Do you use Intelligent Magical Items in your campaigns?

[Clear Dragon]

I am a bit curious to how other people (both from a players and DM's viewpoint) use (or not) intelligent magical items in their campaigns and why. The DMG seems to express the idea they should be fairly frequent, with 15% of melee weapons being intelligent (pg. 228). Are they balanced? Do you allow players of sufficent level to create themselves? How so you handle player/item ego conflicts?

btw: Not having it, how does the ELH expand upon magic items, with regards to the intelligent ones.

 

[Piratecat]

Absolutely. Intelligent magical items often play fairly large roles as NPCs in my game. Depending on what they are, they sometimes have their own goals and motivations - and they make wonderful role playing fodder.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I rather like using them on occasion. When done properly they can really spice up the roleplay, nothing gets a player to roleplay like a weapon that just won't cooperate with the wielder. I once had a DM inflict such a weapon on one of my charaters it made for some real fun heavy role play, especially during combat.

 

[Crothian]

I have a few that I will use when the time ius right. Intelligent items need to be used sparely and not forced to really make them effective.

 

[Simplicity]

I knew someone who used to use an intellgent throwing
dagger named "Dirk Daggerly".

Whenever you threw him, he'd scream: "WEEEEEEEE!!!"
And whenever you were trying to sneak around, he'd
say things like "WHY IS EVERYONE BEING SO QUIET!"
or perhaps a round of
"JOHN JACOB JINGLEHIMMER SCHMIDT! THAT'S MY NAME TOO!!!!"

 

[fenzer]

Absolutely. I have an overarching campain based on two swords embued with the souls of twin brothers. It makes for great gaming.

 

[dave_o]

Yeah!

In my Eldram campaign, I have a series of three magical books who say "Indeeeeeeeeeeed!" in very high-pitched (though not piercing) chipmunk voices whenever a certain name is mentioned.

And an intelligent sword imbued with the essence of a fallen king, which talks, though infrequently.

 

[Tcheb]

I use them sparingly. My group currently has one sword that talks, and an evil magic scythe that doesn't. Although, everyone thinks that the scythe is so powerful that it should, and the characters talk to it all the time. It has yet to talk back. The sword thinks they're all idiots.

Intelligent stuff is fun, but in the end, it's one more NPC you need to pay constant attention to.

 

[Xeriar]

My first AD&D campaign was in a slighty adjusted Mystara, where our party managed to capture a Venyan airship on their way to Alphatia...

My character posessed the engineering and other skills necessary to fly it, and all, and through a series of lucky rolls and ad hoc house rules (the 'God Call'), got it to Alphatia, where we had all sorts of fun before my character decided to rebuild is as a more potent ship.

Five years and nearly a million gold later, it's done, and quite a ship. Taking it for it's maiden flight, there is a serious problem... For no apparent reason, the strange device Xeriar (my character, duh used to control the ship got red hot, and the magics that powered the ship failed.

Depressed and anxious, Xeriar exits the vessal, going over it to survey the damage and try to figure out what is wrong. After a moment, a voice from the ship is heard "Stop that, it tickles..."

What followed was the most intense roleplaying session I'd been in before or since (I'd played D&D, TFT and some others before), but the kicker was after he had first befriended the ship (he really couldn't call it his anymore...)

On their first flight together, they encountered a few more of the Venyan ships that Starchild (IIRC that's what I named it... It decided to be a 'she' later was rebuilt out of. It hadn't known combat before, so it screamed when they shot at it (It wanted to be friends with them, too).

It gave my character control of the ship ('It' was more than just the ship...) then, so Xeriar took the ship to a higher altitude than they could attain...

"But... I want to talk to them."

"They can't talk... They don't... They aren't sentient..."

"But they move..."

"They move at the control of those on board them, they don't decide..."

"But I want to talk to another like me."

"There are no others like you, I could not make another like you..."

"You mean I'm alone."

---

Sadness :-( Eventually we ran into a powerful Gold Dragon that helped 'her' find more of 'herself'... But the campaign ended shortly after. :-(

 

[s/LaSH]

I've had some devious fun in giving the party priest a sentient weapon that normally acts like a warhammer. But it's insane, and when its ego wins out it becomes a greataxe and immediately sets about killing enemies and violating the priest's ethos. He's used it twice since he got it. The problem is, there aren't any other weapons he can use with that much magical grunt (it's very powerful), so when the manure hits the windmill it's his only real choice.

A little nasty on my part, but I've always been mean to my players. It keeps them on their toes.