Dungeons And Dragons: 10 Abysmal Magical Items

There are few things to get more excited about in Dungeons and Dragons than treasure. Scratch that, in life. In D&D, treasure usually comes in the form of gold and, if you're lucky, magic items. Special trinkets, weapons, and armor that augment your character's already formidable repertoire of skills and abilities.

As such, nothing is more disappointing than getting an item that just does absolutely nothing for anyone in the group. It makes the entire journey seem a bit of a waste, really, trekking through dangerous lands and fending off foul beasties to come away with what amounts to a magical participation trophy.

Now a bit of a preamble before this list: I'm only using items in the Dungeon Master's Guide, as supplementary common magic items would make this far too easy, and magic items in adventure modules are often tailored for that particular campaign.

Furthermore, I understand that every magic item has its place, and that factors like the campaign setting, the party composition, and creativity of the group all can play a determining factor. If some of these items have been used to great effect by you, then congrats my friend, for you have finally won at Dungeons and Dragons.

With that said, let's continue on and see what items at the top of the treasure hoard should have been left at the bottom of a trash pile.

We start off with a the generic term of ammunition. In D&D, this can include arrows, crossbow bolts, darts, or sling bullets. While some of these can be considered viable weapon types, you'll be hard-pressed to find people using the humble sling. As such, you may want to consider buffing up your damage through the use of magical ammunition.

But read the description of these items and you'll realize this winds up being a waste of time. A key deficiency with this item is that once the ammunition hits the target, it reverts to nonmagical ammunition. This means that you're paying extra money for a very small attack and damage boost that really only benefits the player one time.

And this doesn't take into account the possibility of critical misses! Fire magical ammo on a boat and miss, and watch it clear off into the water, never to be seen again. There are so many ways using this item can go bad, that the risk vastly outweighs the reward.

You'd be much better off saving your money and investing in a +1 bow rather than +1 arrows, even if the cost and time to find it may be a bit more difficult. At least your bow isn't going to lose its power after you fire it.