As a chaotic DM I love cursed items. To prevent players from simply IDing an item to detect curse (imo that should be a separate spell) I require an arcana or religion check when a player uses identify . a nat 20 reveals everything about the item, while a nat 1 reveals false information. Normal information about the item is revealed on a DC 10 check, but any curses on the item have a higher DC to be revealed, which scales up with the power of the item and the insidiosness of the curse. Longtime players in my campaigns have learned to be wary of the easy to find treasure room.
A few of my favorite cursed items:
Cloak of inescapable detection- appears to be a cloak of elvenkind. The first round of combat a character is near, it begins flashing bright garish colors.
Shoes of dancing- specific varients include slippers of the ballarina, high-tops of hip-hop, softshoes of swing, clodhoppers of clogging, and the classic shoes of tapping. The wearer of the shoes is effected by an uncontrollable urge to dance when combat begins, moving in a random direction throughout the combat. The character cannot take any action but dance UNLESS the character has proficiency in performance with a concentration of dance. Such a character instead gains the mobility feat while dancing through combat.
The Simple Crown of Simplicity- this coronet or simple tiara's curse is only triggered when a character places it on their own head. As soon as the character wearing this crown attempts any int/wis/chr check or attempts to cast a spell, the character becomes the target of Feeblemind .
And my favorite cursed item is
The Ring of Gasseous Form. When a character puts on this ring, they become the target of the Gaseous Form spell, which persists until the ring is removed. Unfortunately once in that form, it can't be removed until the wearer falls to 0 hp...
While I originally was thinking this thread would be about cursed items, I'd like to hear what other kinds of curses players & DMs alike have incorporated into their games and how the curse was resolved.
It would have worked too, if it wasn't for those darn kids...
This is a sidebar thread off of bad ideas.
As a chaotic DM I love cursed items. To prevent players from simply IDing an item to detect curse (imo that should be a separate spell) I require an arcana or religion check when a player uses identify . a nat 20 reveals everything about the item, while a nat 1 reveals false information. Normal information about the item is revealed on a DC 10 check, but any curses on the item have a higher DC to be revealed, which scales up with the power of the item and the insidiosness of the curse. Longtime players in my campaigns have learned to be wary of the easy to find treasure room.
A few of my favorite cursed items:
Cloak of inescapable detection- appears to be a cloak of elvenkind. The first round of combat a character is near, it begins flashing bright garish colors.
Shoes of dancing- specific varients include slippers of the ballarina, high-tops of hip-hop, softshoes of swing, clodhoppers of clogging, and the classic shoes of tapping. The wearer of the shoes is effected by an uncontrollable urge to dance when combat begins, moving in a random direction throughout the combat. The character cannot take any action but dance UNLESS the character has proficiency in performance with a concentration of dance. Such a character instead gains the mobility feat while dancing through combat.
The Simple Crown of Simplicity- this coronet or simple tiara's curse is only triggered when a character places it on their own head. As soon as the character wearing this crown attempts any int/wis/chr check or attempts to cast a spell, the character becomes the target of Feeblemind .
And my favorite cursed item is
The Ring of Gasseous Form. When a character puts on this ring, they become the target of the Gaseous Form spell, which persists until the ring is removed. Unfortunately once in that form, it can't be removed until the wearer falls to 0 hp...
While I originally was thinking this thread would be about cursed items, I'd like to hear what other kinds of curses players & DMs alike have incorporated into their games and how the curse was resolved.
It would have worked too, if it wasn't for those darn kids...