Players Vs. DMs

[Lord Xtheth]

I dunno man, all we have for evidence as to whether your players are having a good time is... you telling us that one of the players isn't having a good time with one particular plot element.

That in itself should be a pointer. ONE person, the person who was cursed didn't like the curse.

I'm sure you're a kick-ass DM, but in this particular case, several people disagree with your ruling. Them's the breaks when you go to the internet to seek justification; you might not get it. It's nothing personal.

My intent wasn't justification, I was looking for general conversation. I know theres no hard feelings here. Just so long as everybody will equily assume I'll "defend" my desisions and actions. Especially when I'm compared to "torturing monkeys" as I was above.

Maybe some more information is due. Seeing as how I have downtime at work I guess I can fill it in here.

The Cursed item is a dagger that craves killing. on the first strike the target gets marked. On the second strike Hit or miss it deals 5[W] damage to the target, on a miss it deals 2[w] damage to the holder.
EDITED
On the 3rd attack of the round it uses the holders magic item daily slot, On a hit it reduces target to 0 and -2 to death save On a miss it brings both the character and the target to 0 hp.
The dagger itself is a link to my planned BBEG in the end of the adventure. Generally my players chose to go on the "Destroy the dagger" quest I set up for them because they either a: understand that it is my plotline, or b) know that the BBEG will still do stuff in the background regardless of what adventures they do or do not go on. Or c. they play along because I put alot of work in my adventures, and them going out of their way to NOT do what I planned for generally puts me in the spotlight. I'm not saying I can't "wing it" I can, its just I do better when I'm prepared just as I assume every DM is.

Now, there is MORE for them to do in the story than strictly sit on the dagger adventure. I have 3 adventure hooks kicking around, and am fully ready with a couple random encounters if they realy don't want to follow my story. Its just that the dagger is linked directly to the main story line, and following it will advance the plot.

Like I said before. This might not be a good move on my part. But I'm sticking to it. The reason it's a cursed item and not an artifact is so that they WANT to get rid of it, not have it up and vanish on its own.
If Lord of the Rings didn't have The One Ring, what kind of series would it be? Sure, the hobbits, the Wizard, and some trees could have overthrown all the baddies on their own, but the Ring gave them the reason to leave their comfy houses. I find this dagger as the exact same thing.

 

[NewfieDave]

The Cursed item is a dagger that craves killing. on the first strike the target gets marked. On the second strike Hit or miss it deals 5[W] damage to the target, on a miss it deals 2[w] damage to the holder.
On the 3rd attack of the round it uses the holders magic item daily slot, and brings both the character and the target to 0 hp.

Perhaps you didn't word that exactly as the item actually works, but if I could only make 3 attacks per combat before automatically falling to 0 HP I would be very pissed with my DM (unless he allowed me the chance to know what I was getting into before using the item, or allowed me some way to quickly get rid of it).

 

[simply not edible]

Did you actually just say there, you have an item that makes a character useless in 3 rounds of combat? I can't imagine how a player wouldn't enjoy that.

 

[Tarek]

"On the 3rd attack of the round it uses the holders magic item daily slot, and brings both the character and the target to 0 hp."

Yeah, I'd be pretty peeved if this was the only weapon I could ever use because the curse forces me to use it, which is what is strongly implied in your earlier posts.

 

[Tervin]

First of all, I am not at your table and have really no idea how things work out for you. I still feel I want to say a few things, as you touch on a few things that are kind of close to my heart. Like storytelling techinques in RPGs.

That in itself should be a pointer. ONE person, the person who was cursed didn't like the curse.

Well if one person doesn't like it, it can be enough to break the game. Every person around the table needs to be having enough fun for the game to work. But I am sure you know that.

The Cursed item is a dagger that craves killing. on the first strike the target gets marked. On the second strike Hit or miss it deals 5[W] damage to the target, on a miss it deals 2[w] damage to the holder.
On the 3rd attack of the round it uses the holders magic item daily slot, and brings both the character and the target to 0 hp.

Sounds like a very swingy item to me, and something that kind of risks taking away the fun in combats. On the other hand, you know your encounters and your players a lot better than me.

If Lord of the Rings didn't have The One Ring, what kind of series would it be? Sure, the hobbits, the Wizard, and some trees could have overthrown all the baddies on their own, but the Ring gave them the reason to leave their comfy houses. I find this dagger as the exact same thing.

No. This is not me being a Tolkien fan, I find his work really overrated, but still no. The one ring is not destroyed because it is inconvenient to the bearer. It is done to save the world.

Your cursed item is potentially extremely powerful in battle (if I read it correctly), a power gaming party's dream. If it does not have other downsides than what you told us here, there will not be enough reasons for the party to get rid of it - except for the metagaming reason of making you happy by doing what they are supposed to do. And that is not what we want when we write stories, is it?

Of course you know your players, I don't. Also I might have missed some things in my reading. But I would still make serious changes to that dagger if I was to let it be considereed for use in my game. One example would be for every hit to risk taking a healing surge from the bearer, but on the other hand let those special hits do double damage. And not to have that instant kill-power at all, it is just an invitation to power tricks at the same time as it takes away fun from the bearer.

Of course just my opinion. You do what you and your players like.

 

[billd91]

Did you actually just say there, you have an item that makes a character useless in 3 rounds of combat? I can't imagine how a player wouldn't enjoy that.

It does seem awfully... painful... to me to be saddled with a thing like this. The way 4e combats seem to be shaping up to be longer affairs than 3e combats, I would think a curse clobbering him this fast would just not fit the game. He's going to spend more time out of combat than in it if he's limited to only 2 rounds of active fighting before he ends up lying on the floor. In a climactic BBEG fight, maybe it would work in a sufficiently dramatic way, but other than that? I have my doubts.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I missed an entire line in my orriginal description of my cursed item.

I've gone back and edited the orriginal post...

Sorry about that, it was a mistake in description in this forum, NOT the design of the item.

It's supposed to be a MISS that reduces both character and target to 0. not just a swing.
ALSO the "next ability" in each line (1st, 2nd, 3rd attack) only works on the target of the previous attack. (Just to clarify) If you attack a new target, the cycle starts over

 

[Henry]

I missed an entire line in my orriginal description of my cursed item.

I've gone back and edited the orriginal post...

Sorry about that, it was a mistake in description in this forum, NOT the design of the item.

It's supposed to be a MISS that reduces both character and target to 0. not just a swing.
ALSO the "next ability" in each line (1st, 2nd, 3rd attack) only works on the target of the previous attack. (Just to clarify) If you attack a new target, the cycle starts over

If it were me, I'd probably change the "miss" to 1[w] damage instead of 2[w], because that's a heck of a lot of damage at one time to the wielder, and I'd get rid of or mitigate the "three strikes you're out" clause, because to me it's too much to knock a character completely out of commission automatically with a cursed item. Not even any of Gary's non-artifact cursed items did that (well, except for the save or dies); most of his cursed items were like the backbiter spear, or the missile attracting shield, or the berserking sword, which still worked, but had a curse attached that made life difficult without totally hosing the wielder.

Other than that, I have no problem with cursed items; I've used them in various campaigns, though sparingly to keep the players from getting tired with them.

 

[simply not edible]

That would work better, but still... Does the counting of hits against target X continue when you target him anew? I mean, after hitting someone else in the meantime? In that case, you'd still be running risky once the number of targets goes down.

On another note, considering some of the rolls I see around the tables I play, dropping to 0 HP on a miss is guaranted to happen, like, every 5 minutes or so.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

That would work better, but still... Does the counting of hits against target X continue when you target him anew? I mean, after hitting someone else in the meantime? In that case, you'd still be running risky once the number of targets goes down.

On another note, considering some of the rolls I see around the tables I play, dropping to 0 HP on a miss is guaranted to happen, like, every 5 minutes or so.

I usually get surprised if my currant group of players ever roll below 10. It happens so little I almost considered letting them always hit at one point... but no seriously, my players have been damn lucky. And like I said, its there to BE destroyed.

ALSO, Yes, every new target the dagger resets, I needs to mark a target before it moves to step 2, then it needs to bleed the target thats marked to move to step 3.

sorry for being unclear. I'm typing this during downtime at work, so sometimes I'm rushed.