Magic items are one of the best things about DnD, and it’s exhilarating when you get one since they’re pretty rare in DnD compared to other TTRPGs such as Pathfinder.
However, there are differences between the power levels of rare magic items. An interesting question, then, is: what are the best rare magic items in DnD?
Strap in, because this article is quite long. Here’s the list of the best rare magic items in DnD 5e. I’ve taken into account both design and power levels.
Amulet of Health
Wondrous Item, rare (requires attunement)
Amulet of Health makes your Constitution score jump to 19. if you’re already at 19 or higher Constitution, the item does nothing instead. It’s a fairly vanilla item as it goes, but it’s really strong.
If you’re squishy, you can get multiple ability score increases just by equipping the ring. Of course, this helps you become tankier, but it can also help you with Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration.
Sun Blade
Weapon (longsword), rare (requires attunement)
The Sun Blade is a really cool item that gives you a bunch of benefits. The Sun Blade longsword hilt radiates energy to form a blade. It deals radiant damage instead of your normal slashing damage, and it deals a bonus 1d8 to undead creatures.
It’s a +2 Finesse weapon that can be wielded by a lot of different classes. Having a melee magical weapon is in itself strong, and a magic weapon with a +2 bonus is even stronger.
Moreover, Sun Blade has the ability to light the way for 10-30 feet and provide dim light for an additional 10-30 feet, which is also a neat ability. I’d argue that this ability isn’t really the main upside to the weapon, but it’s a fairly useful ability and a fitting one for the Sun Blade.
Ring of Spell Storing
Ring, rare (requires attunement)
The Ring of Spell Storing is an incredibly useful ring that lets you cast spells into it for storage. How does this work in practice? I’ll refer to the Basic Rules:
“This ring stores spells cast into it, holding them until the attuned wearer uses them. The ring can store up to 5 levels worth of spells at a time. When found, it contains 1d6 − 1 levels of stored spells chosen by the GM.”
The ring can be used for a multitude of purposes, but some uses to consider that are arguably somewhat game-breaking are 1. You can use the ring to give a non-spellcaster friend a concentration spell. This is especially useful if he/she has a high Constitution score, of course. 2, you can lend class-exclusive spells to your friends!
It’s good even if you don’t give the ring to your friends. If you end up not using say a level 5 spell in a day, you can cast it into the ring and have an extra the next day instead. This can be particularly useful if you’re prepping for a difficult encounter.
I’m sure that there are more uses for the item that I haven’t mentioned here, but the Ring of Spell Storing is a fantastic utility item. Personally, I really enjoy items like this one, where you get to be creative as opposed to items with flat stat gains on them.
Necklace of Fireballs
Wondrous Item, rare
Necklace of Fireballs is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a necklace with 1d6 + 3 beads hanging off of it, and you can detach these beads and throw them at stuff. When they hit said stuff, they explode to the same effect as a level 3 Fireball.
The Necklace of Fireballs is especially useful early game, as it doesn’t require attunement and has a relatively strong effect. The fact that the item doesn’t require attunement is strong as well because you can pass the item around and use your turns to pelt enemies with the beads.
You can also throw multiple beads or the entire necklace if you want. For each bead after the first one, you increase the Fireball by one level. You can toss any number of beads as a single action.
Of course, after you’ve expended your 1d6+3 beads, the item is gone, so don’t spend them too frivolously.
Helm of the Gods
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement) From Mythic Odysseys of Theros
The Helm of the Gods is an item that lets you cast a different spell each day, up to three times. The helm is originally from the DnD sourcebook Mythic Odysseys of Theros, but you can easily incorporate it into other campaigns with a little creativity.
After finishing a long rest, you can pray to one of the 15 Gods that are listed in the Helm of the Gods item description and store the spell in the helm. In other words, you can prepare one of 15 different spells from the list to use as you want. You can only store one spell in the helm.
The helm regains charges every day. It starts with three charges and then regains 1d3 of charges every day. The helm has an additional, fairly underwhelming effect which lets you know whether or not there’s a Celestial or Fiend within 30 feet of your position.
Bracers of Defense
Wondrous Item, rare (requires attunement)
The Bracers of Defense gives you a +2 AC bonus if you’re not wearing any armor. That’s pretty strong in and of itself, but additionally, it stacks with other similar bonuses, such as Barbarians’/Monks’ Unarmored Defense and Mage Armor.
As you can tell, that’s a pretty massive boost in AC, especially if you’re affected by one of the buffs that I mentioned. As I said earlier, it’s not really my favorite type of item flavorwise, but it’s sure strong.
Cape of the Mountebank
Wondrous Item, rare
The Cape of the Mountebank lets you use Dimension Door once a day. Dimension Door lets you teleport, once a day, within 500 feet’s distance. You don’t have to see the place you want to go with your eyes, you can visualize it as well.
You arrive precisely at the place you want to go, which makes the spell really reliable. You can’t get back the same way you came, however, so you might want to use the spell somewhat conservatively. Or not. Either way is fun.
Overall, it’s a really good tool for escaping, positioning, and chasing. The cape doesn’t have to be attuned either, which is, of course, a bonus.
Armor of Resistance
Armor (light, medium, or heavy), rare (requires attunement)
The Armor of Resistance lets you get resistance (50% less damage taken) from one non-physical source while wearing the item. Unfortunately, you don’t get to choose what source.
Either the DM chooses it for you, or you randomize it through a d10 roll. Resistance to any given source is very useful, and for that reason, I think it makes for one of the 20 strongest rare items in 5e.
Read more: How Does Resistance Work in DnD?
A lot of DMs let their players choose what resistance to get, and that makes the item considerably stronger. With this little house rule, you can tailor-make your character’s defense.
Rod of Rulership
Rod, rare (requires attunement)
The Rod of Rulership lets you charm any creatures within 120 feet for 8 hours. To prevent this, they must pass a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw.
The Rod can either be incredibly strong or not particularly strong at all, depending on what types of enemies you’re facing. But if the item is used appropriately, it can completely carry encounters.
If the enemies you’re facing have fairly low Wisdom, then the Rod just completes the encounter for you. However, many groups play multiple encounters each day, and you only get to use it once per day.
If you could use the Rod of Rulership more than once a day, it would probably be pretty broken even with the DC 15 Wisdom saving throw taken into account.
Necklace of Prayer Beads
Wondrous Item, rare (requires attunement by a Druid, Cleric, or Paladin)
The Necklace of Prayer Beads has 1d4+2 non-magical and magical beads on it. The magical beads do not necessarily all serve the same purpose, as the DM either selects the effects of each bead or randomly selects them by rolling a d20 as many times as the number of beads on the necklace.
Here are the different effects that the beads on the Necklace can have:
| Result of Dice Roll | Bead Type | Effect |
| 1-6 | Blessing | Bless |
| 7-12 | Curing | Cure Wounds/Lesser Restoration |
| 13-16 | Favor | Greater Restoration |
| 17-18 | Smiting | Branding Smite |
| 19 | Summoning | Planar Ally |
| 20 | Wind Walking | Wind Walk |
The beads aren’t destroyed or rendered useless when you have cast a spell using one of the beads, it can’t be used until the next day. Furthermore, you can cast the spells from your beads using a bonus action, which is very resourceful indeed.
Brass Horn of Valhalla
Wondrous Item, varies
The Brass Horn of Valhalla is an awesome item both aesthetically and mechanically. It lets you summon spirits by blowing the horn.
The spirits have the same stat specifications as a Berserker. The spirits can fight for you, and they disappear when they die or after one hour’s in-game time.
There are a couple of different types of these horns, and what type you get varies depending on a d100 roll or the selection of the DM. The Horn also has requirements for using it, depending on the type.
Here’s a table for the different types of Horn of Valhallas in DnD:
| Result of Dice Roll | Type | Number of Spirits Summoned | Requirement(s) |
| 1-40 | Silver | 2d4+2 | – |
| 41-75 | Brass | 3d4+3 | Simple Weapon Proficiency |
| 76-90 | Bronze | 4d4+4 | Medium Armor Proficiency |
| 91-100 | Iron | 5d4+5 | Martial Weapon Proficiency |
Honestly, the effect of the item is pretty broken. Make sure to not give a low-level party this item since the spirits will most likely wreck everything in their path for the hour that they’re active.
For example, if you get the Iron horn, you can summon everything between 10 and 25 (CR 2) spirits. If your enemies aren’t considerably difficult, you don’t really have to do that much besides blowing the horn.
The saving grace of the item is that it can only be used once every 7 days. That’s a really long cooldown, but again, the effect is so strong that the cooldown time is justified.
Helm of Teleportation
Wondrous Item, rare (requires attunement)
The Helm of Teleportation works just as advertised: you get three charges, and as an action, you can remove one charge and cast Teleport.
Just like many other items like it, the Helm regains 1d3 charges each day. It’s a fairly straightforward item, but it’s deceivingly strong. The environmental challenges that mid to low-level parties face are very relevant, but the helm can significantly help with this.
Teleport is a 7th-level spell, and you get three charges of it per day. Normally, you would get the spell at level 13. Based on this, we can quite safely conclude that the helm shouldn’t really be awarded or given to low-level characters.
Flame Tongue
Weapon (any sword), rare (requires attunement)
Flame Tongue is a sword that you can ignite with flame, making attacks deal an extra 2d6 fire damage to its targets. The flames shine in a 40-foot radius (flames also shine dimly for an additional 40 feet).
The Flame Tongue is any sword, so it’s accessible to pretty much anyone. As far as comparisons go with other weapons, the Flame Tongue is hard to outmatch.
If you want to get into the nitty gritty regarding the damage of the Flame Tongue, I’d recommend checking this DPR calculator.
Experiment and compare the Flame Tongue with other weapons. I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion as I have: the Flame Tongue is really strong.
Daern’s Instant Fortress
Wondrous Item, rare
Daern’s Instant Fortress is one of the coolest, most creative items in DnD in my opinion. It’s also very strong.
The fortress is initially a little metal cube. However, if you spend an action, you can place it on the ground and speak a command word.
The command word will very quickly transform the little cube into a fortress, spanning 30 feet high and 20 feet wide on each side.
The fortress has a battlement on the top and two floors on the inside, connected by a ladder. When the fortress appears, creatures in its expanding area must make a Dexterity saving throw. If they fail, they take a bunch of damage and go flying.
Furthermore, the fortress has a door that spawns right in front of the caster. The door can’t be coerced or persuaded to open by magic — only you can open it, and you do so by commanding it to open. This costs one bonus action.
Every part of the fortress (walls, door, etc) has 100 hitpoints each and is immune to physical damage except for siege equipment. The fortress has resistance to every other form of damage.
I’m not sure if I have to explain why this item is good, quite frankly, as I’m sure you can imagine the potency of Daern’s Instant Fortress.
One thing to note, however, is that players shouldn’t really use it in tight spaces. The DM can easily and rightfully punish reckless players by making ceilings cave in on their heads.
Cloak of Displacement
Wondrous Item, rare (requires attunement)
Cloak of Displacement is a universally useful tool that’ll help you take less damage during combat. When you wear the cloak, enemies have disadvantage on attack rolls on you.
If you take damage, the effect goes away. Until it’s your turn again. The power of the effect speaks for itself. It’s a straightforward but strong item that can be used effectively by any PC in the game.
The Cloak of Displacement can be countered in a couple of ways, so it’s not overpowered by any means. For example, if the opponent has advantage on their attack it will cancel out the initial disadvantage. When they hit you, you’re open to attacks until your turn.
While the cloak can be used on all characters effectively, some character archetypes will stand to benefit more from it. For example, front liners will most likely get hit more than once every turn which somewhat diminishes the item’s usefulness (although not entirely).
Mizzium Armor
Armor (medium or heavy, but not hide), rare
Adamantine Armor is an uncommon armor that turns critical hits on you into normal hits. Mizzium armor is like an upgraded Adamantine Armor. It negates critical hits in the same way that Adamantine Armor does, but it has an additional benefit.
I’ll quote the sourcebook (Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica):
“…when you are subjected to a magical effect that allows you to make a Strength or Constitution saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw.”
In other words, Mizzium Armor can make you take no damage at all from certain spells if you pass their Con/Str checks. That’s pretty powerful.
Cube of Force
Wondrous Item, rare (requires attunement)
This is one of the most complicated items in DnD, so I recommend checking out the item description in the Basic Rules for further clarification. I’ll try to condense it to the best of my ability.
The Cube of Force is a small cube with six faces. You can spend an action to press one of them to gain different Wall of Force effects. The cube starts with 36 charges, and depending on what face you press, you expend a varying number of those charges.
The better the Wall of Force, the more charges you spend. Here’s a table with all of the effects from the Cube.
| Face | Charges Expended | Result |
| 1 | 1 | Gas, wind, and fog cannot pass through the barrier. |
| 2 | 2 | Non-living matter cannot pass through the barrier. Walls, floors, and ceilings can pass through if you want them to. |
| 3 | 3 | Living matter cannot pass through the barrier. |
| 4 | 4 | Spell effects cannot pass through the barrier. |
| 5 | 5 | Nothing can pass through the barrier. Walls, floors, and ceilings can pass through if you want them to. |
| 6 | 0 | Deactivate the barrier. |
Moreover, the cube loses charges if the barrier is hit by certain effects. Examples of such effects are Prismatic Spray, which removes 1d20 of charges from the cube, and Disintegrate, which removes 1d12 of charges.
Some DMs refuse to hand their players this item because of the potential wombo-combos and game-breaking effects this item has. For example, with face number 3, you can stand behind the barrier and spam cantrips on your foes while they can’t do anything (if they’re melee, which they are most of the time).
Stirring Scaled Ornament
Wondrous Item, rare (requires attunement)
Scaled Ornament comes in different rarities, from uncommon to legendary. Stirring Scaled Ornament is the rare version of the item, and it grants you +1 to AC and immunity from being charmed or frightened.
In addition to those two effects, you can choose to give creatures advantage on saving throws that they would make to avoid being charmed or frightened or to end one of the conditions.
The item is useful for all characters, the buffs are universally good, but they’re especially potent for melee classes like Fighters and Barbarians.