Just break the @#$!& thing!

[TheEvil]

My scout-archer picked up a mithral longsword in the dungeon and used it to finish off a mook (arrows cost money and he was out of irishmen). Turns out it was cursed, and I have to draw it in combat. The cleric didn't take remove curse for the day and we are working with an unknown deadline in a volcano. Any reason I can't just have the fighter sunder the sword until it breaks, destroying the curse along with the magic?

If not, would you allow as a means of circumventing cursed armor and weapons?

 

[Felix]

As RAW goes, like any other magical item, once it's broken it ceases to be magical. So I think you'd be free of it.

But because it's cursed and supposed to be a pain in the neck, I'd continue to have you draw the hilt of the weapon. I think simply breaking it goes against the spirit of the item; in my game it would continue to plague you in one way or another.

 

[Sejs]

As RAW goes, like any other magical item, once it's broken it ceases to be magical. So I think you'd be free of it.

But because it's cursed and supposed to be a pain in the neck, I'd continue to have you draw the hilt of the weapon. I think simply breaking it goes against the spirit of the item; in my game it would continue to plague you in one way or another.

Same here. I'd have you continue to use the now broken sword.

 

[Corinth]

I wouldn't. By the RAW, the curse breaks with the weapon. Break the weapon, break the curse.

 

[Huw]

I would have the hilt cursed, not the blade.

 

[Warehouse23]

I'd say the curse is on the PC, now that he's picked up the sword. Sundering the sword would just mean the character has to pull and wield a phantom sword in combat (sort of like a phantom limb for an amputee).

Then again, I'm a RBDM and love curses....

 

[TheEvil]

I'd say the curse is on the PC, now that he's picked up the sword. Sundering the sword would just mean the character has to pull and wield a phantom sword in combat (sort of like a phantom limb for an amputee).

Good point! So once remove curse is cast and make whole on the sword, is it just a normal mithral longsword?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Strictly speaking, much to my consternation, a broken weapon is just worthless trash.

I would say that most likely sundering the weapon destroys the curse, as that is the default assumption built into the RAW. Items built for peculiar purposes sometimes do break default behavior, but an item that becomes cursed through glitch or magical anomaly probably would be "normal".

 

[Jubilee]

Are you required to draw AND use the sword in combat, or just draw it? If you don't have to actually use it, I'd just live with the curse for now, because you never know what kind of evil a GM might cause to occur if you sunder a cursed weapon. I'd think that'd cause some kind of magical explosion, myself. And I agree with Warehouse23, the curse is now on your character.

/ali

 

[lukelightning]

Cursed items work far better in stories than in roleplaying games; to be effective in D&D a cursed item often has to break some basic rules of D&D (e.g. arbitrarily making the item indestructable just to keep the PCs from breaking it and theryby destroying the curse; this is, of course, fine in many situations).

The best cursed items are those that transfer the curse to the bearer but the curse does not end with the destruction of the item. Perhaps the way the curse works it that if the item is destroyed, the curse is even harder to remove (e.g. the caster level of the curse goes up by 5 or something).