Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Stormthrone 03-29-06, 02:11 AM	Cursed weapons can feel like a loadstone to some players, but if you really want to add some fun to your game, you should try adding one or two. Let me tell you the (sad?) tale of Farang, the paladin I played 10 years ago. (What? TEN years? I suddenly feel old...) Sir Farang, the (almost) Brave - paladin, had ended up somewhere in Ravenloft with his band of friends. He had a grand day, or even he had a grand week, smiting all those undeads, fighting to bring life, warmth and the Word to the pesants of the lands, when all of a sudden - his sword broke! In mid-fight no less! So, what does a paladin do then? Using his shield, he fights his way over to the fighter, shouting over the clash of battle: "Do you perhaps have another sword I can use?", but alas, the fighter had left his pack at the inn, so no luck. Sliding in the mud, Sir Farang suddenly find himself stranded on the shore of a river, where a boat is half sunk. He climbs aboard, still holding off the hordes of undead with his shield, and Lo and Behold! He sees a sword! (And rolls a spot test, that he botches totally - "to botch" = to roll a natural 1, and thus fail - at least by our rules) Grabbing the sword, he turn to fight the undead, and is suddenly overwhelmed with rage. Not a just rage fit for a paladin, but a bloodboiling rage, a thirst to kill whatever is near, yes, he's "seeing red"... A little while after, Sir Farang has killed the last undead, the fighter and the wizard, while the rogue and the cleric has managed to duck and hide. Thankfully, the cleric was able to heal both the fighter and the wizard, and from that day the tactic was to send Sir Farang in first, stay out of his reach and then run and hide when there were only a few monsters left. The sword was of course a furneral gift, given to the king lying dead on the ship, and when the Lawful God paladin took it, stole it, actually graverobbed it, it turned into a Longsword, -2, berserking. Do you have any great stories about cursed weapons or items? If so, feel free to share :) Or, do you think cursed weapons are a thing of the past?
strumbleduck 03-29-06, 02:20 AM	Now that PCs buy most of their gear from magic-item shops, cursed weapons are basically a thing of the past. It's just too harsh to have character spend thousands of gold on a weapon that turns out to be cursed, and it also leads to the bizarre issue of whether magic items you buy from a shop come with a warranty.
Lina_Inverse 03-29-06, 02:26 AM	Intentionally placed cursed item=GM trying to screw players=GM is an arse.
Stormthrone 03-29-06, 02:37 AM	Intentionally placed cursed item=GM trying to screw players=GM is an arse. I don't think that it's quite so... Intentionally placed cursed item can be used to show players what happens if they don't roleplay their alignment - as with Sir Farang... A lawful good shouldn't just grab whatever he finds... And, if the players actually roleplay, you're bound to get a load of funny situations here. Another example. The players went to town to get some rope. A shady fellow told them he got a nice, magical rope that could be used for climbing. He even had them watch as he put the rope to the ground, spoke a word and the rope suddenly sprung to life, snaking up the side of the building and tying itself around a gargoyl. The players went bananas! They wanted that rope, and after a serious round of haggling, they got it too. (Expensive, but hey - it's magic!) Later in the same game, the rogue was going to climb into a window a few stories up, when the fighter remembered "the rope!". So they placed the rope on the ground, spoke the word, and watched in horror as the rope startet to constrict the rogue! (Yeah, the shady fellow had managed to swap the Rope of Climbing with a Rope of Constriction) After a while, they managed to free the rogue, who climbed the wall without any rope. Later still, they used the rope in a fantastic way - tossing it at a hobgoblin sorcerer, shouting the command-word, and voila - one less enemy to worry about... So, cursed items are fun - as long as you know your players don't get mad! (And I'm not really going to mention slipping a Bag of Devouring over a guards head... nasty business being a guard when my players comes along...)
Seldriss 03-29-06, 07:25 AM	One of my old characters, from AD&D 2nd edition, was a bounty hunter. His first magic weapon was a cursed weapon : a -1 kriss. Sure, that was a minor annoyance, but the weapon had still a penalty. But... It was a magic weapon nonetheless. When he got it, it was his only magic weapon. And believe me, that was really helpul. So he kept it ;)
Dragon Snack 03-29-06, 08:39 AM	They can be a pain, but I still like to put them in. I like to make them good, but with a major drawback for the curse. The Scimitar of the Fool (Magic of Faerun) is a good example, +1 scimitar that imposes a -3 penalty on Will saves. A decent weapon when you are low level, but enough of a drawback that you may not want to be using it all the time (plus, it makes sense that a Wizard would put that curse on a weapon). I try to avoid the "you have to use this weapon" type curses without a very good reason.
Seeker95 03-29-06, 09:15 AM	Now that PCs buy most of their gear from magic-item shopsNot in my game! Thankfully, the magic-shop-on-every-Faerunian-corner doesn't matter in my Greyhawk game. :D Magic may be "everywhere", but magic item creation is less so. PCs can only take Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, Craft Wand and Craft Wondrous Item (maximum CL5). If you want to buy a magic sword, you have to find the individuals who can make such items. There are two families that guard the secret to this craft, and they do NOT share the methods with just anyone. The families are Family, and they enforce their monopoloy with zeal. So find the familiy, sign up, pay your down payment, and wait for your turn in the queue to come up. Additional payments can bump you up higher. Or, you can research where such items may be rumored to exist, and quest for them. This makes the bard and loremaster very useful roles. Same goes for many other items. This makes my game less "whatever they can design" and a lot more quest-driven.
celtredleg 03-29-06, 09:37 AM	Since 1st ed I have had a problem with cursed items. Where do they come from? Yes there is the "fail creation" idea, but unless there are a mob of incompetent MUs out there, ther should not be all thst many in the first place. And most PCs I have seen destroy the things as soon as they can. No real reason many other people would not do the same. There justt seems to many of them. And yes, most times they are not good for the game, they mostly just mess with the players.
BadCatMan 03-29-06, 09:37 AM	My own horror story: My heroic Duergar Fighter slew a Dwarven Blackguard in single combat - it was a great battle. Afterwards he picked up the blackguard's weapon, a greataxe. It turned out to be +2, and gave a bonus to Constitution, and x2 Strength damage. I thought this was going to be pretty cool. Except it then drained HP from my character every time he hit something. The enemy still got hurt, but so did my character. I thought I could live with this though. And the damn thing was glued to his hands - couldn't let go, or barely even adjust his grip. The DM inflicted my character with a number of penalties. When it came to sleeping, he ruled that my character couldn't sleep properly, thus didn't get full healing. So the next day, my character gets grappled by a treant and crushed to death. His third or fourth death of the game. A few more HP and he might survived. What it really came down to here was, I'm sure, a spiteful DM trying to screw my character over again. While a cursed item might be interesting, I'd like DMs to think long and hard about them, just as they should with artifacts. There should be good reasons for the cursed item's existence, and it shouldn't be a total PC killer. A cursed item should be a plot item only.
DrMorganes 03-29-06, 09:58 AM	Cursed items are a fact of any adventurer's life. The kicker is, as suggested by BadCatMan, to make them a plot item. I also generally go with the "useful item with a backlash" option. Doing otherwise makes players complacent. (and that's bad :evillaugh)
Lina_Inverse 03-29-06, 10:17 AM	Not in my game! Thankfully, the magic-shop-on-every-Faerunian-corner doesn't matter in my Greyhawk game. :D Magic may be "everywhere", but magic item creation is less so. PCs can only take Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, Craft Wand and Craft Wondrous Item (maximum CL5). If you want to buy a magic sword, you have to find the individuals who can make such items. There are two families that guard the secret to this craft, and they do NOT share the methods with just anyone. The families are Family, and they enforce their monopoloy with zeal. So find the familiy, sign up, pay your down payment, and wait for your turn in the queue to come up. Additional payments can bump you up higher. Or, you can research where such items may be rumored to exist, and quest for them. This makes the bard and loremaster very useful roles. Same goes for many other items. This makes my game less "whatever they can design" and a lot more quest-driven. I can go down to the car lot and buy a car. Buying a carpet of flying is the same thing. Magic should permeate an internally consisten fantasy world as much as technology permeates ours. Anything else is illogical and not internally consistent.
Stormthrone 03-29-06, 10:37 AM	I can go down to the car lot and buy a car. Buying a carpet of flying is the same thing. Magic should permeate an internally consisten fantasy world as much as technology permeates ours. Anything else is illogical and not internally consistent. Thank god for Eberron then ;) Another way to use a cursed weapon: The evil dagger of the assassin - I don't remember the name, nor the stats, but it was something like a hollow dagger, with acid, and the hilt was made from human skin. It radiated evil, and was the loot from some BBEG we killed. Our cleric took it, and we all thought he'd destroy it in order to save us from it, but what he did was even better. (The campaign had to stop for a few week due to christmas, and the DM ruled that a month had passed in the campaign world) Trough a few real serious rituals, with the help of high-priests, divine magic and whatnot, the cleric managed to purify the dagger. He made a new hilt for it, and cleaned out all the acid. THEN he filled the dagger with holy water, and got it blessed. Yeah? Instant vampire-slaying dagger... :cool: You just have to make sure the players really know how to roleplay, and/or that they've got a good enough imagination - if not, you're going to mess up the campaign. As for the duergar - I really feel sorry for you! There should always be an option for the player...
DMDaddy 03-29-06, 10:41 AM	The kicker is, as suggested by BadCatMan, to make them a plot item. Sometimes, its fun when the players have to work to get the item. The Ogre Magi with the glowing gem encrested great sword can be a challenge. I only use them occasionaly. The Backbiter, the Berserker, the Enemy Attracter, etc... They're all fun. It makes players have to think creativly. If the sword is cursed then they may have to find other ways to fight, especially if the sword always magicaly re-appears in their hands.
Bruunwald 03-29-06, 11:45 AM	Temporary magical effects that inhibit or harm are fun. To my mind, though, any longterm curse (such as a weapon a character can not get rid of or some disease that takes months to develop) is a burden on the game. I simply can not keep my mind on such things for that long, and usually end up dropping them before anything juicy can come to fruition from them. It's not that Frodo falling prey to the Ring over time isn't exciting or dramatic in a book or on a screen. It is, for sure. But in practical play terms it can become a real albatross. That's why I prefer poisons and supernatural or magical attacks whose effects are more immediately felt (seconds, minutes or days) or curses that are immediately apparent (like somebody growing an extra limb or a tail or something). Those are easier to deal with in a really complicated and highly detailed game, such as ours, and are more compatible with my players' attention spans.
Valkaun_Dain 03-29-06, 11:50 AM	Not in my game! Thankfully, the magic-shop-on-every-Faerunian-corner doesn't matter in my Greyhawk game. :D Magic may be "everywhere", but magic item creation is less so. PCs can only take Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, Craft Wand and Craft Wondrous Item (maximum CL5). If you want to buy a magic sword, you have to find the individuals who can make such items. There are two families that guard the secret to this craft, and they do NOT share the methods with just anyone. The families are Family, and they enforce their monopoloy with zeal. So find the familiy, sign up, pay your down payment, and wait for your turn in the queue to come up. Additional payments can bump you up higher. Or, you can research where such items may be rumored to exist, and quest for them. This makes the bard and loremaster very useful roles. Same goes for many other items. This makes my game less "whatever they can design" and a lot more quest-driven. Seeker95! You didn't tell me you ran Greyhawk! Kewl! Our DM is much the same way. back when we played AD&D and 2nd Edition we made near daily trips to the Magic Shoppe to see Kondradis Bubka and swap out what we had for better stuff. Our DM is being awfully stingy nowadays ( :thinks: hmm, 44 pt. builds may have something to do with that... :D ), not only in giving them out but in doing any kind of exchange. Over the last 40 years of game time that has passed there has been a group called "The High Ring" that has risen to prominence. Their aims are, in my mind, to rule Greyhawk as they believe those who have arcane (perhaps divine too) power are the only ones worthy and capable of doing so. They may rule from the shadows but rule nonetheless. Their first phase was to remove as many magic items as possible from mundanes who weren't smart enough to be trusted with them...adventurers, fighters, thieves, etc. That has put a serious damper on trading magic items (even cursed items) and the personal commissioning of magic items by wizards other than our own PC's. Admittedly we can be foolish with magic items. You don't want to metagame if you can avoid it, sure, but if you have a pile of rings are you seriously going to try on the one that the mage says has a feint aura of magic without doing an Identify? We had a guy try on a magic hat. It turned out to have a magical parasite inside it that would soon dominate him. We forcibly removed it and he died as most of his brain came out with the parasite. Nice. Identify isn't always foolproof of course. The same player had a "Ring of Sustenance". We didn't find out until we were almost to the Sulhaut Mountains that it was cursed. It simply removed his need to eat or drink but gave him no actual sustenance. Naturally our seasoned adventuring party didn't notice him wasting away. I think all magic items should be unique not just in form but in function. A sword +1 would be so much cooler if it also provided you with a warm meal three times a day or could point toward the location of the King of Nyrond. By the same token I think all Magic Items should bestow some kind of curse or drawback. That same +1 may make you deaf in your left ear or it makes your fingernails grow too fast. It's magic afterall, who says it has to be predictable?
Seeker95 03-29-06, 12:12 PM	Since 1st ed I have had a problem with cursed items. Where do they come from? Cursed items in my world are intentionally manufactured. Examples: A duke of one kingdom has a rivalry with a duke of the neghboring kingdom. He uses a lot of money to "encourage" the crafter of the rival duke's sword to include a little "extra feature". (Same two dukes) The scheming duke replaces his rival's sword with an identical copy, except for the "extra feature" mentioned above. An unhappy mother purchases a jeweled necklace for her unwanted daughter-in-law on the wedding day. For a year, the necklace is normal. But on the anniversary of the wedding, the necklace strangles the daughter-in-law (then relaxes its grip leaving no clue what happened), removing the immediacy of implication of the mother-in-law.Cursed items are made intentionally, for a specific target. Eventually, the target no longer owns the item (usually because the item does its duty and the owner "is no more"). It enters the treasure pool of the world, eventually entering into the world of the PCs. Cursed items are great. Give them a story. Make legend lore and bards important in the identification process.
Valkaun_Dain 03-29-06, 12:45 PM	Cursed items in my world are intentionally manufactured. Examples: A duke of one kingdom has a rivalry with a duke of the neghboring kingdom. He uses a lot of money to "encourage" the crafter of the rival duke's sword to include a little "extra feature". (Same two dukes) The scheming duke replaces his rival's sword with an identical copy, except for the "extra feature" mentioned above. An unhappy mother purchases a jeweled necklace for her unwanted daughter-in-law on the wedding day. For a year, the necklace is normal. But on the anniversary of the wedding, the necklace strangles the daughter-in-law (then relaxes its grip leaving no clue what happened), removing the immediacy of implication of the mother-in-law.Cursed items are made intentionally, for a specific target. Eventually, the target no longer owns the item (usually because the item does its duty and the owner "is no more"). It enters the treasure pool of the world, eventually entering into the world of the PCs. Cursed items are great. Give them a story. Make legend lore and bards important in the identification process. Aren't alot of cursed items also a result of poor craftsmanship? Like E. Vile Wizardington mistakenly used rendered monkey fat instead of rendered unicorn huevos (the labels fell off and his hunchbacked-wall-eyed assistant puts them back on the wrong jars. "Abby Normal") when making his Bracers of Deflection and they turned into Bracers of Attracting Sturgies. Seriously though isn't that also a source of some cursed items? Having failed he pawns it off to some shlub adventurer who's soon turned into a sturgy pin cushion. His body decomposes until a wandering troll carries the corpse to his lair for din din. A Black Dragon wanders by and eats the troll for brunch and takes his few pretties back to his hoard. Decades later some blonde haired idiot in armor slays the dragon and starts gearing up out of the dragon 's hoard before the group wizard can say "Wait!" Sturgies suddenly flock into the swamp cave and the cycle begins anew.
Seeker95 03-29-06, 01:06 PM	Aren't alot of cursed items also a result of poor craftsmanship?Certainly possible, but in my world this occurs much less frequently, for a number of reasons. 1. Most failures result in no working item at all. 2. Most items that aren't eprfect get destroyed. Call it crafter pride. 3. The "curses" in most items are too "appropriate". For a random mishap to be so deliciously suited to the item (necklace that strangles, sword that cuts the wearer) seems like it would have to be intentional. That doesn't mean it can't happen. The crafter making a sword +1 messing up, with the sword resulting in a -1 instead is quite "logical" and acceptable. Far more so than than boots designed to give you better balance somehow making you dance a jig. Again, all of this is "in my world".
Tzor 03-29-06, 02:00 PM	One of my favorite weapons was not "cursed" per se but which caused players to "curse." The idea was that with great power came great annoyances. It was a sword of cowardice, an intelligent sword that frankly was a bone fide chicken. Whenever it realized that it was in combat it would literally scream and attempt to escape the grasp of the wielder. Unfortunately, for the party, it was the best + weapon I ever gave out at the time. Unfortunately, for the sword, the beast rider (she rode a buffalo) had a pretty good strength. So they literally took the weapon by the handle and lived with it. Their first attempt was to "blind" it by covering the handle so it could not see. (Of course it was also afraid of the dark.) When it hit something solid it complained and it got scared anytime it felt warm sticky blood. ("I'm wet! I'm going to rust!") But she held on and evil eventually fell to the coward blade.