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There is a class of magic item - the really, really cool magic item - that we here at WotC HQ cannot publish. I'm going to talk about why that is and what we can do about it.

A Brief History of 4E Magic Items: The power level and design of magic items is a consequence of a small number of important decisions made during the design of 4E. First, the PC's cool powers reside primarily inside the PC. Second, the PC needs a minimum number of magic items (three) to remain effective, and the PC can be expected to possess double this number or more magic items all usable at the same time. These two decisions lead to the conclusion that magic item powers must be small and preferably infrequent, mostly daily powers with moderate to minor effects, or encounter powers or properties with minor effects.

The consequence is that magic items are mostly less important that the rest of character design and forgettable. Some magic items can be combined with others or with certain class features or powers to tease extra juice out of these low-power magic items, and others were misjudged in design or development and are above the power level dictated for magic items - and these might be more impactful than expected or desired.

Do not mistake this for a statement that 4E magic items are designed to be forgettable or unimportant. They are designed to be a facet of character building less important than aspects intrinsic to the character. The achievement of this design goal makes the discovery of a magic item often a prosaic event: unless it's a piece of the character-building puzzle you'd been seeking (in which case you probably already knew how you would get it), it's not that exciting.

The Item We Can't Publish: Because magic items are carefully balanced based on level, we cannot publish items that blatantly disregard the power scheme we have created. (There is some variance in effectiveness of published magic items based on assumption, presumption, miscalculation, and barometric pressure. We're ignoring that here.) We cannot publish an orb that dominates dragons at-will, a necklace that increases the damage of any fire attack and allows the recall of a daily fire spell, or a sword that commands any of the four elements (for different effects) up to four times a fight.

These three items in particular show up in Chris Perkins's Iomandra game, which is simply fantastic. Each has power significantly greater than what we would ever publish in a book. None but the orb seems to qualify for artifact-status, and even that lacks the typical qualities of artifacts (something we did very right in this game). Which makes these simply very powerful magic items that we can never publish in a book, because doing so would upset our carefully balanced collection of magic items. In house games where the players craft or purchase their own magic items or make wish lists, these would be added to any list. In the RPGA, every player would take an elemental sword of the type described above.

Which would not be a problem, except that these items are more interesting and exciting than any others I see in D&D right now. The dragon orb especially has ramifications in our hands, and it's wonderful and - to me - magical. This is what I want: More magic items that feel magical, even if it means a character has fewer magic items overall.

What We Can Do About It: Nothing. We here at WotC have set our course for magic items in 4E. Thompson and I have talked about the idea of a book of DM's magic items, the items that PCs cannot create, buy, or otherwise choose - they must be placed and discovered, or at least crafted at the end of an arduous quest. (We already have artifacts, but that's not what someone looking for a more magical magic item wants.) I don't think such a book is feasible. So, the real question is what can you do about it, and the answer is everything.

As a DM, you have the power to introduce magic items that do not balance with the items we publish. Make them more interesting, make them broader, make them more effective, make them outshine our published magic items in every way - and make them rare and mysterious. Keep them surprising, so your players don't start putting them on wish lists. Your players will love them for the excitement, the mystery, and the magic.

The first book I owned for D&D was a DMG, and the first part I read was the section on magic items, over and over. I have a deep love for surprising and awe-inspiring magic in fantasy games, so don't be surprised if I return to this topic eventually.