Necklace of Fireballs
The Necklace of Fireballs starts with a fixed number of beads. Detach one and throw it up to 60 feet, and it detonates as a 3rd-level Fireball: DC 15 Dexterity save, 5d6 fire damage, half on a success. Standard so far.
The part most players miss is stacking. You can pull off and hurl more than one bead as a single action. Each bead beyond the first adds 1d6 to the detonation, so two beads is 6d6, and the full necklace of eight beads goes off as one 12d6 blast against everything in the area. One save, one radius, one very bad afternoon for anything grouped together. Spending them singly, one per fight, throws that scaling away for the convenience of a cantrip you already have.
The tradeoff is obvious: dumping the necklace empties it. This is a burst tool, not a rotation. Hold it for the moment when the encounter actually justifies deleting a cluster of enemies in a single throw.
At the table: Save the necklace until enemies bunch inside a 20-foot radius, then throw every remaining bead at once for one 12d6, DC 15 detonation.
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