The problem with cursed items (and how to fix it)
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In my game I make "Imperfect" magic items. So not cursed, but have a risk of backfiring or have some slight drawbacks. My players know this, and it is also encouraged that they can improve or even perfect these items. It seems less malevolent and more sloppy. They do use the items more willingly.
Once gave out a senile sword the user periodically had to beat it on the wall to wake it up.
I'm reminded of an optional rules thing in Pathfinder which features a number of curses you can intentionally add to magic items while crafting to reduce the cost a bit. The intent, I believe, is to feel like you crafted it while cutting corners.
Of course, the curses on the list are so minor that most of them could even be perks. A king handing out magic items to a party may *want* to ensure those items are cursed with "only functions if you swear fealty to a specific person", as an example.
I've had some items come from "Uncle Joe's Discount Magic Emporium" which are generally good items with a weird drawback. Also, when identify is cast on one of these items it triggers a giant illusion of an advertisement for his shop.
Agreed. I like those. The maker tried to do this but... um... failed. Instead the power does this other thing. 💘
This reminds me of the 7 year old DM meme about the "boots of leaping" that let you jump 20ft in the air, the boots do not reduce fall damage because they aren't "boots of landing".
I know it doesn’t exactly qualify, but I really love this cursed shortsword our DM gave us in my current game! It constantly implores whoever holds it to kill; problem is, it doesn’t seem to have any real ability to make you obey, so now its just our rogue’s mean, slightly needy roommate.
this is hilarious. useless cursed items are JUST as fun as useless magic items!
Subversions of horror tropes are my favorite... especially when the GM can provide the setup, and the players provide the subversion just by thinking like real people.
for these types of items, they can be awesome. Were you engage in a conversation with the cursed sword, as it tries to convince you to murder that person. And then you make a wisdom save. no DC needed. how you do on the save determines the outcome. If you do really well, your hands just gripped tight on the sword. You do poorly, and your standing over them, swordpoint at their throat. All it takes a push..and just leave it up to the players to take that final step.
That way you can still have a 'compelled' intelligent item, that doesnt remove player agency.
@@jamesmartin8005 I'd think it'd be more entertaining on the Wis save to be about distraction. It's a fairly basic DC 10 check, but if you fail it you were so invested in mentally telling the damn sword to SHUT UP that you failed to notice your mark ducking into an alley and ditching you.
This is pretty much exactly what my DM did with a cursed sword we found. The real tricky part is, she has a reputation of secretly revealing things to individual players via Discord messages, so none of the rest of us know if the sword is compelling behavior or merely encouraging it. Only the player who is actually attuned to the sword knows for sure, and she's not telling. All we know is it talks and really likes the taste of blood.
My favorite character arc I've ever played through was thanks to a cursed dagger. It was a classic curse: I couldn't use other weapons, and I occasionally stabbed things without realizing I was doing it.
What made it cool was that I decided to lean into it and multiclassing into warlock to ask the entity which had cursed the dagger for more power. Then a magical trap took the dagger away, my mind cleared, and now my kobold paladin suddenly realized that he was bound by oath to two very different entities. My DM was great and worked out a redemption sidequest we could do in the metals dungeon we were playing in to break my pact and transfer it to my deity, and every step of the way there I lived in terror that we would encounter the evil cultists that I was pact bound to assist, forcing me to betray the party. We were able to complete the redemption ritual before that happened though, and it was one of the best feelings I've ever had in an RPG.
I remember a cursed suit of armor. It was incredible suit of armor, but if you were wearing it you were compelled to jump into any body of water you saw and dispelled any waterwalk on you. It was good enough that the player eventually managed to get a water breathing and swim speed items, but he was forever jumping into monster infested waters.
We went on a quest to a nearby fort to find a magical rapier for our Ranger. We ended up finding it and it was a nice +1 Rapier, except when you attack with it you must shout out an advertisement for the smith who made it (with a wisdom saving throw to resist if you dont). She seems to be having fun with it :3
Our DM said that she stole it from another campaign, except in that campaign it was their Rogue who took it, and that it seems fine until you try to kill something quietly and shout "THIS STABBING IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FORGE!"
(it isnt the exact quote I can't remember exactly, but you get the gist lol)
I once made a cursed sword that insta killed anything and vanished them but the insta kill was them just being teleported to the boss room at the end
@@Local_commentor Defeats the boss by entity cramming the room full of trees or giant creatures that block the doors and any air.
@@stm7810 it just worked on living things but it was basically a foam sword vs inanimate objects
@@Local_commentor trees are alive, and why I said giant creatures, like 400 elephants suddenly start filling the room.
@@stm7810 yeah trees but you can't cut down a wooden door but the tree leaves a hole in the ground and sinks the dirt
I think cursed items are best as a backstory thing. My college of whispers bard who was based on Edgar Allan Poe has a pocket watch whos ticking becomes louder when the shadowy specter of the raven who haunts him is around, and if it stops ticking for any reason he goes down (making death saves).
i also think having cursed items that are of above average quality but there are hints it's cursed is a good way to do it if the curses are very detrimental because if a curse is too detrimental and someone takes it unknowingly it really does seem like a cheap shot.
Is the pocket watch the beating of his hideous heart?
As a Poe lover, I LOVE THIS.
That is a very clever idea!
Is it just a pocket watch? Or spell foci or the clockwork amulet that is a pocket watch? I like the idea just curious what it does for the character
The last one i did was an amulet that summoned a great wyrm dragon to the major city they just left. They thought they were being hunted by a dragon so they started travelling faster. 13 destroyed cities later, they figured it out. The rest of the campaign was them dealing with the fallout of unintenionally destabilizing multiple kingdoms and shattering the balance of power through out the land.
I like the way the cursed sword was handled in the Dungeons of Drakkenheim game. The sword was actually a pretty strong fire-based intelligent sword that could cast Zone of Truth, but the wielder is unable to tell lies while attuned to it. The whole thing became a roleplaying scenario where the fighter was striving to be a better person and to stop trying to get his way by lying.
that is not necessarily a course but a price
@@thodan467 the DM said he considered it “a cursed item”, but certainly one a player might willingly use.
@@thodan467in the words of a giggly golden Hexblade, "All magic comes with a price, dearies!"
"Rrrroyal blueee....."
The claw! 😝
I think the birb may just be a crappy artist.
If she's going to work professionally she has a doody to work to improve
Standards are dropping(s)
why don't you try drawing a map with no opposable thumbs before you talk shit! 💩
"It was a dead drop."
"Oh, dear lord."
Great video. Superb advice.
I’m a fan of low level cursed items where the solution is role play and not saving throws. Like the leather pants of tightening. You can wear them for advantage on charisma throws… but they will get tighter every time you use them. You can eventually cut them off this ruining them but people will go to great lengths for some sexy pants.
Ooh! Kind of like the choker in an episode of Konosuba!
I have the Flame Tongue. It's a flametongue (y'know, the fire swords,) but the blade looks like a photorealistic tongue. Because of this, it deals bludgeoning instead of slashing and... That's it.
Except, the sword is immune to transmutation and breaks any illusion that is placed on it.
It literally just looks weird and that's it.
Yeah, I think there's a definite distinction between cursed item (a beneficial item at a price), versus trap items (the kind that just springs as a gotcha). Generally the first type is fun, where as the trap items need to be used very sparingly and always for good reason. It's okay if Strahd gives the party a trapped sword that he can use to render the fighter's sword arm useless on command, because it feels like this intelligent villain set you up. But just having a treasure hoard with a random necklace that strangles you the moment you put it on is a cheap gotcha.
I remember how my brain felt like it grew on the spot when I saw someone write that a Shield of Missile Attraction is a terrible thing to be stuck with - unless you're a bodyguard. That heavily informed my philosophy of not ambushing people with these items, just, yep, letting players tempt themselves into trouble. They'll never fail you.
When you began describing the story about the barbarian, my first thought was "Oh no, what if their friend or ally gets hit with Confusion or controlled?"
Dude, I *love* that Shield! It's so odd the curse actually becomes a feature xD
My favorite cursed items I've given my players they actually liked.
They "won" a set of 6 "Potions of Healing," from a Leprechaun. Except instead of being Red like in the book description, each was a different color. The colors were Pink, Blue, Green, Purple, Orange, and Turquoise.
When asked why they were different colors, the Leprechaun explained. "The potions were made by the fey, and we like bright colors."
They were indeed "Potions of Healing." Except when the rogue drank the Turquoise one her hair turned a vibrant Turquoise color.
The Leprechaun could be heard laughing at the prank.
Instead of getting mad the rogue thanked the Leprechaun and asked if he had any other potions she could buy.
The Leprechaun revealed himself clearly confused. He had never seen a human enjoy his pranks and agreed to meet her with more "Fey Potions of Healing" at a location outside of town in a few days.
The original potions were a "Potion of Healing" as described in the Player's Handbook or DMG with the added feature of changing the user's hair color to match the potion's color for 1d4 hours.
I have since made different variations of the "Fey Potions of Healing." They all work as the normal potions, but give a temporary cosmetic change. Some change the user's hair color like the original. Others will change the eyes, or skin tone. Some others will give the user animal ears or a tail.
The cosmetic changes are always temporary. But temporary can be a few hours or a few days. Some like animal ears I've given a bonus to listening based perception checks.
I have so far been straight forward with the potions. They are usually obtained from a fey or bought or found in the Feywild. But I have thought about having Fey potions make their way into magic shops and temples.
One that makes the drinker grow facial (or other) hair could be friggin' hilarious, especially if drunk by a female character and/or member of a hairless species (when's the last time you saw a bearded elf?). 😆
@@Harrowed2TheMind My trans Bard: 3 years of horse urine for this?!! (horse urine was the medieval way for people to get estrogen if they wanted to trans their gender in a fem way.
I learned the lesson the hard way in our first adventure in a series of connecter one shots, by unknowingly picking up a cursed dagger... I was told I couldn't play my character anymore because they has been possessed by the darkness and lost their mind... My character is now a big bad running around the world and to this day the DM still refuses to "give them back" to me because "well, you could have not picked up the dagger :)"
Yup. Had a succession of GMs like that back in the 90s. They sucked, the concept sucked, and whenever people my age (or older) badmouth younger gamers I feel obligated to rip the complainers to shreds, because the kids are okay, despite the abuse the older generations thought was normal.
That would have been pretty normal in AD&D, because the assumption was that PCs would die regularly. All sorts of "guess what the DM is thinking" gotchas were pretty standard (e.g. do you turn the key left or right?).
But in today's era that's just crappy DMing, unless the DM clearly lampshades that you really shouldn't pick up the item.
Bro “to this day?” I wouldn’t play with them if they think taking your character away for picking up an item is a great idea
@@RumpusImperator It was crappy GMing back then, too. Most RPGs grew beyond that sort of thing in the 80s. D&D... at least under TSR and while Gygax was alive? Not so much.
Your DM should be asking if you’re okay with your character being ripped from you as a NPC. I got given a very big bad cursed item (Book of Vile Darkness) and the dm immediately after the session clarified EVERYTHING with me, I mentioned that I’d be fine if it turned out I would become a BBEG but I want some time to develop the change that was happening now in the story, before handing the reins. DMs always need to establish with players expectations and what’s okay/not okay - “are we playing with the risk of death? Or are we waiving those stakes and instead just having penalties or consequences in place of a permadeath?” “Are you happy for your characters to show up in other campaigns/as npcs should you change your character/you move on?” That kind of thing. A good dm won’t just do shit and let you figure out the free fall and rule “because I can”. If you’re playing with a hard, gritty “everything can kill you” type guy, then at least you know to expect it and to play accordingly, but if you’re under the impression you’re going to play your same character unless they die or you want to reroll, (as in a normal game), then you shouldn’t be trying to guess if the dm is sabotaging your character!
I didn't consider it a cursed item exactly, but the sword "Eveready" caused some amusement in my campaign. It did the normal damage of a smallsword in our rules but did an additional
D4 _squared_ damage to the target. However, it did the same D4 roll, but not squared, to the wielder.
Let me guess; a blood hunter got one.
@@unevennoble9363 i would know what a blood hunter was. I haven't run any edition of D & D since 1978. Is that a 5e thing?
@@willinnewhaven3285As far as I’m aware it’s unofficial content from the critical role live play show that’s really popular and it’s basically your average monster hunter but they use their own blood for some magical powers if I recall correctly.
I gave my Rogue a cursed coin that always stayed in his hand and if thrown or handed off it would teleport right back within a half a second. It interfered with weapon holding and gave him a -3 when using the weapons in that hand. But then he figured doing magic tricks and bets in inns and Taverns to make extra money - turned a negative into a positive and the eventually got the curse removed.
I've been DMing for over 30 years and I agree with Ginny 100%. I used to use purely bad cursed magic items all the time because that was just how old school D&D was, but found the "monkey's paw" items way more interesting for everyone as time went on and switched to only using those. I still remember a battle axe from AD&D that I still adapt to modern games sometimes. The original axe was a +3 weapon that never missed. However, the +3 bonus only applied to damage rolls, and whenever you didn't roll high enough to hit, you took damage equal to how many points your attack roll would've missed by. Also, whenever you tried to draw any weapon that wasn't the axe, the axe would appear in your hands instead. I always was upfront with players about what the weapon did and in 3 different campaigns someone has always succumbed to the temptation. 2 of them were killed by weapon's drawback.
Well, cursed items CAN be really fun, even with RAW. I once had a death cleric with a zombie following her. She got some boots that curse you to never stop dancing (and therefore might eventually kill you by exhaustion). But for some reason she thought, my zombie needs boots. And did put them on the zombie, instead of herself (I promise I never told her the boots are cursed). Well, from now on she had the ever dancing Zombie "Carl" and didn't even think of removing those boots from him. 😅
Side note: make sure the cursed item is appropriate for the player or group. While the dagger with a curse that makes you hurt yourself if you fail to hit anyone during your turn might be cool for most groups, it might be a bad idea to implement that in a group where one of the players has a history of self-harm.
Being able to identify the curse on the item made for a fantastic moment in our Halloween oneshot! The cursed Ring of Rhyming allowed us (i.e. me) to Detect Thoughts if I asked a question in rhyme, but if I forgot or couldn't compose a rhyme in time, our interrogate-ee could instead. I enjoy composing rhymes (I have a whole list of rhyming spell incantations), so I took the ring.
And then we came to confront the unwitting instigator of much of the town's misery. For personal reasons related to my character's backstory, his particular sin reeeeally didn't go down well with her. And so, as she called one specific memory to mind, one she can still recall with near-perfect accuracy, she asked him: "So what, exactly, were you thinking when you took a child away from her mother?!"
That's not in rhyme. Which means he could Detect Thoughts.
And he saw exactly how badly he'd screwed up.
I can only think of two cursed items that my DM has given us, and I think they were both pretty well designed.
One is a ring that lets you cast fly and feather fall, but there's small chance that upon drawing a weapon or spell focus that you'll draw a chicken instead that surprises you.
The other was much more serious and was the aberrant tooth of a god eater god. The tooth could transform into pretty much any type of weapon and would cause a bleed effect upon a hit. It would also eat the souls of its victims, so no resurrection magic could bring them back. It had a lot of lore significance since it was one of two known weapons that could kill a god. The downside was that attuning to the tooth would cause your soul to be promised to it. The tooth would eat the soul of the attuned whenever they died, attempted to unattune, or attempted to destroy the tooth. I believe that the only way to break the curse would be to get permission from the god eater god himself. He's kind of a jerk though so it's unlikely to happen. Maybe a Ring of Mind Shielding could work, but we never tried it. I doubt it'd go well since the god eater is a sore loser who'd probably just take the ring.
That ring sounds like a really really fun one!
This weeks aesthetic is one of the best!!
You're right about the willing curse thing, every item I've seen online or personally experienced seems to be really detrimental and give you like a +1 bonus, I can only think of one or two exceptions. ._. People just want to make "punishment" items sometimes it seems.
Definitely!! And it stinks so much for players to think they're getting rewarded (collecting loot, for example) and instead be punished in a way they can't anticipate and can't avoid. Where's the fun in that?!
Ah, yes, players should be punished for wanting loot in a loot-based game about getting loot. The sheer audacity of them.
@@BrenGamerYT Right it’s just absurd.😂
@@GinnyDi ... might work as a way to stem a cleptomaniac rogue from stealing things in every single building they enter though. Nothing too serious but it needs to bite a little.
Excellent advice! I once gave my barbarian player who was on a quest to avenge his murdered parents a sword called the Arm of Bhal. The sword could only be attuned by speaking the name of the person you wished to murder. It was a +3 greatsword with an expanded crit range, but it became the only weapon you could use in combat (aside from unarmed) and if you were hit, you had to make a wisdom save or everyone around you appeared to be the person you were sworn to kill and you had to attack the nearest person until you couldn't see anyone alive within 30 feet.
The group found all sorts of creative ways to evade the barbarian once his murder curse was activated (his eyes became red and pupils replaced with the symbol of Bhal, so it was easy to tell when it was happening). The player had many chances to unattune the weapon through curse removal, but his character really liked the sword and the bonuses were too great to pass up!
When they finally killed the vampire who was responsible for the murders, he left the sword in the lair and sealed the entrance so no one else could ever find the cursed weapon again.
Defense options against it... stay more than 30 feet away at all times, use invisbility or blindness,deafness to remove things from sight... I wonder if Otelucs resilient sphere would help as it doesn't technically hit the barb but it does mean they can't do anything to anyone around them for a while and they also can't get hit.
@@RogueWraith909 The monk in their party also had a great performance check and often played dead. The barb with bad wisdom didn't register him as alive, so it worked every time.
@@alkemyst337 ROFL! That's BRILLIANT!
I swear you always release videos when I have a certain topic on my mind. I've been wanting to add a cursed item to my party, but I was having trouble making it seem fair. Now I see that there are some good ways to balance this and have it work for my group
The fundamental question is how will the cursed item improve the gameplay experience for the players.
It could be that its a tempting item, either the downside doesn't seem like a downside or it is about as negative as the good is good.
Or it could be purely for world building, in which case it could be purely negative, but only if you properly telegraph that the thing is cursed. (It could be a lore dump from an NPC like Gandalf explaining the One Ring, or it could be found in a sketchy place and you should really know better than to use the Vampire's obsidian blade with demonic runes inlaid in gold on it, even if it perfectly matches your aesthetic)
A trap is only fun to walk into if you know its a trap, and you know there is a reward worth the pain. (Even if the reward is out of game laughter)
I've been pondering the challenge of adding a cursed item to my current 'mostly sci-fi with some fantasy elements' campaign.
It's made tougher in that two characters are almost completely non-combat, and the ones who are built for combat use things like a sniper rifle or an assault blaster.
@@MonkeyJedi99 depending on how scifi you run the game, you could always make it more along the lines of a parasite as opposed to a "magic curse" and you could always make it an item that isn't necessarily combat oriented
@@TheGameRonin0619 Parasite! Thanks!
The player characters LOVE to pick up local food from planets they visit, and they have high-tech onboard medicine.
So I could "infect" them with a boon + bane parasite and let them decide on whether to keep it or cure it.
Please accept my sincere wishes for you to have a fantastic day as my payment for your help.
As you make your way through the dungeon, you find a surprising, almost disturbing lack of monsters and traps. You do, however, find many, MANY skeletons clad in armor bearing the crest of a yellow sun on an azure field. Many of the skeletons are positioned as if they died fighting, one is hanging on to its sword, stabbed through what used to be the chest of its colleague, some even have completely pulverised hands...
At the end of the dungeon, you find no boss. No final challenge, just the item you came for lying there on an altar, for the taking.
As your fighter takes it, they feel an incredible surge of power rippling through them, and along with the extasy of this strength, they hear a voice: *"what have* they *ever done for you?"*
You must be the coolest DM 🤩
One of my most memorable characters ever, was a fighter cursed three times over. She was chaotic good. At one point, an NPC tried to take the final part of the curse, and she threw him off the dais to take it for herself. The curses had drawbacks and boons to them. Like, each third of the curse gave 5 damage reduction, but one of them made it so if she hit 0hp, she just died with no saves. Morte shouted “Not if I kill them first!” and activated that portion, gleefully. One third lowered the number required for a critical hit, making it so she crit on 17-20. The third part of the curse made it so Morte rolled an extra damage die (which was 2d4, because this was back in 3.5 and she as a scythe fighter) with her crits, but she had to take that damage herself, but with 15 damage reduction, she only took damage from herself on crits. Some of the drawbacks included : demon names in infernal tattooed all over her that moved and crawled like spiders, giving her a hefty detriment to Charisma (as a fighter, she truly didn’t care), she could not close her eyes to trance, her god would not talk to her, she had a situational detriment to intelligence checks, she had a “looming stench of dread and death” that one of my party members cast prestidigitation on at the beginning of each play session to “take the edge off the smell.” It was fun as hell, and the people I gamed with at that time still talk about Morte once in a while with delight so I was for sure not ruining everyone else’s time with my cursed death obsessed edgelord scythe fighter shenanigans. There were a fair few combats where she had to disengage and flee because she was at fewer that 10hp. I still chase how I felt swinging a masterwork scythe as Triple Cursed Morte.
Morte’s curses had an effect that made combat more challenging, but also more rewarding; they had aspects that directly effected role play as well as combat encounters; they had interactive but not frustrating ways for party members to choose to engage with them, but didn’t need to be the focus of any sessions aside from the ones where they were picked up.
My Dm did something quite similar too. Our Paladin found this sword clutches tightly in the hand of a skeleton. As soon as he touched it, the ghost resides within the sword came out and tell him that he can take it and receive the ghost’s aid as well but there will be draw backs: the sword give you advantage and an extra 1d4 damage on attacks against spiders, drows, and driders. However, once you have saw any of the creature mentioned above, you have to attack them no matter what. This curse has cause some problems for our group but the benefits out weights the drawbacks. The ghost sometimes drops hints to point us in the right direction, we even ended befriend it, try to give it therapy and do some of help it do some of the things it couldn’t do before.
In my campaign I had this group of 'sisters' who wanted you to deliver their cursed items, and if you did would reward you with gold. They would always give every detail of the item, and the gold earned would be dependant on how risky it was.
One currently has an item they chose themself, which has put them on 5hp would with an incredible dodging ability. Im very excited to see how they cope. and so are they!
bring the ring to the orodruin?
A cursed item shouldn’t be the cause of someone’s downfall, merely the tool. If you follow Behavior X, cursed item deals out Negative Consequence Y
Edit: Also yeah, the coolest thing about a curse is when someone chooses to use it anyway
Unless the curse is "If you activate the dagger that grants a +15 strength modifier & second attack a turn, but only works if you slaughter innocents with it to charge it before your next combat," & the negative consequence is, "by killing innocents your character is slowly becoming an evil monster," because with such "power at a price" items the option is always "or he stays good by not using the Demon Dagger's power."
No yeah, I mean the “this sword is draining your life force everytime you use it” kind of stuff. Or even a “your character is physically changed every time you use this magic staff”
@@bananabanana484 Wabbajack!
ya my players, one of them, used a powerful cursed item (ie. it was powerful but it also drained their stats as they used it). but it was so powerful for what abilities they happened to use, it worked for them. And they ended up destroying it anyways. not exactly what i expected but they had fun with it. And the insane mind of the item, the player just messed around with it to make the sword angrier heheh
@@victorvaldez8869 I think your beef with the item is that here you have a magic item that simply doesn't get used (save if someone wants to be a monster). The problem is that a bit more thought need to be put into it. Who or what is the demon inside the dagger, and why does it require the slaying of innocents? What happens if it doesn't get the blood of innocents?
E.g. the demon needs the blood of innocents to fuel it's demonic power in order to contain two beings - a powerful destructive monster and an angelic being. Indeed, when it grants the character the power to destroy it allows the character to channel a bit of the destructive monsters power, which counter-productively is slowly turning the wielder into the monster - however, it's a demon and used to rotten deals. If the demon doesn't get the blood of innocents eventually both the monster and the angelic being will be freed. In this most extreme situation, the angel and the demon is willing to work together to contain the monster if the character will instead grant power to the angelic being, allowing the angel to contain the demon and the monster. However - this requires sacrifice on the part of the player (numerous options) in order to fuel the angelic beings barrier. The character can of course decide not to help either the angel or the demon resulting in the rampaging monster becoming free, which might cause the death of even more innocents. This story means that the character may get a choice of a demonic bonus, an angelic bonus or a monstrous bonus - but with power at a price either way. Most importantly - it adds story and dilemmas to your adventure which tend to make it fun. An unresolved question I think the DM should consider is why the demon want to contain the monster? Perhaps it is a creature that has the power to somehow escape from the Abyss itself. This might come in handy in a later adventure where a character or NPC needs to somehow be freed from the Abyss.
When making cursed magic items it always pays to think a bit deeper about them, because it's so easy to uncover a hidden storyline based on why the item is cursed in the first place.
Come for the DnD advice, stay for the ad sponsors. Seriously I wish I saw some much creativity and puns in any other channel sponsors. Love you Ginny! =)
I love to see what Ginny comes up with! Best ads in the biz! 🌙
I feel like the cursed amulet you mentioned can have some utility (mainly using strong support spells that you would otherwise only be able to use on others) BUT that is something the player must be actually willing to do and be prepared for.
An offensive spellcaster will just be needlessly screwed over by it
Could be very funny on a healer
My old DM gave the paladin a set of plate armor that would not allow him to wear other armors. The plate armor would "get jealous" and swap places with the other armor he was wearing.
In a campaign, my Warlock found a staff that ended up being cursed...somewhat un-beknownst to us....that slowly shifted his alignment to evil. He loved the staff and did not consider his actions evil, even in a few situations where it harmed the party. They tried to remove the curse, but he would not allow it...and eventually swore to the party that he would stop using the more power features of the staff....so we soldiered on. At the end of the campaign, we ended up failing to stop the big bad, and things went all pear-shaped. At the very last minute, in order to save himself (and the staff), he teleported away and the campaign ended. Still felt very satisfying.
Ideas:
Definitely foreshadow!
Instead of just allowing Identify to discover the curse, put an appropriate DC on the discovery of the curse (make them roll for every cast to disguise what you're doing?)
Choose the curse wisely.
Lots of good advice here.
and if all else fails: "There is something about the item that seems off. The enchantment is powerful but something about it sends a cold shiver down your spine...."
Foreshadowing/telegraphing is definitely one of the most important things for cursed items that you are stuck with once revealed, or that have a very hefty downside that could suck if you weren't expecting it.
It has many forms including:
- NPC tells you its cursed
- its found somewhere that its obviously a bad idea to use
- the DM tells the player their character is getting bad vibes from it
I also generally recommend that the DM ask themselves if they would be willing to use the weapon based if they were the player recieving it, and its balanced when the answer is a strong maybe. (Unless its super important somebody uses the item, then the answer should probably be yes)
So recently my Druid found a magic ring that gives her the power to use wild for free, but later I found out the cures. While in animal form, she retains her personality and memories, but she takes on all of the beast’s attributes, including intelligence.
On occasion she has forgotten to change back until the wilds shape duration expired.
I'm playing a Minotaur, In the setting my game is taking place in Minotaurs are a 'cursed race' which means they were originally brought about by a magical curse. Just hit lvl 5 and now I can invoke the true strength of the curse and transform into a full empowered bull once per long rest, but only under the rules of a *Polymorph* spell without concentration. It can also proc outside of my control if he's under duress or if he's over exposed to the color red, triggering the bull inside him.
So at any point I can transform into a large creature with 40 extra hit points at lvl 5, but I'm essentially stuck there for an hour with my intelligence dropping from 19 all the way to 4. Fun times!
@@seasnaill2589what class? Sounds like a good match for a barbarian 😈
@@peterbillings3276 Nah, our barbarian is a demigod son of Pythor, the god of battle. He's basically Heracles, my guy is a Battlemaster.
Ah, Animorphs as a cursed item
It can also be fun to make an item that is powerful, but at a cost.
The blood shield gives the user 5 temporary hp on command, but reduces max hp by the same amount. Each short rest restores 1 max hp and each long rest restores 3. Also each day that max hp is reduced, roll a d20. On a 1, one point of max hp is permanently lost, and on a 20, the player gains 1 vampirism token if 3 are gained, the character becomes a vampire.
Or see if you recognize this one. A ring of invisibility, but each time you use it it gains a small amount of power over you, and also alerts the big bad to your general location.
When designing a cursed item, I always try to include something that makes the curse interesting instead of just bad. Most of my curses involved a change in personality to the character that attuned, and characters could unattune without issue. Here's an example of one of my favorites:
Heartseeker - Very Rare Dagger
Heartseeker is a cruel black dagger decorated with golden serpents slithering across its blade. It is obviously ceremonial, and while sharpened to a deadly edge, it looks fragile. Blood gutters run along either side of the wicked blade.
Once attuned to this weapon, the user gains the following flaw: “My only joys in life are causing others pain and being in pain myself.” Whenever the user takes damage, they also take 1d4 necrotic damage. This damage cannot be reduced or redirected to temporary hit points. Once unattuned, the flaw fades over 1d4 days.
Heartseeker is a +2 weapon that deals an extra 1d12 necrotic damage on hit. Whenever the user reduces a creature to 0 hit points with Heartseeker, they may use their bonus action and all of their remaining movement to eviscerate that creature, regaining 1d12 hitpoints.
Not exactly a cursed item, but a favorite item with a twist that I recently dropped:
I'm running a desert game. Party found a magic lamp. Identified it, assuming the obvious. Nope! It's empty. But it's an intelligent item and REALLY wants to house a djinn. And the way it keeps asking them to fill it with a big, powerful djinn with phrasing worse than that has led to hysterics at the table. 😁
Something, something, American Gods... 👀
@@williamwright3715 huh?
@@adhdessentials5919 There's a fantasy TV show called American Gods (by Neil Gaiman) which includes a small part where a man meets a djinn and gains his magical powers. Let's just say the dialogue and special effects for any of the sex scenes in the show are...pretty wild. 😂
So one of my DMs really loves handing out magic items with minor but fun effects that they either make up or find online and out of the 14 magic items they've handed out so far, I managed to get the only one that's cursed. But it was funny as heck. It was a cowboy hat that gave +1 to persuasion rolls but had the associated curse that it can't be removed outside of magical means, compels its wearer to speak in a southern accent, and quote "may cause delusions of rugged outlaw grandeur, regardless of whether or not you are a rugged outlaw". It turned out really funny on my character because he's like a fortune teller little kobold with major self-esteem issues and now suddenly he's speaking and acting like a cowboy, suggesting they steal horses to get to where they're going faster purely for the sake of being an outlaw, and referring to the BBEG's pet beholder as a "varmint". It's actually been a ton of fun
I tend to use cursed items very sparingly, sometimes going a given campaign without one appearing. When I do have them appear, it's not random loot, it's something that has a story connected to it (which usually ties into how to break the curse, and can result in the character ending up with a cool item as a reward for enduring the curse and going through the adventure to break the curse).
I did give my players a cursed item.
It was pink goggles inspired by Two-Flower from Terry Pratchett books.
Basically, if they fail the Wisdom safe they can't make aggressive actions like attack or even swearing.
BUT they can cast Shield of Faith once a day.
And I gave them practically useless sword. That sword will have auto-crit on goblins (if you land a hit), but you can't hit anyone except goblins. Sword just change direction of your strike.
I took the time to write up custom cursed items for three out of four players in advance of a glabrezu encounter. (I was pretty confident our genre-savvy NG paladin wouldn't want any part of it.) They were never _told_ the items were cursed, but they all immediately assumed they would be. Two of them still accepted after learning the non-hidden effects. Neither has asked to have Remove Curse cast on them yet.
The Cinderella cosplay making a comeback! Lesson to never throw anything away because it can always be used again - also I love the fake little bird, it took me a minute to realize it was fake (duh) but I was just so caught up in the atmosphere I didn't even question it
I like how she made the bird crap on the map like a real bird would, gives it personality. That actually looks like a good dip for my chips, even with the spices for flavor.
One concept I was toying with was a cursed item requiring conditions to be met in order to uncurse it, which I think could also make for great roleplay opportunity.
For instance, say you have a player wanting to shift the direction of their noble sorcerer from a DpT build to a battlefield control build; you could just hand-wave it, or you could give them the Cursed Ring of Spell Turning (that you mentionned) to envoke a reason for the paradigm shift, having "admitting one needs the strength of their allies" as the means to break the curse and envoke that change in the character sheet.
I'd also make the uncused ring, in this case, into a Ring of Spell Turning that grants a +1 or +2 to the caster's Spell save DC as an in-game acknowledgement of that growth.
I like curses that return the item to the location they were found, or only work against a certain group of NPCs who of course gain possession of the cursed item in some fashion. Then we have time curses, which essentially force the party to relive the most recent scene, (sometimes to their advantage), or cursed pairs where the curse doesn't start until both items are in proximity. Mated cursed items that nullify each other's curse work, too.
(:
Reminds me of a particularly interesting "cursed" weapon, which was a brace of vampiric daggers. Of course, when thrown they return to their brace, so long as the brace exists and they’re both on the same plane of existence, but their thing was that you could "wager" health on an attack. Before attacking with the knife, you could put up to twice your level in health into the blade; on a hit it dealt that much extra necrotic damage and you got the health back, but if you missed you'd simply be out that much health. Was a nice risk/reward weapon to give out at pretty much any level, so you could watch it grow with your party.
This video made me realize that I didn't pay enough attention when reading the DM's Guide. I always assumed the Indentify spell would tell about a curse and aways played that way. It's a spell that my players rarely use, so I though the exange was fair. They use a spell that they don't like so much but it manages to give them way more information and control over the cursed loot that they obtain. They wouldn't know about the curse otherwise.
In D&D Basic the spell reads you learn the magical properties of an item and how to use them. We always assumed a curse to be a magical property so yeah you learned that too. I just realized that after 35 years of playing no one has read the updated version of the spell🤪🤪🤪
One source for good Cursed Items: the Pathfinder 2E Oracle!
If you dont know that class, its literally an entire class who has a 'curse' as a main mechanic.
It works as a good source because generally, the boons you get are REALLY good that it makes the curse feel worth taking (risk/reward), and the Curses are scaling. So instead of a binary all or nothing, it ramps up. The more the player uses the reward, the MORE risk they take.
I've started using a scaling curse system in my campaign, and I feel like it has made the items feel slightly better
I like to make cursed items where the curse doesn't really have a mechanical effect. Like, a Ring of Protection that changes the wearer's hair color randomly at dawn. Even have a d10 table for colors.
I have a flametongue that looks like a tongue
I really like how cursed items are handled in Shadowdark from Kelsey Dionne. The curses are rarely crippling, but are often embarrassing and even sometimes useful! What they mainly do is make magic items unpredictable and interesting.
For example, I rolled a +2 crossbow with some really cool effects. Unfortunately the owner turns into a rat for 1 hour every midnight...but a clever PC could find dozens of uses for such an interesting effect!
Great video!
I once ran a game where every magic item was cursed, just part of the world was that permanent enchantments always came with a downside. Anyway I offered to let players start with a cursed item if they wanted to, and every single player did. It was fun.
I do my best to make sure that there are some benefits to the cursed item's I hand out. One item I have is The Amulet Of Pride. While attuned to the item, you cannot be frightened, but have disadvantage on saving throws to resist being charmed. While above half your max HP you can add you character level to the damage rolls with melee attacks and unarmed strikes, but when below half your max HP, attack rolls against you have advantage as your unfounded confidence begins to waver.
You also have a superiority complex while wearing the item, compelling you to accept challenges regardless of your actual ability to complete them being viable or not.
Typical can't remove the item or give it away unless they are hit by a remove curse spell.
The berserkers axe, the cursed +1 weapon that forces you to attack whatevers closest to you that I think Ginny was referring to, is one of my favorite cursed weapons in the dmg. I recently took it as my free magic item of choice during a one shot, its a fun curse when you buy in to it. Also it adds to your max HP as a small way to counter the no retreat issue.
Giving the items up and down sides and being up front about it is actually the best advice i heard on this.
Our paladin attuned to a cursed axe that was strong, but when he got a crit, he'd go into a blood frenzy and attack the closest creature to him indescriminantly. Our DM let him know, so he could rp his character feeling unatturatly angry and bloodthirsty. And when he suddenly snapped in battle and turned on us, the DM didn't have to explain and we were all as shocked as our characters were. But it worked and was amazing and terrifying.
A couple years back, in a Pathfinder game I ran, I included a cursed ring of regeneration which was powered by a gluttony daemon. When the character slept, the daemon possessed him and went out to sate it's hunger on innocent townsfolk. It ended up with a great month long side quest while they investigated the bizarre "cannibal murders". Once they realized what was happening it was simple to get the ring removed. A simple solve but it led some great role-playing.
I did one that was a sword that couldn't be dropped out out away, making anything but combat interesting and comical. It also was something like on crit you'd hit yourself instead, but it was like a 2d8, so it was pretty helpful, too.
A concept I've been playing with lately has been a lot of fun. The idea is simple, any time a magic item is created, a curse gets put on. There isn't a question on whether it's cursed or not it just is. I also made it so it's rare to have an item that you can't get rid of, it's purely your choice. All my items are homebrewed and I usually manage to find the right balance that always make you unsure whether you want to actually activate the item or not
To me, curses are a bit like death in the base rules, they can be really scary early, but as soon as a character takes the appropriate spell, it becomes inconsequential.
Taking some inspiration from Matt's resurrection mechanics in CR, breaking curses in my game is a ritual process that depends on the specific curse. I am quite sparing about using curses for this reason, but when they do appear, they feel impactful.
Great summary! I think the major problem with cursed items in the rules is that they really haven't changed much (except for the attunement part) from their origins in BECMI/AD&D, where they were basically obstacles/traps for the PCs to overcome, in the kind of gaming environment where spheres of annihilation used as architecture were legitimate (and indeed brilliant) aspects of dungeon design and first level thieves routinely faced save-or-die poison needles on half the chests in a dungeon. And curses that make major, permanent changes in a character sound great for storytelling, but they're ultimately an author's tool, not a gamemaster's. Your sorcerer friend's character's curse would have been a great subplot in a fantasy novel, but not at the table. Ironically, video games have been making effective curses for years with items that raise stat A by some amount but lower stat B by some other amount, like the clutch rings in Dark Souls. You get the benefit of the item, but have to take the down side with the good. (Indeed, one could make it so such "flawed" items were cursed, not to glue themselves to their user, but in their backstory so that the flaw was caused by the curse and removing the curse would remove the flaw, with the item's history being tied into the campaign storyline or a character backstory.)
You literally read my mind, I’m making a campaign and was wondering how I should handle cursed items
I've seen it mentioned a few times, but I'm a fan of the "flawed" magic item approach. Not specifically cursed, just weird downsides. I handed out a suit of heavy plate armor. It was a very strong armor, but couldn't be covered for most of the armor's effects to take effect as clockwork creatures maintaining (from the inside) it had to see the outside world. And while uncovered, it was glowing when the armor, or wearer, was aware of nearby enemies, making it impossible to hide from sight. The armor was called "Visible Crusade" and it wanted to be seen.
I also handed out counterfeit magic items. Disposable wands with charges that don't recover, and other wands that might explode when they run out of charges. Also flying carriages that will stop flying after 2d6 hours.
"Ginny why would a player take an item if they know it is cursed?"
Meanwhile, my DM doesn't hide curses when the identify spell is used and our druid took THREE separate cursed items (and I took one too)
Yeah, we had a DM like that of your friend's once. In our group he'd have tried that once or twice with the cursed items and then the group would've had it and would conspire to derail his plot. In our particular situation, one of the players waited until the DM went to the bathroom to check out his campaign folder behind his "master's screen". Which then led to weeks of gameplay in which we killed, robbed, betrayed or failed to help any of the key NPCs in his story that he spent weeks in advance to prepare. Obviously we had loads of backup characters to counter DM-Anger. His face when his vengeful killing of a player character resulted in just "Eh, good thing I brought spares. Oh! How about we ditch the quest for a week and vacay in Candlekeep? :D" was priceless.
Hell Yeah! This advice is D&D gold! I made a pair of magic vampire daggers, each +1 necrotic damage, with 1HP Lifesteal (i.e. regain 1 lost HP if the target is a living thing with blood) with the curse that once drawn, they must be fed before they can be put away. i.e. you have to successfully stab something and get them bloodied, or you just have to hold on to them, or stab yourself, before you can put them down.
My favourite "cursed" item I've known in d&d was a play on the classic Moonblade, except of course it was a Blood-Moon Blade. It functioned almost the same as a "typical" Moonblade, except instead of only being able to be attuned by an elf or half-elf, it only allowed Drow to attune. It also had the downside of it's sentience trying to sway it's user to commit violent acts. Was pretty fun for a while, but eventually (after an unfortunate incident at an orphanage) our drow bard made the wild choice to throw it into a volcano.
Our DM is rad and lets us roll to identify cursed items. We ended up identifying a cursed sword, the Sword of Vengeance, which I believe is similar if not the same as the one from the barbarian story lol. We ended up tricking a dangerous NPC that we had to work with into accepting it as collateral for some deal we made with him, which ended up being a SUPER bad idea as he then wanted to murder my guy very much and still does to this day. Cursed items can be fun if used for very stupid shenanigans
My daughter’s rogue has a cursed dagger. Every time she uses it she takes 1 dmg (that can not be healed by spells and normal means) but also accumulates a “blood point”.
At any point before the end of a long rest she can choose to use one, several, or all of the blood points to do an additional d4 of damage on a hit and gets half the result as healing. The party has no healer so its a way for her to help herself, but there are consequences and she has a decision to make.
That’s how I do cursed items. There is a trade off and a decision. Great video!
House Rule: Remove Curse spell also lets you "detect curse" without removing it, so you know what's going on with an item before committing to ditching it.
I was in a mini series (4 sessions) pre COVID. I was a melee paladin, protector to three spell casters. We were all level 3.
I had a cursed great club, that made me always attack as if “Bane” was cast upon me.
Everyone else had daggers and slings.
In the epilogue my (5th level) big sister came along to remove the curse.
The club ignited like a Roman candle.
I liked it since it aesthetically looked like a Louisville Slugger.
Our entire party got cursed items early in the campaign, but we didn't realize they were cursed for literally over 2 rl years of regular playing. No wonder the BBEG was always two steps ahead of us. She could spy on us at any time.
That's actually awesome!
When I make cursed items, the first thing I determine is "why is this item cursed". If it is possessed by evil, chances are the cursed item will offer the character a slippery slope granting power to the character at the low cost of letting the character slip further into darkness. If the curse is simply a booby trap for a thief that takes it, the curse might be designed to allow whoever made the curse to track down the item. A ghostly curse would tend to be on an item connected to the terrible events that caused a dead soul to become a ghost in the first place etc.
Example: One cursed item I made was a flame sword created by a demon by trapping a spirit of fire in it. That is, a demon cultist leader had invoked the demon to make it, and the party got the blade by killing the leader of the cult who wielded the flame blade. The blade would work as a flame-blade when using a command word the party heard while fighting the leader, but the spirit would later communicate with the wielder in dreams. The spirit had been subjugated by foul magic, imprisoning it in many ways. The curse allowed the wielder to torture the spirit into making the blade burn and granting various fire-related powers. However, it was possible to remove layers of the the curse on the fire spirit, allowing it to eventually communicate easier with it's wielder and letting it grant additional powers. Of course the demon who made the blade would also communicate with the wielder in dreams. Each layer of the curse could be either improved or removed - one relatively easy by seeking assistance from the demon eventually culminating in making a pact with it, and another relatively hard by countering the demon - eventually culminating in having to fight it. Also, each layer of the curse had to be dealt with at ritual locations where the curse had originally been made (The spirit or the demon could help find them). Powers granted freely by the spirit would always be a bit stronger than those gained through coercion. If the fire spirit was completely freed however the sword itself would lose most of it's abilities, though the fire spirit would remain an ally of the player. I had no rule saying the character couldn't simply put down the blade, though that of course never happened.
I actually asked for my DM to give me a cursed item! The reason was I was tired of playing a brainless barbarian, and the curse would involve some intelligent soul trapped in a sword slowly invading the barbarian's mind, letting him speak more logically. We worked together with the DM on the curse, and the sword has a chance to strike me under certain conditions, which would transfer small bits of the trapped soul into my character. Can't wait to use words like "Indeed"!
Another couple of fun things to do with curses: 1) make it a conditional. The haunted sword is AMAZING (and has no drawbacks) if it's used in the tomb of it's owner or against the enemy type he hated. If you try to use against any other enemy type, though, some drawbacks kick in.
2) Purely rp curses, e.g. "so long as you are attuned to the item, your hands always appear to be covered in blood" or "what appears to be the ghost of anybody slain with the sword follows you around. Nobody else can see them." Up to the DM whether something bad happens when enough of them have been accumulated.
And that amulet sounds TERRIBLE. Depowering a character should be extremely rare, and shouldn't last long. Even if the player thinks a depowered story arc could be a fun RP, they are going to be bored any time the fighting starts.
Ideas for Curses:
1. You loose X max Hitpoints as long as you are attuned to it
2. you have to sacrifice something to the Item in regular Intervals (a small animal corpse, blood, a happy thought, Gold Coins etc.)
3. you loose the Ability to do something mundane (light fire, drink from a cup, tie your shoes, etc.)
4. You cannot use Items in a certain Body part (this effectively takes up two slots) (so you could not wear shoes or rings etc.)
5. This Item counts as two for the purpose of Attunement
6. You have to douse it in a certain liquid once a week or it looses its magic (oil, Water, Wine)
7. You have to fullfill a certain side quest in regular intervals (learn more information about a certain topic, find someone or something, eliminate a certain foe)
8. you gain an annoying but harmless companion that is immortal as long as you are attuned
9. You drastically change your apperance (new color, Clothes or Aura)
10. It has to absorb a magic Item in regular intervals.
I'm reminded of a list of minor curses for Pathfinder magic items. I think a few of these are even on said list. Most of them are all about "this magic item only functions if..." with weird things like some of the above, as well as some like... Being a specific race, having a specific name, and swearing fealty to a specific person. Those are some of my favourites just because it also tells a story -- it tells you *why* the person applying the curse would have.
This is one of those spaces where I have to give Matt Mercer credit. I have several specific grievances against his DMing style, but his choices of cursed items have been excellent. A cursed dagger that lets you spend hit dice to do extra damage, but you also have to spend one to heal, and if you ever run out you die? That's a phenomenal item - definitely a curse, but it can be played around and lived with. And at this point everyone looks forward to Travis getting his hands on a cursed sentient blade, because it's going to be a lot of fun mechanically, in RP, and an awesome sword to justify the curse.
I think, crucially, they have to be better than a standard magic item. That berserker's +1 sword of kill-anything-that-harms-you is a pretty neat one as a usually-minor downside, but it only works as a cursed item if the players are too low-level/if the world doesn't have much in the way of enchantment, because by level 8 or so as the DM you more or less have to let your martial characters get +1 weapons by default, or else they won't be able to do any damage to all the enemies that start getting resistance to non-magical weapons. If you're making the fighter choose between a +1 sword with a serious downside, or doing tickle damage to bosses that hit for 30+ damage, while the wizard is back there choosing between Cone of Cold and Cloudkill, that fighter's player isn't going to have as much fun.
In my current campaign, XP is earned by absorbing souls from cursed creatures (to sum it up roughly).
So if the party finds a cursed item (like they did in the latest session as of this post's writing), if the cons are too much for them or if they want to get rid of it after equipping it carelessly... They can absorb it for XP!
They seem to love the idea, it makes even a very shady item that might be too dangerous for them to want at least some XP while still having the option of using them if they consider the drawback acceptable for the sheer power of the item itself. More importantly, they can get rid of the item anytime by just absorbing it if and destroying it for XP.
To make curses not too hard to figure out too, I make magic items identified by default, and only curses are hidden. However, the "Identify" spell is therefore used to detect curses on items. It removes the "Identify" spam from the game while making it worthwhile if an item looks suspicious to them :D
"Remove Curse" is then only used in that situation if they want to remove but keep a cursed item without destroying it for XP.
It's a very simple rule, but it made cursed item so much less of a problem and more of a tool for the campaign.
I really love the use of Cursed items being powerful, but with a drawback. Pretty much every Rougelike game ever does it and it adds for a really interesting give and take. One Cursed item I thought up is a Flametounge that has an additional aura of flame that damages enemies who are next to you, but the sword will deal fire damage to you every turn, ignoring your resistances whenever it's out. So you have a powerful sword, but take damage every turn that it's out.
Another way you could do it is the way Hades does where you intentionally sabotage yourself for a bit, and then get the bonus later on.
I gave the mage a wand of "lightning" but everytime she used it, it poured foth a stream of flowers 🌺
Did the flowers deal damage?
And if so was it piercing (the thorns), bludgeoning (the weight), or actually a wall of thorns spell?
@@jasonreed7522 they were fragrant it possible a few goblins might have had allergic reactions
In one of our games, there was a cursed item that allowed a player to see into the future, but also the past and present and he doesn’t really know when he is half the time. We have dubbed it “timentia”, and tho it sometimes involves history checks, the player will also just randomly start acting like the party is doing something they did 10 sessions ago. At this point, the party is in no rush to cure him (one of the bosses i intended them to fight has the cure), and just treat him either like a senile old man, or play along and pretend they ARE prepping to go across the dessert, yep, that’s why they need this boat😂
I introduced a cursed item that gives hp to our monk (he originally had 4 hp). The party found a ring on a necromancer that they beat they then gave to the squishy monk, the curse is simple to circumvent if he remembers to take it off before resting, if he doesn’t remove before sleeping the ring will give him a point of exhaustion.
That is COOL!
As long as the player doesn't have ADHD, bc I would never remember (*chemically*) and get so fed up with it
D&D used to assume that there were always higher level spellcaster NPCs available. Wizard PCs had to bargain for spells and were taught by their master, clerics had churches with varying degrees of higher level clerics, and *any* druid was a minimum 10th level caster. AD&D followed a similar pattern (except druids could start at 1st level), with the addition of requiring training from a higher level character of the same class to reach the next level after having gained enough XP. That means there should be at minimum one 20th level wizard and cleric in the world. All that to say "you can remove the curse for gold or a quest at the next town"
I like "blursed" items. Or items that have a tradeoff but are "cursed" because they require a spell to remove them.
An example, Amulet of Temperance, on any D20 roll you gain advantage when you roll 5 or less, or disadvantage when you roll 15 or more.
There was a TV show when I was a kid called Friday the 13th (not THAT Friday), dealing with a cursed curiosity shop that needed to return the sold artifacts in order to break the curse. Each cursed item had a "blessing" in order to justify whatever act they needed to perform in order to charge the blessing aspect. One episode dealt with a glove a faith healer used to cure any ailment imaginable.... but the wound was stored in the glove, and had to be inflicted on someone else in order for the wearer to avoid suffering the ailment themselves. Another was Jack the Ripper's scalpel. Great source for cursed item ideas, not to mention a great show to begin with!
My favorite cursed item is a sword I stole and reworked from Baldur's Gate, the first one. The Vampire's Revenge is a simple weapon, a +1 longsword (or in my campaign, rapier) that gives you resistance to Necrotic damage. The curse is, on a hit, you heal the target for the amount your rolled, *you* take that amount of Necrotic damage (that can't be reduced), and in the vein of most curses you have disadvantage with any other weapon while attuned.
The Fighter was later shocked to find that the Troll he was fighting was unharmed by his attacks and taking damage at the same time, and so he ended up drowning it in the swamp with a bunch of amazing Athletics rolls that the Troll never beat without Athletics proficiency. After the fight, the party was wondering what the heck was going on, rolling Nature checks and Arcana checks to figure out what was so special about the troll, to which I kept responding "it's an ordinary troll." Eventually they figured it out, the Cleric had to wait until a Long Rest to get it taken off, and he kept using it as an otherwise normal +1 weapon with no resistance until very recently.
The funny thing is, it's basically infinite Cure Wounds that can crit, but it's an actual trade-off by having to choose that alongside disadvantage on attacking normally and losing your own HP with each heal.
The trick with curses is to attach them to several useful powers so that not only do the players not immediately want to get rid of them, but that they try to find a way to mitigate it. Remove Curse exists to let you drop an item (which is boring), but quests to get rid of curses not only match stories, but make for better new stories. As such, ALL permanent magical items in my games have drawbacks, some of which might be seen as curses. This might be best addressed during the session 0.
Thank you for your videos.
I'm the DM for our game, and our party barbarian picked up and attuned to a cursed greatsword which was originally owned by an undead goblin knight the party had to fight in the underdark.
The sword was known to be magical, because it was doing a bunch of extra necrotic damage when the undead knight was using it. But I also made sure that the players knew this thing looked creepy af and had an unsettling aura to it.
The barbarian attuned to it anyway and is now cursed with Sunlight Sensitivity. It's not causing them any issues right now, in the underdark, but might be a problem when they get back to the surface. At least for now there's all that sweet bonus necrotic damage...
Delightful! Always a fan of more cursed items in a game and this is a great way of working them in without also punishing the party too badly!
I've been doing this for a pretty long time, but it was nice hearing this take. My favorite technique for making cursed items has always been less to force a player into something, and more something where they make choices. You might have access to a powerful ability but it comes with a terrible cost, or the mechanically similar but thematic opposite: a terrible compulsion or urge you sate in exchange for some in-game boon. Your character might have an amulet in the form of a choker that gives them enhanced healing and regeneration but it requires you drink the blood of a living, sentient person to gain it turning you into some claret-starved vampire wannabe. Do you only take what you need from your consenting friend with HP to spare, or do you give in to your cannibalistic urges and start killing and draining those bandits you were fighting in order to top off and get some temporary HP to boot? Maybe all those sightings of ghoulish monsters in the woods at night everywhere you've been are completely unrelated, after all!
My favorite cursed item is a Longbow of Blasting. On a Nat 20, a 3rd level fireball spell goes off centered on the archer's target (so melee allies who are in the way). On a Nat 1, the fireball goes of centered on the archer instead.
I actually got rid of a cursed item by finding a loophole in the dm's description of said cursed item. It was a ring with a chain devil bound to it given to my character for backstory reasons. Once put on the ring cannot be removed and I had to make wisdom saves to avoid the devil taking control. So rather than removing the ring I took the easy solution and sacrificed a finger instead. Definitely caught the dm by surprise as he didn't expect my character to hack off their finger and have the thing incinerated in holy fire at a temple.
Ha take that DM! That's awesome
@@yugoprowers The thing is devils have regenerative abilities so the finger had grown into a hand and tried to claw my face off as I was dragging it into the temple.
Nearly clawed its way out of my bag but failed it’s roll.
The ironic thing is chain devils are the primary torturers of the 9 hells and what my bard did to it was far worse.
First off I have to say that I love your makeup. The yellow eye shadow looks amazing on you.
This was beautifully explained! This is also a significant portion of all story writing. I bet your quests are amazing.
I found the commercial compelling, too! That's a rare accomplishment.
A bit unrelated to the content, but I love your makeup! I never thought of using yellow eyeshadow myself, but it really fits your top perfectly and the red accent blends really great with your lipstick!
😊
One of my worst experiences in D&D is when my DM "cursed" my Warlock without attuning to a cursed item. He said that an evil deity tainted the connection I had with my celestial patron. As a result, my spell slots were one level lower than they should have been and any damage (or healing) I did with a spell was one die lower (a d4 instead of a d6 for example). This lasted for MONTHS until the DM just hand waved it away. There was no known (to us) way of ending it. It was awful. I was very close to just rolling a new character.
I love when a video gives you a blast of inspo for a game/one-shot. Thanks Ginny! One cursed hamlet is about to be imperiled.
The magic phrase is "consequential choice"! Aslong as your players have a choice that matters, AND those options roughly equally good, equally risky, or equally interesting, you're doing it right.
Just wrapped up a cursed item b-plot in my OSE game. I run cursed items in a few different brackets, but they all follow a through-line; using the item grants more and more power, with a ever-looming threat of inevitable narrative consequence.
In the above example, the cursed item was the Bone Karambit of the vampire Yuan-ti Queen, bathed in the blood of thousands of sacrifices. Every attack with the blade granted more and more temporary HP and attack/damage bonuses, but granted visions of past sacrifices that required saving throws to resist.
Greed and character development in this case led to the inevitable; the player pushed their luck too far, and was transformed into a hideous beast that the party had to put down. The important bit was this: the player and I had clear discussion both through in game descriptions of the consequences, and out- of game base-touching that this WOULD happen eventually if they kept pushing it. Despite knowing the consquences, the player chose this path, feeling the combat bonuses were necessary in the late- stages of their quest, and narratively fit their characters lack of judgement and impulsive, greedy nature.
Cursed items as gotchas are, at best, a tool in old-school gaming to diagetically reign-in greedy playstyles (a method better served by session 0's and out of game discussion) or a warning (made clear narratively beforehand) to the players to not mess with their owner. At worst, they are relics of early D&D game design, or novice GMing that remove player fun and engagement. You are not your players enemy, regardless of edition. Threats and consequences are much better manifest in other ways.
The world would be a better place if companies would make their ADs as fun and unique and entertaining as the ADs from Ginny Di.
100% she's the best! 🌙
I stumbled upon this video through YTs recommendations, and it's basically irrelevant to me. But, I gotta say, I can tell you put a large amount of effort, care, and thought into the video. Keep being awesome!