The hammer of thunderbolts is an unusual magic item in 5e, in that it doesn’t do much at all until you have and attune two other magic items: gauntlets of ogre power and a belt of giant strength. (The traditionalist in me insists on girdle.) This is a thorny situation, for some reasons I’m going to lay out. I care about this in the first place because one of the players in my Aurikesh campaign has wanted, across multiple campaigns and editions of D&D, to have and wield the gauntlets, girdle, and hammer together, and despite still being low-level, he’s getting close.

He’s not as attached to the mechanical side of those items, and that’s lucky for me, because the hammer of thunderbolts in particular has an effect that… frankly it’s hard to imagine it not ruining the fun and trivializing most encounters. I hear some of you saying “but that’s good! Let him have fun!” and to you I say, “He made a point of saying I might want to think about reworking this item.”

To talk about one, though, I have to talk about the set.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power

Now, as you may already know (because there’s a set of these in Lost Mine of Phandelver, or because your DM happened to put them in the game) the effect of these is to change your Strength score to 19 if it isn’t already 19 or higher. I’ve written about my issues with this before, but the short version is that I don’t love ability score replacement.

Belt of Giant Strength

This belt also replaces your Strength score, with a number higher than 19 – anywhere from 21 to 29, depending on the type of belt. Even the Rare version at Strength 21 is breaking core assumptions of 5e, while the Very Rare and Legendary versions on up that scale are doing so to a much greater extent. On the other hand, the gauntlets of ogre power have no effect (beyond being a prereq for the hammer, mean) once you attune and don the belt.

I’m okay, in principle, with a character having a Strength of 21 to 23; values above that are increasingly worrying, in terms of tilting attack and damage math. It does nothing to endear me to ability score replacement. I’d so much rather offer a specific feat of Strength of some kind, whether that’s bench-pressing a Humvee or gaining the Siege Monster trait or… I don’t know yet.

Hammer of Thunderbolts

Without the gauntlets and belt, this is a +1 maul. It’s an Uncommon item.

With the gauntlets and belt, you unlock the Giant’s Bane feature. It does a series of mind-bogglingly powerful tings for you:

• +4 Strength, to a limit of 30. That makes it lossy if you somehow got a belt of storm giant strength (Strength 29), but… sure.
• On a crit against a giant, the giant rolls a Con save against a reasonably high DC (but giants are known for amazing Con, so… it’s only okay). On a failure, the giant dies instantly. It’s like a vorpal weapon but less absolutely bonkers, because at least there’s a save? I’m not crazy about mechanics around a 5% chance of instant death, though.
• Finally, the (literal) showstopper: 5 charges, regaining 1d4+1 charges per day, of an AoE stun in a 30-ft radius around a creature you hit with a throw of the hammer. I love that its radius is longer than the thrown close range (20 feet) and the stun affects all creatures. (Sharpshooter is here for you – the player in my game who wants this is buying Sharpshooter anyway.) A huge AoE stun is, to put it simply, not something I want in a game. It promises to make challenging the PCs wildly more of a pain in the butt, even if you can’t use it when allies close with the enemy early.

So that’s a lot to rework.

Belt of Giant Strength – Revised
Wondrous Item, very rare (requires attunement)

While wearing this belt, you gain the following benefits.

• When you fail a Strength saving throw, you can choose to succeed instead. You can use this property once, and regain use of it each day at dawn.
• Once per turn when you roll weapon damage with an attack using Strength, you can choose to change the weapon’s damage die to its maximum value. This doesn’t include any additional damage dice from spells, properties, or class features.
• If you also wear golem’s grasp or gauntlets of ogre power and have them attuned, you deal double damage to objects and structures with your weapon attacks.
• The ranges of weapons you throw are doubled.

Hammer of Thunderbolts – Revised
Weapon (maul), legendary (requires attunement)

This maul has an obvious magical presence and sense of power. It has the following properties:

• You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon, and you deal an additional 1d8 thunder damage when you hit with it. Attacks with this weapon cause a thunderclap that can be heard within 300 feet.
• The weapon has the thrown property for you, with a range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet. Hit or miss, the hammer returns to your hand instantly.
• When you attune the weapon, choose one: deal double damage to giants that you hit with it, or deal double damage to elementals that you hit with it.
• If you also wear golem’s grasp or gauntlets of ogre power and have them attuned, the weapon instead gains a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls.
• If you also wear a belt of giant strength and have it attuned, you can cast thunderwave without expending a spell slot as a bonus action after hitting a creature with the hammer. The creature you hit must be included in the area of the thunderwave, and creatures pushed by the spell are pushed away from you. You can use this property three times, and regain all expended uses of it each day at dawn.
• You can discover a way to deepen your attunement with the weapon, which grants an additional property: you gain resistance to lightning damage and thunder damage.
• You can discover a way to master your attunement with the weapon, which grants an additional property: you regain one use of its thunderwave property at the end of a short rest.

That’s a good bit of stuff even by the standards of legendary weapons (without annoying the crap out of me with constant stuns), it gives the player more stuff to gain even without ever replacing any of these items, and none of the items are strictly surpassed by each other.

The number of uses of the thunderwave property and some of its rules text have been tweaked since I posted this in my Patreon.

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