D&D 5E A subtle curse: the attunement slot?

[Krachek]

Here I thought the thread would be about how attunement slots are a subtle curse... hmm... guess I was wrong.

Your idea is interesting but I find difficult to name an item :
Ring of blocking attunement slot.
I prefer item where the curse is debatable. Where the overall effect is positive with some discomfort once in a while.

 

[Charlaquin]

And if the item in question has some properties that you no longer find desirable--like, say, it gives you a two-way telepathic link to the BBEG, so he always knows where you are--that's additional motivation to get rid of it.

I dunno, I kinda like the idea that it does literally nothing but be a useless item you can’t get rid of. In a pan-World-of-Darkness crossover game I once played in, our city’s resident mage was King Arthur’s successor or reincarnation or something. Point is, he was the rightful bearer of Excalibur, which was just a regular sword with no special powers except that he couldn’t ever get rid of it. It was only a minor inconvenience that it kept showing up in his possession, but it was hilarious and awesome. I think such an item would fit in with D&D quite nicely.

Your idea is interesting but I find difficult to name an item :
Ring of blocking attunement slot.

How about The Keepsake? Since its effect is that you have to keep it - just for the sake of keeping it.

 

[Krachek]

I dunno, I kinda like the idea that it does literally nothing but be a useless item you can’t get rid of. In a pan-World-of-Darkness crossover game I once played in, our city’s resident mage was King Arthur’s successor or reincarnation or something. Point is, he was the rightful bearer of Excalibur, which was just a regular sword with no special powers except that he couldn’t ever get rid of it. It was only a minor inconvenience that it kept showing up in his possession, but it was hilarious and awesome. I think such an item would fit in with D&D quite nicely.


How about The Keepsake? Since its effect is that you have to keep it - just for the sake of keeping it.

It’s better, I just think of a Sword of eternal grip. A decent magical Longsword that cannot leave your hand!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Same. To me, a cursed item that has some benefit feels a whole lot more in-keeping with genre fiction. Just look at the One Ring, Stormbringer, the Gonne, Dragnipur, and countless others. Sometimes magic comes with a price.

I'm a big fan of "but also" when it comes to making cursed items.

For example, a cursed wand of fireballs. It works as described "but also" causes you to lose all of your third-level spell slots while you're attuned. A 5th or 6th level spellcaster might not mind being cursed, depending on circumstance...but around 8th or 9th level, they are going to start looking for a way to get that curse removed.

 

[FireLance]

Same. To me, a cursed item that has some benefit feels a whole lot more in-keeping with genre fiction. Just look at the One Ring, Stormbringer, the Gonne, Dragnipur, and countless others. Sometimes magic comes with a price.

"All magic comes with a price, dearie."

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Robert Carlyle's performance was a delight in that series.

"All magic comes with a price, dearie."

 

[Helldritch]

Cursed ring of protection +1.
While you wear this ring, you get a bonus of +1 to your AC and all saving. The ring takes up to two attunement slots and you can not attune to an other ring. All friends within 10 feet of you suffers a penalty of 1 to their AC and saves.

This cursed item can only be removed if the spell remove curse is cast upon it by a caster that beats a DC 17 on a spell check (just like dispel magic). If the caster fails to dispel the curse, the wearer must attack the caster with deadly force until he succeed a charisma saving throw of 17. If the caster succeed in dispelling the curse, the afflicted character has 1 minute ro remove the ring. After which, the curse resume and will affect anyone trying ro put the ring on.

What do you think?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Robert Carlyle's performance was a delight in that series.

Too bad the series went to crap...

 

[Charlaquin]

Too bad the series went to crap...

The first season was great! But, when breaking the curse brought magic to Storybrook instead of everyone getting sent back to their world, it was immediately clear to me they’d already reached the end of the plot they had in mind and were grasping at straws for a way to keep the show going. There’s no faster way to lose my interest than to contrive a way to drag out a plot that has obviously reached its logical conclusion.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, it had a downslide, to be sure, but I still dug the series. The Neverland season was my least favorite, even with the later drop in quality - it felt like there were whole episodes of the cast just wandering through the jungle, talking at each other.

Also, it had Lee Arenberg playing a dwarf for the second time in his career...

Too bad the series went to crap...