OK, you know all those brutal old-school cursed items? Bowl of watery death, rug of smothering, etc? i always hated them, but I think I came up with a twist that allows me to use them in good conscience.
Every cursed item, when its curse is thwarted, becomes a useful magic item for the user who mastered it.
For me, this suddenly transforms “evil DM” items into “interesting treasure” items. Cursed items are kind of like intelligent items: if you prove stronger, they can be useful tools. But instead of making a contested ego check, you conquer the item by succeeding at some task that’s specific to the curse.
I’ll use examples from 3e for cut and paste convenience, but every edition has pretty much the same list of gotcha items.
Broom of Animated Attack: This item is indistinguishable in appearance from a normal broom. It is identical to a broom of flying by all tests short of attempted use.
If a command is spoken, the broom does a loop-the-loop with its hopeful rider, dumping him on his head from 1d4+5 feet off the ground (no falling damage, since the fall is less than 10 feet). The broom then attacks the victim, swatting the face with the straw or twig end and beating him with the handle end.
What I’d add to this: the rider can make difficult Ride checks to stay aboard the broom. Several successes will “break” the broom. From then on, it will be an exceptionally loyal Broom of Flying for this user, but will act as a Broom of Animated Attack for all other riders.
I’d further posit that one of the items needed to create a Broom of Flying is “the soul of a steed.” Brooms of Animated Attack are imbued with the souls of unbroken steeds, or of nightmares.
Bag of Devouring
This bag appears to be an ordinary sack. Detection for magical properties makes it seem as if it were a bag of holding. The sack is, however, a lure used by an extradimensional creature—in fact, one of its feeding orifices.Any substance of animal or vegetable nature is subject to “swallowing” if thrust within the bag. The bag of devouring is 90% likely to ignore any initial intrusion, but any time thereafter that it senses living flesh within (such as if someone reaches into the bag to pull something out), it is 60% likely to close around the offending member and attempt to draw the whole victim in. The bag has a +8 bonus on grapple checks made to pull someone in. […] Creatures drawn within are consumed in 1 round.
OK, this bag is really good at grappling, and it devours people in 1 round? What if the proposed victim is a better grappler? Instead of automatically devouring an engulfed victim, it must beat the victim in a wrestling match. Otherwise, the extradimensional creature is tamed, and the “victim” climbs out of a brand new bag of holding.
Cloak of Poisonousness
This cloak is usually made of a woolen material, although it can be made of leather. A detect poison spell can reveal the presence of poison impregnated in the cloak’s fabric. The garment can be handled without harm, but as soon as it is actually donned the wearer is killed instantly unless she succeeds on a DC 28 Fortitude save.
A wearer who succeeds on the Fortitude check now has an immunity to this particular poison and gets a nice Cloak of Resistance – and a potential assassination tool. (“You look cold. Take my cloak.”)
-2 Sword, Cursed
This longsword performs well against targets in practice, but when used against an opponent in combat, it causes its wielder to take a -2 penalty on attack rolls.All damage dealt is also reduced by 2 points, but never below a minimum of 1 point of damage on any successful hit. After one week in a character’s possession, the sword always forces that character to employ it rather than another weapon. The sword’s owner automatically draws it and fights with it even when she meant to draw or ready some other weapon. The sword can be gotten rid of only by means of limited wish, wish, or miracle.
-1 and -2 items are tough because they don’t force a single moment of conflict; they just make you worse at stuff over a long period. Therefore, you should have to spend a significant amount of time winning the item over. Here are a couple of possibilities.
Armor of Arrow Attraction
Magical analysis indicates that this armor is a normal suit of +3 full plate. However, the armor is cursed. It works normally with regard to melee attacks but actually serves to attract ranged weapons. The wearer takes a -15 penalty to AC against any attack by a ranged weapon. The true nature of the armor does not reveal itself until the character is fired upon in earnest.
I actually think you need to be killed by missile fire in full Borimir fashion, or at least be dropped to the brink of death, to tame this armor. Once you’re resurrected or healed, the armor will become normal +3 armor for you. However, if you ever clean your bloodstains from the armor, the curse re-exerts itself.
This is a great idea. Now, the task of someone with a cursed item is not to find someone with Remove Curse so you can drop it, but it figure out how to subdue the object so you can get to the beneficial aspect of the object. I love this.
Normally I’m of the mind that there are simply too many magic items, of any variety, in a game. But this is a stellar idea. As I like to make life difficult I’d modify it slightly so that a PC must do this as the final part of the remove curse ritual. Make ’em earn it!
Love this.
I think *ALL* Brooms of Flying should act this way. I know that sort of takes away from the idea of the article, but I think it’s too cool not to use.
I actually think it would be fine if this type of cursed item were quite common. You could say that cursed items, once the curse is broken, are better than their stock counterparts in some way (de-cursed brooms of flying are more intelligent, for instance). This explains the existence of cursed items in the world. Why did a wizard waste time making a cursed item? Because wizards are min/maxers and adding a flaw allows a free upgrade.
Or, put another way wizards aim for the upgraded item, but it’s more difficult to pull off so they don’t quite get the spell right resulting in the cursed item.
The more I play with this concept in my mind, the more it results in other exciting little ideas. Fantastic!
Very inspiring article. I will never allow a broom of flying again without this little quirk! Genius! In my campaigns, magic items are fairly rare , have lots of character, and are always well-earned!
I had a similar idea a while back (measuring time in decades here). I came up with a suit of elvish armor that was cursed by the spirit of an elven prince. His father the king had wanted him to be a noble warrior, but the prince was only interested in sneaking around. So the king had a special suit of armor enchanted so that whenever the wearer tried to do anything “sneaky,” he or she would be thwarted. For example, the wearer would get penalties to any stealth-related roll. The armor also creaked very loudly whenever the user tried to sneak anywhere. However, it gave bonuses when the wearer did anything “heroic.”
So the party ran into a band of brigands, one of whom was wearing this armor. I made sure to include the tell-tale creaking when the brigands tried to ambush the party, and did everything else in my power to indicate that it was not a normal suit of armor. When the brigands were dead, though, the player who had really wanted a suit of elvish armor gleefully snatched it off the dead brigand and immediately put it on. He soon discovered the curse (the player was a thief), but despite the fact that the armor would scold him every time he did something sneaky, the player just ignored it. He had the party mage cast a sphere of silence around him to muffle the creaking, and then he looked at me smugly. Meanwhile, there I was with an entire questline based off this armor–the player was supposed to seek out the bereaved king, show him the error of his ways, etc., and end up with an awesome suit of thief-oriented armor. Instead, he just tried to nullify the penalties as best as he could, and just live with a kind of crappy (for his class) suit of elvish armor.
So, yeah… that was the last time I tried to give a backstory to a cursed item. Players have (or had, at the time) been so inculcated with the idea that cursed items are the DM’s way of saying “screw you” to the players that there was little hope of success.
I love this article. As I take my 1-3 lvl noobs from 5e to 3.5e (oddly for helping them with RP). I am looking at the world of rampant easy-to-create magic items and wish to change this expectation in a way that doesn’t make all +1 and above items MAGIC and I want the items that are to be rare, powerful, special, and prized…
This idea helps make some of the most amazing items start out being undesired. The “worthy” are the ones who work past the difficulties and unlock the hidden powers masked by the tests.
I love this article.
As I take my 1-3 lvl noobs from 5e back to 3.5e (oddly for helping them with RP). I am looking at the world of rampant easy-to-create magic items and wish to change this expectation in a way that doesn’t make all +1 and above items MAGIC and I want the items that are to be rare, powerful, special, and prized…
This idea helps make some of the most amazing items start out being undesired. The “worthy” are the ones who work past the difficulties and unlock the hidden powers masked by the tests.
Thank you.