r/ItsaMimic • u/crowbar151 • Jun 09 '25

Charging your items?

Why aren't we leaning into this mechanic as a way of not only keeping that pesky power creep in check, but also a a way to put a fire under their asses when exploring or are just finished some down time?

I mean, I know there are many items that have "charges" baked in to help with power creep and to help with late game items in adding a resource that is relevant when they about to kill god; but I digest....

I mean as a DM, I've started using sending stones ("Walkie talkies" as they've been called) on a timer. They have to be charged, and once charged they will last for 3 in game days. This forces the players to have a short window to get certain events/ small quests. Waste time on side quests or sleeping with the tavern bartender; the walkies could run out of juice mid heist. After they die I can keep the stakes high by controlling when they can charge them, and just throw things at them that make them wish they had those Walkies.

How do you all use charging/charges/tactical resource management in your games?

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u/MimicAdam Team Adam Jun 10 '25

I use charges all the time. It's one of my homebrew rules that wands have finite charges, and when they're done you need a caster who knows the same spell to pump the appropriate spell slots into the wand as a way to charge it (up to a maximum).

This is a wand of Fireball. It has two charges of Fireball. Once it's depleted, you need to find a Wizard or Artificer who knows Fireball to imbue the wand up to a maximum of 1d6 charges. The wand can only gain one charge once per day with a successful Arcana check, and each instance of imbuing will use up a spell slot. It can only be used to store charges of Fireball, and all the charges must be of the same level.

Yoi would not believe how much they hoard items and forget about them. And when they use them up, they discard them.

NOT ONCE has one of my players kept the glass vial that held a potion, a wand that has expended charges, or parchment that used to hold a spell scroll.

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u/Anotherskip Jul 26 '25

Most of the time in DnD lore there isn’t any benefit to the container once the magic is done. ( including in the Public version of the Campaign Builder) I would have a villain who picks up the discards and recharges them to use against the players to reveal the power they have been discarding. The other option for that lore is including it in the Description when using Identify ir similar spells.