Cool items that the party never used.

[Rahkan]

OT but...

In almost any Black Isle DnD game I've ever played I could never bring myself to use the wands, staves, potions and other limited use items. I always felt that there would be something harder coming soon. I'd reload a half dozen times without using those things =). The sole exception being the healing potions, which I quaffed like gamers drink Coke.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

They found a small pile of green goo in a sack, oh, at around 2nd level. It showed up as not quite magic, but kinda magic to the mage because it was actually a Ferroplasm longsword.

FYI Ferroplasm gives enhancement bonuses like adamantite EXCEPT unless a psionic being touches it it turns to goo. Psionic touches it, it forms into shape.

Everyone poked it, prodded it, and played with the goo EXCEPT the Psi Warrior who looked at it and ignored it. The tragedy is it is a Psychic Ferroplasm longsword, which means the more power points the wielder has the better it is. At 130+ PP its a +4 sword with a +2 ability and 2 +1 abilities, effectivelly a +8 weapon. At 1 PP it is a +1 sword, with various levels in between. Because of the variation it is a +5 enchantment. Even so, a 2nd level warrior with it is fine because he doesn't have the PP to activate the game breaking powers until he's high enough level to have that stuff anyway.

I dropped a few hints that the party was second level with treasure equal to what a 7th level party should have, but they never got it. I think the mage still has it somewhere. Too late now, the psi warrior got arrested and sentenced to 2 years hard labor.

 

[cloaker]

Hehe...
It wasnt a major item like a vorpal sword or anything, but I found it extremely funny when the party I DM for, found a Figurine of Wondrous Power (Serpintine owl).
Since they were 4th level, this is was a GREAT ITEM ! The group druid was all happy, but he didnt even use the god damn item which would have saved them from two ambushes.
In the second ambush the 4th level ranger died. They traded the Figurine for a True Ressurection so that the Ranger would pass to 5th level instead of dieing to 3rd and passing back to 4th.

Later on the druid read the items description and said "$%@*!!, It had telepathy !!!"
Oh well...

 

[JLXC]

Not to be too player Bashy but...

Anything without a PLUS in it.

If they can't wear it, or hit you with it, they ignore it. Sigh. The party literally has dozens of scrolls and dozens of potions, that would REALLY help out from time to time.

Saving them for a "Rainy Day" is their motto. They've had some of the same stuff since 4th level and they are 9th level now. HAH. Cracks me up.

 

[jasper]

belt of etheralness 3x day.

In Ft ord 1983 84 gave to the party. the guy using would go ethernal in heart beat. Until



raveloft.

After 1 party member gets teleport back to jail and returns. He gets port back. he walks yells that he coming. then he feels a tapping on his shoulder. And hears a hearty "good evening what are doing in my home" from Strahd. He panic and attack the vampire. Lost 4 levels before he remembered his belt....

also wand of fireballs, magic missle machine gun, 1/2 scrolls they have.

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Saving them for a "Rainy Day" is their motto.

Urgh. I've seen -that- often enough. We're between campaigns right now because we had a bit of a TPK while Returning to the Temple of Elemental Evil. They all got massacred by a mass of bad peoples, and during the whole fight, the now-dead wizard refused to make much use of his Wand of Magic Missiles because he didn't want to use too many charges. I'm not sure it would have made a difference, they used poor, poor tactics.. but still.

I can't think of many other examples, but I recall that most of our campaigns have seen a surfeit of unused potions, to the point where people refuse to take them when splitting up treasure.

 

[Numion]

Rod of Splendor. They just sold it. I thought it would've been cool to use it. But as always, it's their choice.

I also suspect that the party cleric has a Talisman of Pure Good tucked away somewhere on his character sheet.. and he's forgotten about it.

 

[Chaldfont]

Getting Players to Use Wands More

Because my players and I are lazy and don't want to keep track of charges, we use this house rule for wands. Roll d20 after each use. If you get a one, that was the last charge in the wand and it is now useless.

If you work out the statistics, there is a pretty good chance that the players will get 50 charges with this method. I have found that players use wands more often with this house rule since they never worry about wasting charges.

Possible problems with this house rule that we have not had to address yet:

Creating a wand and rolling a one the first (or even nth when n is low) time.
Items with powers that use more than one charge (I suggest rolling twice but I have not run the stats on this method).

 

[Sigma]

Re: Getting Players to Use Wands More

Because my players and I are lazy and don't want to keep track of charges, we use this house rule for wands. Roll d20 after each use. If you get a one, that was the last charge in the wand and it is now useless.

If you work out the statistics, there is a pretty good chance that the players will get 50 charges with this method. I have found that players use wands more often with this house rule since they never worry about wasting charges.

Possible problems with this house rule that we have not had to address yet:

Creating a wand and rolling a one the first (or even nth when n is low) time.
Items with powers that use more than one charge (I suggest rolling twice but I have not run the stats on this method).

I did the same thing in my campaign with similar results. It also saves me the headache of calculating charges in a wand.

I gave out a magic pistol in one game. It was a +1 flaming weapon and 3 times per day could be used to cast silence on either the bullet (so the person hit by it is effected) or itself (so it can be fired w/o making a noise.) Unfortunately, the character who received it retired before he ever used it.

 

[Kalendraf]

The ones I remember the most are from back in the 2E days. The first was a +5 Defender Two-Handed sword. Since everyone in the group was proficient/specialized with other weapons (mostly long sword), nobody wanted to take it. Both the detect magic and identify indicated how good it was, but they didn't want it in spite of that. At the time, the best weapons in the party were around +2 with other abilities. The group sold off the item and then promptly ran into some beast that needed +3 or better to hit. Served 'em right. I was a co-DM in the group, and I handed out the item, but another DM ran the group into the big beastie, so I wasn't punishing them or anything like that.

The other item I handed out that went totally unused was a special sword. It appeared cursed at first, but it was actually unbreakable and had the ability to break other items it hit (weapons, shields, armor, etc). Again, this is back in the 2E days before Sunder was handled in the rules. Anyways, the sword seemed like a cursed long sword since it always appeared in the owner's hand when he attacked, and seemed to have no attack bonus. They worked and worked to exorcise it and eventually figured out a way to get rid of it. All of this without ever bothering to identify it. I had a whole chart designed to handle it in combat, etc. After that, I gave up designing specialized items for that group since the players were just too ignorant to take advantage of them.