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I plan to introduce demon-bound magic items. In principle, I want them to be also accessible for player wizards to create, so I need to determine their rarity for crafting cost purposes.

For context, in game in addition to the crafting cost and time for preparing the item as an receptable, the caster would need to bind the demon into the item with Planar Binding, with the item replacing the 1,000 gp material component, and instead of being consumed, becoming enchanted. The duration could alternatively be set by the terms of a contract with the demon instead of the spell level of Planar Binding. To avoid bookkeeping, such a duration would either be defined as a specific event that is likely enough to happen so the enchantment is not perpetual, or a a daily or event driven probability, as in the example below.

Helm of the Screaming Demon

Wondrous item (rarity?), requires attunement

This brass helmet looks like the head of a demonic vulture. While wearing it and being attuned to it you have resistance to fire, cold, and lightning damage and can use Stunning Screech as an Action once per day.
Stunning Screech. The helmet emits a horrific screech. Each creature within 20 feet of it that can hear it and that isn't a demon must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn.
Sentience. The Helm of the Screaming Demon is a sentient chaotic evil item with an Intelligence of 8, a Wisdom of 13, and a Charisma of 8. It has hearing and darkvision out to a range of 120 feet. The item can speak Abyssal, and can communicate with its wielder telepathically. Its voice is high and rasping.
Personality. The item is dull-witted, capricious and exists only to create pain and carnage. Its purpose is to make its wielder kill as many creatures as possible, and it tries to influence the wielder to do so. If the wielder has not killed a sentient being in three days or more, a conflict between it and its wielder occurs at the next sunset.
Bound Demon. Every time the wielder kills a sentient creature, there is a 1 in 20 chance that the terms of the contract with the demon have been fulfilled and the demon bound within is freed and returns to the Abyss. If some effect prevents the return, the Vrock demon appears in an unoccupied space next to the wielder, and tries to kill everyone nearby. The item loses all its magical properties (although it can again serve to bind another such demon).

My own thoughts so far: a ring of resistance which also provides protection would already be a rare item, and the DMG advises that combining the effect of several items at one rarity could bump it up to the next. But that ring is likely only rare because it could provide resistance to rare damage types. The merely uncommon ring of warmth for example provides resistance to fire and other benefits. The stunning effect is powerful but short, and by itself probably also should likely only be rare, a robe of scintillating colors is very rare, but the stun effect can be used three times as often. Taking all this together, my hunch would be to make this very rare.

I do not think that the limited amount of uses before the item loses its power is a big factor, because if the players can already craft this, the cost of re-binding another demon is rather small. If they could not, they might have to find the services of a powerful wizard for it, or quest to obtain a copy of summon greater demon, magic circle and planar binding, but here I am mostly concerned with rarity for determining the cost to craft, so they already would have those.

Why I find this hard to grade, is how to factor in the downside of this being possessed by a chaotic evil demon that will constantly try to influence and corrupt you (assuming the general attitude of the PC group is good-leaning). The other sentient item examples are all much stronger in ego and effects, and legendary.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Is the caster meant to be immune to the screech, or can they stun themselves? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 24, 2025 at 17:53
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    \$\begingroup\$ It is not meant to stun the wearer, I overlooked that when I wrote it. I would need to remove that. It is meant to also affect allies however \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 26, 2025 at 21:07

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Very rare is about right

Stun is a powerful condition to inflict, when it lands1.

Very Rare is the lowest I would suggest, particularly with the multiple resistances feature. Note that rings of resistance to a single element are rare items. (Ring of fire resistance, etc).

While comparing it to other sentient items like Blackrazor, Whelm and Wave is useful as a point of departure, those three stand out as well outside the norm for magic weapons.

1 Stun save DC of 14 (CON) is going to be more effective on low CR minions than on High CR opponents as you get into the upper tiers of the game, with a few exceptions like humanoid spell caster NPCs. This footnote is intended to capture the point in the comments by SeriousBri and by Nobody The Hobgoblin.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I am not sure I agree with the conclusion, but to clarify my downvote, it is because stun on a DC14 CON save (that costs an action!) isn't going to stun anything worth stunning, so suggesting it is a powerful (or even meaningful) part of this item is misleading (read: wrong) to me. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 25, 2025 at 14:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SeriousBri How much DMing have you done in 5e? Also, with features like the cantrip Mind Sliver used by an ally, which flat reduces a saving throw, that 14 Con save becomes less likely to make. Against a large group of minions, the Stun in an area is a big deal in breaking up that swarm's attacks. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 25, 2025 at 16:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ I have done quite a lot (albeit not for a while), and my last high level character used Mind Sliver so lowering saves is a thing, but a decent caster starts with a DC14 and spells that need saves aren't even slightly reliable until your DC reaches 16. Stun is powerful, but a low DC on a usually high save is way too unreliable. Were it an INT save, or maybe a WIS save I would hold a different opinion, but CON saves are just a no-no (it's why in optimisation circles monks aren't highly thought of). \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 25, 2025 at 17:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ The monks in my games stun a lot of different critters, but they usually know its a low probability attempt with high CR enemies. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 25, 2025 at 17:24
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think you are spot on about the power of stunning, monsters up to CR4 (ignoring the weakest Fraction-CR ones) have an average of +4 to their Con Save. You can take out essentialy half the opponents, especially when dealing with mobs of weaker creatures. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 26, 2025 at 21:11
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Frame challenge: Don't use rarity, and adjust the item slightly

Since I have put a few downvotes into this question I think it only fair I take a crack at an answer, and as you can see I think you are barking up the wrong tree looking at rarity - even if you are using it for crafting costs.

The main reasons are:

  1. Rarity as a mechanic has a million faults and is entirely divorced from power
  2. With no wealth by level table or downtime by level table even gold cost is entirely campaign dependant.

So what would I suggest?

Honestly I would just pick a crafting cost out of thin air based on how much money you expect the party to have at the point when you think crafting this item would improve the game.

If you want to stick a rarity on it, then do what the devs pretend to do, which is just think about how rare the item actually is in your campaign.

  1. If you want this to be developed by your players then it is probably legendary (ie: unique)
  2. If you want others to exist in the world then probably very rare - but as I say this is just to make sure there is something in the rarity column rather than to actually serve a purpose.

Why did I say to adjust the item slightly?

Caveat to this, which is that I am assuming the given resistances are useful in your campain. I can see this being pretty powerful in some campaigns, but honestly I wouldn't waste an attunement slot on it in most of my campaigns because of how rare the resistances are and the fact that it lacks anything else 'useful'.

So that brings me to my suggestion to make it 'useful'.

An AoE stun could be a powerful effect, but given that this item is pretty powerful it is likely to be acquired at a higher level, or certainly kept at a higher level the DC being at a mere 14 makes it pointless. I probably have better things to do than jump into the middle of a group and use my action to possibly stun some of the minions, and I have far better things to do with my action than almost certainly fail to stun a 'boss'.

I think the DC needs to scale with the caster's spellcasting DC, or defaulting to WIS/INT if attuned by a non-caster. This keeps it actually useful at all levels.

I would also clarify if the stun has friendly fire, and is meant to stun the caster. You can probably tell that one of these options means nobody will use it, and the other option means it will become useful.

That said

An item that provides resistance is the kind of item that a party keeps and attunes to on days where they know they are likely to need that resistance, and stops attuning to on most of the other days.

I think the stun, while potentially powerful if you update it, isn't enough on its own to be worth an attunement slot. I would revamp this almost entirely in mechanics – although I love the theme and idea of trapping a demon into an item.

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    \$\begingroup\$ You get 500 points. I’ve come to the conclusion that “what rarity is this” is 110% of the time an XY-Problem, and just answering with a rarity and explanation for that rarity is 110% of the time not helping OP. This provides an actual solution to the underlying problem, and explains why rarity isn’t the solution. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 25, 2025 at 14:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah, your idea on the save DC fitting the PC attuned to it has merit. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 25, 2025 at 17:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ I like the answer, overall (i.e. the part of just picking a gp value and skipping the whole rarity thing). I do think that you underestimate how strong stunning is. Sure, many high end bosses have extreme Con and will very likely make that save, but real bosses anyways have legendary resistance. And even at high levels you face lots of weaker mobs, where this can be quite powerful. The average ConSv for all monsters of CR 1-14 (essentially an entire campaign) from the MM is +4, that is you stun nearly have of your foes on average. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 26, 2025 at 21:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ Plus, the idea is that the bound Vrock is doing this power, not you, so it uses its DC, not yours, for flavor reasons. Do you have any opinion how deleterious the oppsosed-aligned will of an ego item here is? That is the main part that is unclear to me. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 26, 2025 at 21:06
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NobodytheHobgoblin The concern isnt about the mechanics of your item, but the mechanics of Rarity. It simply isn’t a good system to use, so use what you need and don’t force the square the peg into the round hole. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 27, 2025 at 0:27
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Legendary - With Some Changes

As some other people in the comments seem to be saying, this item, lore wise, seems to be one that would benefit from the Legendary rarity.

The kind of thing you seem to want in your description - a powerful helmet that can only be made with significant investment from players, and at a minimum of tenth level, would seem to benefit from being a higher rarity item.

But as many people have pointed in answers already made, the power level is not of an appropriate level to warrant this rarity, despite being unique enough to.

In order to fix this, I'd suggest the below changes:

  • Increase the range of the Stunning Screech, to at least 30ft., as this would put it at the average player movement speed, as well as within range of many "mid-range" weapons (spears for instance) and thus is likely to get a reasonable amount of enemies beyond those engaged with the player using it in a melee duel.
  • Increase the DC for the Constitution saving throw. As some people have mentioned above, you are unlikely to get any sort of creatures that are likely to be engaged in melee with that low a DC at the sort of levels that would be required to craft the helm.
  • Make crafting the helm either require travelling to the Abyss personally, in order to bind a Demon, or require multiple consecutive castings of planar binding. This would just make this item, as it is now more powerful, slightly less accessible, and therefore more justifiable for it's legendary status.
  • Finally, in order to make this item worthwhile, as a legendary item that takes a long time to craft, I would reduce the chance of it blowing up in the player's face and summoning a Vrock from 1 in 20 t0 3%, rolled using a percentile die.

Overall, your design is inspired, but there's a disjunct between the lore significance it seems you want the item to have, and the power level, and therefore the rarity.

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I'd suggest Legendary

This item is very powerful. It gives you resistance to three of the most common non-physical damage types - bear in mind that a ring of resistance to any of these would already be rare so this feature alone is roughly worth 3 rare magic items.

Then you have a very strong daily ability on top. Stun is a really bad debuff and with 20 radius, this is likely to reach most, if not all enemies in combat, this is the type of ability that can turn a losing battle into a cakewalk. A complication is that it doesn't make an exception for friendlies but it's the kind of limitation that can be worked around with careful planning.

The third reason is related more to the lore than strictly power level but sentient objects tend to be of Legendary rarity, they're supposed to be unique and not just something you can buy at random magic shop.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I am not sure I agree with the conclusion (although I lean towards doing so), but to clarify my downvote, it is because stun on a DC14 CON save (that costs an action!) isn't going to stun anything worth stunning, so suggesting it is a powerful (or even meaningful) part of this item is misleading (read: wrong) to me. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 25, 2025 at 14:03

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