Magic items aren’t just for after you beat the final boss of the adventure/dungeon. Here are a few, perfect for a pre-finale powerup!
If you’ve played a video game at all in the last decade, you know exactly the moment in question. After fighting your way through a sprawling dungeon/crypt/crashed spaceship/whatever, you come to the final chamber, and know that just on the other side of it lies a big boss battle. You can tell because, in the chamber before, there’s a curiously well-stocked array of healing potions, armor powerups, or other things that both give your character a confidence boost and signal that “hey, you might need a power boost, there’s a big bad fight ahead.”
That same principle works in D&D, too. Signal to the players, “Hey, this fight might be dangerous,” while also giving out rewards. Plus, with the right items, you can justify throwing a deadlier than normal fight at the party. Here are a few items worth trying out!
Healing Potion
This one is a classic for a reason. You can make sure that everyone’s health is topped up before going into battle, or reward players who have managed to keep their hit points total with some extra healing. Extra healing that anyone can do as a Bonus Action – and that can go a long way towards making it not feel too bad that they have to fight a guy who hits like a freight truck.
It’s a great way to “tune” the party to a harder encounter, which is what you want a boss battle to feel like. You want the element of danger – and the feeling of “oh right, we should use our items.”
Necklace of Fireballs
This is basically the D&D equivalent of giving the character a rocket launcher right before the boss battle. Especially if you, the DM, predetermine how many charges are in it. But having some extra fireballs is another good way to let yourself include a few extra minions (to get caught in the blast, but also be a menace).
The nice thing about a Necklace of Fireballs is that no attunement is required. So you can just pick it up and go with it.
Figurine of Wondrous Power
These are wonderfully weird little magic items. They can do a variety of things. Some act as companions who fight alongide a character – so it’s kind of like giving the party a free summons to fight alongside them. OR, it’s giving them a few magical weapons they can use temporarily (if you use one of the ivory goats) there’s a bunch of unique little powerups that you can give to the party in the form of these figurines, and you can even dole them out one figure at a time at different dungeons to do like a “collect the set” thing.
Potion of Speed
A boon for anyone who is using the Attack Action. A potion of speed is like getting a free Haste without having to worry about Concentration. Which means no worries that it ends early on accident. Just ten rounds of having an extra action that you can either make attacks with dash or any number of other things.
It’s not quite the “quad damage” powerup from Quake, but it will multiply any attack-based character’s force, for sure.
Scroll of Revivify
And then of course, there’s the good ol’ Baldur’s Gate 3 special, the Scroll of Revivify, aka get out of accidentally fireballing Astarion free card. This alleviates both friendly fire and gives you a way to bring someone back if they should fall in the fight. And it feels like MUCH less of a Deus Ex Machina if you give out the Scroll of Revivify before the challenging fight instead of after three party members have been downed.
What magic items would YOU want to get before a big boss fight?
Don’t Miss:
Read more at this site