Cursed Items Thread

[ARandomGod]

Vampiric sword... The sword always hits, but if your attack would normally miss, it adjusts the roll upwards until it would hit, and takes 1HP from you for every point it adjusted (It only threatens a critical if an actual critical threat was rolled).

Sword of Sight. As long as the sword being carried on a character it's attuned to it grants that character Devils Sight (Like darkvision but functions in magical darkness as well) with an unlimited range and a +5 unnamed bonus to spot. It also grants "Farsight" (a house ability which counters any distance penalty to spot).

When the sword is first wielded a wielder who is not blind (has sight) gets a terrible headache, giving him -2 to all rolls for 24 hours. This also attunes the sword to the wielder. Over the course of that time the wearer's normal sight is slowly destroyed as the retina's burn out from the magically enhanced sight. After this time the wearer is permanently blind (but may not notice it, the magical enhancements to sight function whether he's physically blind or not).

Cure blindness will cure the blindness normally, but the headache will immediately return and the vision will be lost again unless a remove curse is also cast on the afflicted.

If the curse and blindness are both cured, the curse will be reapplied the next time the sword is wielded.

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It's an interesting curse. Overall it's a very good thing to have, but there are any number of reasons why a character might lose his sword. Being disarmed will also make you blind. Panicked will blind you as you drop whatever you're carrying and run blindly (Literally!). You also really, REALLY can't allow someone to take your sword away from you so that you can see the king, head mage, whoever unarmed.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Vampiric sword... The sword always hits, but if your attack would normally miss, it adjusts the roll upwards until it would hit, and takes 1HP from you for every point it adjusted (It only threatens a critical if an actual critical threat was rolled).

Neato!

Sword of Sight. As long as the sword being carried on a character it's attuned to it grants that character Devils Sight (Like darkvision but functions in magical darkness as well) with an unlimited range and a +5 unnamed bonus to spot. It also grants "Farsight" (a house ability which counters any distance penalty to spot).

When the sword is first wielded a wielder who is not blind (has sight) gets a terrible headache, giving him -2 to all rolls for 24 hours. This also attunes the sword to the wielder. Over the course of that time the wearer's normal sight is slowly destroyed as the retina's burn out from the magically enhanced sight. After this time the wearer is permanently blind (but may not notice it, the magical enhancements to sight function whether he's physically blind or not).

Cure blindness will cure the blindness normally, but the headache will immediately return and the vision will be lost again unless a remove curse is also cast on the afflicted.

If the curse and blindness are both cured, the curse will be reapplied the next time the sword is wielded.

So. . .
The sword strikes it's wielder blind? or the wielder only goes blind if they stop wielding the sword? Or they can only see in darkness and darkness?

It sounds interesting, but I'm sure I don't understand what your intent was. As for the farsight. . . I'd have to drop that just for logic and sanity's sake.

 

[ARandomGod]

Neato!So. . .
The sword strikes it's wielder blind? or the wielder only goes blind if they stop wielding the sword? Or they can only see in darkness and darkness?

The sword gives the wielder a curse that strikes him blind. Only instead of instantly going blind they go blind over the course of a day.

Actually, the original version I had of this made the character go blind over the course of a week, with the headache slowly going away as the eye's burned out. Holding the sword everything was always in sharp focus, when you let it go it seemed blurry... By comparison? (Answer, yes, but also because you're slowly losing your sight).

It sounds interesting, but I'm sure I don't understand what your intent was. As for the farsight. . . I'd have to drop that just for logic and sanity's sake.

Farsight was a huge part of the sword. Beside, how often do you really apply those spot penalties for distance? The main point is that the character can see ANYwhere up to the horizon as easily as he can see something five feet away. Very strong eyesight. Hence no spot penalty for distance, in game terms. If you're dropping it for "logic" however you have to reconsider that it's all magic and drop the entire game system!

Heheh. But no, the sword causes you to go completely blind, physically. But it grants you magical sight. You don't necessarily notice that you're blind unless and until you're separated from the sword. Because as long as you're holding it you can see magically. When you're separated from it you lose your magical sight and have to rely on your "normal" vision, which burned out shortly after you first used the sword.

So the sword DOES strike the wielder blind. But the wielder can see fine, better than fine, as long as he's got the sword.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Okay. Now I understand. Neat.

My only real problem with the farsight ability you described disappeared when you included the caveat that the limit of vision is absolute at the horizon. I presume that a nearer limit would be any solid obstruction. Without these limits you get an x-ray vision character watching threats approach from literally the other side of the globe, reading their spellbooks over their shoulders and watching his own back.

The item you've described is cool.

Joker, I would swear that I had seen a cursed ring of evasion somewhere that worked differently than the one you describe. I like yours better.

 

[domino]

The really complicated part of the farsight would be for the different planes, which may or may not actually be round. What about the Plane of Air, for example?

 

[ARandomGod]

My only real problem with the farsight ability you described when you included the caveat that the limit of vision is absolute at the horizon.

Well, I can defend that with the definition of horizon, which is the point at which solid matter blocks your view as the world curves... But I take your point, and it follows well with the following question.

The really complicated part of the farsight would be for the different planes, which may or may not actually be round. What about the Plane of Air, for example?

And what if the world isn't round, for that matter? And what if you looked UP? I can avoid the looking up part by having a fantasy world and it never coming up, if it does however I'll have the ability stop at the edge of the atmoshpere.... if there is no edge, I'll tell him what he sees on the moon!

Well, what about the plane of air? Here I settle it by not allowing the PC's to leave the plane... however the item as written would simply allow him to see everything, as far as exists, in all directions. I think that if he tried he'd have to speficy how far he was looking, and he might not be really able to *tell* anyhow. A partial loss of depth perception, as depth ceases to have any effect on the "eye".

I can justify this near overwhelming power by the fact that it was originally one aspect of an artifact sword that I gave out (at first character level, the kind where you slowly discover what happens and the item gets more powerful as you level, as opposed to the character getting more powerful items).

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Well, I can defend that with the definition of horizon, which is the point at which solid matter blocks your view as the world curves... But I take your point, and it follows well with the following question.



And what if the world isn't round, for that matter? And what if you looked UP? I can avoid the looking up part by having a fantasy world and it never coming up, if it does however I'll have the ability stop at the edge of the atmoshpere.... if there is no edge, I'll tell him what he sees on the moon!

Well, what about the plane of air? Here I settle it by not allowing the PC's to leave the plane... however the item as written would simply allow him to see everything, as far as exists, in all directions. I think that if he tried he'd have to speficy how far he was looking, and he might not be really able to *tell* anyhow. A partial loss of depth perception, as depth ceases to have any effect on the "eye".

I can justify this near overwhelming power by the fact that it was originally one aspect of an artifact sword that I gave out (at first character level, the kind where you slowly discover what happens and the item gets more powerful as you level, as opposed to the character getting more powerful items).

I've just corrected a sort of crucial typo in my last post: Clearly, the horizon limit was needed to make the ability work.

domino and ARandomGod bring up some interesting points, though, which warrant further thought.

So, does anybody else out there have some more useful cursed items, "drawback items," as I think of them?

 

[domino]

Ooh.

Ring of arrow deflection. Into other people.

Basically, it adds a +2 to your AC against physical ranged attacks. However, if it misses you, it's because the attack was diverted to another nearby player. At which point, the attack gains a +2 to hit their AC, with a new attack roll (so as to prevent the lowest AC guy from wearing it, knowing that the others AC was high enough to not have to worry).

Secondary targets are chosen randomly. Should the secondary target have a ring as well, and the attack misses because of the +2 to AC granted the second target, the attack looks for someone ELSE, and this time gets another +2 to the attack roll.

Should the attack be directed at someone without a ring, and it misses, it simply misses, as normal.

 

[chakken98]

There are some cool items in this tread, in my game I tend to change some of the normal magic items into something cursed, but still usable (well if my players keep them).

Belt of Giant Strength (Feminine): when identified this item appears to be a normal Belt of Giant's Strength. But, it only functions normally if worn by a Female. If a Male don's the Belt he is instantly transformed into a Human Female (DM can determine what they now look like); gaining +4 Charisama and -4 Strength. This change is permenant even if the belt is removed. Only the act of a Wish can return the character to his true form.
*I use this in my current game causing my brother n law to change into a girl. At level 7 and with no money he is stuck, and very much unhappy out of game. But he has done some excellent roll-playing as a female. could be fun way to shake up your players.*

Skeleton Key: This key grants the owner a +7 competence bonus to the wearer's Open Lock skill, also grants spell-like ability of knock 1/per day, but slowly begin to cause insanity (as spell). DC to save starts at 15, and continues to raise by +1 each time it is used until it is discarded or causes insanity. Should the insanity be cured, it and be used again the cycle starts over.

I have more but will have to post those tomorrow, they are at home.