Weird magic items

[RangerWickett]

I labeled this 4e, but any system is fine.

Last night the party was attacked by some artificers, one of whom shot a ticking time bomb that stuck onto the wagon the party was traveling in. The artificers were in a wagon of their own.

One of my players has a pixie PC who finds all the weirdest magic items (a whistle that teleports friends to you when you're in trouble; a candle that reveals invisible creatures within 5 ft.), and he saw the perfect opportunity to bust out his "jar full of pit." He flies out and pours ink onto the ground in front of the enemies' wagon, creating a 10 ft. x 10 ft., 20-ft. deep pit. The horses jump it, but the wagon falls into it. And the horses are dragged backward, falling on top of the wagon and trapping the enemies.

Then the fighter rips the time bomb off the side of their own wagon, and the wizard mage hands it calmly into the pit. Red giblets explode into the air.

I was rather hoping for a high-speed chase and running fight, since by rights the enemies outmatched the party. But hey, portable pit. Can't argue with that.



What sorts of weird magic items have players done crazy stuff with in your games?

 

[Will Doyle]

I love moments like that!

My friend recently used a sea dragon to ambush his PCs. As he described it roaring up from the depths, jaws wide open, one of the PCs hurled a portable boat into its maw and spoke the command word to turn it into a ship.

Splat!

 

[D'karr]

What sorts of weird magic items have players done crazy stuff with in your games?

Jumping inside the mouth of a flying dragon and activating an immovable rod. Quite interesting reverse colonoscopy.

 

[Kinak]

One my players at one point found a bag full of dirt (normal sized bag, filled with a field's worth of high-quality soil) in a shop in Sigil. He, of course, promptly bought it.

Dozens of sessions later, they were trying to figure out how to disable a foundry making weapons for the Harmonium (who they'd righteously annoyed by this point already). He flew up and dropped the bag into one of their smokestacks. One soil-filled building later, problems solved.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Unwise]

I have had a few favourites in my campaigns. The party once found a hobby-horse that as enchanted. It was powered by belief and courage. If you treated it like a valliant steed, then it worked like one. Basically it let the PC run like a warhorse and charge like one too. Naturally this was very useful, but most characters would not lower themselves to be seen running around on a stick-horse. If they failed to treat it like a horse, it would sulk and not work. So they had to stable it and put an bag of oats over its nose. The only PC that would use it was a jester character that it fit with really perfectly.

Later on it was revealed that it had a tragic overtone too, it was once owned by a little boy that tried to use it with his wooden sword and tin breastplate to fight off the monsters attacking his village. His courage drew the blessings of an unknown force enchanting the items, but he still fell in battle. The items quested their owner to defeat the "bad man who hurt mummy". The players finally did so and in doing so freed the boy from his 'knightly' vow. They laid the items to rest on his grave and were each granted a blessing for doing so.

 

[Jhaelen]

My friend recently used a sea dragon to ambush his PCs. As he described it roaring up from the depths, jaws wide open, one of the PCs hurled a portable boat into its maw and spoke the command word to turn it into a ship.

Well, it's nice of your DM to allow it because it sure is awesome. However, I'm quite sure that according to the rules that wouldn't work. If there isn't enough space for the boat to unfold it will fail. It cannot be used offensively. It's the same for the feather tokens, e.g. tree, anchor, etc.

 

[Razjah]

I once had my PCs find a doorknob. If you held it up at door-knob height (technical term) and turned it, an oak door materialized allowing access into a mansion in a pocket dimension. You could also take the knob off the door, bring it inside and close the door- disappearing from the plane. The pocket-dimension-mansion could be customized and had a set number of square feet to work with. There was even an elven butler (visible unseen servant really) who spoke and was very polite. The players came up with all sorts of ways to use this to their advantage like turning long journeys into a relay race. They would wait inside the mansion while one person ran their horse like the wind carrying the knob. When the horse tired, the next PC took up the knob while the horse and previous rider rested inside.

A Rod of Wonder with a player who loved surprises was insane. The party had an airship and did fly-by attacks with the rod for hours on a merchant vessel in the water. They even left like 2 survivors and sent the ship back to port to leave a acid-filled story of their raid. Poor survivors were traumatized.

Another good one was a potion of True Strike. An alchemist drank it as a swift action to get the +20 to throw a bomb into a dragon turtle's mouth. The player crit and she jumped from her chair in excitement at the +50 some-odd attack roll. She declared that her character did a pirouette before throwing the bomb down the monster's throat. I rolled a d% to see how effective this was-100. After the declaration of "organ pudding" the fight ended.

 

[ThaDium]

One favorite in an old campaign I ran was dubbed the "lint o'dimes" by my PCs. I was getting tired of them asking me if "anything else was magic" after every encounter. So I just said "Yeah, that guy's pocket lint." Now, here I am stuck trying to figure out why the pocket lint is magical because I couldn't keep my mouth shut. My decision: If you keep the lint in the same pocket as your silver pieces, it will double the number of silver pieces you have the next day, up to a limit of five new pieces. They dug that once just because it was so weird.

I'm about to drop another odd one on my PCs this Sunday. They're going to fight a white dragon, and I'm placing a basket of unending rainbow colored yarn. I'm wondering what they'll do with it. It's likely to get sold, but it may just create some magic memories.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Back in 2e, I had a player who wanted an enchanted katana. Finally, in a battle with space pirates lead by the Ice Queen (oh, it was a spelljammer game), the Queen won the fight, knocked everyone out, took the less damaged ship, and replaced crew members by charming any additional personnel she needed, and stole a bunch of their stuff (but left them with primary weapons, armor, and staves, so that they could get rich and be raided again). Additionally, she enchanted the Lawful Samurai's weapon with the spirit of chaos. I modified a wand-of-wonder random table. Whenever he crit, he would get a random-rolled effect. One time he accidentally set of a fireball (with a hole in the middle for him) on the ship and almost killed 1/2 the crew. Another time, he crit a white dragon, sending out 2d4*10 gems (80, naturally), each of which caused 1d4 damage. It was like a Daedalus attack from Macross/Robotech, with all the explosions rippling through the dragon's body. It died from one attack. His mate was not happy...

There was an enchanted wand that let the player command undead.
The player had a skeleton following him around. "Go here. Wait in the corner. Attack anyone who comes through that door that isn't me. Oh, or him. No, someone else might get hurt. Wait in the corner and... Never mind. Don't listen to me. No, go over there." "The skeleton doesn't move."
The reply was laughter from everyone else, and a groan from the player.

In the last adventure of the game (sadly, people started to actually graduate from college), the characters were recovering from their victory, and granted one wish each by the gods they had saved. "I wish for everything that the Ice Princess stole from us to be returned to this room." I look at the other players, who are cheering and digging up their old records. "Everything, huh. OK." They had to make saving throws to avoid being crushed. I included the ships that had been stolen. And the ships' new owners. All trying to fit into a 20x30 room above a tavern. The tavern keeper wasn't happy with the property damage.