D&D General Have You Ever Used A Magic Item In A Manner Other Than Prescribed?

[Mad_Jack]

Am I the only one who used to refer to Daern's Instant Fortress as "The Holy Hand Grenade" and regularly use it as an offensive weapon*?
Has anybody else ever used an immovable rod to hang a glyph of warding directly in front of a door?
Ever stuffed the party's halfling in a bag of holding and had the wizard's familiar fly it into an open window?


What are some of the weirder things you've done with magic items that were decidedly not the way they were originally intended to be used?


* (To the point where in one campaign it became an established party tactic against spellcasters to "Drop a house on them"...)

 

[TarionzCousin]

One group I was in regularly used Leomund's Tiny Hut (yeah, it's a spell not a magic item) to block bottleneck doorways in dungeons for long rests.

The DM absolutely refused to give us a Daern's Instant Fortress after that. Hmmm....

 

[aco175]

Sounds like a lot of times in 2e days when we had a lot of magic and out butts were on the line. I recall using a broom of sweeping to hide out tracks as we crossed a sandy area to get to an enemy stronghold. pouring boulders out of a portable hole while levitating.

Of course, breaking the deck of many things.

 

[Mad_Jack]

The DM absolutely refused to give us a Daern's Instant Fortress after that. Hmmm....

DMs learned to hate it when I asked, "How big is that room?", lol...
I'd toss that thing around indoors in castles and caverns whenever there was enough room for it to expand, literally crushing encounters in a single turn...
One time I ran up to the wooden wall of a fort and dropped it right at the foot of the gate. Knocked down a good chunk of the wall and provided cover for our approach. Party's spellcasters and archers ran up to the top of the tower and spent a few rounds sniping guys on the wall, then they cleared out and I took the Fortress down so that the rest of our forces could charge in through the big ol' hole in the wall.

Sooo many shenanigans with the bag of holding, lol. But the most common one was stuffing several small party members in it and then having one of the party's pets fly it over a castle wall and open it on the other side. One time we used a catapult to launch the bag through a window in a tower.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Does ramming it somewhere it was not intended to go count? If so, then yes.

 

[niklinna]

It's pretty common to use a magic item in a manner other than forbidden, actually.

 

[Mad_Jack]

It's pretty common to use a magic item in a manner other than forbidden, actually.

I just went back and changed the title of the thread, so nyeh...

 

[niklinna]

Well in that case! I once trapped an ice devil in a portable hole and then unleashed it on some poor unsuspecting schmuck.

Yes, technically that shouldn't have worked, but this was 1st edition days and we were all in high school.

And I have definitely seen magic items shoved somewhere they weren't intended to go.

 

[Voadam]

The party I was DMing used a druidic cauldron of animal summoning to call forth sacrifices as part of a skill challenge to ritually bring back a PC paladin as an intelligent free-willed not evil undead. (The good inquisitor failed a religion skill part of the skill challenge and the paladin player chose to come back as an intelligent free-willed undead evil paladin for a few games).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Am I the only one who used to refer to Daern's Instant Fortress as "The Holy Hand Grenade" and regularly use it as an offensive weapon*?

I have done exactly that. It “Monty Python’s Giant Foot”-ed the foe, but because of the location, its magic could no longer reactivate. So we had to leave it.

We had a rogue do a sneak attack on a Lich to put a Crown of Opposite Alignment on its head.

We’ve used an Endless Decanter to power a paddlewheel, and a similar Air item to power a sailboat.

Never had the opportunity, but placing a Sphere of Annihilation in the water ahead of a ship- and maintaining its distance from the prow- should drag the ship forward as the water flows into it. It would also make for a nasty battering ram in the same situation.