D&D 5E Cursed items : yes or no ?

[Sword of Spirit]

Why wouldn't your players want to experience the fun of accidentally triggering a curse? I'm not being sarcastic there. That is freaking fun! Seriously. I mean, it's a challenge, just like a trap or a monster, but new and interesting. Isn't that part of the fun of the game, facing new and interesting challenges?

 

[Quartz]

I dislike 'Zap' cursed items unless they're fun in some way. Is this going to be fun for your group? If you do decide it might be fun, do give the players clues. Maybe dogs and other animals shy away from the armour, whether or not it's being worn. Maybe it detects as Evil. To me, the best cursed items are those that add to the fun, such as those which encourage PCs to change of their own free will: the evil sword that gradually corrupts the paladin, the Holy Avenger that sees and fosters the spark of goodness inside the evil-doer. And turnabout is fair play: give the PC an intelligent evil sword and maybe she'll try to convince it to reform!

You know your players best.

 

[Kalshane]

I agree that cursed items can be fun if they're not just sprung on players as a "screw you" out of nowhere.

I'm planning on having the party in my game come upon an Axe of Berserking, but ahead of time they're going to hear about how the being who possesses it seems to have an obsession with it over all other weapons and has a reputation for a short-temper and killing his allies when they upset him.

 

[tglassy]

I love throwing cursed items at people. I had a game I was playing with me and my parents, me DMing and them playing. They were on a ship, so I had them be attacked by a pirate ship, led by a storm sorcerer. It was great. And then my mom, a wizard, managed to just barely put the sorcerer to sleep, letting them have some breathing room to take out the rest of the pirates. So, on the last turn before the Sorcerer woke, my dad says "I cut off his head."

I said, "You can't just cut off his head. Rules say he wakes up if you hit him, so if you hit him, he gets to wake up and attack. I suppose if you role a 20, then I'll let you cut off his head."

He rolled a 20. I had planned on having them get caught by pirates and for that to be the next adventure. Instead, they just cut the head pirate's head off, bound four of the remaining pirates, and was able to persuade them to work for them, thus gaining their own pirate ship. Awesome for them, but totally ruined the adventure I had planned.

So, in the booty they found, I had them find a Sword of Vengeance from the DMG. Now, my mom's wizard had an identify spell, but they didn't even bother trying to use it. My dad just said, "That's mine!" I told him he had to attune to it, and he said "Cool, I wanna do that."

Ha. Curse done. Once I told him, he was like, "I don't want this anymore. I want to throw it overboard."

I said, "You try, but you can't bring yourself to do it. In fact, role a wisdom save to see if the sword compels you to throw all your other weapons overboard." (The sword is supposed to be jealous against other weapons being used.) He succeeded on his wisdom save, but now he's stuck with the sword. I told him how he can be freed from it, but I also told him that he will fight tooth and nail to NOT be freed from it, because he loves the sword and now has a compulsive need to take it everywhere.

So he named it Red and went with it. It's the only time I've ever forced role play on a player, but I felt that with a cursed item, it was probably the only time the DM SHOULD force role play on a character.

And it was a little payback for ruining my adventure with a crit. But not so much payback that it made him feel less awesome for taking control of a pirate ship.

 

[pdzoch]

I like [MENTION=82779]MechaPilot[/MENTION]'s solution for the armor.

Personally, I do not roll random treasure on the fly because I like my treasure to make sense to the story. For me treasures are part of the story, and like Mechapilot's recommendation for the cursed item that the story could reveal clue to the curse, there would be clues that would warn the player of poisoned items in play, such as poison weapon use earlier. I treat traps in the same way -- I'm not much for random traps. They have to be logical and serve the story, otherwise you might have player playing the game in a state of paranoia, checking for traps and poison every step. And I agree that I would not have two cursed items in one hoard. But that is all hindsight and doesn't help you now.

Regarding the potion, I'd say let the rolls fall where they may. Story clues might provide them some caution, even if it was just a rumor of poison use by the defeated villains. Nevertheless, there are plenty of means to neutralize poison (different class and race features, as well as items, potions, and spell); hopefully, your player characters have access to one of those means. So the lingering effects of poison could be stopped before the character is dead dead dead even if he did ignore any previous warnings. If the poison is not neutralized and the character is below 0 hit points, it will not matter how much damage the poison causes (unless it equals their total max HP) because even if the damage is 1 point, it will result in an automatic death save failure, so you will not be able to fudge the dice behind the screen once the poison is committed (though you could lower the DC check.)

 

[Valetudo]

Yes to cursed items but not all the time. They should be very rare and probably part of the campaign. They should not be randomly thrown in unless its a oneshot game.

 

[GMMichael]

Questions :

_Does Identify reveal a Demon armor is cursed ?

What fun would that be?

Would you let the player know that he's cursed immediately after attunement or make things more subtle ?

Which is more fun?

Shall I just say it's a regular armor and forget about the curse ?

That's no fun.

Questions :

_Does the poison stop when a character drops to 0 hit points or does it keep ticking, causing failed death saves ?

The purpose of poison ends where the death save begins. So, it stops.

Assuming the character drops to 0 hit points and is healed immediately. Does the poison damage resume ?

Is that the fun result?

Am I a bad person if I let the player drink it ? Shall I just say it's a regular potion ?

Which is more fun?

Hopefully, you're seeing a pattern here. To metagame a bit, the purpose of cursed items is to cause players to think, "hey, maybe I should reconsider using my magic items." So if your players have too many magic items and you want to slow their use down a bit, use cursed items. If a +0.1 spoon is a godsend to your players, don't bother with cursed items.

PS [MENTION=6677017]Sword of Spirit[/MENTION] - you'd get an XP if I didn't have to wait to award one.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Yes! I think cursed items can bring a fun twist a game if not too detrimental.

Some can even be good! I dropped a shield of missile attraction and the paladin loves it as it help him tank

 

[Uchawi]

I prefer curse items that offer a specific benefit but with a heavy cost, versus just detrimental effects. It is interesting to see how the player/character weighs the cost/benefits.