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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8378527" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Sure, but you said there is no benefit without a penalty. That is an extreme position.when I DM the goal is not for me to drop the hp number to zero. I want to challenge them, of course, that is part of the goal of running the game. However, challenging them is not the same as defeating them. And I don't see the value in approaching the game with the mindset of defeating the players. IF that's all I'm supposed to do, it is child's play.So, picking up none of these items is harmful. And basically any group I am running with has the Identify ritual ready to go to tell us all of this information. That's what Identify does. You can also identify what a magic item does during a short rest (we sometimes roll arcana).Therefore the party will ditch the boots. They are utterly worthless and actively harmful. Maybe they keep them if they think they can use them as a deathtrap for someone they don't like. The rod they keep in a backpack and probably forget about, unless there are metallic dragons they need to talk to.The Gem is interesting. Someone is probably willing to take the risk, though we are going to ask how easy it is to remove. You personally won't tell us, but the asking is to measure the risk. If this ends up being "you die if hit with a critical hit" that is very different than "someone has to pin you, and forcibly rip it out of your skull" in terms of the risk associated with it. Someone would then wear the rope. And they would probably end up saving the ring for a useful wish. The vial is weird though. And leads me to my question... what's the point of some of this? Why have a potion that seems like giant strength but is actually a decent healing potion? The healing is a fine reward, and this runs the risk of them drinking it at full health, expecting a strength boost and instead wasting it because they were full health. It seems like an item literally designed to be wasted because the players are being deceived. What is the actual goal with that? The boots are even worse, if you don't allow identify or anyway to figure out what they do. Because a player who puts them on to find out what they do dies. And, acting with no knowledge and being forced to guess, while guessing can get you killed, isn't a fun game. You might as well roll a die everytime someone declares an action, and kill them on a 1, because that is the same amount of control the players have.This doesn't surprise me given your list of magical items. Since looking at it could be an instant death sentence in your games. Personally, I've found that since I don't arbitrarily kill PCs with no warning, they tend not to act like every single item they interact with could be instant death. And when it would be... I pretty much just tell them how deadly the item is. (And some of them still touch it, but I told them, so there aren't any hard feelings)</blockquote>

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