Warforged and cursed items

[RottenFridge]

Well, I'm DMing a game right now where one of the characters, a warforged, has ended up with a cursed ring. He wore it and now he cannot remove it (for it is cursed, ofc). The thing is he doesn't mind cutting out his entire hand if needed, because he can buy a new one to replace it. I cannot think of a reason to keep him from doing it, but it doesn't sound fair to me that he can get rid of the curse so easily just because of his race. Any ideas?

 

[Ragmon]

I myself find it fair, a druid could do the same with lets say regeneration, I would even allow a "place to the stump and heal it" solution.

You could make the ring appear on he's other hand as a solution to make him only remove it vie remove curse, or any other body part, maybe even let it create a chain for it self to take up a neck slot.

 

[El Mahdi]

A few ideas:

1. The ring possesses him when he tries to cut off the hand and stops him. He essentially blacks out for a moment, only to realize that he's put his weapon away and his hand is still attached. Every time he attempts to cut it off, the same thing happens.

2. He successfully cuts off his hand, but there's suddenly a bright glowing light and his hand reappears...with the ring right back where it was. The hand he cut off simply fades away as the new hand (or is it the old one...) manifests. Yes, this does mean that the character does have some immunity to losing the limb as long as he has the cursed ring, but he's also cursed, so it's a decent tradeoff for game and narrative purposes.

3. The rat bastard DM option. He successfully cuts his hand off. While looking at his hand on the ground, the ring disapears from the severed hand, and reapears on a finger of his other hand. He still has the ring, and he's lost a hand. If he gets someone to cut off the other hand, it reapears on a toe, ankle, wrist, ear (earing), neck (collar), head (coronet), etc. No matter what he cuts off, it keeps reapearing somewhere else on his body. Even if he somehow kills himself, it stays attached. So even if he is ressurected, the ring is still on him. If he makes a whole new character, the ring somehow finds him also...

 

[Iapetus]

also, he's a warforged, so shouldn't the magic effect be less effective? it's all magic that works worse with warforged, not just beneficial. i think you should let him do so, but make him pay for the new hand (the metal to make it, the fibers within, and artificer's fee, since he can't do much crafting missing a hand.). another solution is that next item could be a belt or necklace, something much harder to remove body parts to remove.

 

[amerigoV]

Its been awhile and I am too lazy to read up on it, but it was my impression that the underlying wood and the "armor" are all living items. So a Warforged would be as "willing" to have his hand cut off as a human would in that situation. In my Eberron campaign, I would have ruled that "sure, you can cut off your hand" -- but the replacement would be nothing more than ornamental as it was not part of nor did it "grow" from the original Warforge. You would need the equivalent of a Restoration spell to get the new hand to work (a "Repair" version of Restoration - I do not remember if that was ever created in the 3.x version).

At that point, as a DM one would face the same ruling -- would cutting off a hand and using a Restoration spell allow you to get rid of the magic item?

(ie 1e, I certainly would make them do a system shock roll or die from the amputation process depending on how they approached it).

Oh, and if the player fusses, ask him to point out in any Eberron sourcebook the price listing for a replacement Warforged limb. If they really get pissy, give him the "Hand of Vecna, Warforged style" as the replacement (you guessed it, I do not tolerate pissy players)

But that is my two cents.

 

[nijineko]

some good suggestions here. i think it would depend on the nature of the curse, and just how obnoxious it was intended to be. cursed items are not well covered or represented in d&d, with powerful effects being ridiculously low priced based on the idea that the market value for such a difficult to deal with item would be low, as opposed to how expensive it would actually be to create all the magical effects in question, like every other magic item.

personally, i would suggest treating all cursed items in the game like intelligent and/or legacy weapons. i do not mean to make them all sentient; but rather the ideas of having a special purpose, powers designed to accomplish that purpose, powers to punish anything not in line with said purpose, and the ability to grow in power as events occur are all things that should be considered in making a cursed item.

after all, in most myth, tales, and legends, a cursed item was frequently one that was stolen from the rightful place/person or otherwise designed to punish misuse and/or lack of proper authority. (Sometimes they were broken and/or corrupted, too.) They were otherwise (or originally) powerful and useful items, but only in the right hands and/or circumstances.

answering some of these background questions: why was it cursed, what is the original / current purpose, what powers can it wield in defense of itself/perpetuation of the curse/towards accomplishing the purpose... etc... then you will know if it would logically work for the amputation to succeed or not. some items might be happy with a blood, or in the case of your warforged, sap sacrifice.

 

[Blue]

All of these options seem to punish the character for original thinking. Now, I'm not for it being easy, but screwing the character over even harder then the curse just because the player thinks outside the box seems to be the opposite of what we want to encourage in play. Viva la imaginative solutions!

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Allow him to cut off the hand and replace it.

The severed limb, combined with the cursed ring, gains sentience, and becomes a reoccurring villain NPC. It crawls around spiderlike, working to thwart it's former owner.

A few brief encounters, it keeps escaping. Over time, it begins to built itself a new body...

In the meantime, replacing a hand is a process, even for a Warforged. grant him a small CON or STR penalty while it's missing. have him roleplay life with one hand while he tries to do basic things. Roll with it.

 

[RottenFridge]

Wow, thank you so much guys. I really liked the idea of the severed hand with conscience! Brilliant!

Anyway, it's a shame that the "curse" itself is only the fact that the ring is a Slave Ring [Book of Vile Darkness] (I think it is not even considered cursed, but you cannot take it off) and not something more interesting to play with.

 

[Omegaxicor]

another possible idea is that the hand can be severed but the ring continues to float where it was and continues to effect him as if it was connected to his hand, if he replaces his hand then the ring becomes connected to that hand.

that way he can sever his hand but he cannot sever himself from the curse