I need a good red herring for my characters. Something that will drive them batty, but not prove a great distraction -- just something that will gnaw at them.
Here's the situation: they're about to come up against a lich. He's got some minor magic items (I don't want to weigh the party members down, after all). I want him to have in his possession an amulet fashioned with a glowing black pearl.
Here's what I want: I want the amulet to show as magical, but to remain unidentifiable to Identify spells and Spellcraft checks. Again, I don't want to drive them to distraction, but just give them something that they carry along with them to puzzle them every time they look at their character sheets.
Maybe even some similar effect masking another, possibly sinister, effect? This isn't as important to me as the above, "practical joke" effect.
I thought about using Misdirection, made Permanent, but I'm not sure it has the right "feel" to it.
Any help would be appreciated....
- Make them get older one year every hour and later ten hours get younger backwards every hour.
- Every time they use soap they itch. To the point they don't want wash themselves anymore. -2 to all wisdom and constitution based checks after they use soap. After one week without a shower -2 to diplomacy and gather information checks.
Or make Shrink Person permanent. Hi, hi, hi
- Make them get older one year every hour and later ten hours get younger backwards every hour.
- Every time they use soap they itch. To the point they don't want wash themselves anymore. -2 to all wisdom and constitution based checks after they use soap. After one week without a shower -2 to diplomacy and gather information checks.
Or make Shrink Person permanent. Hi, hi, hi
I like those.... but I'm really looking for something that is simply unidentifiable, and does absolutely nothing.
Three words, right out of the PHB: Nystul's magic aura.
Three words, right out of the PHB: Nystul's magic aura.
Ah.... perfect. Now.... Is there any way to fool Identify?
misdirection spell, second level.
I don't in any way mean to sound like a smartalec here:
You are the DM.
If you don't want the item to be identifiable, then /it isn't identifiable/. Period. End of story.
The characters /do not need to know how it was done/.
Afterall- the item itself doesn't actually do anything except sit there and not be identified.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to explain the how and whatsit of everything the PC's come into contact with. Some things the PC's just never, ever know. And that's just fine.
No one knows everything :)
-S
I don't in any way mean to sound like a smartalec here:
You are the DM.
If you don't want the item to be identifiable, then /it isn't identifiable/. Period. End of story.
The characters /do not need to know how it was done/.
Afterall- the item itself doesn't actually do anything except sit there and not be identified.Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to explain the how and whatsit of everything the PC's come into contact with. Some things the PC's just never, ever know. And that's just fine.
No one knows everything :)
-S
DM Fiat yes. However you MUST be careful with this.
After all the player invests his creation and levels into having things he things will be useful. If you were to suddenly DM Fiat that he can't do something he has specifically spent his points on you have denied him a key feature of his character. It would be akin to saying the fighter simply doesn't hit even though he rolled ten points over the AC of the monster on a critical hit when the creature was flat footed and had no form of miss chance.
Once the Players realize the DM isn't playing by the rules, they stop doing so too. At that point you've lost the game. It's the only way a DM can lose, and the only way it can happen is if the DM does it because he decides his fun or story is more important than giving the players a honest chance at what they should be good at.
You want a magic item that's just magic, but doesn't DO anything? Why would the lich have that? Why would the PLAYERS find it entertaining? They might spend a lot of resources trying to figure it out, and if it doesn't do anything, just think you were jerking them around. You want to be careful, because an item like this can really test the trust players have for their DMs. It's not even cursed. It's just a (Real World) time waster.
@Abraham: Agreed. These players are actually quite cunning and imaginative and I'm sure will eventually find a way to identify this item. That's why it needs to work within the game mechanics.
@SmiloDan: If you knew my players, you'd understand. Each of us that DMs likes our practical jokes, and the players eat them up. We're odd like that.
To answer your question: the lich has it for the same reason my players will keep it around--to figure out just what the heck this thing does. He could have been trying for years to identify the magic contained within, without success. He's got all the time in the world, after all, plus, it's better than sitting around playing Sudoku for millenia. Trust me, it works within the setting and the actual group. And these guys have wasted fortunes on much less. Honestly.
Plus, I'm not going to allow much in-game effort at identifying; we don't get together but 2x per month, so a lot of our gaming experience is off-table/PBEM.
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What if you made it a cursed item? Like, the item itself demanded attention? An hour each day or something? Or perhaps it's an image of someone that demands to be remembered
Perhaps it's a locket or something, containing an image of a long-dead aristocrat or something who just longed to be adored.
An excuse for this lich's pursuit into immortality as well. "must...have...more...time....to....find....out...who...this...woman...is!"
You could have his lair adorned with supplementary useless items as a result of this obsession. Countless books of genealogy, heraldry. A box of miscellaneous signet rings. An overflowing desk covered in brittle letters; forgotten and banal aristocratic correspondence threatening to turn to dust.
What if you made it a cursed item? Like, the item itself demanded attention? An hour each day or something? Or perhaps it's an image of someone that demands to be remembered
Perhaps it's a locket or something, containing an image of a long-dead aristocrat or something who just longed to be adored.
An excuse for this lich's pursuit into immortality as well. "must...have...more...time....to....find....out...who...this...woman...is!"
You could have his lair adorned with supplementary useless items as a result of this obsession. Countless books of genealogy, heraldry. A box of miscellaneous signet rings. An overflowing desk covered in brittle letters; forgotten and banal aristocratic correspondence threatening to turn to dust.
Nice touch!
Artifacts are typically resistant to being identified and all sorts of other divinations... but they need not all be powerful. Perhaps this little pendant was once a favored piece of jewelry by some past historical figure who underwent great trauma, trials, or wielded great power and now it holds a small fraction of his essence. It just happens to be a part of his essence that is pretty much inert.
Maybe it's extremely sleepy, or perhaps a part of the essence that would be most rightly tied to his body - without the body, it has nothing to do but sit there. Hell, maybe it's destined to play some great role hundreds if not thousands of years in the PCs' future. Just nothing now...
@xdahnx -- I agree with Abraham. Very nice idea.
@ Bill -- After some perusal of the DMG and the Epic Level Handbook, I'm leaning towards your idea. A mixture of yours and xdahnx's ideas may just be the thing.
I'm open to any other ideas, though. Our game's been postponed several weeks, so I have time before the item is introduced. Thanks to all those who've already given input.