What no one tells you about magic items in D&D

Written by Luke Hart

Today may be your last game session, they tell us. You may not even play again. So, give your players cool magic items; reward them well; don’t hold back.

They never told you what to do if you DO play again. They never told you what to do once you had low-level characters running around with rare, very rare, and legendary magic items. They never mentioned the effect that would have on the encounters in that module you bought.

But that was your FIRST D&D campaign. Sure it only lasted a few months due to scheduling issues—perhaps the number one cause of mortality for all games—but you’ve learned a thing or two since then.

For instance, you’ve heard that D&D 5e is balanced so that characters don’t even need magic items to succeed in the game. In fact, you think you may have read it in Xanthar’s Guide to Everything even. Why it wasn’t in the Dungeon Master Guide is beyond you, but whatever.

So, your next campaign: NO MAGIC ITEMS! Or at least, very few of them. However, they never told you that players EXPECT magic items, that finding them is one of the most rewarding parts of the game, and that if you don’t give them out you’re likely to have dissatisfied players.

But that was just your SECOND D&D campaign. Since then you’ve actually read a bit more of the Dungeon Master Guide, and you discovered that the very beginning of Chapter 7: Treasure even tells how many magic items to give out. How you missed that the first time, who knows. So, now you’re rolling on tables, generating random amounts of magic items and treasure, and giving out random magic items because, well, that’s what the tables tell you to do.

What they never mentioned was what to do when your party of all melee characters gets magic items for spell casters and then wants to go sell them.

But that was just your THIRD D&D campaign. You’re a veteran now. Three groups and two months later—yeah, campaigns do tend to fall apart often, but that’s just life, right?—you think you’ve finally discovered the answers to your magic item plight. Until one of your players asks if your world is a low, medium, or high magic world. That’s about when you lost it entirely.

Hi, I’m Luke Hart, and on this site, I share my nearly 30 years of game master experience so that you can run amazing games that your players will love. And today we’re talking about magic items. Specifically we’ll go over some high-level advice for magic item distribution, define the magic level of your world, determine exactly how many magic items you should reward to your players, and discuss how you should distribute them.

Watch or listen to this article by clicking the video below.

High Level Advice

First, let’s start off with the most obvious. D&D 5e claims to be balanced so that characters don’t need magic items to succeed in the game, and that statement is half right. Character don’t need magic items to succeed; player character are plenty powerful on their own, and with every supplement that WOTC releases, they only get more powerful, what with power creep intentionally added to bolster book sales. However, if you’ve played the game for more than a hot second, you know that it isn’t balanced. The challenge rating system doesn’t really work too well, and the rarity system they use for magic items is often just flat out wrong, meaning that what they list as an uncommon item can be way more powerful than a rare item. But I don’t want to dwell on that; we’ve all heard enough rants about that topic.

My real point is that SINCE the game isn’t really balanced to begin with, I wouldn’t worry too much about achieving PERFECT magic item balance with your games. You’re just going to have to let that wonderful idea die a slow death. And, honestly, that can be liberating because you won’t be beating your head against a wall quite as much. I used to be fairly uptight about following the recommended amounts of magic items and treasure in general, such as gold pieces, but when I run D&D 5e, I worry about it much less. Sure, when I run Pathfinder 2e, a much more tightly balanced game, I need to follow these rules much more closely. But when you’re dealing with D&D 5e, meh, whatever.

My second pro tip: it’s better to give FEWER and LESS POWERFUL magic items to your players than the reverse. Remember, if you do see that their characters are falling behind the power curve, as unlikely as that is in D&D 5e, or that the players themselves are grumbling that they don’t get enough magic items, you can always give them more. However, once you give them magic items, it’s hard to get that genie back in the bag if you later discover that you went overboard.

Next, give your players a mix of magic items HAND PICKED for their characters, things you know they could put to good use, and random magic items. The idea is to balance between fun and verisimilitude. Shoot, I’ve sometimes just ASKED players to give me a magic item wish list. Then I hand pick things from their own lists for them. This has reduced my own work and GUARANTEES that players get stuff they want.

Finally, be tread carefully with magic item shops where players can just buy and sell magic items freely. The principal problem is that when players are allowed to do this, they can REALLY customize and min-max their builds. It gives you things like a paladin sorcerer with both heavy armor, the shield spell, and the cloak of displacement. They are essentially unhittable. This is why I prefer wish lists because I can still review and approve a magic item before allowing it into the game. If you do have magic item shops, I strongly recommend putting a limit on what can be obtained there. For instance, you may say that common and uncommon magic items can be purchased, but everything else is too highly valued to be for sale on the open market.

The second problem you may run into, depending on your group, is if the character decide they want to start robbing magic item shops. Sure, you can have there be consequences and defenses and all that, but if that’s not the game YOU want to run as the GM, and you suspect your players may go there, I would recommend two things. First, you could have a blunt conversation with your players and simply tell them that they aren’t allowed to rob magic item shops; that you’re just not going to deal with that stuff. Second, just don’t have magic item shops.

Defining Your World’s Magic Level

This is an incredibly important consideration for your game. Are you running a low-magic, medium-magic, or high-magic game and/or world?

Now, many people may believe that D&D 5e is a medium-magic system, but that’s not true at all. 5e is, by definition, high magic. Magic is readily available and accepted. Wizards are respected and not hunted down or outlawed. Magic items are readily available for player characters, and things like healing potions are affordable and not mysterious. Now, D&D 5e may not be as high-magic as 3.5 was, nor as high-magic as other systems such as Runequest—but it is definitely a high-magic system.

Medium-magic aligns more with properties like Patrick Rothfuss’ “Kingkiller Chronicle” or Andrezej Sapkowski’s “the Witcher.” In a medium-magic world, magic is likely to only exist in the hands of the characters and their villains, and it’s still relatively rare. Characters might get one big “signature” magic item and have access to potions, but they shouldn’t expect to find a magic shop or be able to buy healing potions at every temple. While they are still arguably high-magic, the original D&D and AD&D systems were intended to be medium-magic worlds, though that quickly changed as more game worlds emerged and the Forgotten Realms was born.

Low-magic worlds are represented by works like Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire,” and the original Dragonlance Trilogy. In a low-magic world, magic items are extremely rare, and a first level wizard is already considered powerful. Common people may have never even seen magic, may not even believe in it, and wizards and sorcerers are unlikely to be trusted by the masses.

Now that you know the magic level of your game, you’re ready for the next step:

Determining How Many Magic Items to Reward

Now, the unfortunate truth here is that the dungeon master guide doesn't exactly tell us how many magic items we should reward to our players. Random tables that generate random amounts of magic items can only get you so far. Of course, if you're playing it rather lose they might work just fine. I used a combination of those random tables in the Dungeon Master Guide and hand selecting magic items for nearly a decade, and I did okay-ish.

However, at some point you might be curious as to exactly how many magic items you should give and what level of rarity they should be. And if that's what you're looking for then Xanthar’s Guide to Everything is the book you'll want. Or, at least, you'll want page 135 because that's where you can find two tables that tell you exactly how many magic items at which rarity levels to give your players at which tiers of play.

Now it does differentiate between “minor” and “major” magic items and then refers you to tables in the Dungeon Master’s Guide that list them out, and this is an added layer of complexity that is rather frustrating, to be honest. However, if you’re willing to weed through that minor nightmare and cross reference tables, this system could be what you’re looking for if you want to get REALLY PRECISE about how many and how powerful of magic items to give your players over the course of THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN. Like, if planning things out at that level of detail is your thing, then giddy-up because you’re in for a ride.

Okay, great, using Xanathar’s we can now get really precise, but HOW do we adjust that based on the level of magic in our game? I would consider Xanathar’s base numbers to represent a high-magic world, since D&D 5e is high magic, so if that’s what you’re running, you’re done. Just use those tables.

For a medium-magic world, I would probably HALF the number of Major items that the party receives from the tables in Xanathar’s. Furthermore, most magic items should be utility items rather than weapons, and the magical weapons that do exist should be rather basic. A standard +1 longsword in a medium-magic world is a great find that even mid to high-level characters would be proud to wield. Also, magic items gained early in the game might only function at certain times of day or under certain conditions—such as when underground—to make them more wondrous and emulate the feel of medium-magic. Magic shops certainly shouldn’t exist here, though characters might be able to buy and sell magic items through downtime—rules for which do exist in Xanathar’s, by the way. However, prices should be at least doubled for magic items that are available to purchase, again representing the rarity of magic in a medium-magic world.

Now, for a low-magic world, I would consider removing Major magic items altogether except for maybe one Major item for each character. And then you HALF the number of Minor magic items you give out. Most magic items should be utility items, and magic weapons should be super rare. I wouldn’t have the Major items appear until completing the first tier of the campaign, perhaps around level 5 or so, though you could possibly delay that even further if you know your campaign will be a long-running one. Remember, in the Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s signature “powerful” item was a magical +1 dagger, Sting, that glowed when orcs were nearby. If you look at the One Ring, which as considered an ARTIFACT, all it did was turn you invisible and grant you long life, and even then it came with a terrible curse.

Okay, we know HOW MANY magic items to give our players, which leads us to the next step:

Determining How to Doll Magic Items Out

First, don’t dump all the treasure in one big treasure chest at the end of the adventure. Having the NPC quest giver hand out all the treasure is the same thing; so don’t do that either. Instead, distribute the magic items and treasure out over the entire adventure or dungeon. Each encounter and each room should have a portion of the treasure to be found. Now, yes, the villain of the adventure might have MORE than the mooks, but you get the idea.

Second, if the bad guys have magic items and KNOW they are magical, they should be USING THEM. This makes sense, obviously, but it also makes the adventure more challenging, something that almost every D&D 5e adventure needs anyway. Finally, it demonstrates the magic item to the players, showing it in use, and makes them WANT IT MORE. If there is a magic item that the monsters are NOT using, it should make sense why. For instance, a dragon can’t really use a +1 longsword, but it will certainly keep it in its horde.

One caveat on monsters using magic items: if we’re talking EXPENDIBLE magic items, it’s better not to have your monsters drink the last potion. You can certainly have them drink potions in combat—because players will think that they are LOSING LOOT and hate the monster for that—but always still have at least one more potion still intact on the monster’s corpse that the players can loot. This turns the sting of lose into the glee of finding that there was indeed more.

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