this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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I love using magic items in place of house rules. It makes it easier for everyone when "house rules" are explicitly spelled out in an item description, and helps prevent players from being confused or surprised about which rules do and do not get enforced and in which way.
To contribute my own D&D 5e specific example: I like to have enchanted weapons that each have access to one or two battlemaster maneuvers per short rest. e.g. Quarterstaff of Tripping (trip attack) or Commander's Longsword (Commander's Strike). To keep it simple, I use the weapon's damage die as the superiority die.
Stealing other class' abilities is a great way to throw in some already-tested mechanics as cool unique magic items. Warning for anyone trying it though, don't steal another character's thunder; if one player chose to be a battle master then don't give everyone else their cool abilities too!
Yeah, there's some abilities that are just a lot of fun to have, but if your party doesn't have the right class, they wouldn't get the fun. An example would be druid shapeshifting (especially for non combat purposes). That's really great for story potential, thanks to being able to use it for spying and finding routes.