It is late Saturday night, and all the
players have gone home. The brilliantly
creative Scenario Designer and the eminently
practical Dungeon Master (who, in
this case, happen to be the same person)
remain behind to work out a thorny problem
in the campaign.

?I'?d like to put in a magic item for the
magic-user," begins the Designer.

?High time, I?d say," replies the DM.
?The rest of the party has plenty of stuff,
and he?s got almost nothing.?

?Magic-users are hard to shop for. He
didn?t like that dagger +2 I got him last
time.?

?Well, he?s 6th level now ? he doesn?t
melee much anymore. I think he?s about
had it with scrolls, too.?

?"Some potions . . . ??"

?Potions are party treasure and go to
whoever needs them most at the time. Besides,
it costs almost as much to have them
identified as it costs to buy them outright.?

?True. Besides, I wanted to make this a
long-term character item. How about a
cloak of protection??

?He?s already got bracers and a ring. You
want him to have a better armor class than
the fighters??

?He?s an elf ? what about magic boots,
or a cloak of elvenkind??

?The thief'd get ?em. He?s got more use
for ?em.?

?Right again. . . . Well, how about a
wand??

?Remember that wand of fire he had a
while back? Everything that moved, he
roasted. I thought the darn thing would
never run out of charges.?

?And when it did, it was just a pretty
stick as far as a low-level magic-user is
concerned. Why didn?t he conserve the
charges??

?Well, he didn?t know how many there
were, and he didn?t know whether he?d get
a chance to recharge it, or when, or how.
Also, he might have lost it to a thief or a
disenchanter or something. With all those
unknowns, he probably figured the best way
to be sure he didn?t lose any of the benefit
of the item was to use it as much as he
could. Hard to blame him.

?Sure ? you don?t expect a fighter to
?conserve? his new sword + 3, do you??
?Exactly. A wand boosts a character?s
power up very high, but only for a short
period of time. Then it?s a stick. It?s essentially
a game-balance problem, and you can
never depend on players to voluntarily
maintain game balance.? 

?What if we compromise the rules and
give him a wand with less than 81 charges
left??

?That?s less powerful, but it?s even more
disposable. I thought you wanted a longterm
character item.?

?Yeah, yeah. Something useful, but not
too powerful. Hey, why don?t we give him a
wand of wonder??

?Why don?t we just give him a cloak of
poisonousness and save him a lot of aggravation?
?
?I see your point. Maybe we could design
an item that could be used only once
per day or so, like those special scrolls in the
DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE.? <what scrolls?>

?If it had charges, it?d still run out eventually.

?No charges, then.?

?Well, that?s okay for you, but it makes
me look a bit arbitrary. I mean, here I am
as DM telling a player when and how often
his character can use his own magic item. I
like to leave things like that up to player
choice. Besides, I hate to think of him making
a point of using the thing every day so
as not to waste it.?

?If we could only run an item off the
characters? own spell-casting powers . . . . let
the charges be his own daily allotment of
spells . . .?

?Hey, why not?? exclaims the DM. . . .

. . . And so, the magic-focusing item is
born, and the world is never the same
again.

Single-function focusing items
Basically, a magic-focusing item allows a
magic-user to cast a spell he has not memorized
by ?focusing? the spell potential of
any memorized spell of the same level into
the desired spell (i.e., the spell that the item
?focuses?). A wand of fireball casting, for
example, would allow a magic-user to convert
any memorized 3rd-level spell (say,
clairaudience) into a fireball without spending
45 minutes poring over his spellbook.
Once the fireball was cast, of course, the
clairaudience spell would be lost and forgotten,
and the character would have expended
one of his 3rd-level spells for the day ? just
as if he had cast the clairaudience spell
normally. This wand would have no power
of its own (although it would radiate a faint
dweomer if detect magic were cast on it). It
would be powered entirely by the magicuser
?s own spell abilities and therefore
would never run out of "?charges".?

Right at the outset, it is advisable to
prevent misunderstandings by outlining
some of the things a magic-focusing item
will not do. It will not allow a magic-user to
cast spells of a higher level than he is able to
learn; for example, a magic-user would
have to be 5th level or higher to use a wand
of fireball casting.

It will not affect the range, area of effect,
duration, or damage of a spell except in the
special case of ?magic-enhancing items?
detailed below. Therefore, for example, a
magic-focusing wand would be exempt from
the usual rule that wands function at the 6th
level of power ? a 5th-level magic-user
would cast a 5d6 fireball through the same
wand of fireball casting that would allow a
12th-level magic-user to cast a 12d6 fireball.

A magic-focusing item will not ?store
up? magical energy from spells cast the day
before or spells cast by other characters ? it
is not a rod of absorption. Also unlike that
device, a magic-focusing item will not convert
one kind of magic (clerical, druidical,
etc.) to another.

In spite of all these limitations, and the
main limitation of having no power of its
own, a magic-focusing item can still be a
useful and desirable possession for a magicuser
character. A magic-user with a wand of
fireball casting has a fireball spell ready
whenever he wants it, as long as his 3rdlevel
spells hold out, and the same would be
true of any other magic-focusing item.
These items effectively increase the number
of spells a magic-user has to choose from at
any given moment ? and the more such
items he has, the greater the choice. With a
wand of fireball casting and a wand of
lightning bolt casting, a magic-user will be
able to choose between these popular spells
at a moment?s notice (a handy thing in
itself) and will also be free to memorize in
their stead more esoteric and specialized
spells like gust of wind and water breathing
? spells which might not be needed at all
on a given day, but which might also be
needed desperately and without warning.
Thus, when the gorgon breathes or the
floodgates open and the water starts rushing
in, the magic-focusing wands will have
proven useful without even having been
used.

The greater the variety of spells available
to a magic-user at any given moment, the
greater the variety of spells he will tend to
cast over the course of an adventure. Many
game situations cry out for the creative
application of a particular, little-used spell,
but PC magic-users cannot generally predict
these situations in advance when they
are selecting and memorizing their spells for
the day, nor can they expect the action to
grind to a halt while they study their
spellbooks. This is why most PC magicusers
load up on major-destruction, ?big
blast? spells like fireball, lightning bolt,
magic missile, and cone of cold, which are
applicable to a large number of unpredictable
situations but lack the more subtle,
intellectual touch appropriate to the role of
the wily mage. However, if the above spells
were always on hand via magic-focusing
items, many PC magic-users would experiment
more with other spells that might be
useful, as above; paradoxically, the guaranteed
availability of the ?big blast? spells
might cause them to be cast less frequently.
This could be considered a benefit to the
Dungeon Master also, who might be getting
tired of watching his magic-users blast their
way out of every situation and who might
appreciate a little innovation and clever
spell-use from time to time.

A list of all the possible magic-focusing
items and their individual characteristics
would be far too long to be included here.
This article is intended only to present the
general idea of magic-focusing items; the
details of the individual items will be up to
the individual DMs and designers. I have
generally confined myself to magic-focusing
items through which one and only one spell
may be cast. The forms I have used have
been mostly wands (for directional and
basically offensive spells), rings (for defensive
spells and others that the caster is most
likely to cast on himself or in his own area),
and talismans or amulets (for short-range
spells involving divination and enchantment).
The spells I have used or most
strongly considered using in designing these
items are listed below.

Wands: magic missile, knock, ray of
enfeeblement, fireball, lightning bolt, ice
storm, polymorph other, cone of cold,
feeblemind, teleport (target must be
touched), disintegrate, vanish, meteor
swarm.

Rings: feather fall, shield, spider climb,
in visibility levitate, blink, fly water breathing,
dimension door, fire shield, airy water.

Talismans or amulets: charm person,
detect magic, detect evil, ESP, forget, scare,
suggestion, charm monster, fear, repulsion,
mass charm.

Other spells could be added to these lists,
including some of the new spells in UNEARTHED ARCANA. 
Other DMs may also wish
to use other forms, such as boots, hats,
musical instruments, etc. I have used
wands, rings, and amulets because they are
traditional (note that many of the spell
functions above appear in conventional
magical wands, rings, and talismans and
amulets) and because it is relatively easy for
a character to carry and use several of each. 

This is <i>not an invitation for DMs to
indiscriminately shower their magic-users
with all the focusing items they can carry ?
focusing items may be less valuable than
most other magic items, but they are more
valuable than that. However, since these
items allow a magic-user only greater variety
in his choice of spells, and not more
spells or more spell power, I might allow a
mid- to high-level magic-user to accumulate
three or four or more of each over the
course of a campaign. I exempt magicfocusing
rings from the usual rule of ?one
per hand,? and allow as many to function as
the character can reasonably and comfortably
wear, since many of the ring spells are
geared to emergency use (feather fall, etc.)
and are not very useful if the magic-user
must fumble for the correct ring. On the
other hand, I also stipulate that spells cast
through focusing rings must be cast by and
on the wearer of the ring (i.e., the magicuser
himself), which does limit their use
somewhat.

A few issues in the definition of magicfocusing
items ? what they can and cannot
do ? are so controvertible that they should
probably be decided separately by each
DM, with the demands of his own campaign
in mind. One of these is the question
of whether a magic-focusing item can convert
one level of a spell into another, given
equal total spell power. For example, could
a wand of fireball casting combine three
magic missile spells into one fireball, or vice
versa? Could a wand of magic missile casting
split one fireball spell into three magic
missile spells? There is the precedent of the
rod of absorption, but it does not apply well
because many other powers of that device
are specifically denied to magic-focusing
items and because analogies between magicfocusing
items and conventional magic
items are tenuous at best and must be
drawn with great care to preserve the general
point that they are basically different
animals. Rary?s mnemonic enhancer is a
better precedent because it involves actual
spell-casting, but it is important to note the
costly material components of this spell and
the net loss in spell power involved (ineluded,
apparently, to discourage frequent
use of the spell). Some DMs may find this
kind of power conversion (with or without
penalty) logical, others not; including this
feature would make magic-focusing items
considerably more powerful and desirable,
which again might or might not be appropriate
to any given campaign. In any case,
it must be reiterated that magic-focusing
items will not allow a magic-user to cast a
spell of higher level than he is able to learn,
and they will not convert different kinds of
spell energy (magical, clerical, etc.) from
one to the other.

There is also the question of whether a
magic-focusing item will enable a magicuser
to cast a spell, of appropriate type and
level, that he has never learned, including
even spells he is unable to learn due to an
unlucky roll of the dice (see Players Handbook,
page 10). If a magic-user does not
have fireball in his spellbook, but can cast
3rd-level spells, can he use a wand of fireball
casting or not? The logic of the case
depends on how much one assumes the
magic-focusing item aids the magic-user in
casting the spell ? does it ?know? the spell
itself, or merely jog the magic-user?s memory?
Allowing this option would make
magic-focusing items more useful and desirable
(though not as much so as using the
previously described option), and would
tend to deemphasize the importance of spell
acquisition in a campaign or draw some of
the sting from it in a campaign in which it is
strongly emphasized, if magic-focusing
items became common enough.

Again, different DMs might view either
of these effects as either good or bad. This
option also allows the DM to make sure that
a given spell will be available to the party at
a crucial point in the adventure ? a knock
spell, for example, when the party is about
to enter a dungeon level full of locked
doors. Traditionally, this is accomplished by
leaving the appropriate scroll lying around;
leaving the appropriate magic-focusing item
lying around instead removes the risk that
the magic-user will blow the aforementioned
dice roll, or simply copy the spell into his
spellbook and then forget all about it. Since
the item would not ?teach? the magic-user
the spell, no matter how many times he
used it, he would be able to cast that spell
only by using the item. This might lead to
some interesting situations; it would also
allow the DM to remove a spell from the
campaign simply by removing the item, via
a thief, disenchanter, fire trap, or the like
(an especially useful trick in the case of
DM-invented or PC-invented spells which
later turn out to be too powerful).

Another set of issues concerns the effects
of magic-focusing items on the manner of
casting spells ? the casting time, components,
concentration required, etc. For
example, it may not seem logical to require
material components for spells cast through
a device. If material components are to be
eliminated, the spells should be restricted to
those without elaborate or expensive material
components (as in the lists above),
unless a special provision has been made for
including them (as with the bag of conjuring
focus below), for game balance reasons.
There is no logical need to eliminate or alter
verbal components, but it might be reasonable
to reduce the somatic components to
simply pointing or waving a wand, touching
or twisting a ring, or presenting or clutching
a talisman or amulet, etc. If the DM
decides that this should shorten the casting
time, spells with long casting times should
be avoided, again as in the list above, and
again for game balance reasons. Also, discharging
spell-like powers from conventional
magic items requires considerably less
concentration than casting spells in the
usual way. While analogies between conventional
magic items and magic-focusing
items must always be drawn with great
care, the logic of this limited parallel may
still appeal to some DMs. Allowing magicusers
to cast spells through magic-focusing
items while arrows whistle past their ears
would add another considerable advantage
to using these items.

The DM will also have to determine the
experience and sale values of magicfocusing
items. It is suggested that the sale
value be relatively low ? say, 1,000 gp per
level of spell focused ? to encourage PCs to
keep these items and use them. However,
the experience-point value could be proportionately
higher, even as high as the sale
value itself. If the sale value is kept low, the
DM will have to take steps to prevent PCs
from buying large numbers of focusing
items with ready cash. The easiest way to
do this is to make them very rare or even
entirely absent from the open market, generally
introducing them only as ?found?
items. The DM may opt to assume that
magic-focusing items are the occasional,
accidental by-products of failed attempts to
create ?real? magic items, and that the
mages who create them are generally too
disappointed over their apparent failure to
concern themselves with what their faulty
creations can do. This would explain their
low sale value and their general absence
from the open market, and it would also
help explain how such things came to be
lying around a dungeon or in the hands of
monsters.

Special cases
Until now, we have considered only items
through which one and only one spell may
be cast. On occasion, the DM or designer
may want to design an item that would
focus several related spells. For example, a
wand of fire focus could convert spells of
appropriate levels into burning hands,
pyrotechnics, fireball, fire charm, fire
shield, wall of fire, and meteor storm. Such
an item would take the place of several
single-function focusing items, and so would
be rarer and much more valuable. A character
should probably acquire no more than
one or possibly two of these devices even in
a very long career of adventuring (it is
always important to place focusing items
with care ? since they do not wear out or
become used up, they tend to become permanent
fixtures in a campaign).

Multi-function focusing items should
work muck like the single-function kind, as
detailed above, and they carry the same
basic advantages for the character and for
the DM. Multi-function focusing items
have an additional benefit for character
development, in that they encourage magicusers
to specialize in a certain kind of spells
(fire spells, alteration spells, artificialmotion
spells like levitate, fly, telekinesis,
teleport, etc.), which gives the character
more of an individual style.

Another way to add color to multifunction
focusing items is to give them a
greater variety of forms (staves and other
personal objects, articles of clothing, musical
instruments, etc.), since there would be
no need to make it convenient to carry and
use large numbers of them. Thus, spectacles
of visual spell focus could focus clairvoyance,
infravision, wizard eye, and all the
detect spells (a magic mirror or crystal ball
would also be an appropriate form here). A
glove of Bigby?s hand focus could focus all
the Bigby?s hand spells, and a bag of conjuring
focus could focus unseen servant, all
the monster summoning spells, conjure
elemental, and Drawmij?s instant summons.
The latter item would work like a bag of
t r i c k s ?the material components for the
last two spells would have to be inserted
into the bag prior to casting the spells, for
game-balance reasons, and there might still
be some game-balance difficulty with adjusting
the casting time for a conjure elem
e n t a l s p e l l .

Another advantage of the multi-faceted
focusing item is that the character is less
likely to ?outgrow? it. A flute that focuses
sleep is a fine item for a 1st-level magicuser,
but it would probably be sold off
around 3rd or 4th level. However, if different
tunes on the same flute would also focus
confusion, fear, and Otto?s irresistible
dance, the item should remain highly useful
throughout the character?s career.

A second variation on the basic singlefunction
magic-focusing item would be the
magic-enhancing item. Such an item would
focus one and only one spell, but it would
also improve the spell in some way ? increase
the range or the duration, heighten
the damage, etc. Many forms of ?enhancement
? come to mind, but the simplest
would be to have the item allow the spellcaster
to cast the spell as if he or she were
one or more levels higher in the profession,
so that a 5th-level magic-user could use a
wand of fireball casting +1 to cast 6d6
fireballs at a range of 16?, a 6th-level
magic-user 7d6 fireballs at 17?, and so on.
This item would be closely analogous to a
fighter?s sword +1. It should be noted that
an enhancing item would not allow a magicuser
to cast a spell of a higher level than he
is able to learn, but merely to cast spells of
appropriate levels more powerfully. In some
cases (such as charm person or invisibility),
enhancement in terms of spell-caster levels
will have no effect, so such spells should be
avoided or handled differently in enhancing
items. Like multi-function focusing items,
enhancing items should be much more
valuable and much rarer than ordinary
focusing items, and they should likewise be
placed with great care because they tend to
become a permanent part of the campaign.

What about other classes?
It may seem strange that, up to this
point, this article has considered focusing
items only for magic-users and not for the
other spell-casting classes. The fact is that I
have only made use of the concept for
magic-user items in my campaigns. Few of
my players have run illusionists as it happens,
and as for clerics and druids ? well,
magic-focusing items for them have their
own special problems.

Magic-focusing items for clerics and
druids would tend to usurp part of the
deities? role. Deities decide, in person or
through intermediaries, which spells their
respective clerics may memorize on a given
day. A highly chaotic deity who objects to
the use of command or a warrior-deity who
considers spells such as sanctuary and feign
death ?sissified? would not be happy to
learn of magic items that would allow his
clerics to subvert his wishes in these matters.
Since such items would be useful primarily
to circumvent the deities? authority
(at least, the deities would tend to see it that
way), and since clerical magic items are
created only through the aid of the deities,
it seems highly unlikely that such items
would exist.

If the DM takes his role as deity seriously,
and plays it carefully with regard to the
granting of clerical spells, the need for
clerical focusing items can be obviated. The
player may not know what situations the
day?s adventuring may have in store, but
the DM (and therefore the deity) should.
The DM-as-deity can therefore adjust the
cleric?s daily spells according to what he is
most likely to need. This could take the
form of gentle hints from the deity or intermediary,
or it could be imposed on the
cleric perforce, although much coercion
should not be necessary if the cleric character
is being role-played with a fitting sense
of the importance of his deity?s opinions. If
an emergency situation occurs that no one
(including the DM) could have foreseen,
and the cleric legitimately needs to change a
spell post-haste, I think it not unreasonable
for a deity to grant a hasty prayer to that
effect, from a cleric in good standing.

If for some reason the DM still wants to
give the cleric a focusing item (perhaps a
?shopping? problem, as alluded to at the
beginning of this article), such an item
would probably take the form of a special
holy symbol, icon, relic (though not in the
?artifacts and relics? sense), censer, prayer
wheel, etc., and should be created and
closely monitored by the deity. The best
spells to focus would probably be ?bread
and butter? spells such as the various cure
spells. Even then, the use of such an item
by an evil cleric would have to be very
closely monitored. The DM may decide
that the cleric?s deity can cause such an item
to cease functioning at will.

If druids are ruled to have personal deities,
rather than simply worshiping nature
as an entity, they will have the same problems
with focusing items as clerics, above. If
not, druidical focusing items could be very
interesting and very useful to the character.
Druidical spells are generally cast very close
to nature, and the most distinctive ones
usually require a natural setting; animal
friendship requires the presence of a wild
animal, entangle requires undergrowth, etc.
Focusing items might not only enable a
druid to choose from such spells at will, but
to cast them inside caverns, dungeons, etc.
For example, a length of green vine or ivy
or a rope woven from willow shoots might
allow a druid to focus entangle, and to use
the item itself in the place of undergrowth,
indoors. Such an item would certainly make
the druid more effective in indoor and
underground adventures. DMs may have
differing opinions on how this would affect
game balance, depending on how they view
the relative strength or weakness of druid
characters without such advantages. As
always, it is important to remember that it
is easier to introduce a focusing item into
the campaign than to remove one.

Focusing items for illusionists would have
all the advantages of magic-user items.
There is the aesthetic objection to the creation
of complicated illusions with the mere
wave of a wand or the touch of a ring, all
the more so since illusionist spells are supposed
to have elaborate somatic components.
There is also the more serious
problem of what it does to the deception to
have the illusionist wave a wand or other
obvious magical item in the direction the
illusion is about to appear. (I have played a
character who had just this problem with a
conventional wand of illusion.) Of course,
spells that illusionists share with magicusers
which are listed on the table above
could be focused through wands, rings,
talismans, or amulets also (though not the
same wands, rings, etc.), and some other
defensive and personal spells, such as
change self, gaze reflection, and blur, could
also be focused through rings. Forms for
focusing more elaborate illusionist spells
might include silk foulards (for misdirection
or the various versions of invisibility), or
paint brushes for making detailed illusions
that no one will see until after the illusionist
has finished them (such as hallucinatory
terrain, massmorph, and programmed
illusion). Such paint brushes would not
logically have to shorten casting time, and
could in fact lengthen it for the last two
spells. The shortcomings of brushes as
focusing items for on-the-spot illusions such
as shadow magic and shadow door are
obvious.

A week later, just after the most recent
playing session, the Designer and the DM
take time to pat each other on the back:

?Well, how did it go?? asks the Designer,
knowing what the answer will be.

?You would have thought I ? excuse me,
you ? invented the wheel. I haven?t seen
that magic-user so happy and self-satisfied
since the day he toasted his first orc!?

?Such a simple concept, but with so
many potential applications. . . . It almost
makes me wonder why I didn?t think of it
sooner.?

?Yeah, that?s probably what the guy who
invented the wheel said, too. . . .?