Identifying Magic Items

[Endur]

Return to the game? I can think of some items like this from AD&D modules, but I can't think of any common or well known items with drawbacks from AD&D or 2e.

Items with drawbacks (besides artifacts, deck of many things, wands of wonder, intellligent items, cursed items), here are a few:

Helm of Brilliance ... awesome magic item, essentially turns a fighter into a fire-resistant fire-mage. Drawback: If you fail a saving throw versus fire, all of your remaining charges are fired off at once (i.e. huge amounts of fire damage)

Portable Hole/Bag of Holding ... Necessary for long dungeon clears. Drawback: Put one inside the other.

I think some of the summoning items had the potential for things to go wrong. Constructs could go berserk, etc.

 

[Mattachine]

I see. When I hear "drawback", I don't think catastrophic failure in certain specific instance. I associate drawbacks with penalties (like a stat, AC, or attack penalty, loss of spell slots, negative level, etc.). Still, that is only a couple items. The classic items did not generally have drawbacks like that.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

A lot of people are right in this thread, yet somehow don't agree. Some truths:

• Some experimenting with a rare and interesting magic item can be fun and cool.
• Experimenting for all magic items gets to be tedious and leads to a default list of experiments.
• DM's need a mechanism for hiding special properties so they can be discovered in cool and wondrous ways.

I think the first step is to roll basic magic item detection into a skill, such as Arcana or Spellcraft. In effect, this is advanced experimentation that involves more than just jumping off chairs. Wizards and other magic users should be able to poke, prod, and reveal relatively detailed elements of an item. Seeing as how D&DNext is going to have a mechanism for automatic success, it makes sense to give effects a DC to detect. Those hard to detect and wondrous effects would simply have high DC's.

The identify spell or ritual should also exist. It requires expensive components that are used to aid the Wizard in his experimentation and grants a +5 bonus to the skill.

Everything else comes out as the DM determines it should. The wizard should know when an item has more to it than he's able to determine. Also, perhaps magic items can be magically trapped to prevent detection.

Boom! Wizard has no eyebrows.

 

[Hassassin]

I see. When I hear "drawback", I don't think catastrophic failure in certain specific instance. I associate drawbacks with penalties (like a stat, AC, or attack penalty, loss of spell slots, negative level, etc.). Still, that is only a couple items. The classic items did not generally have drawbacks like that.

Which items you consider classic affects it, of course, but there are a lot of items in AD&D with both advantages and disadvantages, including "cursed" items like ring of clumsiness with a beneficial secondary power. Most 3e curses also work this way, leaving you with a potentially useful item (intermittent effect, requirement, drawback, different effect).

 

[Mattachine]

Hassassin: We were discussing AD&D items. There weren't many with drawbacks that weren't actually cursed.

I forgot about the ring of clumsiness. Though it had a second power, the clumsiness effect was too steep for it to be considered anything other than a cursed item.

 

[SensoryThought]

I like the idea of items with drawbacks and I use homebrew items like these. One character has a drug that supercharges magic for an encounter but is addictive. Another item is a potion that induces a berserker rage - more damage but must attack the nearest enemy.

 

[Hassassin]

Hassassin: We were discussing AD&D items. There weren't many with drawbacks that weren't actually cursed.

They don't actually separate all cursed items from the non-cursed. Is ring of truth cursed or not? (You can't lie, but you detect lies.) How about rod of terror? (You cause paralyzing fear, but may permanently lose Charisma.)

I simply disagree that items with disadvantages or drawbacks are rare.

 

[the Jester]

Potions *should* be labeled. Only an idiot would carry around a handful of nearly identically colored, unlabeled potions - especially if one or more was a poison intended for a weapon...

What on Oerth makes you think that potions look nearly identical?

IMC I've always described them individually. You might find a pink, sweet-smelling potion (potion of healing), one that is so clear that you almost don't even notice it (potion of invisibility), one that looks like beef stew and smells strongly of sweat (potion of hill giant strength) and a bubbling, foul-smelling potion with bits of bone and flesh mixed in (potion of zombie form), and in fact, AFAIK going waaaay back to the B/X days, the dm was encouraged to give clues to a potion's nature by varying their descriptions.

 

[Mattachine]

They don't actually separate all cursed items from the non-cursed. Is ring of truth cursed or not? (You can't lie, but you detect lies.) How about rod of terror? (You cause paralyzing fear, but may permanently lose Charisma.)

I simply disagree that items with disadvantages or drawbacks are rare.

For AD&D items, which was the original context, 3-4 items out of a few hundred is pretty rare, especially since the common items, like magic weapons, armor, and protection items.

Even in 2nd and 3rd edition, only a few items out of the hundreds described had drawbacks--that's seems rare to me.

Also, since most players optimize their PCs, even a small drawback is rarely worth the benefit provided by the item.

 

[Hassassin]

For AD&D items, which was the original context, 3-4 items out of a few hundred is pretty rare, especially since the common items, like magic weapons, armor, and protection items.

The examples I gave are from AD&D. Can't remember which were in 1e and which in 2e. In any case, there are probably others.

Even in 2nd and 3rd edition, only a few items out of the hundreds described had drawbacks--that's seems rare to me.

In 3e by the book 5% of randomly generated items are cursed. Of those about half are beneficial, but with drawback or flaws.

If you limit yourself to uncursed items you are right that they are uncommon.

Also, since most players optimize their PCs, even a small drawback is rarely worth the benefit provided by the item.

That probably depends on how common magic items are. I run relatively low magic campaigns with no "magic marts" and the PCs use everything they find that gives them an advantage.