A single item can make a lot of difference. Dungeons & Dragons is famous for many things, but the biggest one is likely all the unhinged things that can happen during a campaign, all thanks to the fact that players can virtually do anything at the table. That’s the beauty of TTRPGs.
With that in mind, the game offers a lot of items, whether they’re some wild concept made by your DM or official items created by Wizards of the Coast. And depending on how creatively you use these items, things can go off the rails easily. We can’t evaluate your DM’s homebrew inventions, so let’s talk about some official items that can break some games.
Immovable Rod
A Classic
By this point, many avid players are aware of one of the oddest items in the Dungeon Master’s Guide: The Immovable Rod. With the press of a button, this rod locks into place, and moving it is quite challenging. It’ll even stay in the air, defying all the laws of physics.
While it’s not impossible to move the rod against its will, it’s extremely challenging, requiring a strength check with a DC of 30 just to move it by ten feet (3m). And it can hold up to 8,000 pounds (around 3,600kg), which is no small feat. Creative players can use this for many weird things, such as traversing or getting someone stuck.
Bag Of Holding
Another Classic
The Bag of Holding is a far more common item to see in campaigns, for the DMs who want to ignore encumbrance but don’t want to straight-up remove the rules. And most people are aware that you can make ‘black holes’ with a couple of bags, but that’s not even our focus — though, yeah, you can make a portal to the Astral Plane by putting a Bag of Holding inside another one (or similar items).
Still, the idea of being able to store small things is useful, especially when you can store other interesting items, or even people, if you’re able to shrink them enough — a near infinite, mobile storage is useful, after all.
Portable Hole
Perfect For Traps
This piece of cloth can turn into a ten-foot (3m) deep hole on command at any time, allowing you to place a random hole whenever you want. It’s very Looney Tunes in its style, and you can fold the cloth with objects (or people) inside of it. You can prepare something inside the hole to hurt enemies as part of the trap, but keep in mind that if you fold an enemy while conscious, it’s not that hard for them to get out.
Still, once the enemy is down, it’s easy to carry them with this item. Oh, and this is one of the ‘similar items’ we mentioned in the previous entry; you can make a portal to the Astral Plane by throwing your Bag of Holding inside your Portable Hole.
Deck Of Illusions
For Some Smoke And Mirrors
With this deck, you can draw cards of random monsters and create illusions of them. While they’re not dangerous (they’re illusions, after all), a creative player can take advantage of that for many things, from creating distractions to causing havoc.
Players can even attempt to sow chaos themselves and put the blame on the illusion, creating more veracity for it and causing all sorts of reactions from the NPCs who fall from it. It’s a creative way to solve several problems.
Deck Of Many Things
Of Course It’s Here
Still, we can’t talk about items that break games, especially card-related ones, without mentioning the magnum opus of destroying games: The Deck of Many Things. Each card has a random effect, which can be amazing or terrifying.
These cards can change your ability scores, entrap you, erase events from existence, create powerful enemies, give you powerful items, money, or allies, and many other options. Some of these can change the course of the campaign completely.
Alchemy Jug
Maker Of Liquids
Being able to create a few gallons of liquid is a simple effect for a magical item, which can be easily overlooked. However, many of these can come in clutch when needed. For instance, being able to produce fresh water in a campaign focused on exploration is very powerful.
Oil and poison can also be handy from time to time, and some player characters can be a real danger with the power to produce beer or wine on demand. This item will demand a lot of creativity, but the Alchemy Jug is definitely more than meets the eye.
Robe Of Useful Items
Summon Odd Things
We mentioned a deck to summon illusions, but what about summoning real things? From objects to dogs or horses, you can summon a lot of weird stuff with the Robe of Useful Items.
Other options include rowboats, money, spell scrolls, a ladder, a door that will fixate itself into an opening, a pit that will fixate on the ground, or a window that you can place on the wall, among other things. Having the right object for the weirdest scenarios is where this robe shines.
Iron Flask
The Same One From Baldur’s Gate 3
We’re not done with summons, as the Iron Flask can break games depending on how it’s introduced. First, it can trap creatures inside it, as long as they are from a different plane than the one you’re currently in, meaning you can trap celestials, fiends, elementals, and so on.
Technically, you can trap humanoids and similar, as long as you’re not on the Material Plane.
Being able to solve an entire fight by trapping your enemy is already a cheesy way to solve problems. Additionally, the flask may already be occupied when first discovered by the party. If the DM rolls randomly, there’s a significant chance the creature inside will be extremely powerful and evil, which can make games end terribly depending on the party’s level.
Sovereign Glue
Hard To Get Rid Of
Who would have thought that glue could be such a powerful item? Only two other items (or the Wish spell) can undo the bond made by this glue, so if you use it to attach two things to one another, it’ll be a nightmare to fix that little mistake of yours.
That said, creative use of this glue can fix the wildest of issues as well, blocking paths, making sure an item won’t be stolen, among others. It’s so useful that your players might keep saving it for whenever necessary, and then the campaign will be over, and it will haven’t been used at all. Still, that’s their issue.
Sphere Of Annihilation
It’s The Opposite Of Summoning
What’s the harm of giving your players a black hole? Aside from, of course, destroying everything around them. Anyone can try a quite hard intelligence check to attempt to control its movement, but even then, it’s a hard item to control once activated.
It can cause quite a lot of damage, and it completely obliterates whoever is downed by the sphere, so there are no death-saving throws here, only death itself. Plus, outside of hitting an interdimensional gate, the item offers no official way of deactivating it, so good luck.
- Original Release Date
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1974
- Player Count
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2+
- Length per Game
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From 60 minutes to hours on end.
- Age Recommendation
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12+ (though younger can play and enjoy)
- Franchise Name
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Dungeons & Dragons
- Publishing Co
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Wizards of the Coast