Items & Inventory

The Magic of Digital Items

On paper, tracking inventory means erasing and rewriting numbers until your character sheet looks like a battlefield. In Foundry, an Item is a document that carries its own properties: a sword knows its damage, a potion knows its uses, and an item can carry Active Effects that change its owner's numbers automatically.

Items show up in two places. The Items tab in the sidebar holds world items, your original copies. When an item is placed on an actor, it becomes an embedded item that belongs to that actor's sheet. Compendium packs hold libraries of items you can pull from whenever you need them.

The Item Ecosystem

As with actors, core Foundry defines no item types; your game system does. The dnd5e system, for example, has types for weapons, equipment, consumables, tools, loot, containers, features, spells and classes, while other systems have their own lists (and some use items for things like skills or talents). The tree below is a typical fantasy example, not a fixed Foundry list.

Creating Your First Item

Open the Items tab, click Create Item, give it a name and choose a type from your system's list. The item sheet opens: set an image, a description, and whatever mechanical fields the system provides. Let's forge a sword with personality and purpose.

The sketch below is a dnd5e-style example. Which fields exist (rarity, attunement, damage formula, weight) depends entirely on your system.

The Anatomy of an Item

Whatever the system, most items have the same layers:

Inventory Management: The Art of Organization

A character's inventory tells their story. Are they prepared for anything? Do they hoard useless trinkets? How the inventory tab is laid out, whether it tracks currency and encumbrance, and whether containers like a backpack hold other items are all decided by your system's character sheet. The example below is a generic fantasy layout.

Drag and Drop: Getting Items onto Actors

Almost everything with items in Foundry is drag and drop:

• Dropping an item on an actor makes a copy. The new embedded item is independent: editing the world item in the Items tab later does not update the copies already on actors, and editing the actor's copy doesn't touch the original.
• Giving an item to another character: drag it from one actor sheet to another. Whether the original is removed, and how stacks of identical items merge, depends on the system, so test it before you rely on it in a trade.
• Hotbar: drag an item to the macro hotbar to make a quick-use button; many systems turn this into a "use this item" macro.
• Showing an item: most systems have a button on the item sheet or inventory row that posts the item's card to chat.
• Loot on the map: core Foundry has no "item pile" on the canvas. Use a token of a loot or container actor if your system has one, or the Item Piles module (verified for Version 14 in October 2026), which adds loot piles, merchants and trading.

Item Compendiums

Your system almost certainly ships compendiums of standard equipment, spells and features; search them before building something by hand. Drag an entry straight onto a character sheet, or into the Items tab to make a world copy you can customize. For your own homebrew, create an Item compendium in the Compendium Packs tab and drag finished items into it; you can organize it with folders and reuse it in later campaigns by keeping it in a module.

Active Effects V2: Items That Change Their Owner

An Active Effect is a bundle of changes to an actor's data, such as "+1 to armor class" or "speed +10". Effects can live on an actor directly or on an item. In V14 (Active Effects V2), an effect on an item the actor owns applies to that actor straight from the item; the old option of copying item effects onto the actor ("legacy transferral") has been removed.

• Changes: each change names a data path on the actor, a mode (such as add or override) and a value. The data paths come from your game system: in dnd5e, for example, an armor class bonus targets a path like system.attributes.ac.bonus. Other systems use different paths, and many sheets let you pick from a list instead of typing.
• Duration and expiry: effects can last a number of rounds or turns and can expire on events such as the start or end of a combat, turn or round.
• Token changes: an effect can change the token itself, such as swapping its image for an enlarged or invisible look.
• Icon display: each effect chooses whether its icon shows on the token never, only under certain conditions, or always.
• Effect compendiums: keep common effects (Blessed, Hasted, Poisoned) in a compendium and drag them straight onto tokens during play.

Whether an item's effect is active only when equipped or attuned is up to the system. Some systems also add their own automation on top (rolling damage, consuming charges); see your system's documentation for what it handles.

Simple Effects to Try

• +1 Sword: the attack and damage bonus is usually a field on the weapon itself, not an effect.
• Ring of Protection: an effect adding +1 to armor class (and saves, if your system has them).
• Boots of Speed: an effect raising movement, perhaps with a short duration when activated.
• Armor of Resistance: an effect granting resistance to one damage type, where your system tracks resistances.

Loot with Roll Tables

Roll Tables turn "what's in the chest?" into a single click. In the Roll Tables tab, create a table, set its formula (for example 1d20 or 1d100) and add results, each covering a range of numbers. A result can be plain Text ("17 gold pieces") or a link to a Document, such as an item in your world or in a compendium. Click Draw Result and Foundry rolls the formula, posts the result to chat, and can mark that row as drawn so it won't come up again until you reset the table.

A few tips for loot tables:

• Check that the formula covers every range: a 1d20 table needs results for 1 through 20, or some rolls will draw nothing.
• Weight results by giving common loot wider ranges, as above: 10 of the 20 faces (50%) give coins, while only a 20 (5%) reaches the magic item table.
• A result can point at another Roll Table, which lets you chain tables ("roll on Magic Items").
• Turn off replacement on a table of unique treasures so each one can only be drawn once.
• Every treasure should advance the story or reveal character: mix a "story" result (a diary page, a broken sword hilt, a royal signet ring) into each table.

Magical Item Design

Creating magical items is an art form. Each should feel special, with history and purpose beyond the numbers.

The Five Questions of Magic Items

1. Who made it? An ancient wizard? A divine blessing? Alien technology?
2. Why was it made? Its purpose shapes its powers.
3. What's its story? Great items have history.
4. What's the catch? Interesting limitations create drama.
5. How is it discovered? The finding should be memorable.

Example: The Whispering Blade

The mechanics below use dnd5e terms; translate them into your own system.

In Foundry, put the bonuses in the weapon's fields, the Stealth advantage and the curse in Active Effects on the item (if your system supports those changes), and the history in the description, hiding the secret parts in a GM-only section where the sheet offers one.

Shop Management: The Merchant's Tale

Core Foundry has no shop window. The simplest approach is a merchant NPC actor whose inventory is the stock: players browse it with Observer ownership, and you drag purchases onto their sheets and adjust their currency by hand. Some systems and modules add merchant sheets with buy and sell buttons; Item Piles is a popular one. Either way, a shop is an opportunity for roleplay and world-building.

Dynamic Shop Ideas

• Limited stock: set item quantities and lower them as the party buys; items can run out.
• Rotating inventory: draw new stock from a Roll Table each visit.
• Reputation pricing: prices change based on the party's actions (you adjust them at the table).
• Special orders: players commission custom items that appear a few sessions later.

Try It in Foundry: The Complete Item Experience

Common Item Pitfalls

The Hoarding Problem

Issue: players keeping 47 rusty daggers "just in case".

Solution: encumbrance (if your system tracks it), item degradation, or merchants who only buy quality goods.

Magic Item Inflation

Issue: too many magic items dilute their specialness.

Solution: make magic items rare and memorable, not just stat boosts.

The Forgotten Consumable

Issue: players forget they have potions and scrolls.

Solution: remind them at fitting moments, put key consumables on the macro hotbar, and create situations where they're obviously useful.

The Edited-Original Surprise

Issue: you rebalanced an item in the Items tab, but the characters still have the old version.

Solution: embedded items are copies. Update the copies on each actor, or replace them.

Item Story Ideas

The Coin That Started a War

Hand the party a simple copper coin with a strange symbol. They'll keep it as a curiosity. Twenty sessions later, reveal it as the lost seal of a murdered prince, and a throwaway treasure becomes the centerpiece of the campaign.

The Evolving Weapon

Give a player a rusty sword that "feels important". After each major victory, add a new power (a new Active Effect or property on the item). By the campaign's end, they've reforged an artifact through their own heroism.

The Shop of Mysteries

A magic shop that only opens at midnight, with stock that changes with the phase of the moon (a different Roll Table per phase). Players plan shopping trips like missions, and a mundane errand becomes an adventure.

What's Next?

Your actors are now equipped: items created and organized, dragged onto sheets, powered by Active Effects, and handed out through loot tables.

The next part, Journals & Handouts, covers your campaign's encyclopedia, where lore, notes and secrets live.