Favorite non-standard cursed items

[Mystify]

My favorite is the cursed +1 full plate. Its cursed, so you can't remove it, but there is no obvious penalty to wearing it. Until night comes, and it till doesn't come off, and now you have to sleep in it. Hello fatigue and exhaustion. I like it because its cursed, but there is no magical effect associated with the curse beyond being unable to remove it.

What are your favorite cursed items?

[Medic!]

I put a cursed +3 light mace into a game once. Aside from the standard "no easy way to get rid of it" part of the curse, it would curse and spew obscenities/ridicule at those around it. Made for some VERY touchy diplomatic situations. As I recall it ended its life embedded inside a stone-shaped wall.

[Novawurmson]

My favorite "cursed" item was an intelligent Lawful Good trident...being held by a Chaotic Evil player...in an evil campaign. That poor trident.

[Kaveman26]

My favorite cursed item was the Sword of Everstriking. A greatsword+1 that had a very "double edged sword effect". If you need a 13 to hit and rolled a 7 you took 6 damage and the attack hit. If you rolled a 2 and needed a 19 you took 17 damage and you hit etc. You had no choice you always hit...it was a matter of how much damage you took in doing so. We saw more tense last stands from using this than I can count. Many a fighter and barbarian fell victim to their own sword in a blaze of glory.

[Novawurmson]

My favorite cursed item was the Sword of Everstriking. A greatsword+1 that had a very "double edged sword effect". If you need a 13 to hit and rolled a 7 you took 6 damage and the attack hit. If you rolled a 2 and needed a 19 you took 17 damage and you hit etc. You had no choice you always hit...it was a matter of how much damage you took in doing so. We saw more tense last stands from using this than I can count. Many a fighter and barbarian fell victim to their own sword in a blaze of glory.

That is amazing. How did miss chance factor in (if at all)?

[Kaveman26]

You took one damage for every increment you missed by. So if you need 15 and rolled 14 you took 1 damage. If you need 19 and roll 1 you take 18 damage. Damage=how much you missed by. Back in second edition rules when damage reduction was more immunity and was based off +bonus this was introduced even nastier. If you needed a +3 weapon to hurt something then the damage from missing was tripled. So if you need a 15 and roll a 5 you took 30 damage.

For situations where you can power attack the ancient red dragon into obilivion and more or less kamikaze yourself knowing you will hit it was kinda cool.

For situations where you were sucking fumes on hps and all you needed was a 5 to hit some random mook the dice rolls became high drama.

I quite often saw the following...

Barbarian:Permission to Power Attack?

Cleric: Nope down to last few spell slots and out of channeling

[georgie_leech]

I made a cursed item for a campaign once. The PC's found a ruby red dagger deep underground, and every minute a drop of blood dropped from the tip. It was a dagger I called Bloodseeker, and it had a pretty good enchantment on it. Any hit made by the dagger was an automatic critical, against whatever it targetted. It also made the wielder immune to magic. Naturally, the PC's immediately started fighting over it to see who got to wield it, eventually going to the rogue.

Unfortunately for them, the curse was two-fold. First, there was the usual "can not willingly drop etc." that all cursed items had. The second, though was that at least once an hour, it had to drain the blood of a sentient being. While they were killing Duergar and the like it was fine, but when they tried to stop and rest for the night, they found that the wielder, if they didn't attack a valid target, immediately stabbed themselves, dealing a point of constitution damage that couldn't be restored without magic. Cue immediate panic when they realised that "immunity to magic" included spells like Remove Curse and Restoration.

[Novawurmson]

Cue immediate panic when they realised that "immunity to magic" included spells like Remove Curse and Restoration.

That's eeeeeeeevil.

+1

[georgie_leech]

That's eeeeeeeevil.

+1

Heh, it was to introduce a plotline, I didn't do it to murder them. But I've always prefered curses to be more interesting than "Crappy enchantment you can't get rid of except for an easy to find 3rd level spell."

[Riverdance]

I like the dagger idea.

Some cursed food items:
Soup of Unexpected Vivid Hallucinations.
Wine of Unexpected Infatuation.

[Randomguy]

Wine of Unexpected Infatuation.

I misread that as "whip" instead of wine. It was funnier that way.

[Thurbane]

Back in 2E, I created the Helm of Blind Faith - when worn by a Cleric, it acted like continual Incense of Meditation, but the drawback was the the visor slammed shut over his eyes and blinded him.

Probably wouldn't work as well in 3.5, with all the ways to get around being blind.

[Igneel]

For some strange reason, I have always had a fondness for the Necklace of the Vampire from Arms and Equipment [3.0]. A formed of bloodstones and rubies that while being worn grants 60ft Darkvision, doubles natural healing, 3/day wearer can use Vampiric Touch, 1/day Finger of death. After the first use of the Finger of death ability, it sticks to you 'yada yada'. It entices the wearer to use the Finger of Death spell whenever it can, and with each successful use the necklace sinks into the chest more and more until it reaches the heart and kills the wearer turning them into a vampire. But that's the printed stuff...

Most of my Dm's never seem to drop cursed items on their players. One Dm that did dropped it on our four level 1 characters just as we were starting. Skip the 'your at a bar' scene and enter being surrounded by 4 Great Red Wyrms with a Epic Blackguard confronting us and obviously killing us, but took the time to stab the rogue with a black sword and shoving it into his hand. Leaving us dead we get revived by a priestess save for the rogue who for some reason wasn't returning despite Resurrection being used. It was while we were digging his grave a few days later that the sword all of a sudden brought him back to life! Basically from the 3-ish meetings we had it had the 'can't get rid of' clause along with '75% chance of drawing it instead of intended weapon', and hand a Vicious enchantment. During the time we played the rogue died 3 times just because of Sneak Attack + Vicious damage.

[Suddo]

Potion of Delusion. Its technically not curse but its my favorite item ever. I'll tell you why:

In a AD&D-esque game (OSERIC I believe is the name of the system) we went to go fight a black dragon. Little did we know that Black Dragons could breath underwater and that there would be no reason for its lair to have any air. Needless to say some of us died but as we were slowly going back on a raft we found a belt of potions, all electric blue, and I said "I'm tired of not using these unmarked potions." And immediately quaffed one an asked "So... What does it do?"
To which the DM said: "What do you want it to do?"
"Taste Delicious?" I say.
"Sure." says the DM.
"Turn me into a Black Dragon?"
"Sure." says the DM.
"I dive into the water and attack the dragon's lair!" I say.
"Okay everyone else sees him drink the potion and jump into the water." Says the DM who begins laughing. Note I'm a Paladin in Chain Mail. Needless to say my character dies.

No cursed by any means but un-labelled potions are fun. And Potion of Delusion is awesome.

[panaikhan]

An item that I had experience with some time ago, was a claymore-styled sword with the unusual name "Blade of Infinite Mercy".
The Paladin in our group almost pleaded for it, and then we found out the drawbacks.
+2 enchantment, can't put it down, must fight with it, etc. etc.
Now the 'infinite mercy' bit: If striking a foe would deal enough damage to reduce it to less than 0hp, the foe is left AT 0hp, stable and conscious, and the wielder takes the 'overflow' as damage.

[Venger]

one of the members of my party stumbled across a "ring of magic immunity." we rolled to see who got it and it went to the fighter. we went up across a cadre of enemy spellcasters and all ended up basically hiding behind him and sniping while all the spells they lobbed at him got sucked into the ring by this hemisphere of force thing.

he'd taken a little damage from some enemy summoned monsters so he asked the healer for a jolt. cleric rolled health and nothing happened. "magic immunity" was apparently all-inclusive, including cures. we would've found this out earlier if the combat buffs I usually cast on him would've failed to function, but since he was immune to spells, it wasn't really necessary and we agreed I should save them for a later encounter.

since the damage he needed burned off was more than he could heal in a night and he didn't want to try drinking any potions since they might also be wasted, he took off the ring.

And promptly exploded.

the DM said that as he took off the ring, we saw his skin burn, turn to stone, crumble to dust, crackle with electricity, and a few other things until we realised that he was listing the effects of all the spells that the fighter had sponged up in battle in order. it didn't remove the spells' effects at all, it just delayed them until it was removed. sneakiest item I ever saw

[CTrees]

Some delightful stuff, here.

One my players will soon encounter is based off an item from Planescape: Torment and is of the "not cursed, but has unexpected drawbacks" variety. It is an oversized, wooden gavel. Against anything besides sentient creatures, it functions as a non-magical greatclub. However, against sentient creatures, the gavel compares who is smarter. For every two points of difference in Int, it gains a +1 enhancement bonus (max +5), but if the target is smarter than the wielder? The attack is instead made against the wielder (if even, it damages no one). Kinda fun.

[Thurbane]

Another 2E item I made was the Bracelet of Alertness: it pumped a magical stimulant into the wearer, giving bonuses to STR and DEX, initiative, and heightened senses. The side effects included making it hard to get a night's sleep, random hallucinations in stressful situations, long term CON damage, and the chance of becoming addicted.

Also, Vex, a magic +1 dagger, that increased by +1 for every round it was used against the same opponent. Once it became +5, it acted as a sword of cursed berserking.