Cursed Magic Items: So where do they come from now?

[JacktheRabbit]

One thing in 3E that is not really explained is where do cursed magic items come from now?

There are full rules for creating magic items but odds are cursed items are not going to get made very often.

My personal choice is I give a small chance of any magic item being made to end up cursed due to a mistake in creation.

How do you do it? Or do you even use cursed items any more?

 

[Mordane76]

Overall, I'm pretty stingy on found treasure, and I don't really look at the cursed items when players are purchasing items, so we haven't had a cursed item yet in my games, and we've been playing since 3E came out.


I think that it's just not as appealing or easy to find them, players (IIRC) never really enjoyed them, but WotC didn't want to gore a "sacred cow" of D&D by not including them in the release, so it put them in the DMG as something that COULD be used, but most likely won't see too much use. There isn't even a chance in the random item creation rolls, IMS, for an item to be cursed.

In all honesty, from a DMing perspective, the random chance of an item being cursed might throw me off if I'm in a story, so I'm sorta glad they didn't include it in the tables; I know that as DM I can disregard what comes up in the rolls, but I generally let fate take the players and me where it will. From a player's perspective, the even miniscule chance that any item I pick up is a cursed item seems to inject a sort of underlying fear and tension -- I don't think this would be a good thing.

 

[Zappo]

I distinguish between real cursed items and items that have drawbacks.

Items that are cursed and have no redeeming qualities may be intentionally crafted for some reason. As a "gift" to a hated enemy, or as a mean of control, or out of sheer wizardly insanity. I sometimes come up with items that became cursed after having been the focus of some highly emotional event, or as a consequence of the exposure to extreme magical energies. Of course, they are pretty rare. Nice stuff for forsakers, though.

Items that are good but have drawbacks may have been created for any such reason, but also to make them cheaper (and thus easier to create). For example, I recently had the PCs find a full plate armor that is so weightless and comfortable that it causes no penalties, but the shoddy and cheap magic that was employed isn't well contained and sometimes discharges on the wearer, dealing a bit of damage of a random element. Not much of a trouble for the slaad originally wearing it, though.

 

[F5]

Even from a player's point of view, a lot of the specific cursed items are really useful. Make a Helm of Opposite Alignment and use it on your captured Big Bad Evil Guy, and call it a day. They're useful as part of a carefully laid plan...less useful in a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl. If you're careful, you can always find a good use for a Bag of Devouring...

That said, I've never used cursed items in any game I've run. I've used some of the Requirements and Drawbacks tables in the DMG for flavor additions to regular magic items, though. A Holy Agenger that you have to go on a quest to "activate" doesn't really strike me as "cursed". I thought about making cursed attributes cheapen the XP cost to craft an item, but figured that went against the intent of the rules, and was too easily abused, so I scrapped the idea.

 

[Gothmog]

When I DM, "cursed" items can result by three different means:

1) The item is created cursed. This is the vast minority of items- there really isn't much of a good reason to create a cursed item other than to hinder an enemy. This accounts for maybe 5% of my cursed items.

2) Some kind of flaw in the item creation process. In my games, when a character makes an item, I require a spellcraft check to successfully make the item with a DC equal to 15 + (GP value of item/5000). If the skill check is equal to to DC, then the item is flawed, and manifests some sort of flaw. Not usually as serious as a curse, but the greater the value of the item, the more powerful the drawback. This accounts for about 70-75% of my cursed items.

3) Items that were normal or enchanted items, but due to circumstances in which they were used, became cursed. For example, the armor of a general who ordered the slaughter of a town of innocents, and was washed in their blood during the butchery might become Armor of Rage as it is infused with the fear and anger of those who died. Another example: a flask that contains holy water or oils in a temple might become a flask of curses if a black mass were performed in the temple to an evil god. This accounts for about 15-20% of my cursed items.

 

[Harlock]

I think it all depends on the game. In my Scarred Lands campaign I'll have a lot more cursed items than I did in my other D&D game. That's of course due to the fact that the Titan resposible for arcane magic was defeated by the upstart gods and so the nature of arcane magic is slightly askew.

 

[Felix]

When it comes to items being cursed, they are cursed for a reason. As Zappo said, cursed items might bring enemies under your control; the dnd version of the Trojan Horse. Boy, was that Figurine of Wonderous Power cursed!

And then, once the purpose of the item is served, it just floats around nabbing unsuspecting adventurers. I think their role after their primary use has been executed becomes one of leading the party on a detective mission: "why was this ring cursed with control magic?" "who made it?" "who was controlled?"

Once the party starts asking questions, the creator of the item might find out... he wants to keep the party quiet and not ruin his nice little setup. I think cursed items could lead to a great dnd murder mystery, but they should always be used at the DM's discresion.

Then you have items with drawbacks. Anybody read nemmerle's Aquerra story hour? Martin the Green has a ring of sustinance; he's a wizard that doesn't need the 8 hours of sleep. Bonus, right? But it's slowly beginning to drive Martin's familiar mad. Never eating... never sleepy... remembering how nice food was... remembering how much you liked to dream. That should be maddening! So even benefical items have drawbacks, if you look for them.

Ring of Jumping's drawback? Um, maybe people who touch you get warts (ie, touching a frog).

Ring of Wizardry? Develop a bad eye twitch from the extra mental strain?

Robe of eyes? Every time you take the robe off, you find that you're covered in "eye boogers" (you know, when you wake up, the stuff in your eye)

Flame Tongue? Your hands develop very thick callouses from the heat.

Monte Cooke has been saying that you never want to balance mechanics with roleplaying, but in this case I think it's ok. Just because a high level wizard will have to use a Prestigiditation to clean himself off after wearing his Robe of Eyes doesn't mean that he won't wear it, or that the robe is less useful. Just... gross.

 

[MarauderX]

I often times have cursed magic items come from instilled vengeful spirits that came to inhabit an item with some bitter magic. I think the players know that there is not some hidden island with 1000 wizards creating cursed items just because they lost their girlfriends to a fighter... or is there?

I often give a back story to most cursed items once they are removed (or as a requirement to be removed) that explains how the item became negative. Usually it has to do with some NPC being wrongly and tainting an item their attacker was after.