New Magic Items; Honoring the Ancients (D&D 5e)

House Rules: Challenge and Triumph Items - Celebrating a Triumph (D&D 5e)

Part 1

Celebrating a Triumph

Achieving Glory

Rarity	XP Threshold
Common	600
Uncommon	1,100
Rare	2,000
Very Rare	3,200
Legendary	6,800

If a character has already achieved a great deed they wish to commemorate, they can take time to honor their victory. While recognition may be important to this process, the key thing is that it be a substantial personal victory; the character must have been a vital part of the encounter. Celebrating victory over a dragon by showing off a gem from its hoard may be able to benefit a rogue who peppered it with arrows, finding the niches and notches in its armored scales bleeding slowly of strength and vitality. But if the scoundrel simply purloined the jewel as the rest of the group fought there is no tale for him to tell that will empower anything but a tankard.

House Rules: Challenge and Triumph Items - Setting a Challenge (D&D 5e)

Wilder and more mercenary adventurers may have little or no interest in demonstrating personal talent with crafts. Their interest in items of value often begins and ends with what they can buy or steal. The most common example of this is the orc barbarian, though rogues are often equally uninterested in “earning a living” rather than just taking what they want.

What these characters may want is to have a token by which they celebrate a successful conquest or represent an oath sworn and kept. While taking trophies or trading tokens is simple enough, there is a measure of power to be had in formality with these acts. In some ways setting and undertaking a challenge is the easier method; by having a specific goal in mind the benefit is gained in the doing. On the other hand, some grand deeds happen, demanded in the moment, so they take their prizes and must find ways to make proper talismans and trophies later.

The central part of creating such an item is the event to be done or celebrated. Regardless of whether the trophy is present before or after, it must represent an accomplishment worthy of the heroes or villains of legend. This event can be accomplished alone or as part of a group, though the achievements of groups must be correspondingly larger than challenges overcome alone. While high level characters overcoming lower CRs may seem trivial, remember that it is the sealing of an oath or celebration of their prowess as much as the deed itself that empowers the magic. The DM, as always, determines the whether a given event is appropriate.

New Research Downtime action: Discovering Formulae (D&D 5e)

While some adventurers might rely on discovering formulae for crafting magical items among the plunder of their fallen foes, others prefer to be more proactive. By using the Research downtime action a character can seek a formulae for the creation of a magic item.

House Rule: Stable Cyphers and Unstable Artifacts (Numenera)

Device Slots
Since not all cyphers are limited and artifacts are, cypher slots are device slots. They are still limited in the same way as outlined for cypher slots in the base rules.

Anoetic Cyphers
These items are simple to use, pre-package and self contained. Pills and chemicals or simple devices with small batteries or capacitors. As a result, they do not risk destabilizing and do not require device slots.

Occultic Cyphers
These items are more complex or jury-rigged. As a result they are more prone to problems, including leaking various sorts of radiation or creating strange interactions with other devices. As a result they fill device slots at a 1:1 (rather than the default 2:1).

Artifacts
While often Artifacts are self contained or otherwise pre-packaged, they are also complex and highly charged devices. As a result they are, in many ways, simply Occultic Cyphers with bigger batteries. These items fill device slots at a 1:1 basis.

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Oddities Part II (Numenera)

1. A small gray sphere that produces a foot (30 cm) radius smoky cloud about itself. This cloud dissipates before any solid object, never making contact.
2. A small sphere that, if tossed upwards, vanishes at the apex of its arc with a small pop. After a few seconds it reappears with a loud bang and continues its original path.
3. A stone tablet that mutters indecipherable sounds softly but incessantly.
4. A pair of rings that gently but insistently pull towards one another. They provide no sense of distance or direction, only pulling along a straight line towards the other. The tug is sufficient that with an unobstructed path, or even minimal obstructions, they will eventually return to each other if unsecured.
5. A bar of solid but easily crushable or damageable foam-like substance. If damaged it repairs itself, restoring scratches, dents, or small holes within minutes. Over the course of a day multiple separate pieces will reassemble. Within a week it will regenerating entirely from a single small but visible piece. If entirely destroyed, rendered into disassociated atoms, within a month it will pull itself into a small piece in the location it was destroyed then continue to restore itself.
6. A ring approximately 1 yard (1 m) across made of metal so dark it seems to absorb light and, if released encircling the head of a thinking being, hovers there and moves with them.
7. A golden disk approximately 1 yard (1 m) across decorated with a sunburst pattern. If released above or behind the head of a thinking being it glows with the brightness of a candle and hovers there, moving with them.
8. An amulet that causes the wearer's eyes to become inky voids filled with stars.
9. A dagger that seems to absorb any blood it touches, It will not drain blood still inside a living being, but effectively cleans itself and seems to consume any pool of blood it is touched to.
10. An amulet that causes the wearer to regularly experience feelings of intense deja vu.
11. A synth box covered with complex markings and comprised of many pieces that can move independently of one another rearranging the patterns on its surface. Occasionally an indistinct muttering can be heard from it.
12. A glowing, holographic rune that hovers in midair. The owner can change its relative distance and orientation (or give it away) by touching it and moving (or transferring) it. It then maintains that distance and orientation until deliberately moved again. No one except the owner can physically touch the rune.
13. An X shaped piece of pipe with a ball joint at the intersection. All four ends of the have a very slight outflow of passably fresh air. Objects inserted in any of the openings pass through without obstruction.
14. A thin sheet of shiny silver cloth-like metal that can be bent, folded, twisted, etc but will not crease, cut, or tear. It works well when used as a blanket.
15. A black cloak that displays a never-ending cascade of changing green runes flowing down the outside.
16. A thin metal rod that hums when exposed to air.
17. A small rock that changes shape, texture, and color (but not size or mass) when unobserved.
18. A small aluminum box that will occasionally emit a metallic buzz. If opened it displays a pair of nobs and a round glass screen that flickers and shows static. Occasionally a wiff of fudge will emerge.
19. A glowing ball that, if released in midair, hovers and rotates slowly emitting multicolored beams of light that slowly move over the area around the sphere.
20. A jug of clear liquid that will not pour out. It will slosh around inside the container, and other objects can be added or removed, but the liquid presses up against the opening and ceases moving as if it were covered. Any tests run on the liquid show that it's fresh, clean water.
21. A page of paper covered in writing in an incomprehensible language using an unrecognizable script. The contents change irregularly, but only when the page is not being looked at.
22. A short (10cm), thin rod of synth that, if tapped against an object, extrudes a square of exceedingly thin paper along its length.
23. A stick that, if pointed forcefully at an inanimate object, causes the indicated object to vibrate harmlessly for a moment.
24. A 3" (7.5 cm) wide, several yard (3m) long strip of black synth that, if released, coils and writhes through the air heedless of gravity and wind (but is easily brushed aside with the smallest amount of force). If affixed to an object or person (generally by pinning or tying) its motion stays within a few inches to a foot of who or whatever it is attached to.
25. A cube that shows unusual characters etched into the sides. Any time the cube is turned more than 90 degrees on any axis, including being rolled, the symbols change. There are significantly more than 6 options, totaling about 100, and the symbols do not appear with an even distribution, though no two faces show the same symbol at any given time. (If a character maps out all the faces, set each symbol equal to a number from 1 to 99 and roll 11d10-10 to determine the face. On a roll of 100 one of a set of extremely rare symbols is generated. If determining more than one face roll separately for each face and reroll any symbols that have already been generated.)

Oddities (Numenera)

1. A cube that "rests" balanced on its corners rather than faces.
2. A 2 inch (about 5 cm) diameter blue, semi-translucent egg that is not subject to gravity. It is subject to inertia and otherwise possesses mass, however.
3. A small sphere that causes a creature whose skin it touches to take on a specific hue. This mild recoloring extends to their hair, eyes, and skin and creates a distinctive color shift but does not make them unrecognizable. The color shift immediately ends if contact ends.
4. A small (3 foot/1 meter tall) painted statue made of solid stone. The figure is stout, bearded humanoid with rounded features, garishly bright clothing, and a conical hat that makes up about a third of the statue's total height. If the statue is not facing its owner and it is not observed the statue turns to face its owner. If the line of sight to its owner is obstructed and it is not observed it vanishes from its current location and appears in an unobserved location where it has a line to see that individual. If the statue has no current owner it becomes the property of the first individual to touch it. Giving up ownership of the statue requires whispering a command word specific to the statue though the statue itself has no indication what this command word is, where to find it, or even that it exists.
5. A small ring that, when exposed to humming at certain frequencies, glows brightly as a candle. Different frequencies produces a different color to the glow.
6. A small jar of drit that, if watered, grows a small plant producing a single beautiful flower of no recognized type within a ten minutes. Five minutes after blossoming the flower abruptly turns to dust. If the plant or flower are picked it also immediately turns to dust.
7. A small jar of drit. If exposed to a strong magnet the drit forms into a 1 inch (2.5cm) diameter non-magnetic metal sphere. When the magnet is removed the sphere returns to drit.
8. A set of contact lenses that, when worn, label seemingly random items in view with text in an unknown language.
9. A transparent pyramid 3 inches (7.5 cm) tall that occasionally and randomly duplicates itself for about 10 minutes before the previously existing one vanishes. The duplicate is always unmarked and unmarred if the original exists in any state short of having been utterly destroyed.
10. A small stone that buzzes loudly at a highly obnoxious pitch. If touched lightly it quiets for 10 minutes or if held for a few seconds it becomes quiescent for a day.
11. A metallic object that takes the form of a regular solid. If turned (including being rolled) it morphs through six different types of regular solid randomly. The shapes it takes are tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, pentagonal trapezohedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron.
12. A rectangular metal box (3 inches/7.5 cm long by 2 inches/ 5 cm tall by 1 inch/ 2.5 cm wide) that moves about under its own power. It has no limbs, and must remain in contact with a surface to generate locomotion. It behaves as a small, furtive animal, roughly like a mouse, seeking to remain close to anyone it touches, moving around and hiding amongst their clothing and peeking out.
13. A sheet of synth (2 inches/5 cm on a side, less than 1 cm thick) which seems to be immune from any form of alteration, being immune to damage and even passing through Iron Winds completely unchanged.
14. A life-sized replica of a human heart made from red crystal and stone. If a creature holds it the heart beats in time with their pulse.
15. A life-sized replica of a human brain made from reddish quartz. Creatures who touch it "hear" an indistinct, wordless psychic muttering.
16. A monocle which, if you peer through it, shows latticeworks of glowing lines connecting objects and people around you and, often, connecting those objects to things beyond your vision. Slowly turning the ring shifts the colors of the lines up from red through orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, then to white or (turning the opposite direction) down from white to red. Lines that are white or red disappear if the ring is turned further in that direction while different ones appear at the opposite end of the spectrum. These connections are related to no discernable relationship.
17. A small metal mobius strip which has etched symbols that move slowly around it. The characters change at a point on the ring which is not observed. If all points of the ring are somehow being observed simultaneously the characters continue to move but do not change.
18. A ring which makes the wearer feel disoriented and like their entire body is "buzzing" when worn.
19. A ring which projects the wearer's consciousness into a small, circular, three tiered auditorium without any doors. Until they remove the ring they inhabit a semi-translucent hologram of their physical body which cannot effect anything in the room. The room is empty except for benches which line each tier and an unadorned, unused pedestal at the center of the "stage" area in the lowest level. The room is dimly lit with a grey light and never changes, not even showing dust or decay.
20. A small, colored, semi-translucent ovoid which randomly "chimes" and glows until the sound fades away. If the object is being touched when this happens it is felt to vibrate as if struck to produce the sound.
21. A sand clock which flows upward. When in the lower chamber the sand is black, but in the upper chamber it is white.
22. A plate about 6 inches (15 cm) diameter of what appears to be obsidian which has been polished until it's reflective. Small, twinkling sparks of light appear from the surface and float drifting, random paths upward until they reach about 1 foot (30 cm) above it, at which point they vanish. The sparkles vanish if they come in contact with any solid object, and the cumulative light from all the sparkles active at one time is less than that of a candle.
23. A fist-sized metal sphere that has electrical discharge patterns acid-etched into it from two points opposite one another. Touching the sphere produces a faint tingling sensation.
24. A small stone that, if stationary, begins causing random unsecured objects of less than 1 oz (30 grams) within immediate range to float slowly upward. The floating of items is effected one at a time but, over the duration multiple, objects may simultaneously be effected. The stone never lifts more than about 10 objects and never more than 1 pound (1/2 a kg) of total weight. These items never reach more than about head height and immediately return to normal physics if touched, leave range of the stone, or after a few minutes of being effected.
25. A 12 inch (30 cm) tall by 4 inch ( 10 cm) diameter pentagonal trapezohedron of blue-green metal which weighs about 1 pound (.5 kg). It "naturally rests" vertically aligned with gravity and about 3 feet (1 meter) above any surface which would support its weight (the ground, a desk, etc). Any attempt to move it from this position will be resisted by what feels like gravity, causing it to want to "fall" to that position and orientation.

House Rule: Odd World (Numenera)

Scavenging
These rules replace the scavenging rules on pages 280 and 290 of the Numenera core book.
When scavenging for Numenera players can look for oddities, cyphers, or artifacts. Scavenging requires 3d4x5 minutes and an Intellect based task. Depending on the roll, the player can choose any of the following they beat the difficulty for. For beating difficulty 4 they produce d6 oddities, by beating a difficulty 7 task they produce 2d4 cyphers, while a difficulty 9 task produces one artifact. The actual Numenera devices are not determined until after the choice is made, though the number may be.

Tinkering and DeconstructingThese rules expand on the Tinkering With The Numenera rules starting on page 107.
Most cyphers and artifacts use numerous smaller components in their construction, any of which would be oddities unto themselves. A scavenger can disassemble these, generally more useful devices, to recover these strange components. To do so requires the sacrifice of a cypher or artifact and d20 minutes, and success at a difficulty 3 Intellect task. Success produces d4-1 oddities from a cypher or 2d4-1 oddities from an artifact.
All of these oddities are randomly determined after the roll has been made.

People in the Ninth World regularly combine various Numenera devices to create new and different devices. To produce a new cypher or artifact requires the sacrifice of at least one Numenera device (oddity, cypher, or artifact). The tinkerer can then attempt a intellect task difficulty 10 to create a random cypher or artifact. In addition to having greater skill or other assets, the difficulty can be reduced with the sacrifice of more Numenera devices for parts and components.
When attempting to create a cypher, each oddity sacrificed reduces the difficulty by one, while each cypher reduces it by 2, and each artifact reduces the difficulty by 4.
If the desired result is an artifact, each two oddities used as components provides a one point reduction in difficulty. Each cypher sacrificed for parts reduces the difficulty by one. Sacrificing another artifact reduces the difficulty by two.
If the character wants to produce a specific cypher or artifact, rather than a random one, the difficulty is increased by 3.

Oddly Useful 

This rule is added to Immediate Benefits, per pg 110.

One of the most interesting things about oddities is that, for all they are useless and bizarre in the everyday existence of the Ninth World, their existence requires some context in which they are useful. By expending an Experience Point the player can declare how an oddity has found a context, whether it was the original context or not. Perhaps it can be used as part of a key to a sealed portal, or an unusual interaction can break an otherwise unbreakable casing with dramatic effects.

The GM may accept the proposed use, make it a task with a difficulty determined by its plausibility, or reject it outright. The difficulty of the task should be stated before the experience point is accepted by the GM and the attempt destroys the oddity as soon as the experience point is spent.

If a player can describe how they might use an oddity to produce the effect of a cypher, a base difficulty for the task would be 5.

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House Rules: Expanded Cypher Use (Cypher System)

Expanded Cypher Capacity
The number of Cyphers a character can carry is doubled. This means that a Tier 1 Glave or Jack can carry four cyphers and a Nano can carry six. Similarly, abilities that increase the number of Cyphers a character can carry, such as the Adept Cypher Use, are also doubled (adding an additional 2 Cyphers).
Occultic Cyphers still require 2 slots to carry while Anoetic Cyphers require only one.

Reusable Cyphers
Cyphers are highly unstable and retain little charge, but they retain slightly more life. Cyphers gain a depletion roll. Such depletion rolls are generally 1 in d4. More "reliable" Cyphers might have a depletion of 1-2 on a d6, but even the most "stable" should never have a depletion of less than a 1-4 on d10. Obviously, some types of Cypher are completely inappropriate for this special rule (pills, elixirs, thrown devices, ammunition, etc). On the other hand, the more powerful the effect from a Cypher the more likely it is to burn out critical components or drain the device completely.

Scavenging
This replaces the rules on PG 280 and 298 describing scavenging Cyphers and Artifacts.
When exploring an area that does not see regular (humanoid) traffic or after an encounter (including any GM intrusion) a character can attempt to scavenge Numenera from the area. This is a difficulty 4 Intellect task which requires d6x10 minutes to complete. The duration is not known before attempting the task.
Trained in Numenera is always an applicable skill, as are Numenera Crafting skills (p107) if appropriate to the area. Other skills may elevate your proficiency to specialized (but not provide the basic trained level) if they are particularly appropriate. These types of skills include metalworking in an area of heavy industry or being skilled with identifying plants and animals (per the Lives in the Wilderness focus) in woodlands or jungle areas. Anything in the Ninth World can produce Numenera; acetylsalicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, was a derivative from willow bark and frogs that coat themselves with hallucinogenic oils are parts of the 21st century world. Even in the middle of a desert an unusual interaction with a patch of drit might cause it to reassemble into a device otherwise destroyed by corrosion, though it might as easily set off the Iron Winds.
Unlike normal rolls, do not reduce the difficult based on effort, assets, trained/specialized, etc. Instead add bonuses to the roll (generally +3 per level of difficulty reduction). The normal limits still apply (2 skill bonuses, 2 assets, Effort limit, etc). Further, regardless of bonuses, the roll always fails on a 3 or less on the d20, with a 1 producing a free GM intrusion.
If the check to discover Numenera is successful the character discovers at least 1 cypher. For each additional 3 points the character discovers an additional cypher. If the character would find 7 or more cyphers reduce the number of cyphers discovered by 7 and they discover an artifact. Scavenged Cyphers and Artifacts are randomly determined. The GM decides the form of the items (and how they are discovered) unless the player spends 1 XP to do so.

Artifacts
Universal Charger
Level: 1d6+3
Form: A small crystal rod
Effect: When the this rod is passed over a depleted Artifact you may reroll its depletion roll. On a successful roll the Artifact is reactivated. If passed over an expended Cypher a roll other than a 1 on a d4 restores it.
Depletion: 1 in d6

Toolbox
Level: 1d6+1
Form: A rectangular belt-mounted device
Effect: When activated this device deploys a series of tendrils, multi-jointed arms ending in fine manipulators, small spare parts, and other specialized tools which work with the wearer on a project. This device provides an asset on crafting rolls of a specific type.
Depletion: 1 in 100

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House Rule: Magic as Masterwork (D&D 5e)

Rather than limit the creation of all magic items to spellcasters, this house rule allows characters with the appropriate proficiency and sufficient talent to craft an item from scratch and imbue it with magical or semi-magical properties by virtue of their skill and effort.

To craft a magical item, the player must have a creation formula that describes the construction, as described under Crafting a Magic Item on pg 128 of the DMG. This formula must be designed for construction using the relevant tool proficiency, rather than magical creation. The most basic requirement is that they must have proficiency with the relevant tools as well as a tool kit of that type (herbalists' kit or alchemists' kit for potions, woodcarvers' tools for bows, wooden shields, or staves, smiths' tools for swords or metal armors, leather workers' tools for leather armor, etc). The DM may decide that certain items or locations are required, just as described in those rules for Crafting a Magic Item. Finally, the crafter must meet a minimum proficiency bonus based on the rarity of the item.

Rarity	Required proficiency bonus
Common	+3
Uncommon	+3
Rare	+4
Very Rare	+5
Legendary	+6

The player may then announce they are going to create that item as their downtime action. They use the Crafting a Magic Item downtime action, requiring materials and time just as if they were crafting the item as a spellcaster, with each day of effort contributing 25 gold pieces worth of progress towards the total required. 

Any number of characters may combined their efforts, contribute 25 gp worth of effort per day towards the completion, but each participant must have the required tools, tool proficiency, and proficiency bonus.

Once completed, the item is indistinguishable from one crafted with the use of magic.

As with the Crafting and Crafting a Magic Item downtime actions, a character can maintain a modest lifestyle without having to pay the 1 gp per day or a comfortable lifestyle at half the normal cost.

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