Very special ring I am considering giving out to a 9th level fighter. He worked really, really hard for this.
Ring of Magecraft
Legendary Ring
Attuned Properties:
You can use any item a wizard can use.
You know two arcane cantrips that you can cast at will.
You know one arcane spell of level 1st-4th that you can cast once per day each.
My biggest concern are spells like greater invis and stoneskin making this fighter way too good, even once per day. In 3.5e, this would not have been nearly as powerful, but 5e spells seem too be a bit better than the 3.5e counterparts. Thoughts? Should I cap it at 3rd level spells? Less?
"You an use any item a wizard can use" is potentially too vague.
The magic staves from the Starter Set, for example, only require attunement in order to get a benefit (you don't have to be a wizard to get it), but then require attunement and say "you can use your action to cast one of the following spells from the staff if it is on your class's spell list."
So you will likely have to be much more specific about what exactly this ring does in regards to letting you use items.
As for the spells that you know because of the ring... I'd recommend pre-selecting them, rather than having each wearer of the ring be able to pick out whichever they want. If for no other reason that preventing confusion as to whether you can change what spells the ring gives you.
I can't comment on whether I think granting 2 cantrips and a 1/day spell is too powerful or not... I will need to see more examples of magic items, and whether there are comparable feats, before I could be sure about that.
Baptor wrote:
Greater Invisibility and Stoneskin would indeed make the fighter more powerful, but consider that it's already possible for a fighter in a party to have this effect. Both of those spells *already* can be cast on other people, so they don't increase his power any more than would a friendly wizard just expending one of his 4th-level spell slots to cast the spell on him. The question I'd ask is, is the fighter going to be stealing a wizard's "schtick" if he does this? If your party doesn't have a wizard, or if you have an evoker who'd rather be spending all day casting offensive spells instead of buffing the fighter, then I don't think it's an issue.
You might want to add, "Once you choose cantrips and a spell granted by this ring, you cannot change these choices by taking the ring off and putting it back on." Alternately if you DO want to allow this, I'd at least make it take some time -- at minimum a Long Rest, which is what a wizard needs to refresh prepared spells. Maybe even longer -- like, "not wearing the ring for a [week/month/season]".
Just to give a little bennie back, you could also throw on to #3: "If you choose a spell of 1st-3rd level, you count as casting it with a 4th-level spell slot."
For AaronOfBarbaria's issue with the first item, I'd rephrase it thusly: "You count as a wizard for the purposes of determining whether you can use other magic items. Spells you can cast as a result of the Ring of Magecraft count as being on your spell list for the purposes of determining what you can do with other magic items."
Thank you all for the thoughtful replies!
Some clarifications:
#1. Sorry my OP was not more detailed. The intention of that ability is to allow the owner to use any magic item that is "wizard only" (which there were in the Playtest) and to use scrolls and such as if they had a wizard's spell list.
#2 The cantrips and spells are chosen upon attunement and cannot be changed afterward except by consuming a scroll. (Essentially the owner can take a scroll of fireball and consume it to replace whatever 3rd level spell had in the ring).
I am considering making the spell choices for him like some here have suggested, but one of the reasons I'm giving out this ring is because the party has no arcane spellcaster and this will give them a limited access to magic.
Now that you have more details, thoughts?
Baptor wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
Chimerasame wrote:
I would consider adding a drawback of somekind when using the ring. Perhaps, lower max hp a little bit when equiped, or a chance for it to be a wild spell.
Hmm, for only-two-PCs you could probably even make it stronger without breaking anything. Out of curiosity, what's the other one? E.g. if rogue, might give a cleric brooch; if cleric, might give rogue's gloves. Or something.
Chimerasame wrote:
It looks to me like this ring should instead be considered an artifact instead of legendary. The reasons:
If it's giving access to basically er... carry the one.... like 4 feats. + essentially giving the user the rogue "use magic device" class feature, all in 1 item. Sure the wearer is going to be limited to the same amount of actions and such as everyone else; but seems like it could lead to other pc's getting pessed if homeboy is the saviour in every single encounter due to the ring's powers or whatever. Plus I would imagine a ring that powerful, at least compared to the items in the playtest, there would be every single organization in the world would be after it.
Could you do something like instead of 1 ring, it's split into however many pc's there are, and each one of them 1/day could use a spell from a pool of spells, or get some sort of team / synergy bonuses to skills or some such? That way everyone will get some snazzy thing and would be less risk of someone feeling weak compared to just one person wearing the ring.
Just my 2 cents. 
awogaman wrote:
I've had something like that. It essentually gave us a level of Wizard. But, it wasn't an item by itself. It was a set. So the more pieces you got, the more free levels of wizard you obtained. It's something nice to build a campaign around.