what's the most effed up magic item from one of your campaigns?

[Xelah]

title says it all.

[Cuenta]

I put in a partially cursed Vorpal battleaxe once. It cuts the foe's head off as usual on a 20 (with confirmation), but a 1 cuts the users head off (with confirmation) as well.

[Boomerang Nebula]

I ran the original 1st edition Tomb of Horrors back in the late 80s, everything in that dungeon is pretty effed up.

[BLloyd607502]

A Dragonmech campaign I was in had a LG Gun that was possessed by the soul of a Paladin who had utterly failed to save his homeland when the Moon came down.
It basically floated around on the winds of fate, having started as a sword, that had been reforged into a musket and then reforged again into a pistol.

My LE character ended up carrying it after buying it from a desperately nervous merchant. It was polite, it was charming, it was convinced she could be better than the amoral bountyhunter she was at the start of the game.

And if she couldn't be better it fully intended to force an ego roll, jam itself into her mouth and pull the trigger. Straight up fire and brimstone Paladin who didn't take any prisoners and believed in hard justice, was happy to manipulate and bluff people into doing good deeds and basically worked with the forces of the divine to play events around the team to the benefit of all. In the end my character spent half the time keeping it in a lead lined holster (Upgraded later to a lead lined box in a bag of holding) to stop it reading her mind and intentions.
At least until she needed its power to kill.

It was like carrying the LG version of Stormbringer, constantly manipulating and playing a game greater than the character could ever imagine, absurdly dangerous to its user and powerful enough that sometimes you didn't have a choice but to call on it.
God it was a fun item.

[Scott Wilhelm]

I ran the Tomb of Horrors once, and I substituted the Demi Lich Aceriack for (my made up rules for) the Demi Lich of Vecna.

It was the Head of Vecna!!!!!

[Boomerang Nebula]

@ Scott,

Nice one!

With the exception of Tomb of Horrors the worst one I can think of was a pool of soul transferring. One of the PCs touched it and their soul was sucked out and replaced with a demon. The rest of us were none the wiser and he started killing us all one by one. He was sneaky about it so we were unaware of what was happening at first and it resulted in a TPK where my wizard was the last one killed. I figured out what was going on right at the end and dropped a fireball on the demon, but he survived and killed me with his sword.

[Legio_MCMLXXXVII]

There are two.

First, a friend of mine made the Orb of Defenestration. Picking it up resulted in a character being teleported thirty feet into the air, and dropped though a plate glass window.

The second was one I actually experienced. It was simultaneously awesome and terrifying. Another friend gave us a ring in loot. I identified it as a custom magic item which granted one extra spell per level per day. Note that this is not spell per level you could cast, but in fact granted you a 9th level spell slot as soon as you put the ring on. I failed to catch that it had a curse attached to it, where it basically had reverse fast healing, and shut off when your character got to 1hp. Did I mention that you couldn't take it off? Because that was also a thing. That was a bad day.

[Mark Carlson 255]

Decks of many things have often derailed many a campaign that I have played in.
MDC

[Ten'shun the Tengu]

This is fun.

My friend loves running homebrew campaigns with very little planning ahead.

One of the party (a cleric I believe, I think a gnome) picked up a shiny rapier from an enemy early on, like session 2.

This is what I can remember of the swords abilities/description.

Cast gust of wind/whirlwind once per day. Cast Quickened Dimension door 3 times per day. Greater Teleport 3 times per day.

Oh and it also was the only weapon capable of killing slenderman, and he automatically knows the location of its wielder and is actively hunting for him/her/it.

[Goddity]

The demonic muffin. Upon consumption, it reversed the consumers personal gravity for 1d3+1 hours. The GM intended for someone to eat it in a field. I correctly identified it by licking it, and consumed small amounts for small antigravity times for the rest of the campaign.

[Rub-Eta]

My DM had an NPC (who was supposedly my Wizard's colleague at the Wizard's Guild) give me a Cannibal Ring (of course I didn't know what it was, also the only item I've ever failed to identify). I had my finger cut off when the urge to eat my party members started to arise. Later I had the finger enchanted with Gentle Repose, so now I have my finger with a cursed ring on in my pocket.

[rando1000]

Deck of many things 1st edition, AKA Viet's wonderous screw-all. One PC drew Donjon, imprisoning himself extra-dimensionally. One PC drew queen of spades died immediately trying to save him. Another died trying to defeat Death. Final PC gave the F*** up. Campaign = over.

[Scythia]

A transmutation device. It consisted of an archway and a pedestal. The pedestal had indentations for special crystals that contained the essence of a type of creature, such as slime, undead, angel, demon/devil, elemental, genie, construct, dragon, or aberration. When one crystal was inserted and a creature passed through the arch the creature was hybridized with a creature of that type, gaining the stats, abilities, and traits of the creature.

If more than one crystal was inserted there was a chance of dual hybridization (75% at two crystals), or spontaneous death by cellular disruption (25% at two). The chance of disruption increased by number of crystals. If all crystals were inserted, the chance of success was only 5%, but success would fully transform the creature into a semi formless proto being that is immortal and has amazing inherent magical powers.

The device was created by such beings, who gave rise to all life on the world by fragmenting their own essences.

[Devilkiller]

Oddly enough I’d say that several of the more troublesome items I’ve come across are all in one current campaign.

- Demon Skull: gave the Barbarian +10 Stealth and some other powers, but also made him fight babau demons in a nightmare to maintain control

- Daemon Skull: My Viking wore this as a helmet for a while. It disguised itself as a horned helm, but it also tempted him with Evil powers like the ability to use Fear once per day or exhale a swarm of flies to devour enemies. He only ever used the fly power once, but Fear synergized too well with his Terrifying Howl for him to ignore it completely. The “helm” also began forcing him to make Will saves to avoid killing NPCs who annoyed him or even turning on the party when they ended up fighting daemons. Luckily he was finally able to remove it recently.

- Magic Rod: That same party’s Bard is currently carrying a magic rod which transforms into any type of melee weapon the user desires. At first it seemed pretty cool since it is highly enchanted, holy, disruptive, and bane against undead and evil outsiders. Lately it hasn’t been quite as beneficial though since the item has been forcing her to make Will saves to avoid spending mythic power to destroy undead foes faster (surging to turn misses into hits, spending a point on Amazing Initiative to get into melee range or make an extra attack, etc). We’re on a quest to return the rod to the tomb of its rightful owner (some ancient servant of a Pharaoh), and by this point the Bard can hardly wait to be rid of it.

The Deck of Many Things is pretty infamous, but I’ve got kind of a “teaser” method to get folks hooked on it. A fortune teller with a name like “Madame Fortuna” shows up in town (usually at a festival or circus). She offers a PC the chance to draw 3 cards from her Deck. If the PC accepts only the “best” result applies, as picked by the PC. Later on in the campaign the fortune teller can show up again to offer more draws, but at that point the “best result only” rule won’t be in place. The fortune teller or other wagons in her caravan can offer similar games with lower stakes, and there’s usually a guy named Sergei who sells discounted magic jewelry which may or may not be cursed.

[Mark Carlson 255]

An item that does not seem so bad actually wrecked a campaign back in D&D 1. I do not remember if it was a wondrous item, scroll, ring, etc but it had 1 use of reincarnation.
Great right. A get out of jail free card when things go bad or the GM just keeps rolling 20's all night long.
Well the highly height challenged gnome illusionist lost his life and thus the device was use. He was reincarnated into an Oger Magi. After a lot of laughter, some cool's it sunk in he was a lot more powerful than the rest of the party. Then the other big fact. We were in a mostly town adventure with a lot of social interaction and the locals were going to have nothing to do with the Oger Magi and anyone seen or known talking to one.

MDC

[Sah]

I have never heard of this item before, but my dm often makes custom items. We found it in a room full of lot for kingmaker (kingdom building stuff primarily, building materials and a minting machine) but it's an amulet.

When worn it amplifies abilities. For instance our mage cast light to test it out. Suddenly every object in the room had the spell on it.

Another person has aspect of the Falcon as an sla, and when they cast it, they turned into a falcon and couldn't get out of it into we went to our local magic shop where we know a very high level mage operates. The magic shop was days away.

Said mage used his detect magic glasses and they broke. He then used his identifying glasses while holding it and the glasses upgraded. You can use them to look at anything and get info, even class levels and feats, confusing our characters as they don't know about these in character.

He warned my barbarian against trying to use it for my rage.

[BLloyd607502]

Oh, much more recently than the evil sword?

The screaming, bloody skull of Malyas, Dark Lord of Kronquist torn from his living flesh by our local white necromancer and turned into a semi-living Pharasman variant on the Dark Skull (Hallow rather than Desecrate with Anti-undead powers), which acts as host to his chained soul, trapped for all eternity until Pharasma herself cares to come collect him.

Needless to say, the Vampire isn't particularly happy about the situation, but he deserves every inch of it all things considered.

[SmiloDan]

In the days of 2nd Edition, I was DMing, and had the PCs come across a fountain of liquid adamantium. It gave various metal-based powers. One guy got armored skin, one guy got shiny metal eyes, one got liquid metal arms and legs, I think there was a magic mirror power, etc. Some were crazy over powerful, and some were just situational.

EDIT:

Oh yeah, in 3.0, at 4th level, we got railroaded into fighting an Ice Balor (a CR 20 demon PLUS whatever makes it ICE), and my Barbarian 2/Fighter 2 (wannabe Frenzied Berserker) waited until the Ice Balor used its AoO, then disarmed it! The DMPCs (DM in this case stands for Deus Ex Machina!) then killed the balor, the balor exploded and killed us all, and then the DMPCs True Rezzed us. Total DM self-aggrandizing railroad. But I got to keep the sword. Later on, I used a Ring of Jumping to run jump on top of Daern's Instanst Fortress, sunder it open in one hit of that Ice Balor's Sword, and jumped down into it to attack its defenders.

[Jack of Dust]

The most effed up item in our campaign is a Scroll of Transfer Pregnancy. Mostly because the only restriction is that the targets need to be Humanoid, Fey or Monstrous Humanoids. Minotaurs should not be giving birth to Gremlins!

A close second is the sentient Rod of Wonder "Willy the Wonder" that uses multiple result tables. We killed an Adult Black Dragon and his minions by filling the room with marshmallows...

[SmiloDan]

At a local con, one of my friends played an intelligent Holy Avenger. He got in a tiff with the not-quite-a-paladin apprentice, so my "apprentice wizard" (apprentice bard) used Pick Pockets to swipe it and hit a dryad's tree with it. I had a ring of prestidigitation and used it to "cast dispel magic" and "oh, darn, I failed the dispel check." A lot.

[Sah]

Another item my dm made that I don't know if it's effed up yet. It scares me so I haven't tried using it yet. It is a crown made of bones

What I know for sure is that it keeps undead of 6 HD or lower from attacking me. It also allows for control of large numbers of undead (can't remember exact number right now).

What worries me the most about it, is that it is rumored to have been created by The Whispering Tyrant.