Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Valuable magic items that are useless in combat

phiwum · 03-18-2021, 07:35 AM

That's good.

I have two minor magic items that are instrumentally useful, but don't explicitly fit within the magic rules.

The first is a magic stylus that produces flowing script in a different hand than the user. The script adds value to any document produced, the author cannot be confirmed and most important, it gives a +1 reaction roll when read.

The second (which goes hand-in-hand) is a forgetful papyrus. At midnight, whatever text is on the papyrus goes invisible. A Remove Thrown Spell will reveal everything ever written on the papyrus, but after several uses, this will be a jumble of text, all illegible.

Like many of the items found in the book (holdfast spike, say), you can't just pick spells to add to the item and get this effect.

Speaking of the holdfast spike, suppose I push it in the ground and you come along and want to remove it. Seems to me you could dig around it and take the sod it's holding out of the ground. But then you have a useless spike surrounded by dirt. The dirt is magically adhering to it, but at what radius? Is it roughly 2000 lbs worth of dirt, to roughly match the strength of the spike? And then how can you make the spike useful again?

03-18-2021, 07:35 AM	#2
phiwum Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Boston area	Re: Valuable magic items that are useless in combat That's good. I have two minor magic items that are instrumentally useful, but don't explicitly fit within the magic rules. The first is a magic stylus that produces flowing script in a different hand than the user. The script adds value to any document produced, the author cannot be confirmed and most important, it gives a +1 reaction roll when read. The second (which goes hand-in-hand) is a forgetful papyrus. At midnight, whatever text is on the papyrus goes invisible. A Remove Thrown Spell will reveal everything ever written on the papyrus, but after several uses, this will be a jumble of text, all illegible. Like many of the items found in the book (holdfast spike, say), you can't just pick spells to add to the item and get this effect. Speaking of the holdfast spike, suppose I push it in the ground and you come along and want to remove it. Seems to me you could dig around it and take the sod it's holding out of the ground. But then you have a useless spike surrounded by dirt. The dirt is magically adhering to it, but at what radius? Is it roughly 2000 lbs worth of dirt, to roughly match the strength of the spike? And then how can you make the spike useful again?