The2024 Dungeon Master’s Guideis out, and with it came hundreds of magic items to use inDungeons & Dragons. Some are returning from old source books, while others are entirely new. And some, while familiar, have receivedimportant changes to their rules and wording that may affect how players use them.
Of course, many spells and items had their rules changed withthe introduction of the “magic” action, which is now how many effects are activated. But these changes deal more with the minutiae of the items being altered,tweaking their damage output or increasing their requirementsfrom player characters. These ten items best sum up the changes that came to magic items in the new book.
10Items Like The Bowl Of Water Elemental Control No Longer Require A Creature’s Concentration
Summoning Is Easier To Use With These New Rules
One important change came to many of the items related to summoning, including the bowl of commanding water elementals. The bowl is one of four similar wondrous items that, in the old rules, allowed creatures to summon either a water, fire, earth, or air elemental once per day.This relied on the spell “conjure elemental,” which requires concentrationto maintain even with these magic items. Not only that, but losing concentration could actually result in the elemental turning on the summoner.
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The new version of these items avoids that issue by not relying on a spell; rather, the item states that it summons an elemental for one hour that takes its turn after the summoner. This means no concentration is required, andthere’s no chance of the elemental attacking the party.This change is reflected across many items, allowing users to concentrate on other spellswhile summoning help.
9Weapons Like The Moonblade Can Be More Than Just A Sword
More Variability For Certain Magic Armaments
Another change seen across multiple items is that unique weapons aren’t restricted to a certain weapon type anymore. Take the Moonblade, for example: a legendary longsword that bonds to its wielder and possesses runes that correspond to certain powers. Within the new rules, however,the Moonblade could be a shortsword, rapier, scimitar, or greatsword.
The Moonblade specifically also got some changes to its lore and flavor, including gaining a feature that lets the item curse those who attune to it without aligning with the sentient blade.
DMs can determine which weapon type the Moonblade comes in,tailoring it to their player’s characters so that it can work with more builds. This is true for many weapons now, making legendary weapons usable for all kinds of characters. It’s a nice, unobtrusive change that allows DMs to alter magic weapons so that their players can enjoy them more, without needing to change their fighting style to fit certain items.
Lessening The Flavor – And Severity – Of Certain Items
Some items lost a bit of the flavor that made them special, andone that suffered especially from this is the sword of sharpness. This blade, which comes in shortsword or longsword variants, used to let players cut the limbs off of foes when they crit. It was a powerful ability that made critical hits really feel impactful.
While the weapon is still strong, dealing extra damage on critical hits, it no longer has that unique ability.Now, it simply inflicts a level of exhaustionupon a critical hit. It’s a strange change that makes the sword of sharpness less special. It’s especially weird that this part of the item is changed, given thatthe Vorpal Sword, which has a similar effect for decapitations, is unchanged.
7The Sphere Of Annihilation Is Deadlier Than Ever
Increasing The Damage Dice On Certain Effects
Across many items and spells in the 2024D&Drules, the damage dice have gone up. It reflects a general change in the game’s balance of damage and healing, andit’s especially apparent in this book when looking at something like the sphere of annihilation. This sphere is a death machine, essentially a black hole that mages can control to destroy objects and creatures. The old version of the sphere was certainly strong, but this new variant is downright terrifying.
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The damage the sphere deals when it touches something has been doubled, from 4d10 to 8d10 force damage, a roughly 20-point increase on average. In addition, the save DC for avoiding this damage has gone up significantly, meaning it is more likely to kill creatures than before. This legendary item could be a great weapon for the villain of a campaign, the ultimate tool of destruction for an evil wizard or sorcerer.
6Daern’s Instant Fortress Is No Longer An Instant K.O.
Changing The Wording Of Certain Rules
Daern’s Instant Fortress is meant to be a great defensive tool. Butironically, its use in past editions has often been more offensive,since the wording of the rules allowed them to be created in the space of hostile creatures. This resulted in them having to make a dexterity saving throw, taking 10d10 damage on a failure. That’s a ton of damage that players could literally pull out of their pocketwith this item, able to go from a figurine to a fort in a single turn.
Though the fort can no longer crush enemies directly, it is still able to move them without a saving throw. This mean it could be used to knock them off cliffs, into traps, or out of range for an opportunity attack.
The new rules make sure that this is a purely defensive tool.Any creatures in the fortress’s space when it appears are harmlessly pushed to the side,taking no damage from the impact. Granted, the fort is still good for creating cover and defending against foes, but taking away its ability to crush enemies does certainly diminish its usefulness.
5Silvered Weapons Are More Than Just A Gimmick
Reworking Simple Magic Gear To Make It More Useful
Some pieces or types of gear in olderD&Drules had effects within the lore of the world, but not much mechanically to reflect that. One example is silvered weapons, which are able to harm certain creatures like werewolves that have an immunity to physical damage.Butregular magic weapons could do this, too, making it sort of unnecessary to obtain a silvered weapon specifically.
Now, at least, silvered weapons have a bit more oomph to go along with their lore. When used against a shaped-shifted creature,critical hits with silvered weapons deal an extra die’s worth of damage.That makes silvering something like a greataxe or pike especially useful, in order to get the most critical damage in. It’s still not a super powerful option, but it gives silvered weapons some extra power to go along with their flavor, and differentiates them from other magic weapons.
Fling Spells Back At Enemies With Reckless Abandon
The ring of spell turning got a major makeover, one that made it a much better item for any kind of character. The general purpose of the ring remains the same: to thwart enemy spellcaster’s attempts to harm the wearer. The ring provides advantage on saving throws against spells, andcan even completely negate a spell’s effects. In the old rules, a spell’s effects were negated if it was below 7th level and the wearer rolled a critical success on their save; now, succeeding on any saving throw for a spell 7th level or lower negates the effects, no crit required.
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But that’s not all. The old version of the itemthrew the spell back at the caster when the wearer negated it, which only happened when they rolled a 20 on their save. Now,the wearer can use a reaction to reflect the spell back as long as they succeed on the save.It does specify that the spell must only affect one creature for this reaction to work; however, the old version of the item only guarded against single-target spells in the first place, meaning this is still a massive improvement.
3The Potion Of Speed Lost Its Negative Effects
Potions Are Now Less Punishing
Potions got a few minor changes across the board, along with one major one: they now only take a bonus action to drink. But that was introduced back in the2024 Player’s Handbook; in theDM’s Guide, specific potions got some upgrades. One of note is the potion of speed, which emulates the effects of the haste spell.Haste is an amazing effectinD&D, with one crucial downside: when the spell ends,it causes a round of lethargy for the affected creature, basically skipping one of their turns.
This makes using the haste spell risky, especially since it requires concentration to maintain. Potions don’t need concentration, of course, but the old version of this potion would still cause that lethargy effect after it wore off. That could be detrimental if a battle lasted longer than a minute.The new version of the potion simply omits that lethargy penalty,making this a much more enticing option for alchemists.
2The Cube Of Force Is Basically A Different Item
A Complete Change Of Mechanics
No item saw more changes than the cube of force, which is near unrecognizable in its new form. The old version of the item was cool, but janky, with rules that posed some interesting physics problems and questions about character spaces. The new version of the item is much clearer in its effects and abilities,opting for an approach that simply replicates familiar spells.
The cube has six sides, each of which has a button that can be pressed to cast a certain spell. The sides cost different amounts of charges to press, with the weakest side casting mage armor for one charge, while the strongest casts wall of force for five. The old version of the cube basically created an invisible barrier around the user, which could keep certain things out based on the side pressed.This version of the defensive tool makes it much easier to understandand play with.
1The Deck Of Many Things Is Now Even More Tempting
Draw Some New Cards From This Updated Deck
Of the twenty-two official cards in the deck of many things, four received substantial changes to reflect the new rules of the game. These are the balance, fool, sun, and comet cards,all of which related to somewhat controversial parts of the game like XP and alignment. The deck has a reputation amongDungeons & Dragonsplayers as a game destroyer, and while it is certainly still chaotic, the changes should at least keep these four problematic cards from causing as many issues.
D&D’s 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide Might Finally Make Me Use The Deck Of Many Things
The Deck of Many Things has always been a divisive magic item in D&D, but the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide rework might make it more popular.
The old versions of these cards could grant or take away massive amounts of experience,switch a character’s alignment, or encourage them to fight solo instead of with the party. None of those effects felt particularly good to play with, sincethey caused weird party imbalances, unwanted character changes, and encouraged non-cooperative actions. The new versions of these cards inDungeons & Dragonsare still wild, but less of a bummer for the party, and less of a headache for the DM running the game.
Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons and Dragons is a popular tabletop game originally invented in 1974 by Ernest Gary Gygax and David Arneson. The fantasy role-playing game brings together players for a campaign with various components, including abilities, races, character classes, monsters, and treasures. The game has drastically expanded since the ’70s, with numerous updated box sets and expansions.
