D&D: Five Indispensable Non-Magic Items
Magic items are fine, and all. But these non-magic items won’t quit on you when that Beholder opens up its dreadful eye.
Dungeons & Dragons is a game all about living out your wildest fantasies. Big power trip fantasies like “you routinely get eight hours’ rest.” Or “you can, with nothing more than effort, improve yourself in measurable ways that everyone notices.” But perhaps the biggest fantasy of them all is: “you get paid well for your work.”
After all, adventurers frequently bring back hordes of treasure. Gold, silver, and of course, magic items. But the problem is, magic items will give out on you when antimagic fields are around. And not every dungeon is chock full of them.
Don’t worry though, because while you can’t buy magic items in stores (in default D&D) you can buy equally indispensable non-magic items. Items like these!
Alchemist’s Fire/Doom
Would you like to inconvenience an enemy without them having to make a save? Flasks of Alchemist’s Fire, or the much stronger, Alchemist’s Doom, can do exactly that. These flasks of sticky, adhesive fluid ignite when exposed to air. Throw it up to twenty feet at a target, and once you hit them, they take either 1d4 or 2d6 damage at the start of each of their turns. No matter what. No save ends it.
The only way they can put it out is by sacrificing their action to make a DC 10 Dexterity check to extinguish the flames. So not only must your enemy choose between wasting their action or taking fire damage, they might not even put it out if they spend an action on it.
And every action they spent dousing the flames is an action not spent killing you.
Torpor
Poison bottles isolated on white with clipping path. High-resolution 3D rendering.Similar images:
This is a poison, which makes it tricky because people are already flying to point out that lots of monsters resist poison. But even more, don’t resist poison than do. And Torpor is particularly nasty.
It costs a pretty gold piece, weighing in at 600 gp for a dose. But once ingested, the creature poisoned by this must succeed on a DC 155 save or become poisoned for 4d6 hours. The poisoned creature is incapacitated. Meaning they won’t be able to take actions or reactions. And until the allotted time is up, they will not wake.
Portable Ram
Are you tired of doors being in your way? Did you know that for 4gp, you can grant yourself a +4 bonus on any Strength check to break down doors? No more do you have to be outshone by the fact that you can’t roll above a three. Increase your might and Kool-Aid Man your way through every dungeon you come across now.
Tangler Grenade
Veterans of 3rd and 3.5 editions will recognize this item. Once known as the tanglefoot bag, a tangler grenade is an alchemical item that shatters into sticky goo when you throw it at someone up to sixty feet away.
Once you do, every creature within 10 feet of wherever it lands, must make a Dex save or be restrained. And it takes a DC 20 strength to free yourself once you’re caught in it.
Healer’s Kit
Sure it’s not the robust item everyone wishes it was. But a healer’s kit will come in handy when you really need it. All it does is automatically stabilize a character who is bleeding out. But when your friend only has one more saving throw left before they’re dead, and the GM just counterspelled your last Healing Word spell, a healer’s kit will come through every single time.
Happy adventuring!
