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In a campaign that I am running, one player is a Cleric with the War Domain. I made a special quest for him that is given to him by his god. If completes the quest he will receive an amulet.

I am trying to give him the feeling that he is backed by a god.

The character is level 4. I want to know if this item is overpowered or underpowered for his level. This is my first self-made magic item, and I fear it can be either game-breaking, or not really worth the quest.

Amulet of Honour

(requires attunement)

The amulet has the player's god's holy symbol on it. This amulet cannot be hidden. If the player tries to hide it or lies about his faith, the amulet disappears.

This amulet can only be used if worn on top of clothes and armour.

While worn, this amulet increases the wearer's Strength score by 1.

The wearer has advantage on Charisma saving throws.

As a bonus action, the wearer of this amulet can cause bright light to radiate from the amulet in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. This light shines for up to 1 hour while worn. Any undead in this area of bright light will have disadvantage on attacks, and attacks against undead in this area will have advantage. The dim light does not impact undead in any way. Once this property is used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

This amulet can hold up to 1 charge at any time. If there is a charge available, the wearer can use a bonus action to consume the charge and cast bless at 1st level; the spell effects lasts for a full hour, and does not require concentration. Every dawn, if there are no charges available, roll 1d10; on a result of 10, the amulet gains a charge.


I would class this item as a rare item for balance issue.
What I would call balanced is I expect this item to be powerful, particularly against undead, but may require careful usage of the bonus action light and only one bless charge. I believe, but I am not sure about it that the scarcity of the number of use/day makes it a non-game breaking item.

In the campaign setting magic items are not rare. At the moment in a group of 5 PCs, one player got a dagger + 1. The party also have a magic missile and a raise dead staff (which they don't want to use for RP lore reasons).
I wish to give a personal touch for the cleric with this item, specifically a feeling of being backed by his god in a dire situation.
The Cleric is a new player. All other players are quite experienced (way far more than I am) so I do not mind helping him a bit.

I don't know if the item is balanced or not. The concentration of free bless is very powerful IMO but the one charge may be too restrictive.
+1 Strength is not much so overall I do not know if this item is powerful enough or if it is appealing for the player.

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    \$\begingroup\$ What do you mean when you're asking if it's balanced? Do you want it to be balanced against other magic items that exist in the game already? Are you worried that this item is so powerful that giving it out will break the game? Or is this character the only one getting a special item and you're worried that the other players will be jealous and feel like they're too weak if they don't get any magic items? \$\endgroup\$
    – divibisan
    Commented May 22, 2019 at 22:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Purely for my own curiosity - who is the Cleric's god? Why the focus on undead? Will there be a lot of undead in your campaign? \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Commented Jun 5, 2019 at 14:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Do you mean Wand of Magic Missiles? And what is the Raise Dead Staff? \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 16:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ "This amulet can only be used if worn on top of clothes and armour." So it wouldn't work if he wasn't wearing anything (except the amulet)? \$\endgroup\$
    – NeutralTax
    Commented Aug 29, 2019 at 21:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @MichalGallengher Thanks, I shall modify it the point intended is to have it visible and not hided. \$\endgroup\$
    – RomainL.
    Commented Aug 30, 2019 at 11:34

2 Answers 2

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This item is likely overpowered

An item as unique as this is difficult to assess it terms of balance. Many of its features and abilities and unique and lack a reference to compare against.

Requires Attunement

This is a good restriction. Requiring attunement allows items to be much more powerful than they would without it. This is inline with the DMG's advice (page 284-285):

If having all the characters in a party pass an item around to gain its lasting benefits would be disruptive, the item should require attunement.

Cannot be hidden

This is a very cool thematic restriction. It effectively makes the item only semi-permanent. I'd guess this is about the same as the Bag of Holding's self-destructive tendencies but with much strong roleplay aspect and slight more likely to occur.

Increase Strength Score

An increase of only +1 to strength is a good benefit. You should clarify if this can increase a score above 20 though as that will effect the power level. The table on page 285 of the DMG lists +1 bonuses as uncommon so this isn't overpowered.

Advantage on Charisma Saves

The only items I can find that grant an unconditional bonus to one type of save are from Volo's Guide to Monster which I don't have. Based on the power level though I'd say this ability is worth of being Rare or Very Rare on it's own. This is probably the biggest benefit of the item and one I would suggest removing to balance the item overall.

Light Against Undead

Shedding light is a fairly common benefit, and it is weaker than the light cantrip so I wouldn't worry about it. From there this feature is harder to assess.

A 10-foot radius aura of both advantage against and disadvantage for is very strong. Particularly with a 1 hour duration. This feature combined with other cleric abilities with undead with basically make undead encounters pointless. I would suggest toning down this ability. A 1 minute duration and only one of advantage or disadvantage would be more appropriate.

Super-Bless once per 10 days

This feature is overly complicated. A benefit only once every 10 days isn't very good. Almost everything except some high level abilities comes back on a long rest in 5e. I would ditch the complicated charging mechanic and just make this a 1/long rest ability. It won't significantly increase the power level but will significantly decrease the complexity.

Adding the 1-hour duration and no concentration makes this a much stronger version of bless. No concentrations means that nothing short of dispel magic can break this. A free casting of a 1st level spell once per long rest is still an uncommon item benefit, I would stick with that.

Conclusion

As written this item is likely Very Rare or Legendary, it is also very complicated. I suggest simplifying and few features and dropped the advantage on all charisma saves. Including those changes and the item is still likely at least rare which makes it strong for a 4th level character but not entirely game breaking.

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    \$\begingroup\$ "The only items I can find that grant an unconditional bonus to one type of save are from Volo's Guide to Monster which I don't have." - Which items do you mean? \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 7:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ thank you for the advice and the in-depth analyses point by point. I will change the light accordingly and for the bless abilities if the use was not limited by charge but rather there is a 1 on 2 chance the items will be destroyed? will that limitation make it more interesting? \$\endgroup\$
    – RomainL.
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 7:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ The bless recharge isn't every 10 days, it's roll a d10 each dawn with a 10 needed to recharge. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 13:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch that's the same thing. Averages to once every ten days. \$\endgroup\$
    – linksassin
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 13:37
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    \$\begingroup\$ @linksassin It averages to once per ten days but it's not at all the same, because you can't plan your schedule around when it will refresh. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mark Wells
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 14:20
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It isn't balanced against what you've provided other players

The baseline

Let's start with what you've given to others:

We now have a general baseline that you've provided uncommon level items to your level 4 players.

The Amulet

The amulet you've homebrewed has several different effects, so let's go through each:

Strength Increase +1

This is tough, because I'm not sure there are existing items that provide this. Ioun stones provide +2 to a stat and those are general rated are very rare. The +1 makes this less than that, but given that it's a stat increase, I think it would qualify for rare and not as low as uncommon.

Advantage on Charisma saves

There isn't really an existing item that does this for a single ability, but the mantle of resistance gives advantage on ALL saving throws and is Rare. Limiting this to one saving throw does suggest that such an item may be Uncommon.

The Strength Increase combined with the advantage on saves make this nearly identical to the Resilient feat. It's different because it's not proficiency, but advantage and it's to two separate scores (+1 to STR and CHA advantage rather than proficiency), but it's a similar idea. Either way, this is a pretty nice ability to have and combined are probably in the Rare category.

Undead Light

This is trickier. Giving advantage on attacks against (and disadvantage on attacks from) a specific creature type to creatures within 10' is situational, but pretty nice. Having it always-on and not based on charges that are either finite or rechargeable is a nicer boost. Mechanically, you're basically blinding undead without a chance for a save. That's a big deal.

The non-mechanical additional dim light is a nice to have, but isn't really a deal breaker either way.

UberBless

Bless is a pretty awesome spell. In 5e's world of bounded accuracy, that d4 is pretty meaningful. Removing concentration and having it last a full hour is pretty amazing. That's almost definitely a Rare to Very Rare ability - if not legendary.

But the recharge on a 10 with a d10 definitely limits it. However, giving big powers and balancing with difficult mechanics usually causes more trouble than it's worth - and still makes it very powerful when it does work.

This is complicated and more powerful than what you've given other players

The amulet is significantly more powerful than what you've provided to others, which alone makes this unbalanced. If any of them had a choice between what they've got and what the amulet does (even without the light/bless), they'd likely take the amulet.

You've also said that:

the Cleric is a new player all other players are quite experienced

Giving an inexperienced player a mechanically difficult and complicated item is not necessarily going to work out.

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