[Top 15] D&D Best Common Magic Items

D&D Best Common Magic Items
Updated:
18 Jun 2020

15. Lock of Trickery (Best for Concealing Precious Cargo)

Image
Body Image
The Trickiest Lock In the Game

If you have a chest full of goods with you and trust issues, this lock is the perfect supplement to your paranoia. Anyone who attempts to pick it has disadvantage, giving you some security on those long rests with your less-than-neutral party members. This is an ordinary-looking lock, that has tumblers that magically work against thieves.

What Lock of Trickery Excels In 

  • Protecting items
  • Frustrating thieves

14. Potion of Climbing (Best for Evasion and Surprise)

Image
Body Image
A Potion of Climbing is perect for distancing yourself from enemies.

Forest marches and mountaineering are often employed by Dungeon Masters to test the mettle of those in their campaign. This layered elixir will grant you a climbing speed that matches your walking speed, advantage on Athletics checks when climbing, and lasts for one hour. 

What Potion of Climbing Excels In

  • Long-lasting climbing ability
  • Variety of uses (hunting, spying, combat, stealth, escape)
  • Works as soon as you ingest it

13. Orb of Direction (Best for Orienteering)

Image
Body Image

The Orb of direction is a must have for the directionally challenged.

You never told anyone of your plans to travel into the depths of Neverwinter, and so no one ever reminded you to bring a compass. Luckily, one of your mates swiped an Orb from a drunken sailor that always knows which way is North. With this handy tool, exploration will never be futile. 

What Orb of Direction Excels In

  • Knowing the Way
  • Compact
  • Incorruptible

12. Pole of Angling  (Best for Survival)

Image
Body Image
The Pole of Angling is there in your hangriest moments.

It has been days since you and your party have seen water, your food supplies are running low, and tensions are heightened as the sun ducks away behind the hills. Suddenly, the sound of rushing water fills the air and you break out into a run. When you reach the sound, you see a small river with a small waterfall teeming with fish, their orange tails glinting in the last of the sunset’s light. You mutter something to the ten-foot staff in your hand and watch with pride as it transforms into a fishing pole, perfect for catching tonight's dinner. 

What Pole of Angling Excels In

  • Being a staff
  • Being a fishing pole on-demand
  • Can be used as an arcane focus 

11. The Ruby of the War Mage (Best for Spellcasting)

Image
Body Image
Converting weapons into Arcane Focus is the D&D version of "Hands-Free" devices.

A Sorcerer sits perched atop as cliffside, attuning to their new weapon, a blade they adorned with a gleaming ruby, red as blood. After a time, they drop their old and shattered staff to the ground, sheathing their new Arcane focus. The Ruby of the War Mage gives magic users the ability to hold their weapon and arcane focus in the same hand, freeing up another hand for an offhand attack, somatic spell components, or holding a shield. After the attacks the Sorcerer faced tonight, they decided a staff was too weak a weapon for what they might have to do next. 

What Ruby of the War Mage Excels In

  • Converting weapons to Arcane Focuses
  • Condensing the hand-held obligation of magic users
  • Interchangeable

10. Talking Doll (Best for Entertaining or Distraction)

Image
Body Image
Pranking people with puppets is pertitnent. 

A small, plush doll sits propped against the bar, staring into the crowd of drunken gamblers. Each time one slams their beer and screams “Skol!” the doll giggles and screams back “For the Hoard!” The bartender smiles as the men all turn in unison to start at the inanimate object before them on the bar. Before they can scream and run away in horror, the bartender says to the doll, “who is your favorite for tonight’s fight in the pit?” and the doll responds “The Orcs, of course!” And everyone erupts with laughter because it is never the Orcs. 

What Talking Doll Excels in

  • Programmable with up to six phrases with six words each
  • Phrases can be set up to trigger on certain conditions
  • Phrases are interchangeable
  • Confuse, Frighten, Prank, and Entertain
  • Basically a Furby

9. Tankard of Sobriety (Best for Staying Out of Trouble)

Image
Body Image

Never lose another drinking game again. 

This one is for anyone who has ever ordered an alcoholic beverage and then pulled the bartender aside to ask them to hold the alcohol. Win any drinking competition you enter, as long as they let you use your own tankard. This piece of dinnerware protects you from all the ill effects of alcohol that you drink from it. 

What Tankard of Sobriety Excels in

  • Makes you look like you're drinking
  • Keeps you sober

8. Wand of Smiles (Best for Spreading Joy)

Image
Body Image
Jester the Tiefling uses the Wand of Smile on Nott the Brave.

You have been in a dungeon for days. The smell of rotting flesh and rancid water have long since filled your nose and overwhelmed your senses. It’s been days since you’ve eaten a hot meal or slept in dry clothes, and frankly, you’re exhausted. When you reach the end of the tunnel with your crew, you see a heinous creature suspended above you, fangs dripping with poisonous saliva. It screeches over you and you raise your wand menacingly. A grin that spans the entire width of the creature’s face appears, and in its confusion, the creature loses its grip on the walls as it touches at its face, trying to understand why it is contorting in such a way. This gives you and your crew enough time to dispose of the creature and make your long-awaited escape from the depths of the dungeon. 

What Wand of Smiles Excels In

  • Forcing smiles on unwilling creatures
  • Comedic relief
  • Rechargeable

7. Unbreakable Arrow (Best for Ammunition)

Image
Body Image
If you have trouble keeping things in tact, you'll need these arrows. 

In a life-saving effort, your party has decided to jump over the side of a waterfall to avoid capture and certain death from the enemies pursuing you. When you arrive at the base of the falls most of the gear and weapons are shattered and strewn among the rocks. All but your quiver, full of pristine arrows, ready to be shot at any enemy that dare follow. Every archer should have an unbreakable arrow in their arsenal. This ammunition cannot be broken unless stripped of its magic within an antimagic field. 

What Unbreakable Arrow Excels In

  • Dependable ammunition
  • You can add your proficiency bonus to attack rolls if you are proficient in longbow

6. Smoldering Armor (Best for Armor Class)

Image
Body Image
You've never looked cooler than you have while wearing smoldering armor. 

Let’s face it. You don’t play Dungeons and Dragons because you hate drama. All you need to know about this armor is that it protects you just as well as normal armor, but it has wisps of smoke rising off of it that make it look like you just walked off the battlefield in the ninth level of Dante’s inferno. If you are not here for that kind of badassery, then drive faster. 

What Smoldering Armor Excels In

  • Making you look like you have something important to say
  • Constant special effects
  • Protects you just like the boring stuff does

5. Veteran’s Cane (Best for Infiltration)

Image
Body Image
They can take your sword at the door, so make sure you bring a back up. 

Usually, your party finds themselves in a search and seizure operation, requiring little to no stealth or deception. Finally, those braun brawlers need your help to infiltrate a church run by cultists who intend to release hell upon the Earth. The only way to get close to the leader of the church, who has charmed all his constituents, you must disguise yourselves as an elder in the council, and thus appear weaponless. Once you deceive your way to your seat, your target appears, dressed in white robes, and rushes to your side to greet you. “Colin, so long it has been since last we embraced. Old friend, I have something magnificent to show you. Today is the day we raise the Titans, to remake the world.” You look directly into the man’s eyes and utter the phrase “poppycock.” From your hand once holding a mangled cane, appears a longsword that you expertly pierce the cult leader’s heart with. In the next moment, you cast dimension door and disappear from the room before anyone notices what has happened. 

What Veteran’s Cane Excels In

  • Being a longsword
  • Looking like a cane until you need it to be a sword

4. Shield of Expression (Best for Protection)

Image
Body Image
Use this shield to confuse your enemies and let everyone know how you're feeling. 

If the smoldering armor description touched your soul, pair it with this shield that lets others know how you’re feeling. Is there anything better than having your shield laugh at your opponents as they miss you on melee attacks? 

What Shield of Expression Excels In

  • Gives you a +2 to AC
  • Takes on a facial expression of your choice 
  • You can change the expression on a bonus action

3. Moon-Touched Sword (Best for Utility)

Image
Body Image
A beautiful and functional weapon and lightsource.

This is the third week in a row that your campaign has been drenched in darkness due to some atmospheric catastrophe. You’ve grown weary of the darkness and in your search for things to brighten your surroundings, you find an ordinary sword that when unsheathed emits a light that extends 30 feet in all directions from you, growing dimmer as it spreads. 

What Moon-Touched Sword Excels In

  • Lighting up the darkness
  • Does not require actions to control light
  • Can be used as a weapon and a torch simultaneously
  • Does not require the same spark, fuel, and air that fire does

2. Magical Tattoos (Best for Authenticity)

Image
Body Image
A mage siphoning magic from their Cobra tattoo. 

A mysterious figure emerges from the shadows of the alley, draped in tattered rags, dragging a sack behind them. You cast dancing lights over them and four beams erupt and circle above the creature, exposing its arms, covered in thick black markings. Suddenly, one of the markings appears to glow and emit an arch of lightning that comes soaring down the alleyway towards you. The tattoos are like spell scrolls! You think to yourself as you run in the opposite direction. 

What Magical Tattoos Excel In

  • Hold spells that you can cast without spell slots
  • Rechargeable
  • Development potential that grows along with your character
  • Many different types of tattoos for all types of players

1. Potion of Healing (Best for Healing)

Image
Body Image
Sip on this when you are feeling like death. 

Smoke rises all around you, so you know it isn’t just your incredible smoldering armor. Your friends are strewn around you in various states of disrepair, groaning, and desperately dragging themselves to safety. In your pocket two vials rest, clinking gently against each other as you get as close as you can to the fray without exposing yourself. You press the vial into the talon of your Hawk and whisper for them to deliver it twenty-five feet away, into the hand of your Tiefling Paladin team leader who lies bloody and almost unconscious on the battlefield. You drink the second vial for yourself as your familiar flies off. Suddenly, your body perks up, your eyelids open all the way, and the sharp pain in your head reduces to a dull throbbing as you live to fight another round. 

What Potions of Healing Excel In

  • Keeping you and your team alive on the battlefield
  • Instant hit point replenishment
  • Brings an unconscious character back to life if administered before they fail 3 death saving throws

 

image
Gamer Since:
1995
Favorite Genre:
RPG
Currently Playing:
Dungeons and Dragons, Dominion, Clash of Clans, Plague Inc.
Top 3 Favorite Games:
Fallout 4, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Deadpool