Have you used Artifacts in your games?

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

The PCs in my game are currently hunting down the Orbs of Dragonkind. They are SUPPOSED to destroy them once they find them(as some Illithids are using the Dragons to take over the surface), but I have a feeling there will be some conflict about what to do once they actually get to the first one...

 

[kigmatzomat]

I used some home-brew artifacts, mainly a variant of the "rod of the seven parts". They weren't super powerful (staff of the magi trumped every one of them) and their sentience meant they would only use their powers when they felt it was appropriate. Their main advantage was they were absolutely indestructible*. Never underestimate the creativity of players when you hand them something even the gods can't destroy.

*the complete item was an interdimensional anchor that held the planes in close proximity and drew power from all the planes involved. No force, creature, power, or diety derived from those bonded planes could damage the item. It *was* damaged when the gods tried to bond a sentient plane that fought back.

 

[Carpe DM]

I use artifacts more or less the way the core rules use them: to permit certain effects and functions to exist within the game world without necessarily allowing access to PCs.

Thus, a Staff of the Magi may well be possible to create -- but you can bet the PCs don't know how to do it.

I've even extended the concept: for example, there is only one Vorpal weapon in my gameworld, Arva. An NPC has it. Full stop.

Thus, a general theory of artifacts:

1. If used to make exceptions to the rules and create items more powerful than PCs can normally create -- and then give them to the PCs -- artifacts can be powerfully disrupting.

2. But, if used to demonstrate the cognitive limitations of the D&D system (i.e., what, you thought you knew EVERYTHING about magic?) and create a sense of mystery, I think artifacts can enrich play.

Or, even simpler: Artifacts as superpowered magical items, bad. Artifacts as adding to texture and mystery of gameworld, good.

best,

Carpe

 

[Arkham]

Only once, I allowed the PCs access to a
Sphere of Annihilation ( with a Talisman of the Sphere so
they could control it... ) This was from one of the
Demons and Devils modules from Necromancer Games.

 

[jerichothebard]

Yes - though, frankly, it doesn't do much.

There are four, actually - a matched set of elemental amulets, which together bind the elemental planes together into the Prime.

The PC's have one (air), have seen another (water), think they know who has the third (fire) and have heard tell of the fourth (earth)...

The air amulet itself has the effects of a necklace of adaptation (at the moment, more power could be unlocked later) but also has a nasty side effect - it continually casts shocking grasp on the wearer.

I was kind, with the first one, and gave them a ring of resistance to electricity in the same adventure.


Funny story there - the monk in the party has a bad habit of trying on magic items without any research or even detecting evil...

So, he picked up the ring, put it on, had no idea what it did.

Then, later, walked through a wall of electricity without taking any damage whatsoever (the ranger following him got zorched). They theorized at the time that, lacking ANY metal items whatsoever on his person (I checked!), he wasn't conductive.


Then, still wearing the ring, he walked over, picked up the amulet (sitting on a ceramic pedastal), and put it on.



They didn't discover the side effects for weeks.


I am going to throw a cursed item at him one of these days. Should cure him of that annoying habit right quick.

Same monk also walked right through a magnet trap without even noticing it. *sigh*


jtb

 

[Henry]

Back in my bad days of DMing, one player had the Ring of Gaxx, The Invulnerable Coat of Arnd, AND all 32 Teeth of Delvhar-Nar.

In the past 15 years, I've only used two - the Eye and Hand of Vecna. The Party had to rescue an Archmage who had lost them to Vecna after he had been trapped trying to destroy them. Haven't had a group high enough level since then to even bother with artifacts.

I DID however, have a DM a few years back who introduced The weapons from the D&D cartoon, statted out to be a little more 3E consistent. That was fun.

 

[D.Reaver]

I have a few times.

The first time was when a group was formed to take a girl and what she carried to a far away outpost. Along the way they were attacked by a raiding party of goblins. The girl ran around scared almost as comic relief, as soon as she saw a goblin in one direction she would run the other way. All the time carrying an object wrapped in leather. When she ran into the woods the Battle Guard of Tempus followed, he found her surrounded by 10 goblins and 1 hobgoblin. He fought his way to her side as soon as she could reach him she pulled the helmet out of its protective bag and put it on his head. For those of you have have read the book(s), it was the helmet from The Death Dealer. This turned him into a killing machine and he wasted all the goblins that were left even chasing them down as they ran away. Afterwards they found out it was an Artifact that made whoever wore it nearly invincible in combat but would fight freind or fow alike (he had to make a saving throw if the situation came up). All of the characters started to learn an acting skill to feign death. It was the only way to guarentee you would nto get attacked, but it didn't always work. Only a female virgin could touch it. And now it was bonded to the Battle Guard. They spent the rest of the campaign running aroundt trying not to let her put it on the only priest in the party. Every time they got into a fight she would want to put it on him. Every time he put it on I rolled on a random chart what lasting affect it would have on him. A few were good, mostly bad though.

It was a fun game, the players had a great time and sometimes talk about it still.

 

[Chimera]

1. Stormbringer: There was a huge time in my younger days

Back in the late 70's, playing with high school buddies. The four of us rotated GMing and ran multiple characters each.

Stan introduced a sword like Stormbringer that Jim's fighter got his hands on. Only...after killing 100 creatures, it turned on it's owner and killed him. Irreversible death.

Jim's character gets killed by it. Jim's Wizard does some research and finds out that the sword was made by Calir, the God of Magic. Jim's Wizard gates in Calir and argues with him, demanding that his friend be returned from the dead. Calir kills the Wizard. Jim doesn't accept this - with a bit of truly highschool logic - "Well I'm a DM too and I say it doesn't happen!"

They had a big huge argument about it in their physics class.

Well....Jim was a jerk. His style of GMing was to take out every perceived slight against him on the rest of us.


Other Artifacts:

In another game a short while later, I had two opposing alignment swords which were essentially Lightsabers. Were +6 to hit and did 5d4+6 damage.


And in my last game, the Wizard found a marble. A small ball of marble stone that radiated intense magic. Now, in my setting, Wizards can automatically detect magic, to a degree. The higher your level, the weaker the magic you automatically detect. The stronger the magic, the lower level you need to be to "see" it. Detect Magic essentially only raises your effective level for detecting magic.

The player never did figure out what the marble did. The truth is that it does nothing. It's merely a testing stone for finding those with "the power" - the potential to become Bards or Wizards - which is a genetic trait. The marble is so strongly enchanted that even untrained potentials can "see" the magic.

So you carry around the marble, play with it taverns, etc. If Joe Commoner notices that it's glowing or speaks up about feeling something from it, you know that he has the potential to be trained as a Bard or Wizard.

 

[kolikeos]

in the adventure im running corrently the players are trying to get some artifact called 'the deity weapon' a very powerful weapon that was locked away lots of years ago (blah blah blah) i plan on taking it from them (some bad guy steals it or something) after some time because it will be very unbalancing (an epic level item in the hands of a 10th level loser)

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't know why this thread reminded me, but we once wanted to have a magical 'decanter of endless fish' that shot fish out at high velocities.

I've had a few artifacts that I homebrewed, but it's far too late in the day for me to write about them.