Next session is going to be the last at my parents place. I am going to move, finally! Everything should be new and shiny at our new table! So does the gaming food. I have announced a small competition among the players to bring their favorite gaming food to the table and decide afterwards which one is going to be the "official" snack on our new gaming table. I want to reward the winner with a small in-game magic item. Best suited would be a relatively cheap culinary wondrous magic item. But I have no idea which one!!! Any suggestions? (It doesn't NEED to be a wondrous item)
Thank you very much in advance! :)
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I think a Myrlund's Spoon is the obvious choice here, but if you want to be creative you could create a tankard of endless ale that does more or less the same thing but with beer.
Combining Myrlund's Spoon with Spice Jar (Magic of Faerun) is kind of a fun combination. Basically you get great tasting gruel.
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Everlasting Rations.
Everful mug.
Either one would do but make the rations create good hot meals of the PCs choosing and have the mug make good wine, good ale or lightly flavoured water.
I would award both as a set to the winner.
Have all the players vote for their favorite snack (besides their own!) and then you don't even need to make a decision! Win-win!
FH
I always liked the Egg of Reason;
it is a magical boiled egg that is very fancy like an Easter Egg; you eat it; if you survive you get +2 in and +2 wisdom; you could make it any way you want; +1; +2 to one or more stats setting the save dc as applicable to the power level of bonus gained say something like 15+1 per bonus so an egg that gives +2 to 3 stats would have a dc 21; failed save; your dead and your body is poisoned. The poison is magical and requires a cure poison and a heal roll equal to the dc of the poison before the person can be raised.
When I give one out as a gift; I make it very clear that it has a save vs poison; win; gain int, wis or char or some combination; loose; your dead; sometimes characters carry these around pondering eating them for quite a while; the discussions can be fun.
I also like Fey Food with limited durations; ie green beans turn you green; carmelized muscles make you a bit stronger; Jerky gives a big negative to charisma and diplomacy and the like; prunes gives you extreme irregularity; just make up a whole lot of good and bad stuff as mortals are supposed to have all kinds of interesting things happen when they eat fairy food; all the myths and legends tell you not too; some should be good; some nuetral; some bad. Mushrooms; makes you a mindless vegetable; immune to domination and mind control and mind reading; you sprout spores that give interesting effects whenever you are hit, touched; ect.
Culinary items! Hooray! :D
Cauldron of Plenty! Stir it one way, you get soup, stir it the other way, you get dessert! :D Different spoons give different results.
Everfull Provisions Pouch Get your daily rations out of this small pouch.
Soup Stone Add to a pot of water and get a tasty soup.
Chillstones Keep your wine nice and chilly for the party.
Warming Blanket Keep hot dishes warm, or snuggle with it at night.
Those are just some off the top of my head.
Decanter of Endless Water? or was that done away with after 2e?
As ever,
ACE
Decanter of Endless Foie Gras?
I'll see that, and raise you a platter of piscine plentitude!
Director of Sales
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Decanter of Endless Foie Gras?I'll see that, and raise you a platter of piscine plentitude!
How about a Tureen of Everpresent Dashi?
You know, I believe an old issue of Dragon magazine had a list of interesting but not terribly powerful magic items. I think there was a glass rod that you swirl in liquid to make it cold, a pair of frying pans--one with an "S" on the handle that would spice anything cooked in it and one with an "H" that would heat and cook whatever you put in it (without need for a fire). I think an older issue of Dungeon had a cauldron that would heat up and boil water on command.
And I'm pretty sure the ol' Encyclopedia Magica had an "Everfull Saltshaker."
Great response! Thanks a lot everyone!:)
Do you think it would be game-breaking unbalanced if I would reward a 1st level character with... say Myrlund's Spoon or a ring of sustenance? These items are really expensive for a rookie.
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Great response! Thanks a lot everyone!:)
Do you think it would be game-breaking unbalanced if I would reward a 1st level character with... say Myrlund's Spoon or a ring of sustenance? These items are really expensive for a rookie.
I don't think so.
Starvation has never come up in any game I've ever played in or DMed. Having too much food, or always having food to eat, isn't likely to affect game balance.
Only if you have some campaign where this is a real factor and concern would it make any difference. For example, if you were playing in a desert campaign, a ring of sustenance would be pretty valuable since it removes that character's concerns of having to find water. Other than a specific setting like this, I don't see a problem with it.
Yup, the ring might be, but the spoon is cool. I just have to convert Myrlund to Golarion. Perhaps Torag. On the other hand it isn't as funny as most of the suggestions of our community.
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I think the ring might, since it negates some of the need for sleep as well as food.
Right, that character would *always* be on watch duty at night, since they only need 2 hours of sleep. It would make them able to travel farther, longer, etc.
So it could have an unbalancing effect, just depends. This unbalancing effect quickly evaporates in a few levels after 1st though.
If you were going to introduce an item like Murlynd's spoon or a ring of sustenance to a new character, I would totally not tell them what it does. A family heirloom, a going-away present from adventurer parents, something like that. Slowly reveal the niftiness. :)
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If you were going to introduce an item like Murlynd's spoon or a ring of sustenance to a new character, I would totally not tell them what it does. A family heirloom, a going-away present from adventurer parents, something like that. Slowly reveal the niftiness. :)
Or you can always call it a limited ring of sustenance and have it only give the food-benefit and not the sleep-benefit.
The second edition super adventure Night Below had a small statue of a pig that when activated once a day created a roast pig dinner complete with garnishments. I always thought that was a really cool item.
The second edition super adventure Night Below had a small statue of a pig that when activated once a day created a roast pig dinner complete with garnishments. I always thought that was a really cool item.
These boards are always full of goodness! But I think it is going to be decision between the the spoon to feed them all and the ring to bind the stomach of just one! They are a bit more tangible to me and I wanted my prologue 100% SRD. :(
Your are right Lilith, I definitely won't reveal what the prize is and of course not what it does!
you could always give them some magic seeds too; since the number of seeds is limited; you plant a seed and in a few minutes you get some food; taste may depend upon herbalism roll or something; could have steak seeds; mixed vegatable seeds; candy seeds; hehe many given my some crazy uncle who once got the seeds all mixed up; he retired and passed on a small pouch of seeds; says plant; water; wait a few; to much water might make it mushy, too little a bit dry; mixing seeds for soup is usually a safe bet; you could have all kinds of fun with this sort of thing if your players are the type to go for it.
This kind of low level mundane magic can add some mystical life to your world without really affecting balance. Plant a seed; add water; get swiss steak in tomato sauce on rice with candy apple pudding or maybe liver and onions with succotash and cherry fritter; hehe. Your players would have to wait while it grows ready with plate or bowl so when it is done it doesnt just drop onto the ground hehe.
You know, I believe an old issue of Dragon magazine had a list of interesting but not terribly powerful magic items."Non-Violent Magic Items" from May 1983 ... one of my favorite articles. Players love things like magic frying pans, lamps that require no oil or automatically light when you enter the room, non-melting ice cubes and so forth.
Rez
That was it! Wow, I've been reading these magazines for a looong time...
And I agree, it's fun to have magic items that do cool things but don't really make the characters any more powerful.
How about a magically animated, automated cheese slicer?
I'd like a no-fail dough riser. That would be awesome.
How about a meat cleaver which allowed the wielder to see lines on the meat which would yield perfectly portioned cuts. Or, on the same idea, a cleaver which would, when thrown, guide its flight through the animal to have results much like the above answer.
And the winner was: Pick Up! A chocolate bar between two cookies.
http://www.worldofsweets.de/shop/schokoriegel/artikel/bahlsen-pickup/
Personally it wasn't the best snack on the table and indeed the decision was very close: 3 votes for Pick Up and 2 votes for pretzel pieces honey mustard flavored (can't remember the exact name).
The winner was rewarded with a Sustenance Spoon (as it is called in SRD) for two reasons: I wanted my short prologue to RotRAP be 100% SRD and not invest to much time in building stats for anything and I don't want to make rations a topic in my campaign. Even if the need arises, I could still take the spoon away from the character.
The winner runs a dwarven ranger and couldn't make it to the second session so I had to make up something why he isn't around. The PCs discovered a poison kitchen in a ruined caravansery. Next to boiling poisons there was a simple spoon. Bregaron (the dwarven ranger) picked it up and was paralyzed by a contanct poison taking 14 damage to dexterity (I cheated a bit on that one)!
So far the PCs just stumbeled into Sandpoint, the somewhat stiff ranger (dex 1) still clutching the spoon.
It was all realy fun and lots of snacks around, on and under the table!
Thanks to anyone participating in the discussion and especially to Fatespinner for his suggestion! Sometimes it is simpy the first thing that comes to mind.
Thanks!!!