My top 3 favorite custom magic Items

So playing D&D you will eventually come across a custom magic item or two. Whether you make it or the DM makes it, custom magic items add a little more flavor to the game and make your items more personal. One of my favorite DM's throws custom items at you almost every session, sometimes before he even thinks of what they do, so for the description he will just put "does cool shit" and fill it in eventually. Out of all of the custom items I have come across, it's hard to choose my favorites, and they may change or get substituted depending on the day, but for today these are my top 3 favorites:

3. StoneAx Armor

Bobart (bo-bart) StoneAx, youngest of the StoneAx clan, was a Dwarven Tank battle cleric. He would charge into battle with his mighty ax and tower shield, slinging spells and cutting down enemies, and if any were to try to hit him, their blows would bounce, harmlessly, off his ancient full plate, passed down through his clan. Bobart StoneAx is one of my favorite characters. I played him from levels 3-20, and he grew as a character from a revenge-driven blood-thirsty tool for destruction, to a peaceful, family-oriented, stone-worker.

His clan had an ancient set of armor, The StoneAx Armor, that his grandfather gave to him to help in his adventures. This was +5 glamoured armor (he could make it turn into travel clothes at will). It also had a bunch of other little bonuses including hurting anyone who makes a physical attack on him, and it came with a +3 throwing-and-returning towershield.

This item made my character real. It added to his backstory, it helped him with his niche of being an AC tank, and it grew with me, eventually becoming even more badass as I got to higher levels.

2. The Hover Plate

This one was an item used by the one and only William The Bard. This item was very simple: just a hovering plate, 2 ft. by 4 ft.. Literally, like a dinner plate. That you'd eat off of. It could hold up to 300lbs, and it could be turned on and off, but the reason it was one of my favorite items is what I did with it.

It couldn't move by itself but could be pushed or pulled easily, (no friction) so I decided to mount a collapsible pole and a sail that could handle up to 35 mph wind against it (think of a wind board sail), and got a wand of Control Wind (made by a 12th level druid) that had 5 uses every day.

I would center the Control Wind effect on me, choose a direction, and speed and surf across the land, and since the sail was collapsible it could easily fold up when I got to a town. It was such a fun item to have, and made it so I didn't have to do any of that annoying walking the rest of my party had to do.

1. The Rod of Ropes

During a short campaign that may or may not start again (I hope it does) I played a rouge/assassin (my DM changed prerequisites to be an assassin--I was not evil!), who was very quiet and didn't say much (except to our half-crazed fighter because no one would believe him when he said I talked all the time). He was very greedy when it came to stealing from people who had a lot, and generous to those who had nothing.

Anyways, our DM had us stuck in some ancient ruins and had a puzzle to get us out using two objects, which were meant to have to be left behind. Long story short, we ended up brute-forcing our way out of this puzzle, and kept the items, one of which was a rod with three buttons on it.

The first button shot a 30-foot rope out of one side (still attached to the rod), it also retracted it (by sucking it back in--think a measuring tape). The second button did the same thing for the other side, and the last button ether pulled in or retracted both sides at the same time. Because of the way it pulled back in, I had the bright idea to attempt to tie the rope to something then retract it. The rod pulled the rope all the way to the knot that I had tied, then stopped.

So after I found out what it did and how it worked, I tied grappling hooks to both sides and turned it into a grappling gun. I would shoot the rope out, attach the grappler to something, retract the rope while holding on, and it would pull me to whatever I was hooked to. Suddenly, my character was Batman. I used this rod everywhere, I would even use it in battle, where I would hook one side to the ground or something sturdy and throw the other side, hooking someone with it, then retract it to drag them to me.

It is still my all-time favorite item. Unfortunately, one time while swinging through some trees like Spider Man, I failed a strength check and the rod got sling-shotted into the jungle, never to be seen again. I was destroyed. Utterly emotionally destroyed.


Well those are my top 3 custom items, but there are literally endless more, and I'll tell more about them in some of my game stories. I would love to hear about your favorite magic items or ones that you've thought about making. Leave me a comment or message me on my reddit!

-Thanks for reading