How To Get Attunement Slots
In older editions of Dungeons & Dragons, your character became a walking-talking magic item storage system. You’d typically have up to 10-15 magic items on you in the late game, all doing different things. And a lot of them were just boring stat bonuses! 5E changed that quite a bit with their Attunement system. This allowed Wizards to make strong magic items without their players having to shuffle through PDFs for their 7th magic item’s effects. Learn more with our How to Attune 5E Guide.
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Attunement increases maximum Focus Points, or FP, and increases the number of attunement slots the player has. The maximum number of attunement slots that can be gained via leveling is 10 (at 99). The soft cap for Attunement for FP is 35 and attunement slots is 30. Additional slots can be attained by wearing special rings: The maximum possible Attunement slots is 12. This is only obtainable while wearing both the Darkmoon Seance Ring, the White Seance Ring and having 50 or higher Attunement. We get a very different explanation from Mike Mearls, in his May 12, 2014 article on Attunement: 'The story elements of attunement are meant to bring items to life as rare and mysterious objects, embedded in the history and cultures of the campaign.
- Attunement Slots are the player's maximum equipped number of Sorceries, Pyromancies and Miracles. Attunement slots are based on Attunement at level 10 Attunement the player gains his first Attunement Slot. Extra Attunement Slots come at Attunement level 10, 14, 18, 24, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 and 99.
- Attunement determines the number of spell slots the player has available to equip spells, and also increases the player's Cast Speed (this effect is roughly double that of leveling Intelligence or Faith). In addition to these, raising Attunement also increases the number of casts per slot a spell has; however, this varies from spell to spell.
How to Attune 5E
If an item requires attunement, then you treat it as non-magical until you spend the time to attune to it. In order to attune to it, you take a short rest focused only on that object. No regaining Ki points, no spending hit dice, no learning what the item actually does. After you attune to it, you gain access to all of it’s magical abilities, and have a basic understanding of any command words it needs to activate.
Attunement has a lot of rules attached to it. There’s a few important things to know.
- An item only requires attunement if it says it does. This might sound obvious, but a good selection of 5E’s items don’t require attunement. For example, a +1 War Pick doesn’t require attunement. However, the Will of the Talon artifact does. Make sure you and your DM both know what items require attunement before wasting a short rest on something… Well, that is, if you’ve correctly identified it.
- You must meet all prerequisites to attune. Again, obvious. But you can’t use a +1 Wand of the War Mage if you’re not a Spellcaster. Usually, these prerequisites are class-based, but they can be racial or level-bound too.
- You can only* attune to 3 items at once. After you’ve attuned to three things, you must end one of your original attunements to get a new one.
Can You Attune to More?
There is exactly one way to attune to more than three magic items; become an Artificer. The Artificer gains attunement slots at level 10, 14, and 18 (up to a maximum of six). This is obviously a lot of levels if you want to multiclass, and it’s probably not worth it in most situations. But, if your goal is to be attuned to as many magic items as possible, Artificer is the easiest way to do it.
Artificers also get the ability to ignore attunement prerequisites, but thankfully, that isn’t artificer specific. The Thief Rogue’s Use Magic Device ability also allows it to ignore those restrictions, and it ignores them one level earlier! Take that, Artificer!
See Also: How to Calculate Proficiency Bonus in 5E
Wrapping Up Attunement
Attunement is a system designed to lower the amount of craziness that 3.5 characters got to. Even for seasoned players, it could become a lot to deal with. Now, we replace the ability to have as many magic items and become as powerful as we want, for something more balanced and easy to read… though perhaps not necessarily better.
One last note: Make sure you have someone with decent Arcana checks in your party! You want to ensure that your attunement doesn’t end up cursing you.
In Monteporte 44, the session began and ended with animated discussions on the rules for attunement to magical weapons. +Rob Conley had created a chart or an excel file listing all the weapons that required attunement from the DMG, and we played around with the concept a bit. We all, I think, liked the general concept of attunement, but were all equally bothered by some of the implications. In addition, since Monteporte was migrated over from a game with different assumptions than went into D&D5, there were many more magic items than seemed typical for a D&D5 party.
Attunement (DMG pp. 136-138)
The basic concept behind attunement is simple. To use a weapon with magical properties in a magical way, you have to spend a period of time – a short rest – bonding with the item in an appropriate way. If you don’t do so, the items functions like a normal, non-magical item of that type, but no nifty stuff can be generated from it. A Sword of Sharpness might act like a regular sword and would cut things just fine, but no other magical abilities would be present, and I’m not even sure it’d damage creatures that are only damaged by magical weapons – the text seems to suggest not. A suit of plate armor that requires attunement would still give you AC 18 for wearing it, but whatever powers it has would not be available to you until attunement is complete. A wand or ring, which otherwise serves no purpose than to give you certain powers, is basically useless. Maybe you could use it as a napkin holder or a stir stick?
Limits on items
The biggest thing that the DMG rules hit you with is that you cannot be attuned to more than three items at a time. Period, done . . . see you later. So you can’t (for example) wear ten Rings of Protection, one on each finger, and another couple on your toes. Firstly, you can’t usually wear multiple of any given item, but also, three is the limit, and the limit shall be three. Not two, unless proceeding directly to three, etc.
This makes any given player decide what she wants to be equipped with, and since you can only detune-attune to an item with a short rest, you can’t just swap out inventory slots and always get the benefit of the good stuff. So you have to prepare. It’s not quite as restrictive as spell slots and long rests, but it’s there to make you think about what you’re doing.
What requires attunement
The magic item lists speak to what requires attunement – sometimes by a particular class – and what does not. There definitely seems to be a pattern to it, and some very useful stuff does not require attunement.
Let’s start with some examples:
Basic Magical Weapons and Armor:Your basic +2 Mace or longsword, or +1 Chain Mail, or +3 half-plate does not require attunement. OK.
Mace of Disruption: Requires attunement. If you smack a fiend or the undead, you do extra radiant damage. If the critter has fewer than a certain number of HP, it must make a saving throw or be destroyed outright. The foes of the affected type are afraid of you. Also, the weapon glows if you hold it.
Mace of Smiting: +1 damage, more against constructs. If you roll a 20, you get extra damage, and can destroy constructs on a lucky roll. Does not require attunement.
Immovable Rod: Hey, the thing doesn’t move. Ever. Does not require attunement.
Gloves of Thievery: Provides a bonus to Sleight of Hand and DEX checks while wearing them. Does not require attunement.
Most any Cloak of X: Protection, Elvenkind, Invisibility. All of these require attunement, but . . .
Cloak of the Manta Ray: Allows you to breathe underwater, and swim pretty fast. There’s another item like this that makes a bubble of air around your head. Neither require attunement.
What’s the Common Theme: The key bit here seems to be that if the item is magical because of itself, such as magic armor, it does not require attunement. If the item has powers that only affect the victim or the environment – that is, the magic is outwardly directed – it does not require attunement. But if the thing is basically casting a spell or giving its blessing to the user – something that if malign would be resisted by a saving throw – then you need to attune to it.
It’s a fine line. The Cloak of Protection is just a cloak, it’s not particularly sturdy. But even it it is sturdy, the bonus to saving throws impacts the wearer as if it were a spell. That requires attunement. The Manta Ray cloak and the bubble-head charm (whatever it is) probably work their magic on the water and air around you, not you. They don’t bestow gills, they create a space of breatheable air.
I have no explanation for the Gloves of Thievery. I’d probably force you to attune to them, but perhaps the skill/DEX boost provided is actually a spell that impacts whatever you’re working on, not you.
Basic magical swords are just magical. The Mace of Smiting is totally outwardly directed. The Mace of Disruption . . . seems like the mace of smiting, but makes creatures afraid of you (not the mace) and casts light. I suspect it’s the fear thing that turns the tables.
Armor that’s just magical is simply better made and enchanted. That’s inherent to the item. But if it also provides extra spell-like abilities, that requires attunement.
Anything that requires conscious activation seems to require attunement.
House Rules?
Wouldn’t be a blog – specifically my blog – without the tinkering. So, here we go. What could we do to tweak out what’s basically a good concept?
More Awesome is More Awesome
The first one is easy. Allow the number of magical items to which you can attune vary by character level. Specifically, something like “you may attune to item equal to your proficiency bonus” would allow two items for beginners, but up to six at very high levels. Another would be you may attune to one item plus half your proficiency bonus. That’s still two items at low level, but four at high levels.
In any case, items tend to grow with power at high levels, so another way might be a slot system. Each rank from Common through Legendary is given an effective number of slots: say 1 for Common, 5 for Legendary. You might get a number of slots equal to 1 plus your proficiency bonus, so slots vary from 3 to 7. So you can attune to seven Common items at very high level, or one Legenary item and two Common ones. Or two Uncommon and one Rare. Still limiting, but if you really want to wear seven common items instead of carrying around that Vorpal Sword . . .
Partial Powers
Not attuning to an item having it behave as completely mundane seems off to me. Of course, that thought was started by Ken thinking that any item of +2 bonus or higher, including armor and weapons, requires attunement. I was thinking that in that particular case, the weapon or armor would still be magical, just provide no bonus. So not attuning to said Vorpal Sword would give you a magical longsword which could damage creatures that are only harmed by magical weapons (if such exist anymore in 5e), but would not suddenly decaptiate anyone.
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Gotta Fight, for the Right . . .
One thing that would be interesting for non-attuned weapons would be that yes, you can still use them, but you have to force the item to obey. You’d need to make some sort of saving throw, and I’m thinking INT, WIS, CHA rather than the physical stuff – basically willpower – in order to activate the item’s powers.
In fact, one interesting thing would be to have attunement be a gradual process. Each short rest spent attuning would give you a bonus to the roll to master or attune to the item. You have to successfully use the item in order to claim your next bonus. Eventually, your roll will be high enough that you automatically beat the item’s DC. At that point, you’re attuned permanently unless you voluntarily switch it out – then you have to start again.
That would make it a bit of a process – and narratively interesting – to get to know a weapon or armor or magical device. If the process were intersting/onerous enough, there’s a barrier to switching out.
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Naturally, you’d want the DC to go up with item power. So maybe if we use the level analogy above, the DC might be 10 plus twice the slots. So a Common magical item would be DC 12 for mastery, a Legendary one would be DC 20.
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Parting Shot
Attunement brings a very cool dynamic to equipping magical items in D&D5. The core concept is very good, and it forces you to be choosy about what items and powers you can have. It keeps the focus, to some extent, on the character rather than the gear – though some of the Legendary items are truly badass, so there is always going to be a certain cache to having that Hammer of Thunderbolts paired with the Girdle of Giant Strength, which is also good.
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Tuning the attunement rules also provides knobs for campaign-specific flavor. This is also good.
We’ll see what Ken decides to do with it, but I can certainly see options.