D&D: Magic Items That Have Your Back – The Best Cloaks & Capes
Fantasy adventures mean one thing: lots of cloaks, whatever else you’re wearing. These are our picks for the best cloaks and capes in D&D.
Call them cloaks or capes or capelets or mantles or invernesses, fantasy stories are chock full of flowing cloth that looks absolutely stunning framing its heroes. And if fan art has taught me anything, D&D characters love cloaks.
It’s not hard to see why. Cloaks are cool. They turn any random person into a mysterious stranger full of portent and purpose. And these cloaks will do a fair bit more than that. Here are some of the best cloaks in D&D.
Cloak of Displacement
Probably the best defensive cloak in D&D, the Cloak of Displacement takes its name from the Displacer Beast. And like the displacer beast, the cloak of displacement projects an illusion that makes you appear to be standing in a place near your actual location.
As a result? Any creature that attacks you has disadvantage on their rolls. If you take damage, you lose that property for one round. It’s a powerful, always-on disadvantage that enemies can’t necessarily work around. Even if they manage to get advantage, it just cancels out the disadvantage, and they attack you normally.
Cape of the Mountebank
One of D&D’s rare capes, the Cape of the Mountebank is not only a stylish fashion accessory, but it also grants teleportation to its wearer. While wearing it, once per day, you can cast dimension door, leaving behind only a cloud of smoke that lightly obscures the space you left and the space you arrive in.
Mantle of Spell Resistance
While wearing a mantle of spell resistance, you gain advantage on any saving throw against any kind of spell. This, again, makes for a phenomenally powerful always-on defense that gives you a boost against some of the strongest attacks in the game.
Cloak of Invisibility
A rare D&D cloak that has some offensive use as well, the cloak of invisibility turns you invisible while wearing it. But unlike most other invisibility-granting items, you don’t break the invisibility by making an attack. So you can attack enemies, cast a spell, or do any number of other things that directly effect another creature and you’ll remain invisible.
You turn invisible for up to a minute at a time, for up to 2 hours per day. Which is functional during every encounter you’re likely to face. If you get into more than 1200 rounds of combat in a day, well, that’s a really bad day.
Wings of Flying
One of the only cloaks in D&D that isn’t a “cloak of…” something, the wings of flying are a cloak that transforms into a pair of bat or bird wings when you use an action to speak a command word. While flying, you have a speed of 60 feet, which is twice as fast as most creatures.
Happy Adventuring
