of charges and their uses of certain properties at dawn or after a certain amount of days. This is based on the precedent set by Wizards of the Coast for magical items. See these for an example of how a magical item's properties are recharged figurine of wondrous power, wand of lightning bolts, and staff of thunder and lightning.

Potions and Other Consumable Magic Items
Creating consumable items can be fun endeavor. These items effects can provide a variety of boons and buffs to a Player Character or they can be downright silly. Regardless of what the item does, don’t ever make an effect permanent. Doing so would be like making an item has to require attunement to be balanced not require attunement and is effectively just giving Player Characters bonus traits/abilities. Also remember, when you use a consumable item such as a potion, scroll, or something else, the item is used up.

Cursed Items
Generally, curses on items shouldn’t be too deliberating since severely punishing a player for attuning to a magical item doesn’t feel good as the Player Character and often times is just downright cruel. Cursed items should also require attunement as to not overtly punish Player Character for being inflicted by a curse just for finding a magical item and because all 1st party cursed item require attunement.

Also, when making a cursed item, the item itself should be balanced as a standalone item without the curse, as again, 1st party cursed items are balanced this way. Remember, that attunement to a cursed item can not be undone except through use of a remove curse spell or a similar effect.

Sentient Items
Fluff about sentient items. Wizards of the Coast has an excellent guide on how to create sentient items on Dungeon Master's Guide pp. 214 - 216.