As the thread title says. This could add a mostly harmless level if challenge, and create interesting dilemmas.(Find a +2 sword that deafens the wielder, for instance.)
This probably ought to be in the adventure path forums or the module forums if you are asking specifically why such items dont turn up in adventures more.
How is deafening is harmless?
If it's harmless, could you really call it cursed?
Needs more bags of devouring.
And cloaks of immolation. Those are damned hilarious.
As the thread title says. This could add a mostly harmless level if challenge, and create interesting dilemmas.(Find a +2 sword that deafens the wielder, for instance.)
This example is interesting because it could be beneficial in certain circumstances - immune to sonic attacks etc.
|
The items in
I think my players had just as much fun finding out what they did as I had tormenting them.
We're in the closing act, and one of the heroes is still .
If those are the kind of thing the OP means, I agree that a few more would be fun... but I understand that the "too many" line is really easy to cross.
Yes, but there are cursed items... and CURSED items. Having a malfunctioning cursed item makes it more interesting. I mean, a sword that stops working on the full moon (even more ironic if it has bonuses against shapeshifters!) or a device that requires a bath of holy water before it'll function help bring character to an item... and helps lessen the potency of some powerful items.
Or even lesser items. Like a Cloak of Elvenkind that only works in woodland settings. Or a +1 Shield that needs to be kept polished nice and shiny in order for it to work and cannot be covered up (ie, massive stealth penalties).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What Tangent said. I'd like to see more magic items which have drawbacks as well as benefits (not cursed items per se); it brings more character to the game and in many cases offers more roleplaying opportunities.
Well if it sounds like fun to you (and it does to me) just roll on the list of drawbacks from the cursed item section sometimes when the party finds an item or something. I think I am going to start doing that! :)
Creative Director
|
Another reason we tend to not do this too much is that including magic items with minor drawbacks tends to increase word count by a few lines of text each time we do so. This is the same reason we often don't give magic weapons names or histories. It's a nice bit of extra flavor, but we prefer to save that information for special cases.
In the meantime, the tables on pages 536–538 are exactly what anyone needs for adding random side effects and the like to magic items. Since these kind of things are NOT universally enjoyed by all groups... leaving it to GMs to add these elements as they wish is really the best way to go, in my opinion, for the bulk of magic items.