Talk:Black Band of Iron Blood (5e Equipment)

A Few Concerns

Hey there! I have a few concerns about this magic item. It seems that this artifact has a lot of issues with it, especially with balance.

1. It requires a fiend that can cast a 9th-level spell to attune to it for the properties to work. The 9th-level spell prerequisite already makes it unusable to most player characters, and the fiend prerequisite makes it so that players have to use homebrew to use this item or the DM gives it to an NPC.
2. Truesight is just ridiculously good. Nothing else to say here.
3. The ability score changes alone makes it much more powerful than any first-party homebrew. It gives a 30 to Charisma, which is already more powerful than any legendary magic item. In addition, it gives a +3 to Strength and Armor Class. These abilities alone would make it a strong artifact.
4. All of the Zariel's Blood abilities are ridiculously strong. Making a player character immune to nonmagical damage and fire damage basically makes them invincible, especially when coupled with the cold damage immunity of Mephistopholes' Blood. In addition, the ability to cast Fireball at will is ridiculously strong and should be a major feature of an artifact. Finally, the additional 2d10 fire damage to every single melee attack you make is very strong, as it allows a player to add an extra 10-12 fire damage to all their melee attacks. The Zariel's Blood abilities alone make this artifact much better than most first-party artifacts, and they need to be changed.
5. The Dispater's Blood and Mephistopholes' Blood abilities to turn an enemy to stone or freeze them, respectively, are both ridiculously overpowered. The ability to petrify an enemy is very powerful, as it basically takes a creature out of combat permanently if they fail the save and don't have Greater Restoration. Even if they succeed, you can do it again next round, and they won't be able to succeed every save. Similarly, the Mephistopholes' Blood ability to restrain a creature in ice is very strong. The creature DOESN'T GET A SAVING THROW TO AVOID THE EFFECT, which is something that NEVER happens in D&D, at least with player characters. It is also very difficult to get out of, requiring magical fire or a DC 25 Strength check to slip out. In addition, it deals 2d10 cold damage to them at the start of their turn, which is very strong as well.
6. Tiamat's Blood basically turns this into an Orb of Dragonkind, another very strong artifact, but with an additional 10 different features. If you are going to make an artifact, don't make it obviously superior to the others.

I checked out your user page, and it seems you have a passion for making very overpowered items intentionally. If you choose to do so, could you please do it on your userpage? The wiki is designed to be a place for everyone to share their stuff, but it is also supposed to be balanced.

I plan to go in and fix the balance issues with this item soon. Hopefully you understand. Thanks! --MarshDASavage (talk) 07:13, 15 March 2021 (MDT)