Let's admit it: it's about time we got a decent magic item compendium going. Probably the biggest hurdle handbook writers face is dealing with the gigantic mass of items D&D has spawned and discerning the treasure from the trash. This compendium aims to rectify this. Before we begin, allow me to set some ground rules:
-I'm not doing this alone. I will set up the handbook, provide the layout, add the occasional item and update it regularly, but I have no intention of doing all the work by myself. This will be a community effort, and will either pull through on the strength of CharOp's work ethic or fail because nobody cares enough to lend a hand.
-With that caveat in place, it should be obvious that I'm looking for feedback. Lots and lots of feedback. Your feedback. If you think an item merits inclusion, feel free to present it! But as a note, please try not to just give me a name and maybe a book to search through. This really doesn't help the community any, because it means somebody else has to go through the book after you did it, track the item down, and then spend precious time working on a writeup. If you can just mention an item, provide a brief description of it and explain why it's good, that'll be greatly appreciated.
-On that note, if you're putting items forward, try to do so clearly. A fifty item list, all bunched up together with no line breaks, will be summarily ignored unless I have no other choice because my eyes will bleed and roll out of my sockets in the process of going through it. If you can put items in spoiler blocks, that's good. If they can also be neatly arranged at the same time, that's even better. Thank you for paying attention to these guidelines!
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Ratings: Read this before commenting!
Because there's so many items and so many are applicable in a wide, wide variety of situations, the usual Red-Gold scale is so meaningless as to be worthless here. It is, however, a very convenient shorthand, so I am stealing it and repurposing it, as seen below:
Gold: The same as it's always been: a dominant choice, or even the dominant choice for an item slot. Don't expect to see this a lot, and if you do
see it, expect it to show up only for specific builds for which it is
unmatched. If it's mentioned as being applicable to a very wide range of
characters, it's almost certainly broken or a math patch.
Sky Blue: The
item is versatile and has little opportunity cost - many characters can
use it without devoting significant build space to making it fit.
Blue: An
item that is just as powerful as the option immediately above, but has
more opportunity cost or a barrier of accessibility compared to similar
items.
Black: An item that is potentially not top of the line, but widely accessible, or top of the line but only for certain builds.
Purple: A very niche item. Only a handful of builds can use it properly, but it's still a powerful option for them.
Red: Trash. Don't expect to see many of these except to clear up noob traps.
Beyond Ratings: The Item Glossary
It ain't always easy, providing useful feedback for a project of this kind. I understand this, and for this reason I have constructed a submission template. If you think an item deserves to be listed here, use this template! You have been warned. (In truth, I'll look at submissions that don't use the template, but please, PLEASE take advantage of it - it makes my life much easier.)
[ItemName] [Slot (Source)]: [Description]. [Keywords].
So, what does this mean? Let's use an example to clear things up.
Frost Weapon (Weapon, PHB1): The gold standard all weapon enchants are compared to. A cheap, easy way to obtain up to fourteen points of damage and constant CA, and all it asks of you is a pair of feats you'd be taking anyway if you were planning on using this element. It even converts pre-typed powers too, so even implement users can join in on the fun. Elemental (Cold), Striker, Augmentable, Multi-Role.
See how nice it looks? This is why I want everybody to use this template. Now, you might have noticed the part that read [Keywords]. What that bit is there for is as a way to help people browse through this compendium with ease. Say I want to find items that suit Avengers. I can Control+F Avenger-marked items, then Striker marked items, and go from there, probably finding what I want very easily. The keywords this compendium uses are:
[Class]: This keyword indicates that a specific class benefits a lot from this item. This keyword always shows up as a class name, never as itself. So you'll see 'Avenger', 'Rogue', 'Barbarian', but never 'Class', for obvious reasons.
[Role]: As above, but for roles! Items that have such a huge impact all or most members of a role should consider them tend to be enormously valuable.
[Elemental (Element)]: This item plays with elements in some way or another. If it just affects elements in general, skip the (Element) bit, which is used to list what specific element it toys with.
[Source]: Power sources, such as Martial, Arcane, etc.
[Skill]: This item provides a bonus to one or more skills.
Consumable: Items that are consumed after use.
Boon: Slotless items that grant special capabilities or mimic normal slotted items. They fade after five levels as a rule, but many, many campaigns consider them permanent once acquired.
Augmentable: This item has notorious synergies with other items and/or feats. Note that this does not mean that the item will increase its effects with power points! For that, see below.
Psionic: This item's effects increase if you funnel power points into it.
Set: This item is part of an item set.
At-Will: This item has some sort of at-will power. For the sake of avoiding keyword bloat, use this keyword only for the items that have actual powers that operate on an at-will frequency. Something like type conversion doesn't count, but something like a Shadow Mite does.
Encounter: This item has some sort of encounter power.
Daily: This item has some sort of daily power.
(Surgeless) Healing: This item has healing powers or properties, possibly even surgeless ones. Big surgeless heals tend to be very valuable!
THP: This item provides Temporary Hitpoints. Generally, not nearly as good as the previous keyword, except if they're long-lasting or it's a very large amount of them, in which case they powerfully ablate damage.
Teleport: This item either facilitates teleportation, enhances it, or provides it in some way.
LFR Reward: This item is obtained as a reward for an LFR Module and thus, not normally obtainable in LFR.
Magic Mart: An item that you wouldn't wishlist, but would definitely craft yourself if you could. Generally applies to lesser pickups and cheap items. Obviously not really applicable in rarity-enforcing games for the most part.
Common: This item can be crafted by PCs under the Rarity system. Note that this guide will mostly concern itself with the pre-essentials system, but rarity can be convenient to know about for certain campaigns and LFR. Because it is the default rarity, Uncommon rarities should not be listed.
Rare: Only one item of this type can be found per tier, and they cannot be crafted.
To-Do List:
-Add more keywords. Suggestions are welcome!
-Find a good quote for the first post.
-Include all items of note.
Acknowledgements:
To be filled later as submissions are posted.