GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out?

Anders · 07-17-2020, 09:13 AM

And what did your players do with them?

I haven't really given them anything really useless, although they had a divination amulet that they never managed to find out. It had a crystal which would be a different color depending on what they plans were for the day.

Stormcrow · 07-17-2020, 09:32 AM

Probably just a suit of plate mail +1 in AD&D. It was a problem because stuff that the party could just barely survive couldn't touch this player at all. He got really mad at me when he encountered a rust monster, which I admit was a very heavy-handed solution...

Irish Wolf · 07-17-2020, 10:39 AM

I'd have to say it was the Two-Handed Sword of Throwing, created by a combination of contemplation of failed magical research and a late-night viewing of Braveheart (wherein the protagonist at one point, in a single smooth motion, draws the claymore from its sheath across his back and throws it at an enemy, impaling them).

The party never learned what it did, because they didn't have any Identify spells or scrolls with them and for some reason nobody ever tried throwing the two-handed sword.

AlexanderHowl · 07-17-2020, 07:08 PM

I would have had to have been the Amulet of the Concubine. It was a magical gadget that gave Allure 4, Appearance (Transcendent), Voice, Lecherousness (6-), and Xenophilia (6-), for a net cost of 0 CP to anyone without any of the listed traits. My players though it was an awesome item until they started using it and discovered the true horror of glorious compulsion.

cvannrederode · 09-24-2020, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Probably just a suit of plate mail +1 in AD&D. It was a problem because stuff that the party could just barely survive couldn't touch this player at all. He got really mad at me when he encountered a rust monster, which I admit was a very heavy-handed solution...

I had a similar issue in a Banestorm campaign I was running, and tried using the treasure table from DF. They got a suit of Bronze plate with +2 DR (DR 11 on the torso). 70+lbs of throwing the curve since one player was buff enough to use it. Anything balanced to threaten him could gank any other PC in one blow...otherwise he was untouchable. Got around that by the fact that he really couldn't wear it around town much.

Of course, in the same Demon-treasure haul, they got a short spear with Penetrating Weapon (5), which was worth more $$$. They just gave that to the Halfling thief, who took it with him when he left (the munchkin player was tired of playing a ST 7 thief -- the story of how he got that character involves Halfling nuns. Lord I love Yrth sometimes).

Dominator · 07-17-2020, 08:10 PM

In one of my earliest campaigns using AD&D, gave a relatively low level character Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Turned out to be hugely unbalancing, causing angst on how to get rid of it. That was a factor in switching to GURPS, seeking a system that had a rational magic system and item creation.

Urban · 07-18-2020, 01:45 AM

Bag of Holding, no limits on of how much it can hold...

Players defeat a dragon, spends days shoveling the treasure into the bag when the plot was for them to being forced to choose what to take with them.
return to civilization and buys the farm, spends the rest of their days sitting on the porch looking smug at the GM.

Start of big plot arc, players takes magic sword from skeleton in a tomb and toss it into the Bag. The skeleton awakes and is the nastiest Lich around but cannot move forward in plot starting the end of the world event due to missing sword and cannot find it in the world.

Lich was supposed to track the players through the sword but now spends eternity going in circles... world is saved by mistake, GM breaks down and cries.

ak_aramis · 07-19-2020, 03:22 PM

Worst, as in most abusive: +10 swords with large piles of additional powers. (Went through that munchkin phase in the early 80's.)

Worst as in harmful to the party: -3 sword of foolish bravery (-3 To Hit/Damage, +3 to morale, use intelligent sword rules to trigger fight-starting.)

Worst as in least useful: Magical Cocktail sword +0. Does 1d2-1 damage (cocktail sword) +0 magical (so it hits things only hit by magic weapons). Even the Faerie it was made for was unimpressed.

Worst as in least sensible: Meeping Mushrooms. They sound like Beaker from the Muppets. But don't do anything useful. (massive botch on a longevity potion in Ars Magic.)

William · 07-20-2020, 08:45 PM

Least fun: As the characters were digging through the already picked-over leavings in a shard of the abandoned Principality of Mariel, Demon Princess of Oblivion, one character picked up a scarf that shorted on him. The half-finished relic of the Song of Forgetting temporarily made him an unimportant stranger to everyone around him.

This was neat for about a hot second until we all realized that it was putting a severe crimp in the group's gaming rhythm. In Nomine is pretty heavy on coercive mental effects on the demonic side, and the players rolled with it and even took advantage of it (it's pretty easy to go raid the NPC's stash when they forget you're there), but it was definitely a jarring imposition.

Hardest to use: a D&D magic item made by a wild-spirited eladrin child, so it was meant to be a bit odd. You could speak the language stored in the ring. You could also switch out the language with one you knew, gaining permanent understanding of the language in the ring and forgetting the one you charged it with, other than by using the ring.

A weird and difficult magic item to make -- few casters are willing to drop a hard-earned skill point into equipment -- but meant to inspire teamwork and strategizing, passing it around and manipulating it as necessary. The simplest use, of course, is just to give it to a party in need of a new language from an external source, and this is what happened.

David Johnston2 · 07-22-2020, 01:19 PM

Of the magical items I've created the one which is most useless to player characters is the True Account of the Reign of King Malverne, a book which, if read forces a Will/Intelligence roll which if failed will give you the Delusion that Malverne (a notoriously tyrannical monarch) was in fact a great man who will return when the kingdom needs to be saved. A critical failure will make you a Fanatic obsessed with bringing Malverne back to rule again.

07-17-2020, 09:13 AM	#1
Anders Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden	GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? And what did your players do with them? I haven't really given them anything really useless, although they had a divination amulet that they never managed to find out. It had a crystal which would be a different color depending on what they plans were for the day. __________________ “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius

07-17-2020, 09:32 AM	#2
Stormcrow Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ronkonkoma, NY	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? Probably just a suit of plate mail +1 in AD&D. It was a problem because stuff that the party could just barely survive couldn't touch this player at all. He got really mad at me when he encountered a rust monster, which I admit was a very heavy-handed solution...

07-17-2020, 10:39 AM	#3
Irish Wolf Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Earth, mostly	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? I'd have to say it was the Two-Handed Sword of Throwing, created by a combination of contemplation of failed magical research and a late-night viewing of Braveheart (wherein the protagonist at one point, in a single smooth motion, draws the claymore from its sheath across his back and throws it at an enemy, impaling them). The party never learned what it did, because they didn't have any Identify spells or scrolls with them and for some reason nobody ever tried throwing the two-handed sword. __________________ If you break the laws of Man, you go to prison. If you break the laws of God, you go to Hell. If you break the laws of Physics, you go to Sweden and receive a Nobel Prize.

07-17-2020, 07:08 PM	#4
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? I would have had to have been the Amulet of the Concubine. It was a magical gadget that gave Allure 4, Appearance (Transcendent), Voice, Lecherousness (6-), and Xenophilia (6-), for a net cost of 0 CP to anyone without any of the listed traits. My players though it was an awesome item until they started using it and discovered the true horror of glorious compulsion.

07-17-2020, 08:10 PM	#6
Dominator Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: KC-1	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? In one of my earliest campaigns using AD&D, gave a relatively low level character Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Turned out to be hugely unbalancing, causing angst on how to get rid of it. That was a factor in switching to GURPS, seeking a system that had a rational magic system and item creation. __________________ In failed campaigns, selfishness always demands that someone bears the blame. Had it not been for that someone, we would have been successful in everything. - Helmuth von Moltke

07-18-2020, 01:45 AM	#7
Urban Join Date: May 2006 Location: Sweden	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? Bag of Holding, no limits on of how much it can hold... Players defeat a dragon, spends days shoveling the treasure into the bag when the plot was for them to being forced to choose what to take with them. return to civilization and buys the farm, spends the rest of their days sitting on the porch looking smug at the GM. Start of big plot arc, players takes magic sword from skeleton in a tomb and toss it into the Bag. The skeleton awakes and is the nastiest Lich around but cannot move forward in plot starting the end of the world event due to missing sword and cannot find it in the world. Lich was supposed to track the players through the sword but now spends eternity going in circles... world is saved by mistake, GM breaks down and cries.

07-19-2020, 03:22 PM	#8
ak_aramis Join Date: May 2010 Location: Alsea, OR	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? Worst, as in most abusive: +10 swords with large piles of additional powers. (Went through that munchkin phase in the early 80's.) Worst as in harmful to the party: -3 sword of foolish bravery (-3 To Hit/Damage, +3 to morale, use intelligent sword rules to trigger fight-starting.) Worst as in least useful: Magical Cocktail sword +0. Does 1d2-1 damage (cocktail sword) +0 magical (so it hits things only hit by magic weapons). Even the Faerie it was made for was unimpressed. Worst as in least sensible: Meeping Mushrooms. They sound like Beaker from the Muppets. But don't do anything useful. (massive botch on a longevity potion in Ars Magic.)

07-20-2020, 08:45 PM	#9
William Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Upper Peninsula of Michigan	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? Least fun: As the characters were digging through the already picked-over leavings in a shard of the abandoned Principality of Mariel, Demon Princess of Oblivion, one character picked up a scarf that shorted on him. The half-finished relic of the Song of Forgetting temporarily made him an unimportant stranger to everyone around him. This was neat for about a hot second until we all realized that it was putting a severe crimp in the group's gaming rhythm. In Nomine is pretty heavy on coercive mental effects on the demonic side, and the players rolled with it and even took advantage of it (it's pretty easy to go raid the NPC's stash when they forget you're there), but it was definitely a jarring imposition. Hardest to use: a D&D magic item made by a wild-spirited eladrin child, so it was meant to be a bit odd. You could speak the language stored in the ring. You could also switch out the language with one you knew, gaining permanent understanding of the language in the ring and forgetting the one you charged it with, other than by using the ring. A weird and difficult magic item to make -- few casters are willing to drop a hard-earned skill point into equipment -- but meant to inspire teamwork and strategizing, passing it around and manipulating it as necessary. The simplest use, of course, is just to give it to a party in need of a new language from an external source, and this is what happened.

07-22-2020, 01:19 PM	#10
David Johnston2 Join Date: Dec 2007	Re: GMs, what is the worst magical item you've ever given out? Of the magical items I've created the one which is most useless to player characters is the True Account of the Reign of King Malverne, a book which, if read forces a Will/Intelligence roll which if failed will give you the Delusion that Malverne (a notoriously tyrannical monarch) was in fact a great man who will return when the kingdom needs to be saved. A critical failure will make you a Fanatic obsessed with bringing Malverne back to rule again.