| I like cursed items that provide a benefit along with a drawback, such as a berserking sword. Some items I've used include a magic horn that allows the user to commune with a deity but which also draws the attention of other powerful outsiders, the eye of a diviner that gives a character immense prophetic abilities but also slowly drives him mad, and an amulet that drains levels from enemies but leads the user to become addicted to the sensation of stealing life energy.
I've used stuff like a cursed sword -1, but only because it happened to be written into the first adventure I ran. If there's no reason for a character to want to use the item in the first place, the whole experience tends to be reduced to taking a lame penalty for as long as it takes to get someone to cast remove curse.
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