Marginal Magic Items

Here is some stuff that I came up with when I was futzing around with the recent B/X adventure.
The game was struggling and I wanted to drop some magical weapons and buffs in the players laps so that they would have a little  more agency, be a little less fragile and generally feel encouraged.

Of course, pretty much every resource ever for D&D exhorts DMs to keep magical items on the top shelf, and to dole them out sparingly. But when I was first reading about B/X, I did not fail to notice the extreme fragility of the PCs. I realized that any decent equipment was very likely to outlast its owner, and I had a vision of a B/X as being about zany Vancian magical items and their succession of owners, rather than the other way around.

This kind of thing conveyed a sort of implied setting.

With this in mind, I decided to split the difference by dreaming up some magical armaments and buffing items which would offer advantages which are significant at low level, without conferring as great a benefit as standard, listed items. And I wanted to design them in such a way as to make their use a tactical choice, thus giving players a shade more agency.
For instance, a  weapon which can can be +4 a limited number of times per day seems more fun than a weapon which is simply +1 all the time.

Keep in mind that these ideas and mechanics have hardly been play-tested. Turns out my players lost interest in the adventure before they could get around to finding and experimenting with these toys, which were practically waiting for them in the next room. Next time I guess.
Also, I'm holding back a few things because my core players read this blog.

Flame Projector aka the Dagger of Microtransaction
This object looks like a flashlight, or a lightsaber. But good luck trying to describe it to your players without them imagining it as a sex toy. When the button in the handle (marked with the rune for fire) is pressed, it emits a cone of white-hot fire about a foot long. In combat, it works as a dagger which does fire damage rather than piercing damage. The hot flame easily and reliably ignites wood or rope, and can even heat steel to welding temperature.
But this does not come for free. The pommel of the projector (marked with the arcane symbol for gold) screws off to reveal a cavity large enough for a single gold piece. 1gp provides 10 rounds of flame.

The player who found this item was not too excited about it. I didn't tell him all about the item, and had him play out experimenting with it. He was expecting some kind Rod of FWACKOOMing, so the flame-dagger was a little disappointing. He was the one who first called it a micro-transaction dagger,  because it costs a little money to use.

Does this make  me an asshole DM? maybe. But I felt it was important  to include limiting factors in the marginal magical items. It seemed gamey, and like it would provide something useful to low-level characters without upsetting the power balance.

I can admit that hitting them in the pocketbook is a niggly kind of way to impose a limit, and not the easiest to track in game. Fortunately a few others came to mind: capacity, recharge time, per time, situational, user specific, requires exotic ingredient, or a to hit/damage handicap.

Theophanus' Aspergillium is a weapon which has a limited capacity.
More commonly known as a holy water sprinkler, an aspergillium is a baby-rattle like thing with a perforated head to hold a few shakes worth of holy water and sling it over a distance.

Theophanus's Aspergillium is a mace which can be "charged" with holy water. On a successful hit,  it deals d8 of holy damage (to enemies with a vulnerability to holy water) in addition to bludgeoning damage. It can only do so 5 times, and then it functions as a normal mace. It can be charged again by using up a flask of holy water, which are generally available in D&D settings.

Firearms also have a limited capacity. They way I run firearms, they ignore any armor bonus from conventional medieval armor, giving them a significant advantage. In a suitable, post-apocalyptic setting where ammo cannot be easily replenished, a handgun with a few shots could make a fine marginal magic item.

3x3 Broadsword 

This is a weapon limited on a per-timespan basis. 3 times a day it, can add +3 to hit. Of course, the base weapon type, bonus and times per day are all variable. I'd just keep the numbers small for easy counting.

Dagger of Spiders: 

It is also a per-timespan weapon. Can summon 1 hd of spiders / day, summons last a turn. They fall out of a portal on the hilt and quickly grow to full size. You can see how this concept can also be scaled to dial in the overall power of the item, all the way up to the Kalashnikov of Slaad summoning.

I might also include weapons which are decidedly non-magical, but have some significant tweak to them, such as Brittle weapon: Does 1 extra point of damage, but breaks on a natural 1 or 2. or Lightly built weapons, which have a bonus to hit, but do less damage.

Of course, many of the above items can't be described as magical weapons. But what exactly makes an item "magical" is probably dependent upon the hidden logic of the game setting, and a topic for another post.

Temporary buff items
Besides armaments, I came up with a few other consumable items to help characters to survive.

Golden Stud of Saving: A golden piercing which protects the wearer from a failed save. Works once, then breaks.

Red Ribbon: Offers 8 bonus HP. Then is destroyed, as if it took the last hit for the wearer.

Fiendish Barrister: a calling card with arcane and demonic script: “Legal Advocate. Any Place, Plane or Time. Call  upon Nerus.” Summons a charming, professional devil who will faithfully serve as negotiator or legal counsel.

Eyedrops of Unknown Providence: user gains darkvision for a 24 hour period. (I have totally unbalanced  games by including items like the Visor of Darkvision. Don't be like me. Let darkvision be a temporary buff rather  than a permanent one)

Awakening Salts: imbiber cannot be surprised for 48 hours. Cannot sleep either. Bonus to any check involving perception. Penalty to any check involving not coming off like a crackhead.

Surgeon’s gas: one-time bonus to thief skills of 40%  (if doing it AD&D) or 2 on d6 rolls (in B/X) or +5 in later editions. A volatile liquid which usually comes in tiny glass ampules, in a wallet of 3 ampules.  Or in a bottle with dozens of doses. Also works for other feats of manual dexterity.

Parenthetical ending thought:

This whole train of thought was a reaction to the sheer brutality and inutility I experienced with B/X.

The realization that a certain amount of statistical bonus actually facilitates gameplay has lead me to realize that from a game design perspective in  D20 based systems, DMs need not be so miserly with numerical bonuses. Whether a PC has a +2 or a +7 bonus,  they will  still have bad rolls and streaks of inordinate bad luck to boot. The key thing is agency, and numerical advantage does not equate to agency. For instance, a cloak of spiderclimb does more to unhinge an adventure that a +5 sword. There is also a the element of equality among players. If PCs have a +5 attack, that is fine. The DM can easily adjust. But an issue arises when one PC has  the +5 when the others don't, and has so much more agency that it begins to show in awkward ways.