Sunday, May 10, 2015

Thieves And Minor Magical Item Properties

Thieves have it rough. It's not just spider climb and knock and fly. It's the way DMs put in extra traps if there is a thief and don't bother putting in locked doors if there isn't. Quite reasonably, most DMs react to party composition rather than blindly inserting a quota of thief-only challenges. Being a skill-monkey isn't all it's cracked up to be.

So here's an ability unique to thieves:

When a thief appraises a newly-found magical weapon or suit of armor, they have a 5% chance of noticing or being already aware of an additional magical property of said item.

Sure, wizards study spells and history and magic all day long. But they don't spend all day daydreaming about the magical items that have passed through history and are worth stealing. "I wish I lived a hundred years ago so that I could steal Emilio Gotteson's Improved Cloak Of The Bat. That was much better than this dusty normal cloak of the bat that I just found, even if it looks similar... wait a minute." Nor are bards quite the materialists that thieves are. Sorry, bard, you didn't take any 200-level "Things Worth Stealing" courses in your bardic college.

When the 5% chance occurs, roll on the following table (d20):
  1. Lucky: You have +1 to all saving throws.
  2. Absorbing: Each day, you suffer half damage from the first source of damage to affect you.
  3. Life-Giving: Begins each day with a 15 hp healing pool otherwise identical to a paladin's laying on of hands.
  4. ____-Hating: Roll 1d6: animals, dragons, humanoids, undead, outsiders, or aberrations. The item glows when that creature type is near, giving you a +4 initiative bonus if enemies of that type are present.
  5. Bloodthirst: Each encounter, the first time you hit with a weapon attack, it inflicts +1d8 damage.
  6. Hearty: You have +5 max hit points.
  7. Protective: You have +1 AC. Great!
  8. Ever-Ready: You can summon the item from anywhere within 100 feet if you were the person who possessed the item most during the previous day. If armor, it appears on your person.
  9. Coruscating: Any time you critically hit, you heal 1d8+5 hp.
  10. Bewildering: Any time you critically hit, you may teleport 5 spaces. No line of sight needed.
  11. Sagely: The item can memorize a single 1st-level wizard spell if you let it read someone else's spellbook. You can use the item to cast said spell.
  12. Marching: You know how the DM puts your miniature on the board and tells you to roll initiative? Move your miniature four spaces before rolling initiative.
  13. Glowing: Your item emits light similarly to a torch unless you are consciously willing it not to. I feel bad if you rolled this.
  14. Reflexive: +2 to Reflex saves.
  15. Fortitudinous: +2 to Fort saves.
  16. Mind-Shielding: +3 to Will saves.
  17. Impenetrable: Any time you suffer exactly 1 damage after resistances and everything have been taken into account, you ignore that damage.
  18. Improved: The object has an additional +1 (+1 armor becomes +2, et ceteras).
  19. Duplicating: Each day, the item has a 33% chance of producing a copy of itself. That copy lasts until the next day, whereupon it dissolves into blue ash.
  20. Soaring: You are flying during the first round of each combat. Your speed is the same as your land speed.
Add the listed prefix to your item, e.g. if you roll a 1 with a longsword +1, it becomes a lucky longsword +1. I tried to keep them from being too complicated or distracting from items existing purpose.

If there are multiple thieves in the party, I suppose you could stack their percentile chance.