Magic Items: Basics, Identification & Creation

Wearing and Wielding Magic Items

An item must be worn or wielded in the way its form requires: boots belong on the feet, armour must be donned, a shield must be carried correctly and a weapon must be held. Magic clothing and jewellery generally adjust to fit their wearer unless the item says otherwise.

A creature cannot normally benefit from several items that physically compete for the same place. One creature does not ordinarily wear two pairs of boots, two pairs of gloves, two suits of armour or similar overlapping equipment at the same time.

Items made as a pair, such as boots, gloves or bracers, usually function only when the complete pair is worn.

Save DCs and Spell Attacks

Use the DC, attack bonus or spellcasting instructions given by the item. 5E does not use the universal magic-item saving-throw formula found in older editions.

When an item requires the wielder to use their own spellcasting ability, a character with more than one spellcasting ability chooses which one to use. A creature without a spellcasting ability uses a +0 ability modifier and applies its Proficiency Bonus where the item calls for it.

Damage and Resilience

A magic item is at least as durable as a comparable nonmagical object. Most magic items other than potions and scrolls have Resistance to all damage.

Artefacts are different. An artefact can normally be destroyed only by the special method associated with that relic.

Cursed Items

A curse is normally hidden from ordinary identification. Even Identify usually fails to reveal it.

If a cursed item requires attunement, the bearer usually cannot voluntarily end that attunement until the curse has been broken.

Sentient Magic Items

A sentient item is a character as well as an object. It can possess Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma scores, a personality, communication abilities, goals and attitudes towards its bearer.

The GM controls the item’s personality and decisions. A cooperative item may become a trusted companion; one whose aims conflict with its bearer may become a continuing source of tension.

Single-use objects such as potions and scrolls are not sentient.

Creating Magic Items

1. Choose the item. Determine the object being created and its rarity.
2. Meet the skill requirement. The crafter and any assistants must be proficient in Arcana.
3. Use the correct tools. The crafter and assistants must also be proficient with the tool required for that category of item.
4. Prepare required spells. If the item allows its user to cast spells, the crafter must have those spells prepared on every crafting day.
5. Secure the materials. Pay the raw-material cost and acquire any ordinary weapon, armour or other base object incorporated into the item.
6. Spend the crafting time. Work the required number of 8-hour crafting days. Qualified assistants can reduce the total time.

Each crafting day represents 8 hours of work. The days need not be consecutive. Consumable magic items other than spell scrolls normally require half the listed time and material cost.

Characters can combine their work. Divide the required time by the number of qualified crafters working on the item. One assistant is normally practical, although the GM can allow more when the project can reasonably support them.

The GM determines whether suitable raw materials are available. In a city there is normally a 75% chance of finding them; in another settlement the chance is 25%. If they are unavailable, wait at least 7 days before checking again.

If the magic item incorporates an ordinary item with its own purchase cost, such as a weapon or suit of armour, that base object must also be bought or crafted. Its cost is additional to the magical raw-material cost.

Tools for Magic Item Creation

Potions of Healing

A character proficient with a Herbalism Kit can brew a standard Potion of Healing using that kit, 25 gp of raw materials and 1 day of work.

Scribing Spell Scrolls

A scroll scribe must have the spell prepared on each day of inscription and must be proficient in Arcana or with Calligrapher’s Supplies. Any required Material components must be available; components consumed by the spell are consumed when the scroll is completed.

Designing a New 5E Magic Item

1. Start with the effect you want the item to produce.
2. Compare it with existing items that create a similar benefit.
3. Choose a rarity appropriate to the strength and frequency of that benefit.
4. Decide whether the power is constant, activated, charged, limited per rest or consumable.
5. Use attunement where the item needs a meaningful limit on how many characters can benefit from it.
6. Set attacks and saving throws by comparison with existing items of comparable power.
7. Give the object an origin, physical form and limitation that make sense in the campaign.

Rarity and crafting cost provide useful boundaries, but comparison with existing items remains more reliable than any universal pricing formula.

Identifying Magic Items

Magical auras, Spellcraft , Knowledge (Arcana) and identification magic can reveal an item’s properties. Command words can also be discovered through inscriptions, clues and magical analysis.

Using an unidentified item does not necessarily reveal everything it can do. Some properties become apparent only after successful identification or activation.

Activation Methods

Spell Completion. Used by scrolls. Activating the stored spell functions much like completing normal spellcasting and can provoke attacks of opportunity.

Spell Trigger. Used by items such as wands. A character who has the stored spell on the appropriate spell list can generally activate the item even if unable to cast that spell yet.

Command Word. The bearer speaks the required word or phrase. Command-word activation normally uses a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Use Activated. The object works through ordinary use: drinking a potion, swinging a weapon, wearing a ring, looking through a lens or performing whatever action the item requires.

Magic Item Slots

A slotted item must be worn in its proper place to function unless its description says otherwise.

• Armour — suits of armour
• Belt — belts and girdles
• Body — robes and vestments
• Chest — mantles, shirts and vests
• Eyes — lenses, glasses and goggles
• Feet — boots, shoes and slippers
• Hands — gloves and gauntlets
• Head — hats, helms, crowns and masks
• Headband — headbands and phylacteries
• Neck — amulets, brooches and necklaces
• Rings — up to two rings
• Shield — shields
• Shoulders — cloaks and capes
• Wrists — bracelets and bracers

Items listed with no slot are carried, held or otherwise used as their individual descriptions require.

Saving Throws Against Magic Item Powers

Save DC = 10 + spell or effect level + minimum required ability modifier

Staves are an exception. A staff uses the wielder’s relevant ability score and applicable modifiers when setting the saving throw DC for its spells.

Damaging and Repairing Magic Items

A magic item normally makes a saving throw only when it is unattended, specifically targeted by an effect, or when its wielder rolls a natural 1 on their saving throw.

Magic Item Save Bonus = 2 + one-half caster level, rounded down

Intelligent items use their own Wisdom for Will saves where appropriate.

A magic item that takes more than half its hit points in damage without being destroyed gains the broken condition and may cease functioning correctly.

Repairing a magic item requires half the materials and half the time needed to create it. Make whole can repair a damaged or even destroyed magic item when the caster is powerful enough to affect it.

Charges, Doses and Multiple Uses

Most charged items have a maximum of 50 charges. Pathfinder staves normally have 10 charges.

A newly created charged item begins fully charged. A partially expended item found as treasure can instead have fewer charges remaining.

Intelligent Items

Some permanent magic items possess Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma scores of their own. Such objects can have alignments, senses, communication methods, special purposes and competing desires.

Intelligent items should be played as NPCs rather than passive equipment. Their goals can agree with, challenge or directly oppose those of their bearer.

Cursed Items

A failed creation attempt can itself produce a curse. If the final Pathfinder magic-item creation check fails by 5 or more, the result is a cursed item rather than an ordinary failed object.

Creating Magic Items

1. Choose the item and creation feat. The creator must possess the appropriate item creation feat.
2. Determine caster level and prerequisites. Record the item’s caster level, required spells and any other prerequisites.
3. Pay for materials. Magic supplies normally cost half the item’s base price, plus the cost of any separate mundane object.
4. Spend the crafting time. Most items require 8 hours for every 1,000 gp of base price, or fraction thereof.
5. Make the creation check. The final check is normally Spellcraft against DC 5 + the item’s caster level.
6. Resolve missing prerequisites or failure. Each eligible prerequisite deliberately bypassed adds +5 to the DC. Failing the final check by 5 or more produces a cursed item.

Creation DC = 5 + the item’s caster level

The required item creation feat cannot be bypassed. Potions, spell-trigger items and spell-completion items must also satisfy their relevant spell requirements.

A crafter can accelerate normal construction to 4 hours per 1,000 gp of base price by increasing the creation DC by +5.

Only one magic item can normally be completed in a day, and a crafter can work on only one item at a time.

Designing a New Pathfinder Magic Item

Start by comparing the proposed object with an existing magic item that produces a similar benefit. Existing prices are the strongest guide.

Pathfinder includes mathematical pricing guidelines for enhancement bonuses, spell effects, command-word items, charged items, slotless items and continuous effects, but those formulas are starting points rather than automatic final prices.

This matters particularly for continuous or use-activated spell effects, where simple multiplication can produce an item much stronger than comparable equipment at the same apparent price.

Magic Items and Detect Magic

When detect magic reveals the school associated with an item, use the school of the spell stored in a potion, scroll or wand, or the most appropriate spell prerequisite for another item.

Where no spell prerequisite establishes the aura, defensive magic is usually associated with abjuration, offensive weapon effects with evocation and ability or skill enhancement with transmutation.

Identifying Magic Items

Spells and magical analysis can reveal an item’s powers, activation method and other properties. The identify spell provides the dedicated 3.5e method for examining a magic item in detail.

Activation Methods

Spell Completion. Scrolls contain almost-completed spells. The user performs the final parts of the casting. Activating a spell-completion item normally provokes attacks of opportunity as spellcasting does.

Spell Trigger. The user needs the appropriate spell on their class spell list but need not necessarily be capable of casting it yet. Activation is normally a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Command Word. The user speaks the required word or phrase. This normally takes a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Use Activated. The item functions through ordinary use. Drinking a potion, swinging a sword, wearing a ring or looking through a magical lens are typical examples.

Size and Magic Items

Magic clothing and jewellery generally adjust themselves or can be adjusted to suit creatures of different sizes. Armour and weapons remain dependent on the size and form of the creature using them unless their descriptions provide another rule.

Magic Items on the Body

• One headband, hat, helmet or phylactery
• One pair of lenses or goggles
• One amulet, brooch, necklace, periapt or similar neck item
• One vest, vestment or shirt
• One robe or suit of armour
• One belt
• One cloak, cape or mantle
• One pair of bracers or bracelets
• One glove, pair of gloves or pair of gauntlets
• Two rings
• One pair of boots or shoes

Items described as slotless can function while carried or possessed without occupying one of these positions.

Saving Throws Against Magic Item Powers

Save DC = 10 + spell or effect level + minimum required ability modifier

Staffs are an exception. Resolve their spell saving throws using the wielder as directed by the staff rules.

Damaging Magic Items

A magic item normally makes a saving throw only when it is unattended, specifically targeted by an effect, or when its wielder rolls a natural 1 on their saving throw.

Magic Item Save Bonus = 2 + one-half caster level, rounded down

Intelligent magic items use their own Wisdom scores for Will saves.

Unless an entry says otherwise, a magic item takes damage like a nonmagical object of the same type. A damaged item continues to function until it is destroyed.

Repairing Magic Items

A suitable Craft skill can repair a damaged magic item for the same practical cost as repairing its mundane counterpart. Make whole can restore a damaged magic item but does not normally restore an item whose magical structure has been completely destroyed.

Intelligent Items

Only permanent magic items can be intelligent. Single-use and charged magic items, including potions, scrolls and wands, cannot normally possess intelligence.

Intelligent items can have mental ability scores, alignments, communication abilities, purposes and powers. Treat them as personalities with goals rather than as ordinary equipment.

Cursed Items

Cursed items can be deliberately malicious, flawed, unreliable or simply inconvenient. When using the 3.5e random magic-item procedure, a cursed object can replace an otherwise normal result.

Charges, Doses and Multiple Uses

Charged items normally contain no more than 50 charges unless their descriptions state another maximum. Newly created charged items are fully charged.

If an object’s usefulness disappears when its final charge is spent, the value of a partially depleted item can be reduced in proportion to the charges remaining.

Creating Magic Items

1. Choose the item creation feat. Use the feat appropriate to the category of item being created.
2. Meet the prerequisites. The creator must satisfy the caster-level and other requirements given by the feat and the individual item.
3. Determine the base price. Use the item’s listed price or the appropriate creation formula.
4. Pay the creation cost. The standard model uses raw materials worth half the relevant base price and XP equal to one twenty-fifth of that price.
5. Spend the crafting time. Most permanent items require one day for each 1,000 gp of base price.
6. Complete the item. Apply its final caster level, abilities, charges and other properties according to its entry.

Common 3.5e Creation Formulas

Costly material components and XP components add to the normal creation cost. The individual feat and item descriptions give the exact requirements for each object.

Designing a New 3.5e Magic Item

Begin with an existing object whose effect is close to the one you want. Established prices and abilities are the strongest comparison.

Spell-level and caster-level formulas are useful for estimating unfamiliar effects, but a mathematically correct price can still produce an item that is much stronger or weaker than comparable equipment.

The final price should therefore reflect the item’s actual usefulness, how often its power can be used, whether it occupies a body slot and how significant its limitations are in play.