D&D: Phandelver’s New Magic Items Put the Meta in Metamagic
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is a sprawling adventure that introduces a new magic item that can change the way you cast spells.
Treasure and Loot are the pillars of adventuring. Sure you’re out to stop marauding bandits, save villages, and slay dangerous monsters. But the reason you do all that dangerous work is to get that sweet sweet loot.
Getting to see what the DM rolled up on the treasure table makes any skin-of-your-teeth fight worth it. And you only need to look at the excitement on a player’s face when they get a shiny new magic item to see that it was worth it.
D&D’s newest adventure, Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is no stranger to these things. Here’s a look at some of the new magic items awaiting within the book, including some that put the meta in metamagic.
Phandelver and Below: Shattered Obelisk – Never Metamagic I Didn’t Like
Mind Crystal – One of the most exciting new magic items, is actually a set of seven different items. Mind Crystals are magical gemstones that contain “crystallized spellcasting magic.” And their whole role is to give spellcasters the ability to use Metamagic.
That’s right. Now Sorcerer’s whole deal, access to Metamagic, including both Quickened and Subtle spells, which let you cast an uncounterable spell or turn a spell into a bonus action, can be used by any spellcaster, no multiclassing required. These gems come in seven different flavors of metamagic: Careful, Distant, Empowered, Extended, Heightened, Quickened, and Subtle. These are single-use magic items, but they apply the effects of that metamagic to the spell you cast through it.
Pretty simple, but very powerful.
Ring of the Orator – Finally the Ring of the Orator is a magical ring that lets you give speeches real good. Your voice carries, projecting up to a mile, as long as nothing is in the way. But it also can be used to make creatures who don’t understand your language know what you’re saying. Which is in many ways even more helpful for party faces than the mile-reaching megaphone quality of this item.
Cape of Enlargement – Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants may have come and gone. But this cape feels like it could have come straight from the book. This long cape is adorned with silver thread, and as a bonus action, you can spend one of its three charges to either increase your size category by one, grant yourself advantage on Strength checks and saves, or add your proficiency bonus to damage on weapon/unarmed strike attacks.
And it’s this last feature that you’ll be using pretty exclusively. Because the other ones are useful in a pinch, sure. But with this cape? You get ten minutes of adding Proficiency Bonus to damage, three times per day. That’s an extremely potent damage booster for anyone using weapons, melee or ranged.
And many more items await in Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk.
