The 15 Most Powerful Dungeons & Dragons Artifacts, Ranked

The magical items that can be found or forged in Dungeons & Dragons are usually broken down into categories of strength, such as major and minor.

These categories are meant to act as a guide for the dungeon master so that they can spread the items throughout the campaign in a way that is balanced.

If a party of low-level adventurers gains access to high-level gear, then they are going to steamroll every monster that they encounter.

There is a special level of magical items that go beyond the regular ones you will commonly encounter. These unique items are referred to as “artifacts” and they represent the treasures with the power that can shape the world around them.

Artifacts have the ability to derail campaigns, as they give players the ability to become unstoppable in combat.

We are here today to rank the most powerful magical artifacts that have existed across the numerous editions of Dungeons & Dragons. 

From the magical deck of cards that can quickly end a campaign to the crystal that can turn cowards into conquerors, here are the 15 Most Powerful Dungeons & Dragons Artifacts, Ranked!

15 The Deck Of Many Things

The Deck of Many Things is an item that has actually appeared in a couple of Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, though it usually comes with a note of warning, as this item has the potential to undo years worth of game time. The adventure can end quickly, due to a few bad draws from the deck.

The Deck of Many Things is a magical deck of cards.

A player can choose to draw up to four cards from the deck, with each one possessing an incredibly powerful magical ability.

The reason the Deck of Many Things places so low on this list is due to its capacity to harm the players. A good draw from the deck can grant free castles, character levels, and even several uses of the “wish” spell.

A bad draw from the deck can lead to lost stat points, being trapped beneath the earth, or having your soul torn from your body so that it can be trapped in another plane of existence.

14 The Philosopher’s Stone

The most basic motivation for an adventurer in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign is the desire to seek treasure. The monsters and villains in the world tend to keep the best stuff for themselves, which is why they often have a date with the end of an adventurer’s blade.

An adventurer in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign won’t realize how poor they are until they start buying land or ships. It’s these kinds of entrepreneurial adventurers who would want to seek out the Philosopher’s Stone, which will provide wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

The silvery substance that exists within a Philosopher’s Stone provides an arcane spellcaster the ability to transmute five-thousand pounds of iron into silver or one-thousand pounds of lead into gold.

The Philosopher’s Stone provides almost limitless wealth, though you have to keep an eye out for Voldemort.

13 The Invulnerable Coat Of Arnd

One of the quickest ways to end a fight in Dungeons & Dragons is to score a critical hit, as it doubles all of the damage you deal in a single attack. You usually only score a critical hit by rolling a twenty on a twenty-sided dice, which is followed by rolling again to confirm the hit.

There is an item that makes you immune to critical hits, as well as reducing the damage from almost all kinds of attacks: the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd.

The Invulnerable Coat of Arnd adds +5 to your armor class, makes you immune to critical hits and sneak attacks, takes ten points of damage off every hit and twenty points off of acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic damage.

A Cleric or Paladin who wears the coat will have their class abilities work as if they were four levels higher. This might be the best suit of armor in the entire game, depending on the edition of Dungeons & Dragons that you are playing.

12 The Staff Of The Magi

Magical staves and wands are some of the most useful items for spellcasters in Dungeons & Dragons. These are magical items that allow you to cast spells that use up the charges within the item, rather than from the spellcasters own supply of magic.

These items have a finite amount of uses, which means that you cannot rely on them forever.

The Staff of the Magi offers the user access to a wide range of spells, some of which are high-level. One of the best aspects of the staff is that it has the ability to absorb spells that are cast at you and convert them into charges for its abilities.

The Staff of the Magi also offers a high degree of spell resistance to its wielder. It also has one of the most devastating retribution attacks in the game, as breaking a fully-charged Staff of the Magi over your knee can potentially deal 400 points of damage to everyone within ten feet of you.

11 The Wand Of Orcus

Orcus is one of the many Demon Princes of the Dungeons & Dragons cosmology, who rule over the various hellish layers of the Abyss.

Orcus is one of the most fleshed-out Demon Princes, due to the fact that he has appeared in several adventures, which means that he is also the one that the players are most likely to encounter in battle.

Orcus wields a powerful magical wand in battle, which functions as a mace in certain editions of Dungeons & Dragons. 

The Wand of Orcus is one of the first ever artifacts to ever appear in a Dungeons & Dragons supplement and it’s a doozy.

It has a 50% chance of annihilating anything that it touches, save for Demon Princes and those with divine powers.

The later editions of Dungeons & Dragons added a ton of stats and powers to the Wand of Orcus over the years, but those pale in comparison to its original touch of destruction.

10 The Rod Of Seven Parts

The major artifacts of Dungeons & Dragons seldom appear in the published adventures and campaign modules, due to how unbalanced their powers are.

The Rod of Seven Parts is an exception to this, as it had an entire campaign built around finding all of its pieces and opposing those who would use the power of the Rod to evil ends.

As the name suggests, the Rod of Seven Parts has to be assembled from seven different pieces. Finding the seven different parts of the Rod is an adventure unto itself, as the pieces have a tendency to teleport away if attached incorrectly to each other.

The Rod of Seven Parts gains new powers for each piece that is added.

The finished Rod grants its wielder access to some of the most powerful Cleric and Druid spells in the game for free, including Control Weather and Whirlwind, which can be used once per day.

The Rod itself is also a powerful weapon that gives its wielder feats for free so that they can use it better in combat.

9 The Sword Of Kas

Kas was once the trusted right-hand man of Vecna. Kas was given a powerful magical blade by Vecna in reward for his service, which he named the Sword of Kas.

The blade actually had an evil will of its own and it convinced Kas to betray his master, which resulted in Vecna losing an eye and a hand.

The Sword of Kas lingers on in the world of Oerth, where it still seeks to finish the job and slay Vecna. The Sword of Kas offers incredible powers to anyone brave enough to wield it, due to the fact that it is one of the few +6 weapons in the game.

The Sword of Kas grants a +10 to the Strength score of its wielder and its keen/vorpal traits mean that it will instantly destroy most opponents that it lands a critical hit on.

The Sword of Kas also gives its wielder free access to several powerful spells, such as “blasphemy” and “slay living.”

8 The Ring Of Winter

Do you want your Dungeons  & Dragons character to have the combined powers of Elsa from Frozen and Iceman from The X-Men comics? If so, then this is the item for you.

The Ring of Winter offers one of the greatest range of magical abilities of any artifact in Dungeons & Dragons. The Ring of Winter prevents your character from aging, which will allow them to cheat death for as long as they can stop themselves from being destroyed.

The Ring also offers permanent protection from scrying effects, which makes it impossible to be tracked by magic.

The true power of the Ring of Winter is in its ice-based abilities. The Ring allows you to freeze the enemy where they stand, so they will break in a single hit.

You can create golems made of ice, as well as repeatedly spam powerful ice spells, like “Otiluke’s freezing sphere.” Only a fool would challenge the wielder of the Ring of Winter in combat.

7 The Regalia Of Might

Magical items that raise stat points are some of the most prized and sought-after treasures in each Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Increasing your stat points will make you hit harder and make it harder for you to be hit. Spellcasters are especially fond of increasing their stats, as it gives them more spells and makes their magic harder to resist. It is for this reason that the Regalia of Might is so prized.

There are actually several Regalias of Might, with each of them corresponding to the different alignments.

Each Regalia is a set of three items: a crown, an orb, and a scepter.

Possessing any of these items will give you a bonus to your stats and access to several powerful spells, but carrying all three will give you +4 to every stat and make Celestial/Infernal beings more willing to serve you, should you call upon their aid in battle.

6 The Sphere Of Annihilation

There are several spells in Dungeons & Dragons that give you the power to wipe your foe from existence.

These spells are controversial, as players don’t want to use them against enemies that may have cool items that they can salvage and dungeon masters generally don’t want to utterly destroy a character with a single failed saving throw.

There is an artifact in Dungeons & Dragons that represents the pure power of destruction. It is known as the Sphere of Annihilation and it is a dark orb that acts as a miniature black hole.

Anything that comes into contact with the Sphere is utterly destroyed and only the direct intervention of a god can save you. This effect was toned down in later editions so that you simply lost the body parts that came into contact with the Sphere.

It’s possible for spellcasters to try and move the Sphere through sheer force of will, but failing the check will cause the Sphere to move towards them…

5 The Talisman Of Pure Good/Ultimate Evil

There are two items within Dungeons & Dragons that have the potential to instantly destroy many creatures in the game with a single action.

The Talisman of Pure Good has the ability to make the ground literally swallow any evil divine spellcaster that its wielder can see.

If the person using this device is especially pious, then the target of the Talisman doesn’t get any saving throw. The Talisman of Ultimate Evil has the same effect, except that it targets good divine spellcaster.

The term “divine spellcaster” can be argued to affect many different character classes and creatures in the game, so long as they can cast one divine spells, which means that this item has an amazing amount of utility when it comes to inflicting the retribution of the gods.

4 The Eye And Hand Of Vecna

Kas wasn’t able to defeat Vecna during their climactic battle, but he was able to slice off Vecna’s left hand and gouge out one of his eyes.

The power of Vecna is such that his disembodied limbs became powerful magical artifacts. The only downside to their use is that you have to remove a corresponding limb in order to access their powers.

This means that your character will have to cut off a hand and pluck out an eye in order to use these artifacts.

The Eye and Hand of Vecna give their user an amazing range of arcane spells that they can call upon at any time. Using both pieces of Vecna was even more useful in the 2nd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, as it provided a 70% chance to ignore any spell in the game.

3 The Orbs Of Dragonkind

Do you want your Dungeons & Dragons character to be the best, like no one ever was? If so, then there are several items that will allow you to become the Khaleesi of your own campaign world.

There are several different Orbs of Dragonkind in existence, with each one corresponding to a different type of dragon.

The bearer of one of the Orbs can take over the minds of any dragon whose type corresponds to the color of their Orb as if they were casting the “dominate person” spell upon them.

The Orb also makes you immune to the breath weapon of that kind of dragon, as well as granting you access to specific spells that are different for each one.

Anyone who possesses multiple Orbs of Dragonkind can become one of the most feared beings in their world, as very few people can oppose the power of an ancient dragon.

2 The Cyrinishad

Cyric was one of the most powerful gods of the Forgotten Realms due to the fact that his domains included aspects of lies and violence. There were several novels written about Cyric’s rise to power and his plans to take over the lands of Toril.

Cyric came close to achieving world domination, as he created a powerful artifact, known as the Cyrinishad, which could ensnare the minds of others.

This was a magical book that turned anyone who read it into a devout worshiper of Cyric. The power of the Cyrinishad was such that it worked on the gods themselves, as Mask almost lost his mind while reading the book.

The Cyrinishad’s power also worked when read aloud. If Cyric’s plan had succeeded, then he could have turned every character in the Forgotten Realms into one of his servants.

1 Crenshinibon

Drizzt Do’Urden might be the most famous character in the Forgotten Realms due to several popular novels that chronicled his adventures.

Drizzt Do’Urden’s first adventure happened in a book called The Crystal Shard. The title referred to a powerful magical artifact, known as Crenshinibon, which had fallen into the hands of a wizard, who tried to use its power to take over the world.

Anyone who wields Crenshinibon can create a magical tower, known as Crystal-Tirith. While inside the tower, the bearer of Crenshinibon is immune to all forms of damage.

Crenshinibon requires sunlight in order to be able to use its powers, but when it is fully charged, it grants its bearer the ability to case any evocation or enchantment spell as if they were an eighteenth level spellcaster.

The power of Crystal-Tirith was such that it could enslave the minds of those around it, including the bearer of Crenshinibon, who would be constantly teased into performing more vile acts.

In the hands of the right villain, the power of Crenshinibon could easily have allowed its bearer to take over the world.

—

Can you think of any other incredibly powerful Dungeons & Dragons artifacts that we forgot? Sound off in the comments!

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2502 Articles Published)

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

More From Scott Baird