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D&D: Five Best Magic Items for Beginners

3 Minute Read
Oct 21 2023

New to D&D? Wondering what kind of magic items you need? Don’t worry, these are some of the best magic items for beginners.

One of the biggest rewards in D&D is the magic items. From the humble potions of healing to the indispensable bag of holding, there’s a lot to love. And a whole catalog to pick from. So much so, that you might not know what kind of magic items your character needs. Well, wonder no more. We’re here to help by going through five great items for beginners.

Clockwork Amulet

The Clockwork Amulet brings back a long-forgotten concept from 3rd Edition: taking 10. Except it’s better because it lets you take 10 on an attack roll, once per day — meaning you can treat your attack as having rolled a 10 instead of rolling a d20. Which is a great way to ensure that you hit that foe if you need to. As long as you know their Armor Class, of course. But if you’re new to D&D (or are low-level), you probably won’t be missing on 10s anyway. It only works once per day, but this is a great magic item for beginners of any class.

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Hat of Wizardry

Do you feel constrained by your spell selection? Wish you had another cantrip or two? Well, this spell lets you literally pull one out of a hat.

This is an item that makes for great tabletop stories–it gives you access to something minor, but under the right circumstances, it can save the day. It’s a great magic item for beginners because it’ll start them thinking about how their magic items might come in handy in unexpected ways.

Wand of Secrets

This wand has only 3 charges and can be used to detect a trap or secret door–which makes it an excellent resource for teaching new players all about looking for hidden things without having to dump them into the pit. And with only 3 charges, they’re all but guaranteed to find something–but not everything. It enriches a player’s experience and primes them to do more things, this is exactly what a good magic item should do.

Dragon Slayer

This magic weapon might not be an iconic weapon–for that you’ll want a holy avenger or an ogre-slaying knife (it’s got a +9 against ogres)–but it evokes one of the most iconic D&D moments, riding out to slay a dragon. This weapon can help a low-level party face down the dragon that typically shows up in a low-level WotC adventure – but it also calls them to be heroes.

Sending Stones

Finally, we have the Sending Stones, which allow you to cast Sending from one stone to another once per day. This is a great way to ensure that your party can stay in contact with someone they need – including each other when they invariably split up despite your best advice.

Some lessons you have to learn the hard way.

Happy Adventuring! What are your favorite magic items?

Check out the Beginner’s Guide to D&D

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Author: J.R. Zambrano
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