Questions for DM

If you have any questions, like getting magic item approval or rules questions, please send them here. Please avoid general conversation, or else questions and their answers might get lost and hard to find again. Have such talks in the Out of Character thread.

Does the rare magic item have to be a weapon?

Alrighty... a few questions.

If I needed a Common magic item, can I simply buy it? Obvious follow up: If yes, how much? (Ruby of the War Mage is what I'm looking at.)

Speaking of magic items... how do we feel about these?

Uncommon: Adamantine Plate Mail
* Assuming I still pay the 2,000gp for the armor, and the "adamantine" part is covered by the magic item entry.

Uncommon: Cloak of Protection

Rare: Crystal Blade

I might have missed it, but how did you want to do HPs each level after the first?

please confirm or fix my assumptions of homebrew rules:
1. wizard casting mage hand armor or other out of combat spells will never get spell slots back
2. wizard can't use arcane recovery since there are no short rest
3. druid who use wild shape out of combat will not get use restored until after any combat

I'm going to quote the questions and answer them in blue text within

Much obliged!

How would you rule find steed in terms of combat? I have seen it different ways with initiative, controlled/independent mount, pc vs Dm control at different points, etc

Was thinking for my magic items:

Molten Bronze half-plate (rare)
+1 glaive (uncommon)
Luckstone (uncommon)

Probably a stupid, minor thing, but... if we have the Find Familiar spell, do we start the game with a familiar summoned? Or will we need to summon once the game starts?

Edit: Also, the Legendary Resistance houserule... is there any limit to that? Like, once per turn? Or can it just auto succeed on each and every save until it's under 50% HPs?

You can have the familiar already out. You're level 13 and the spell is a 1st level spell. Even if you only recently got the spell from multiclassing, you'd probably have casted it before the adventure started.

As for the legendary resistance houserule, I'm playtesting it. It's all saves until under 1/2 max hp.
Pros: You don't have to waste spells just to "burn through it", as you know from the start how it works.
Cons: It isn't susceptible to "burning through it" techniques if you really wanted to, like spamming stunning strike.

Legendary resistance already is a rough system. At least with this, once I say "the monster seems bloodied/staggered/etc." you know "oh, my features work now!" they still get the usual save, of course. If I didn't do this, I'd probably have to give the boss 5 or even more legendary resistances since there are 6 of you and bosses already find it hard to be themselves alone in fights.

Question:
I am seeing a lot of variant human and thought about mixing up my build to diversify the party (I know it isn't required but always nice).

Thinking about changing to Triton, and move to Shield/Spear user. I know the Spear can be used with Polearm master, but would you allow a trident? mechanically they are basically identical other than the this fact.

I was just thinking being a Triton, wielding a trident would be kind of cool and fit a theme for the change of basically being Aquaman. Or I could just "reflavor" the spear to be a trident too, but just wanted to ask

I am fine with the Trident being used with full arm master. I don't see anything unique with that combination that other weapons don't have to worry about . Plus, the Trident does not get enough use in my opinion hahaha

Sweet. I built the character out and submitted.

For mundane purposes...game description and level indicates we are seasoned heroes. Would buying a mirror be too meta-gamey? I mean if Perseus did it...

I'm sure we were all thinking it. I was.

Honestly? A mirror, chalk, and soap are three items I generally consider to be essential adventuring gear that a lot of people seem to skip over. I hope it's not meta game-y, because almost all my characters have that stuff as soon as they have the gold.

Yeah, other things I was thinking:

Silvering a backup weapon
Ball bearings
Manacles

There's no problem in bringing a mirror. Just know that no one becomes queen of a type of monster and fails to account for such weaknesses. "You think you are the first to try that? You will not be the first nore the last..." Kind of thing

In case anyone is curious, unlike mithral and adamantine, silver is not a magical substance so you can use gold on it

Do our characters know anything more about Hythonia's island apart from it being possibly guarded by dragons?

Many people have tried to defeat her, and few if any have returned alive. The island itself is a big mystery, and most of the tales center around how hard it is to get onto it, not what happens once you are there.