D&D 5E How cursed are cursed items?

[MonsterEnvy]

Though there are still nasty little cursed items. Like the Spear of Backbiting for example. A +3 spear that when you attack with it suddenly flips around and stabs you in the back.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It all comes down to "why is this item cursed?" in the multiple meanings of that statement:
What quality does the item possess that make it 'cursed'?

What is the reason that the item was created with a curse?

For the belt, it could be argued that the creature intended a gender swap, and the fact that it takes the form of an irremovable belt is the curse. Or alternately the entire item is a curse intended for a specific recipient.

It seems to me that with the default rules for magic item creation, it's just as hard to make a cursed item as not. To me, that would suggest that any cursed item that has a negative effect that can never be useful is an accident or an unavoidable side effect.

While one might want a sword that you cannot be disarmed of, and that springs to your hand on entering battle, there's no reason ever to make one that is -2: the resources required to enchant such a thing out shadow the requirements for a casting of remove curse by an enormous margin.

So the -2 cursed sword is an accident or an unavoidable side effect. I can't imagine a situation where having a sword outweighs the penalties of the -2 sword, so I doubt anyone makes one deliberately. It's firmly in the side effect camp.

However something like the berserker axe is more likely to be an unavoidable side effect. The axe is, after all, quite good. You have to use it, and it gives you a couple of vulnerabilities, but overall it's something you might consider worth it.

Personally I think that is the only ways that cursed items make sense: they're intended for some use. Either they do exactly what they intend (but that use is undesirable to the players) or they have a perfectly legitimate use that is hindered by some flaw in the item.

Either way, I think that including cursed items that cannot ever be useful leads to less excitement than an item that may be used for an unintended purpose, or may be used despite a drawback. The former at best drives a quest to overcome the curse and dispose of the item. The latter leads to ongoing drama and flavour.

The berserker axe is something that's going to stay in the campaign for a while, and quite possibly see some use. The -2 sword will be dumped or destroyed as soon as the players can let it go.

 

[Sunseeker]

What is the reason that the item was created with a curse?

For the belt, it could be argued that the creature intended a gender swap, and the fact that it takes the form of an irremovable belt is the curse. Or alternately the entire item is a curse intended for a specific recipient.

This is a good point as more often then not historical "cursed" items were designed to have a specific effect for a specific person. It may have been a boon, it may have been a punishment. Then of course as mortals tend to do, that person died and the item moved to new hands. Those new hands then used the item, which affected them as it was designed to do, and then that person is usually the one that determined if the effect was a blessing or a curse, as they ran around like mad to all the houses of worship attempting to get the curse undone.

Perhaps the Belt of Gender Switch was designed for a daughter of a noble house, the family had only daughters and if they had no son, they would lose everything to whomever their eldest daughter married. So perhaps one of the daughters willingly became as man, in part to avoid the mandatory marrying-off of herself, in part to get all of her family's wealth, and in part to preserve the family name.

Then the belt was passed down in the family, and several generations later the family had only sons. All but the eldest would get nothing but they made the best of it and went off to war, in the meantime, the eldest son was tricked by a witch he had robbed into wearing the family heirloom belt, thus transforming him into a woman, a short while later, it was found that the remaining sons had all died, gone missing or become monks and forsworn the family fortune. The belt, once a blessing on the family, was now a curse. And THAT is the one that wrote the story of the belt that lives to this day, never mentioning the belt had once been secretly used to successfully secure the family name.

As you say, the DM should figure out what the "intended use" of the supposedly cursed item was before including it at the table. That's not to say there aren't some items that might only exist to be punishments and thus be universally seen as "curses" but those too can have their uses if the party is clever.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Unless the item actually ascribes a mechanical penalty, I wouldn't actually call it a "cursed" item.

There's a real consequence to the distinction: "cursed" items need remove curse or similar magic to get rid of. This has traditionally been the case with the girdle. You can't just take it off.

I think it's perfectly fine to portray a Girdle of Opposite Gender (as Pathfinder calls it) as simply a "magical item" and let players make some lore checks to determine if people have generally had a positive experience or a negative experience.

This is a good point. At the very least, for a character contemplating putting on a girdle intentionally, I'd say they're definitely entitled to an Arcana check to learn that either "people have been known to turn curses to their benefit" or "it's dangerous to mess with a curse: even if you think you'd like the results, you probably won't". It should never be a complete toss-up whether the item is going to screw them over or not.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If an item is intelligent or an artifact, I might be more inclined to grant it an innate malevolence that causes it to be more perverse and to take the intent of the user into account. But for your "average" cursed item, I'd say it's purely a mechanical effect that does what it says on the tin, no more and no less.

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of intelligence. You can write the more perverse version of the girdle as a purely mechanical effect: "This belt changes its wearer's biological sex to maximally mismatch their gender identity." Yeah, I'll admit a perverse bag of devouring probably requires intelligence and malice to determine what it's going to leave undevoured, but since the bag is, y'know, actually a creature, that's hardly out of the question.

 

[MarkB]

One other category of cursed item is also worthy of consideration - items that were originally created to be beneficial and good, but were later cursed or corrupted in some fashion. An item like that can be interesting to give out, because even if its effects are entirely negative, it might be kept around in hopes of finding some way to redeem or cleanse it.

 

[jgsugden]

This is a role playing game. A story game. Let a good story decide and don't feel bound to make it the same across the board. Who made the cursed item? Why? Would they have considered the potential positive use and worked a secondary curse? Or was the item an accident built with no evil intent that just happens to be mostly negative? There a Re few enough magic items in 5E for you to give each a one minute pondering for a quick back story. It is well worth the effort. Make those items unique and fun.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If the PCs can come up with a clever use for a cursed item, more power to them. Most of the time, when I use cursed items they have some advantages to them, so that the PCs have to weigh the good and bad to using them. Like a ring that can blast enemies with fire, but causes debilitating pain (disadvantage) to the wielder when used. Or the aforementioned Backbiter Spear, with a curse that only manifests sometimes.