In our home game, our party recently came across the ruins of a gnomish city. When we entered one of the abandoned homes, we discovered an oven that would magically create a warm meal. Upon finishing his meal, the PC discovered that he really wanted to stay there and not leave unless he absolutely had to (such as if another PC were in danger outside). In the way of curses, it’s not the worst I’ve seen but it got me wondering what other players opinions and experiences were?
TL;DR: Have you run into cursed items? How did you deal with them?
Never since I started playing 3.0... I did have some run ins during my AD&D days... particulary belts of sex change and helms of opposite alignment, though maybe I also met rings of contrariness, berserking swords, backbiter spears, and a bag of devouring
Never they're not really a fun portion of the game, unless they're a specific plot point/McGuffin.
I'll use them here and there, but it'll probably be things that don't function like the regular cursed items. Having an item that zaps you when you crit but increases your crit chances, or an item that slowly saps your Cha and requires a perception check (or something) to notice that it's doing it, but gives you some kind of other buff.. that seems alright.
A Ring of Encumbrance with a nice buff on it or underwater seems nice.
I could see having a really patient Mimic Armor or something being dastardly! haha
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In general, cursed items are there as a puzzle for you to solve that isn't combat related. Either you need to find a way to get rid of it, a way to use it, a way to dispel it, or it's a Mcguffin for some future quest and you have to deal with it hampering you.
Occasionally they can be used as quest hooks (such as TES:Oblivion's Ring of Encumbrance used to drown a guy) or can be used as good items that you want the party to "earn."
That said, I find most of the cursed item options to be really lame and will probably always curse them with custom stuff.
I guess I am in the "No meaningless cursed items" camp. Sometimes finding out Why an item is cursed is the most important thing.
Never they're not really a fun portion of the game, unless they're a specific plot point/McGuffin.
This.
And to expand on that, the problem with cursed items is that they take away player agency. Got a sword? Good. You can do things with it. You might not hit all the time, but that's just luck. A cursed sword that's actually a snake that poisons you every time you try to use it? That takes away something you could do. It's crap. It's worse than not having it.
Cursed items are mostly "haha, sucks to be you" coming from a DM, unless done very, very carefully.
So again... this.
I use items with drawbacks/disads more than cursed ones. Like a sword that poisons you and the target when it hits. Or a cloak that grants a stealth bonus, but prevents speech. Nothing stopping you from putting the item down or not using it, so is it worth it to use?
Rarely, if ever.
99% of the time, it's 'oh, bummer, Remove Curse, throw away, move on'. Kind of like how most PF traps work. Open door, get speared, cast Cure, move on. YAWN.
My opinion is that there are no actual 'cursed' items. What they are is stealth weapons. They didn't happen by accident, they were crafted intentionally to be given to one's enemies to hamper them.
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I've had one item in three campaigns. Recently my players found a Belt of Dexterity +4 that was actually crafted by a korred, a mischievous hill fey. Korreds have overly long hair they can animate and "tickle" enemies with. The creature had woven his own shorn beard into this belt and the curse was that, once the wearer entered their first combat wearing it the belt would start tickling them and essentially deliver no bonus.
I thought I was all cute and flavorful. Then my players rolled to I.D. the device and I actually reviewed the rules on detecting/analyzing a cursed item. Long story boring, unless I wanted to be a total jag they rolled so high that they could not only identify the belt but the curse as well.
So my cool, flavorful item was "it's a belt of Dex +4; put it on for a fight and it tickles you. Let's get a remove curse, depower the thing and then hock the gems in the buckle for some cash."
To try and salvage it I gave my players an alternative curse removal that would leave the Dex +4 intact. If a korred or a fey more powerful than one of those creatures were willing they could remove the curse using their First World power. Of course, the party would have to do this fey patron a small favor first. Currently my party is heading into the wilderness to track down a fey they'd had dealings with in a previous adventure...
Straight up cursed items are rare in our games. Items with interesting flaws are more common. Generally the most powerful items have the most interesting flaws.
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Im fond of cursed items in my game, though 95% of the time the curses are very minor hindrances more like side effects really. Like I have a charector who discovred and is still wields a cursed longsword... If they draw it and dont actually draw blood with it daily it whines much like a dog for scraps, loud enough its a penalty to stealth checks... and it soaks up the first point of all healing spells cast on its wielder.
It also causes bleeding in opponents so its like a +/- sort of thing.
Major nasty curses? meh not too often. No one really likes terrible curses to happen to their charector
(unless its plot curse There is a nasty witch whom has been hired to get one of the charectors... there is a cursed ring sort of being planted for them to find soon enough)
I like plot based curses like the cursed village where nobody can leave.
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As a GM I like cursed loot, but not in the conventional sense. I find loot that can only be removed with remove curse to be just a holdover from the old days of gaming. Instead, my cursed loot tends to have positives and negatives that make choosing to use it a decision that the players need to make. Rather like the vicious weapon enchantment that exists in the rule book, will you take 1d6 per attack to deal 2d6? Will you take a penalty on your fort saves to gain a bonus to your will saves?
These types of decisions are fun for the players to make, especially since it allows me to hand out more powerful loot earlier into the adventure. My players tend to enjoy it when they get done yelling at me.
I recently played in a PFS scenario where an ancient curse on a location had corrupted much of the interesting loot into cursed items--which we didn't find out until my PC donned one of them and got slammed by the curse. He got better, and it made perfect sense within the logic of the scenario...but owwww.
I haven't used cursed items very much at all in over 30 years as a GM in various systems. I did once run a fantasy GURPS game in which the PCs had along-term goal of cleansing a damaged, corrupted artifact, which certainly had some curse-like side effects (nightmares afflicting anyone carrying it, fright checks if it was touched, etc.).
My current PF home game is still early enough in the campaign that I haven't decided how much I'll use cursed items, but if I can actually keep it going for all 20 levels, I'm sure the PCs will encounter a few. But they will probably be deliberately worked into the adventure rather than random gotchas. OTOH, one of the PCs plans to take as many item creation feats as she can so that she can outfit the party with useful stuff. I intend to get...creative...if she botches any of her crafting rolls!
None in PF.
I got my barbarian/fighter/wannabe frenzied berserker sex changed in 3.X. In 5th Edition, I made some custom luck items that are kind of cursed (a coin that treats 7s as 20s and 13s as 1s), and we just got a Deck of Many Things, which I consider a curse, and everyone else squealed in glee when we got it.
did anybody draw Death or the Dungeon?
I've drawn death before I was upset I really liked that character.
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I think the closest I've come in years is to have something with surprising properties due to oversights by the players. Like the high performance airship they stole to replace their old one works as advertised but requires a regular input of new power crystals, unlike the previous one.
I don't like to include cursed items just for the heck of it. That smacks of a GM who just likes to dick over their players for the lulz.
PCs will occasionally find magic items with unique drawbacks or limitations, as I think those are interesting.
I will use cursed items as plot-points, or will place them where PCs have a choice whether or not to claim them... where claiming them is the wrong choice.
An example from many years ago in a D&D 3.0 campaign: In the crypts below an abandoned castle, the PCs found the burial chambers of the former rulers of the land. One sarcophagus held the corpse of the long-dead warlord known as "Bathor the Bloodthirsty." A Knowledge (nobility or history) check would reveal that Bathor had once been a peaceful and respected baron, but ten years into his rule, he began a series of disastrous expansionist military campaigns, which ultimately brought ruin to his land and people.
The PCs made the Knowledge check, then cast detect magic. They found a strong magical aura from inside the sarcophagus. Being adventurers, they opened it up and looted Bathor's corpse. The aura came from the bejeweled blade buried with Bathor. The mage identified it as a +4 human-bane greatsword, which they then eagerly claimed for themselves.
What they found out the hard way: The greatsword was also cursed, berserking and was both highly intelligent and chaotic evil in alignment. It whispered delusions of grandeur to its owner so that the sword could slay greater and more dangerous opponents... including the wielder's friends if they got in the way.
Moral of the story: Don't loot graves.
...and we just got a Deck of Many Things, which I consider a curse, and everyone else squealed in glee when we got it.
Oh. My. God. The deck of many things.
That item has cased the end of three separate campaigns over the years.
As both a player and a GM, I absolutely HATE that thing.
The first time we found one, back in the AD&D 1e days, all of the PCs drew cards. One PC totally lucked out and got amazingly good stuff (gems, their own castle, a level bump). All of the other PCs got totally boned: One drew the Donjon (imprisonment), one drew Ruin (lose all wealth and property), one drew Death (fight a Minor Death) and died right there, and one (me) drew The Void (trap the soul, gem on another plane). The one PC still alive was the fighter, and had no magical means of resucing any of the other PCs, so we just ended that campaign.
Many years later, I was with a different group (either AD&D 2e or D&D 3.0). We found a deck of many things in an abandoned temple of the goddess of luck. Again, everyone drew. This time, I was one of the lucky ones and got some good stuff, but half the party pretty much died (or worse). Again, this totally derailed the campaign: We ran two or three more sessions where the remaining PCs (and some replacement characters) tried to resuce the others, but we lost the momentum of the campaign and decided to end it.
The third time was in D&D 3.5. This time, my PC (a paladin) was the only one who chose NOT to draw.... and he was the only one who didn't die. End of campaign.
As a GM, I will NEVER include one of these damn things in any of my games, ever.
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...and we just got a Deck of Many Things, which I consider a curse, and everyone else squealed in glee when we got it.Oh. My. God. The deck of many things.
That item has cased the end of three separate campaigns over the years.
As both a player and a GM, I absolutely HATE that thing.
The first time we found one, back in the AD&D 1e days, all of the PCs drew cards. One PC totally lucked out and got amazingly good stuff (gems, their own castle, a level bump). All of the other PCs got totally boned: One drew the Donjon (imprisonment), one drew Ruin (lose all wealth and property), one drew Death (fight a Minor Death) and died right there, and one (me) drew The Void (trap the soul, gem on another plane). The one PC still alive was the fighter, and had no magical means of resucing any of the other PCs, so we just ended that campaign.
Many years later, I was with a different group (either AD&D 2e or D&D 3.0). We found a deck of many things in an abandoned temple of the goddess of luck. Again, everyone drew. This time, I was one of the lucky ones and got some good stuff, but half the party pretty much died (or worse). Again, this totally derailed the campaign: We ran two or three more sessions where the remaining PCs (and some replacement characters) tried to resuce the others, but we lost the momentum of the campaign and decided to end it.
The third time was in D&D 3.5. This time, my PC (a paladin) was the only one who chose NOT to draw.... and he was the only one who didn't die. End of campaign.
As a GM, I will NEVER include one of these damn things in any of my games, ever.
There was a campaign where a great wyrm gold dragon allowed each of the party to take a single item from her hoard for services rendered. In the hoard was a DoMT, my character was savvy enough to know what it was and I buried it under a pile of random stuff before the Kender noticed it and never spoke of it to anyone.
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It seems that most (including myself) believe that Cursed items are better done as "Items with interesting drawbacks" and/or plot items. I think this is just an evolution of the game that the old cursed items table just doesn't do it for most people now; because drawbacks leave something usable and adds something to the game where as Cursed items that just punish you for failing a check are unexciting for both the DM and the player.
It's worth noting that in the same way that I (by the recommendation of others) use a "Click" rule for traps (so the party can react but may not know what's going on); something like that for Cursed items that would normally "feel" like traps is a reasonable approach probably as well.
Something like the Sword-is-a-snake thing: "You feel the sword begin to move without you." The player in this case may drop the item, examine it, or some other action. If the action would help them, let them avoid the damage or get a save (depending on their action.) This allows you to put some of those items in the game without it just being an HP tax and a lame event. Instead, you've given them back their agency by basically making a very tiny encounter (much like a party deciding whether to Break, Hack down, Avoid, or Lockpick a door.)
Typically only when one of the PC's royally fraks up one of the magic items they're making, otherwise it seems to be a bit too much of a "gotcha" thing to do on a regular basis.
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As the Party crafter, I have put small things into the items I make for them for my personal entertainment.
One was a belt of giant strength for the Party Monk. Every time he grappled someone a ghostly voice would say "I will name him Gorge, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him".
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While I'm also opposed to curses where even the treasure is trying to kill you, I do like cursed things that make the players think. Say, that Ring of Mind Shielding is also a Ring of Truth - you can't have your mind read, but you still might blurt out the truth if asked a direct question.
That said, I do have a soft spot for cursed magic objects where the curse is just that you think it worked, but it didn't. Like Incense of Obsession, or possibly even Gravesoul Armour, where you think, at first, the armour lets everyone Hide From Undead.
My players, mostly new, always seem to take everything and everyone at face value. I told them that everything this evil necromancer had on her was clearly labelled, so they didn't bother identifying anything. I would have thought they'd worry about the Ring of Sustenence actually being a Ring of Cannibalism, which it wasn't, but the "Strength Potion" was actually cursed - it just makes you think it made you stronger, and subtly charms you into loudly boasting of this fact at every available opportunity. The necromancer figured it'd give her an easier time tracking down any pickpockets, but since the PCs killed and looted her instead, it might just end up ruining the element of surprise and teach them to be more careful.
As for the Deck of Many Things, I drew two cards in a goofy homebrew one-shot. I got The Fates and the Void, used them on each other, then told everyone that we shouldn't do that again.
Well the deck of many things can be a huge curse so I have had a campaign near castle everstand if you know how it got built.
I intend to get...creative...if she botches any of her crafting rolls!
Since you can take 10 and know the DC I don't think anyone.botches the.rolls.
Ontopic - hate the cursed items and Deck of.Many Things with a passion. Items with drawbacks are ok.
Only had one GM use them, and he used them so frequently that we were safer NOT picking up ANYTHING. Also in his campaigns every single npc tended to arbitrarily hate the party's guts if not be outright hostile. We stopped playing with him.
My group has a habit of never getting past 7th level so we havent come across many cursed items. I can recall a ring that did damage to the wearer whenever he took damage. That's how the party barbarian died.
I personally don't mind them as a player, however the rest of my group can't stand them (or to be more accurate, they say they don't care but once one crops up they will do nothing but work to remove it - up to and including abandoning the adventure midway through).
I think that should be the benchmark - if your players' don't like them, don't use them.
I think it is worse if you get one instead of an actual beneficial weapon too. If its tacked on at the end not as terrible but So sad when my +3 battle ax turns out to be cursed.
My brothers overused them in my youth so I don't really use them.