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View Full Version : Two goods make a bad.



Brendan
2009-10-27, 07:31 PM
I was thinking about cursed items, wonderous items and encumberance, and I came up with a fairly evil idea. Two good magical items that when combined seriously damage a character. An example of this could be a pair of boots. All magical attemps would describe them as boots of teleportation. They are. Well, one of them is. The other is just a normal boot. One leg would teleport, the other would not. Damage would soon follow.
What are some other terrible combinations? A blue elemental gem coated in dust of dryness? The elemental sees you as a threat, as you had just damaged it?
Mixing an elixer of love with an elixer of fire breath? you kiss and blow up the other person's head?
What are some others? How would a player respond?

LibraryOgre
2009-10-27, 08:08 PM
I was thinking about cursed items, wonderous items and encumberance, and I came up with a fairly evil idea. Two good magical items that when combined seriously damage a character. An example of this could be a pair of boots. All magical attemps would describe them as boots of teleportation. They are. Well, one of them is. The other is just a normal boot. One leg would teleport, the other would not. Damage would soon follow.


Can you not stand on one leg? I fail to see how one of your two boots having the power of teleportation would necessarily damage you, unless it was designed to. The results would be:

1) The boot teleports, taking you with it.
2) The boot teleports, leaving you half-barefoot.
3) The boot, overtaxed beyond its carrying capacity, fails to teleport.

evil-frosty
2009-10-27, 08:58 PM
I think he was thinking more along the lines of 'splinching' like in Harry Potter.

vicente408
2009-10-27, 09:21 PM
I think he was thinking more along the lines of 'splinching' like in Harry Potter.

Yeah, but there's no logical reason for why it would cause that to happen, as Mark said.

Shadwen
2009-10-27, 09:28 PM
Ah in a campaign i had...i simply had an ego club that if the wielder did not kill a person once per day....thier soul would be trained..and the weapon was tied to them until they perished. Was an amazing weapon and all...but they got too injured and slept for too long.....*wink*

evil-frosty
2009-10-27, 09:29 PM
Yeah, but there's no logical reason for why it would cause that to happen, as Mark said.

I dont think logic applies to magic in the normal sense.

Magnor Criol
2009-10-27, 09:59 PM
Yeah, but there's no logical reason for why it would cause that to happen, as Mark said.

There's no logical reason for a pair of boots to be doing anything other than sitting around your feet. This is DnD, man, magic doesn't have to make sense. =p

Besides, it's a cursed item he's suggesting; they follow logic even looser than normal magic items.

Pika...
2009-10-27, 10:09 PM
What if you make one boot a boot of teleportation, and the other an anchoring (or whatever the spell is called) one?

Shadwen
2009-10-27, 10:12 PM
Or if both boots were anchored to another plane causing the teleporter to be dragged to both planes...well half of him anyways.

Oh and the mathmatical solution for his idea on the boots is


1 + 1 = if he is dming its what the DM rules

Nai_Calus
2009-10-27, 10:21 PM
The prevention of this is the same thing that prevents you from wearing a glove of Dexterity and a glove of Storing: One of a pair of anything simply fails to work at all. Attempting to use more than the allowed amount of anything makes everything involved not work.

AstralFire
2009-10-27, 10:22 PM
Specific trumps general. I say go for it. It'd be fun.

Randel
2009-10-27, 11:32 PM
A pair of goggles that lets you see magic auras (even if you can't see the creature or object making them, like if they are invisible or its pitch black)

A gauntlet that makes a shield-like disc of force appear in front of you to block attacks if danger (or potentially dangerous things) are present. It basically pops up at the slightest provocation so you can't get caught off guard.

If you spot an enemy or mysterious aura then the shield pops up to block any enemy attacks, however the goggles see the aura of the shield and you can't effectively see any other auras with it until the battle is over. Thus, you can't effectivly use the goggles if you have the shield.

---

One boot of powerful jumping, one boot of anchoring, and an iron chain hooking them together.

You can stand on the jumping boot to jump really high (though there is a chance of landing in the wrong square or tripping due to only using one leg).

You can stand on the anchoring leg to get anchored in place (helps with pushing objects or to avoid sliding on slippery surfaces, imagine that its like an immovable rod that works on surfaces).

The chain keeps the two boots within a yard or so at all times (so you don't accidentally jump high with one boot and have the other stuck on the ground). It does slow you down a bit but one interesting thing is that its really handy for kicking enemies (make the jumping boot leap out at an enemy while your other boot is firmly on the ground). However the chain can get caught on things and slows your move speed by a few feet.

---

A pair of blades, one (positive) of fire and one (negative) of ice. You can use either of them just fine but if they are drawn too close to one another (either one person duel wielding or two people fighting one another) then they react and starts spitting out sparks, fog, and water that makes it difficult to see and move in that area.

---

Devils eyes - A mask with large marble 'eyes' over where the users eyes would be. The user can see out of the marble eyes as if they were their own and can remove them from the mask and set them anywhere, still looking through them. A user could remove one eye, set it somewhere, and use look through it while using the remaining eye to look around normally. They can recall the deployed eye back to their mask with a thought (if they eye is crushed then it returns instantly).

Devils hands - A pair of gloves that are adept at working with delicate machinery or with throwing things a long distance. The user gets a significant bonus to throwing items. However, the hands have a mind of their own and never want to be empty, they tend to grab things if their wearer leaves them empty and is distracted. They favor small jewels or coins over larger things like weapons.

Devils shoes - A pair of shoes ornatly desined, they have two clawed 'talons' in the front and a rear talon in the back. They provide a great bonus to climbing walls or grasping onto rough terrain (letting them walk up walls as if with spider climb or anchor themselves to the ground). However, they tend to fidget alot and leave marks in the floor or ground. Its easy to track anyone wearing them and they can cause a bit of damage to carpets or polished marble.

Devils Scarf - This long scarf wraps around the wearers neck and coils snake-like around their body, often dragging behind them like a tail. It can be extended to 50 feet, will regrow if severed, and can be controled at will to bind enemies, wrap around sturdy objects, or otherwise function like a rope with the animate rope spell.


A person with both the Devils eyes and Devils hands has a rough time since the hands are really fond of reaching up and grabing the marble 'eyes' from the mask. They can either be content to let the hands hold them (giving them a small penalty to spot checks when out of combat... when combat comes the user just recalls their eyes back into their head and the hands behave themselves) and walk around with the hands holding the eyes and pointing them at things. The hands are also really good at throwing the marble eyes at things or enemies (an since the eyes can just be recalled then the user has a really weird sort of unlimited ammo).


A person with the Devils shoes and Devils scarf will find themselves tripping over their scarf alot as the shoes get tangled up in it. This problem doesn't turn up very often if the user walks along walls or ceilings using the shoes (since the scarf drags along the ground).


There are theories that a special power is bestowed upon anyone that wears all the Devil items at once... but so far the only people who did so ended up looking very very strange. There might be a few more items in the set...

sambo.
2009-10-27, 11:40 PM
An example of this could be a pair of boots. All magical attemps would describe them as boots of teleportation. They are. Well, one of them is. The other is just a normal boot. One leg would teleport, the other would not. Damage would soon follow.

aha, the infamous Seven League Boots.

all attempts to identify them describe them as boots that allow you to move 21 miles with a single step.

ultimatly they work by putting one foot 21 miles in front of the other, to the accompaniment of severe groinal strain.

(these first made their appearence in Terry Pratchetts early Discworld novels, either Colour Of Magic or The Light Fantastic)

herrhauptmann
2009-10-28, 12:06 AM
He took them from an older myth and twisted it.
The original let you travel that seven leagues real quick, but you were still exhausted at the end as if you had run it without stopping.

Brendan
2009-10-28, 12:33 PM
A ring of djinni calling and a ring of three wishes. The djinni becomes furious that you are outsourcing your wishes and the ring is now smote by the djinni, as he "misunderstands" your wish for wonderful beauty, saying that the ring detracted from your appearance. Then the slashing and stabbing starts. I just think that the combinations of magical items so that they actually do HARM is a fun gaming idea if your players seem too cautious and have memorized all of the signs fop traps.

AtwasAwamps
2009-10-28, 03:03 PM
He took them from an older myth and twisted it.
The original let you travel that seven leagues real quick, but you were still exhausted at the end as if you had run it without stopping.

And one of the first published comments about the seven-league groin strain was actually written by Isaac Asimov, in an essay that compared magic vs. science and Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy. Great essay. I think it was published in either "Gold" or "Silver", one of those anthologies. DOn't remember the original publication date, though.