the most common non-magic magic items

[Paladin]

I agree, this thread is for fun...how about we start over, shall we...how about Crium's call everything you own in under 2 seconds ( including clothes, shoes, armor, sword, shield, mount, etc.) ability...always giving him plenty of time to leap from his tent and jump into battle before anyone else even figures out which pile there shoes are in! Thank God for this brave characters secret ability!

 

[alsih2o]

and paladin curves us back to fun

how about "currium's canteen of water cleanliness" i have never seen a character downs with the runs or worse from drinking tainted water.

and of course, the "mask of dentristry" which allows all characters to retain all their teeth, in shiny perfection, thru all of the field tests they are subjected to.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Purify Food and Water is a clierc Osiron. So tainted water is only an issue if no cleric is around.

As for the other items mentioned. In my campaign worlds it is fairly common for the well off to purchase healing spells from clerics on a regular basis just to keep themselves healthy. I am sure a Cure Disease spell a month will remove the chances of tooth decay.

and paladin curves us back to fun

how about "currium's canteen of water cleanliness" i have never seen a character downs with the runs or worse from drinking tainted water.

and of course, the "mask of dentristry" which allows all characters to retain all their teeth, in shiny perfection, thru all of the field tests they are subjected to.

 

[der_kluge]

Ok, I'm guilty....

My cleric/illusionist from our last campaign always wore "Chainmail of 'make the player forget to roll his arcane spell failure'"

So much so, that the DM gave my character chainmail that had a 0% arcane spell failure, because I kept forgetting to roll it anyway.

 

[alsih2o]

Purify Food and Water is a clierc Osiron. So tainted water is only an issue if no cleric is around.

i guess my complaint was more oriented to the fact that clerics never seem to have to use up valuable slots on such...your point is well and valid, but often overlooked

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Very true. I guess I pointed this out since I am currently running a cleric who is cleaner and healthier than just about anyone he ever meets. He will quite often cast any remaining healing spells on himself to make sure he is in the best of health.

i guess my complaint was more oriented to the fact that clerics never seem to have to use up valuable slots on such...your point is well and valid, but often overlooked

 

[Voadam]

My character has many times encountered "Rooms of Ecological Support" he walks down a five foot wide corridor to a big chamber containing a hostile dracolisk or whatever. The only exits are another five foot wide corridor. No food supply, no running water, no apparent way for the big critter to go anywhere else or to have gotten there in the first place. He has never been able to bring these fabled magic item rooms back as loot however... so far.

 

[hammymchamham]

If you can't quote passages from it and answer simple questions like 'what is the range on spiritual weapon' without cracking a book, you need to get from behind the screen.

I guess their are few DM's, since I bet most DnD players and DM's don't have the range of every spell memorized.

The point of the books is to give us the rules while we're just sitting around AND when we are playing, DM or player.

If you've memorized everything in the DND books, then either

A. You have a photographic memory

or

B. You do need a life, sure RPers are genearlly said to 'need a life,' but in this case, you truely NEED a life. Their is more than just RPing (as much as I enjoy it).

 

[Celebrim]

Voadam: While I do my best to avoid using them, its true that the DM has a large trove of these magical items and conveinant spell-like abilities that he sometimes turns to as well. No matter how much we'd like to pick on the PC's, I think we've all used Sertan's Substantial Sustenance Support to keep obviously broken ecologies running in our campaigns from time to time. Like, "Yes, it is a desert filled with nothing but large PC eating carnivores." and the classic, "Yes, it is a forest of mushrooms in a dry chamber that is never exposed to the sun and is not continually replenished by organic matter from the surface...but but... they are MAGIC mushrooms."

I try hard but... *shrug*

And how about Teller's Istananeous Town Guard Fortification for those times that the PC's start rolling the locals undesirably (or the plot requires the PC's to fear the town guard), and suddenly the town gaurd transforms from Warrior 2's to well equiped Fighter 4's with spell caster back up.

How about those Magnificent Instaneous Dungeons of Doom when we want to create some complex dungeon environment but we don't really want to dwell on the details of why this intricate complex was made other than to bewilder PC's.

I really try hard, but sometimes its just easier to brush the details under the rug and trust to the fact that the PC's will probably never have a big enough picture to realize (as you do) that the appearances of realism are only superficial.

And how about NPC Adventures Selective Amnesia Syndrome, that allows really nice treasures to be kept by mere Kobolds in dungeons rumored to contain treasure EVEN THOUGH there are NPC's roaming about of the same or higher level as the PC's who'd have no moral compunction about killing Kobolds and make a living doing what the PC's do. I mean sometimes its just darn conveinent to assume that the PC's are always getting there first.

I try. I really do. Most of my PC's never know that I use these DM powers from time to time. In fact, most are impressed by how my campaign 'realisticly' seems not to rely on such shananegon's.... but sometimes... the temptation is just too great, and though they may never catch me at it... I know.

Whatcha supposed to do? Realism or fun? Thought so.

 

[Tiefling]

As a DM, it is your responsibility to know those books frontwards and backwards and inside out. If you can't quote passages from it and answer simple questions like 'what is the range on spiritual weapon' without cracking a book, you need to get from behind the screen.

Congratulations, Celebrim! You've just told 95% of the DMs in the world that they're incompetent! What are you going to do now?