As you gain levels, the mundane equipment you purchased as a starting character becomes less important; it’s overshadowed by the magic items you acquire on your adventures. Magic armor that can cloak you in shadow, magic weapons that burst into flame, magic rings that turn you invisible, or Ioun stones that orbit your head to grant you great capabilities—these items enhance and supplement the powers you gain from your class and enhance your attacks and defenses. Magic items have levels, just as characters, powers, and monsters do. An item’s level is a general measure of its power and translates to the average level of character using that item. In practice, your character will end up with some items that are three or four levels above your level and others that are several levels below. There’s no restriction on using or acquiring items based on their level, except that you can’t use the Enchant Magic Item ritual to create an item above your level. If, for some reason, your 10th-level character finds a 20th-level magic sword, you can use it to full effect.
You can sometimes buy magic items just as you can mundane equipment. It’s rare to find a shop or a bazaar that routinely sells magic items, except perhaps the lowest-level items. Some fantastic places have such markets, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Your DM might say that you can track down a seller for the item you want to buy or that you might have to do some searching, but in general you can buy any item you can afford. You can also use the Enchant Magic Item ritual to create an item of your level or lower. In terms of the economic transaction, creating an item is the same as buying it: You spend money equal to the market price of the item and acquire the item. Some DMs prefer to have characters enchant their own items rather than buy them, particularly for more powerful items.
As you adventure, you’ll come across magic items as part of the treasure you acquire. Often, these are magic items much higher than your level—items you can’t enchant and can’t easily afford to buy. Ideally, these are items that someone in your party can use effectively, which makes them very rewarding treasure. If you find a magic item you don’t want to keep, or you find an item that replaces an item you already have, you might end up either selling the item or disenchanting it (with the Disenchant Magic Item ritual. This isn’t a favorable transaction for you—the sale price of a magic item, or the value of residuum you get from disenchanting it, is only one-fifth the normal price of the item. That means selling an item gives you enough money or residuum to buy or enchant an item that’s five levels lower than the original item.
Identifying Magic Items: Most of the time, you can determine the properties and powers of a magic item during a short rest. In the course of handling the item for a few minutes, you discover what the item is and what it does. You can identify one magic item per short rest. Some magic items might be a bit harder to identify, such as cursed or nonstandard items, or powerful magical artifacts. Your DM might ask for an Arcana check to determine their properties, or you might even need to go on a special quest to find a ritual to identify or to unlock the powers of a unique item.
Magic Item Categories: Magic items fall into seven broad categories: armor, weapons, implements, clothing, rings, wondrous items,and potions. Items in a particular category have similar effects—all magic weapons give you bonuses when you attack with them, and all magic boots have powers relating to movement. Aside from those broad generalities, though, magic items possess a wide variety of powers and properties.
Within the broad category of clothing, items are grouped by kind of clothing—whether you wear the item on your head or your feet, for example. These are called item slots, and they provide a practical limit to the number of magic items you can wear and use. You can benefit from only one magic item that you wear in your arms slot even if, practically speaking, you can wear bracers and carry a shield at the same time. You benefit from the item you put on first; any other item you put in the same item slot doesn’t function for you until you take off the first item. Sometimes there are physical limitations as well—you can’t wear two helms at the same time.
Wondrous items include a variety of useful tools, from a bag of holding to a flying carpet. Each item’s description indicates how a character accesses its effects. All magic armor gives you an enhancement bonus to your Armor Class. All magic weapons and implements give you an enhancement bonus to your attack rolls and damage rolls when you use them to make an attack. All magic cloaks, amulets, and other neck slot items give you an enhancement bonus to your Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses. Other magic items don’t generally give you bonuses to these numerical statistics, though there are some exceptions.
The rest of this section describes a broad selection of magic items of all levels, presented alphabetically within each category.
Reading a Magic Item
Name and Level: The name of the magic item and the item’s level appear on the first line of the description. If an item’s level line ends with a plus sign, that item is available at more than one level, with higher-level versions having a greater enhancement bonus or more potent powers and properties.
Description: The next entry gives a brief description of the item, sometimes explaining what it does in plain language, other times offering flavorful information about its appearance, origin, effect, or place in the world. This exact effect, look at the rules text below.
Category and Price: The next line or lines indicate the magic item’s various levels and enhancement bonus (if applicable) and the price for each version of the item. For weapons, the line beneath this information tells you which weapon groups can be enchanted with that set of qualities, and for armor, it notes the same for the five types of armor (plus clothing). For implements, it shows the specific kind of implement. For clothing items, the entry appears as “Item Slot:” followed by the appropriate slot. The magic item’s purchase price is either a single number (for an item with a fixed level) or a list of values.
Enhancement: For items that give an enhancement bonus, this entry specifies what that bonus applies to: AC, other defenses, or attack rolls and damage rolls. Magic weapons and implements grant their enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls only when you use powers delivered through the weapon or the implement (or directly from the weapon or the implement, for items that have attack powers). For example, a fighter’s attack powers are delivered through a weapon, so he or she adds a magic weapon’s enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls. A black mage’s attack powers are delivered through an implement (orb, staff, or wand), so he or she adds an implement’s enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls with those powers. A power’s description indicates if it functions through the use of a weapon or an implement. Each class description indicates which implements (if any) a character of that class is allowed to use when delivering powers. A magic item’s level and its enhancement bonus are associated. An item that has a +2 bonus is always between level 6 and level 10.
Critical: For magic weapons and implements, this entry describes what happens when you score a critical hit using that item. Just as with an enhancement bonus, this effect only applies for attacks that are delivered through the weapon or the implement. All magic weapons and implements deal one or more extra dice of damage on a critical hit. The number of extra dice is equal to the item’s enhancement bonus, and the die rolled depends on the particular weapon or implement. (The normal critical die is a d6.) Unless noted otherwise, the damage type of this extra damage is the same as the normal damage type for the weapon. In addition to extra damage, some magic weapons or implements produce other effects on a critical hit. This information is noted in the weapon’s description. An attack that does not deal damage still does not deal damage on a critical hit.
Property: Some magic items have a special property that is constantly active (or active under certain conditions). A property doesn’t normally require any action to use, although some properties allow you to turn them off (or on again).
Power: Some magic items have a special power. This entry, when present in an item description, includes the action required to use the power and the effect of the power. In some cases, it might also indicate the specific conditions under which you can use the power (for instance, only if you’re bloodied). In general, magic item powers follow the same rules as other powers (in that they have ranges, shapes, and so forth). Like racial powers and class powers, magic item powers often have keywords that indicate their damage or effect types. When you use a magic item as part of a racial power or a class power, the keywords of the item’s power and the other power all apply. Like other powers, magic item powers are sometimes at-will powers, sometimes encounter powers, and sometimes daily powers. Magic item powers have two other categories as well: Healing surge powers are usable every time you spend a healing surge, and consumable powers appear in one-use magic items.
✦ At-Will: These powers can be used as often as their action types allow.
✦ Encounter: These powers can be used once per encounter and are renewed when their user takes a short rest.
✦ Daily: A magic item’s daily power can be used once per day and is renewed when its user takes an extended rest. As with daily powers provided by your class, there is a limit to the number of magic item daily powers you can use on any given day. This limit depends on your level.
At 1st–10th level, you can use one magic item daily power per day.
At 11th–20th level, you can use two magic item daily powers per day.
At 21st–30th level, you can use three magic item daily powers per day.
Each use of a magic item daily power must come from a different magic item. At 11th level, for example, you can use the daily powers provided by two different magic items, but you can’t use two different daily powers from the same magic item. Your character sheet includes boxes to help you keep track of these uses.
Each time you reach a milestone, you gain one additional use of a magic item daily power. This benefit can be used to activate any magic item daily power that you have not already used this day (even if you’ve already used a different daily power from that magic item). After you take an extended rest, all of your magic item daily powers are renewed, and you start fresh with regard to the number of magic item daily powers you can use per day.
Healing Surge: You begin with one use of the power per day, like a daily power. You can renew this item’s power by taking a standard action to funnel your vitality into the item, spending a healing surge in the process. Spending a healing surge in this way doesn’t restore hit points, and this standard action is separate from the action required to activate the item’s power.
Consumable: Some items, particularly potions and elixirs, contain one-use powers that are expended when you use them. Once per day, you can use a holy avenger to increase the defenses of you and your allies. This power renews when you take an extended rest.
Special: If any special rules or restrictions on the item’s use exist, here’s where you’ll find them.