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legomaster00156
2012-03-12, 02:12 PM
It's storytime. Tell us the story of the oddest piece of treasure you've ever run across in a game, and if/how it came in handy.

For me, it was a simple, broken pocketwatch. I found it while looking through a ruined city. Despite being broken, it was clean. It made me look like a gentleman, thus bestowing upon my character a +1 to Charisma as long as he had it in plain view. Now, as this was 4e, and I was a hybrid Rogue/Sorcerer, this was actually incredibly valuable to me. I wore it everywhere, attaching it's bonus to my already significant CHA and hurling Chaos Bolts everywhere. It is my favorite treasure ever.

MesiDoomstalker
2012-03-12, 03:16 PM
Not my story but one of my friends: Due to the DM rolling 4 13's in a row for determing treasure, the party's sorcerer found thousands (never determined exactly how many) of Everlasting Chalk of ever possible color there is (with a special Bag of Holding that only holds chalk). So much so, the DM explcictly stated that the Sorcerer, despite his massive Charisma and Diplomacy score, could not unload more than a single piece in any sort of settlment. Instead of trying to sell a piece of chalk at each city they came to, he simply ground a piece of chalk after ever kill. Supposedly, by the time the campaign ended, he had ground over 200 pieces and made "no measurable dent in the quantity of chalk." By that time, they had assumed the bag produced Everlasting Chalk everytime some one reached or looked in. Which is funny considering its an infinite supply of something that never runs out in the first place.

pantoffelheld
2012-03-12, 03:16 PM
I've once read (somewhere on this forum) about a 'magic' coin, which has powers of divinations. It could answer any question asked, simply by assignig two answers either heads or tails and flipping the coin, The downside was that it only worked 50% of the time.

I really liked this idea:smallbiggrin: If I would use it in a session, I'll probably give the players some real old coin which they can actually flip.

Togath
2012-03-12, 03:49 PM
If I can count things my pc's have looted then I'd either go with a dead hyena they freeze dried with magic and now carry around, or the robes of a grimreaper themed monster(which were non magic and tattered, but I ruled provided a +1 to intimidate checks against anyone who knew the source of the robes, but the bonus rarely comes up, as they just look like tattered black robes to most people)which one of them now wears.

Dr.Epic
2012-03-12, 05:12 PM
Toy train...in a campaign setting where steam engines did not exist. It was a gift from the FUTURE!!!:smalleek:

TroubleBrewing
2012-03-12, 05:17 PM
I played a monkey assassin once who received a pineapple as a sarcastic "reward" from a noble.

He later used that pineapple to break out of the aforementioned noble's prison.

TheCountAlucard
2012-03-12, 05:19 PM
There was a wood-king our group had to engage in diplomacy with. We ended up making a pact with him: he would act as a protector and patron to the nearby city, provided we in turn had a shrine built to him and didn't go screwing around with his forests.

Another proviso of this was that he would allow us influence over the elementals in his court; he asked in return for a sacrifice from the group's sorcerer.

This amounted to the sorcerer and the wood-king both taking out one of their eyes. The wood-king received the sorcerer's eye, and the sorcerer the wood-king's, implanted into the empty socket and allowed to take root.

Thus when our sorcerer summons an elemental from the wood-king's court, the elemental sees the greenish wooden eye, and know to serve the sorcerer with the same loyalty that he would his king.

Maximus:Ranger
2012-03-12, 05:19 PM
A tiny mummy that came out of a tiny sarcophagus to sarcasticlly answer questions of ancient desert history if given a small amount of blood, my players dubbed him sarcophoguy. Much to their dismay they left him in the city of Kaladharma when they needed to make a quick escape.

Pokonic
2012-03-12, 05:30 PM
My party once managed to kill a vampire lord. No big deal, but vampy was attacked earler (it was in the middle of a wide-spread war) and had almost nothing on him. However, they quickly learned that they now own his devoted LN Ghoul butler, who was very good at his job.

They kept him at there base, in which he used some some money that the PC's gave him to invest in several companies, and evetualy "bought" his freedom by tipping the PC's on a weapons shipment that he did not wish to occure. Still stayed with the party, and the ghoul himself has appered in several games since, always with some powerful lord or another, and in on memoral instance the uncle of a PC.

Rorrik
2012-03-12, 05:40 PM
In a game I was playing we obtained a TARDIS, which was intended as a means to send us on missions hand picked by the DM across time and space. It was something straight out of Dr. Who, but man, a TARDIS!

Once in a game I ran I threw the players, who were unconditionally lawful good and low level, a wand of demon portal, which they agonized over finding a purpose for in the context of the campaign. One of the players still brings up that campaign every month or so wanting to get it running again to figure out what that wand is for.
I have no idea, it was really just a clue to a side quest they passed up.

Tengu_temp
2012-03-12, 05:43 PM
In a game filled with awesome and powerful magical artifacts, the party's favorite item was a bag of candy that gave almost-instant diarrhea to whoever ate it.

Yeah, we were immature kids back then. Can you tell?

rgrekejin
2012-03-12, 05:45 PM
Weirdest item I've ever gotten as a player: Our group fought and killed an Immoth (from the MMII). They have the ability to scribe any spells that they have prepared into small balls of ice, called ice runes that only Immoths can activate. We stumbled upon a big pile of these ice balls after we killed it. I was playing a warlock at the time, and I had a. a crazy high use magic device check and b. Heward's Handy Haversack. I stuffed the balls of ice in the Haversack (which, since it has no air, is effectively a vacuum that allowed the ice balls to stay cold indefinitely) and used my Use Magic Device skill to cast them (since you need a 25 to emulate a race). With a warlock's deceive item ability, I could take a ten, and therefore always succeeded. I listed them on my possessions sheet as "Snowballs of Doom".

Weirdest item I've ever given a PC: In a campaign I was running, the party was investigating a house that had belonged to a recently deceased wizard. When the party wizard (who was playing a very vain woman) looked through the wardrobe, she had to roll a will save. She failed, and felt compelled to pick up a scarf that was sitting in the closet and put it on. This was entirely in character for her, so none of the other players thought much of it. But she knew that she failed the will save, and it bothered her because, for session after session, nothing ever came of it. The scarf was just a scarf. Then, finally, as she and the rest of the party walked in to an ambush being set by a mind flayer, the scarf became important. She was invisible when she was stunned by the mind flayer's mind blast. The mind flayer (also invisible) closed in to extract her brain. Just as it attached its tentacles to her fact (unbeknown to the rest of the party, who could not see either combatant) the scarf reared up and wrapped itself around the mind flayer's head, preventing it from extracting her brain and allowing her to escape. The scarf had been a good-aligned Raggamoffyn-like creature (MMII) that had simply wanted to be around people.

gallagher
2012-03-12, 07:31 PM
i invented a few awesome items:
a rubber ball that nomatter how far it was dropped or thrown, would bounce back to its thrower/dropper. not an effective weapon, but a good decoy and had plenty of utility

a broken grandfather clock that was "right twice a day" so if you asked i a question at the time it was suspended on (in either AM or PM) it would make a bardic knowledge check using your int and HD as bard levels

one time i made that hat from the DnD cartoon, where the player had to make up a rhyme that involved enough of a description to make an effect. in essence it was like i was a slightly unfair genie granting a wish once a day, if the player didnt specify properly they wouldnt get an optimal result

Jay R
2012-03-12, 07:50 PM
I've once read (somewhere on this forum) about a 'magic' coin, which has powers of divinations. It could answer any question asked, simply by assignig two answers either heads or tails and flipping the coin, The downside was that it only worked 50% of the time.

I really liked this idea:smallbiggrin: If I would use it in a session, I'll probably give the players some real old coin which they can actually flip.

I invented a similar one for a contest for The Fantasy Gamer. A coin that has "YES" on one side and "NO" on the other. If you flip it while asking a yes/no question, it always lands on its edge.

Once* some friends of mine were given a Bag of Useless Duplication. Anything you put in the bag was duplicated, but the duplicate was useless. Magic items wouldn't work, weapons were pot metal, gems were obvious fakes, etc. That party was turned to stone. I rescued them, but took the bag and made duplicates of all their magic items, leaving them the duplicates. They spent months trying to figure out why none of their magic items worked, and eventually decided that magic items turned to stone lost their magic.

They never came after me for stealing their items because they never knew that the items were gone.

*1976, Original D&D.

Dimers
2012-03-13, 06:00 AM
A rope loop of infinite mint oatmeal, paired with a ring of infinite peach brandy.

A minor divination item that detect severity of danger within the next hour (omen of peril spell in D&D 3.5), unlimited use ... but like the spell, it has a failure chance and you don't know whether the answer you get is accurate.

A coin-operated magic sword. Totally mundane until you feed a platinum piece into the hilt, at which point it becomes puissant (+2?) and deals magical cold damage. "Pay per hew", basically. :smallwink:

Atcote
2012-03-13, 06:48 AM
Dragonborn Wing's.
This could've been cool, like that Paragon Path that gives you the ability to fly.
But I wasn't a Dragonborn.
And the wings aren't attached to anything.
They were just a pair of Dragonborn wings in a chest.
The DM even had it written down on a treasure list. Along with Gnome's toes and Elven fingernails.

I ended up looking into enchanting them. They tunnelled away from me.

It was lucky it was a campaign that had already dissolved into pure silliness or I could've been upset.

DoctorGlock
2012-03-13, 07:08 AM
I was DMing and gave the party a box that whenever it was opened contained something interesting. To date, some of the interesting things included:

A hip bone that speaks prophecy
A small clockwork dragon (6 inches)
A jade 12 sided die covered in alchemical symbols that will give the recipe to any potion, but only when rolled in mercury
A red unblinking eye
A green egg covered in gold script. The yolk was red and tasted like tomorrow. Yes, my players will eat anything.

DigoDragon
2012-03-13, 07:28 AM
As a fighter in an old D&D 2e campaign, I found a sword that had the ability to detect "spellcasters". The stronger the spellcaster, the more brightly the sword glowed. However, the quirk was that the sword wasn't measuring spellcasters by their magical abilities, but solely by their intelligence score.

The rogue and I figured this out and thus we used the sword as "Idiot Radar" since someone with an intelligence of 9-10 would still cause a faint glow on the blade. :smallbiggrin:
The morons we conned with that sword's help...

DaMullet
2012-03-13, 07:42 AM
Let's see... A ball of string that rolls to the exit of whatever building you're in, a dagger that passes harmlessly through living flesh, a visor of magic missile, a cape that flows in the wind even though there is no wind (pinned with a brooch that let you cast ghost sound, but limited to the sound of applause and catcalls).
My favorite was the Ring of Extra Rings; when worn in one of your two ring slots, it gave you the ability to wear a third ring.

Kaveman26
2012-03-13, 11:20 AM
Bizzare huh? let me tale you about the Dread Parrot Roberts...

Our group made port at a coastal city after reaching level 9. There was an open air market with all kinds of goods and personalities. Our eyes were drawn to a haggard pirate with a peg leg, eyepatch and an enormous gold encrusted cage inlaid with gemstones and holding a molted very old parrot. There was a FOR SALE: 1GP sign on the cage. Intrigued we wandered over and asked...

Pirate: I be selling this bird for 1 gold piece. You can keep the cage for free. But be warned, the bird be a downright evil bugger with a wicked sense of humour and the worst scatter brain imagineable. It will help you find treasure all over the world, and trouble to boot. Be warned you must sell it to a willing buyer, there be no other way to get rid of the blasted thing.

The group's barbarian jumps all over this and flips the guy a single gold piece before we can say a word. And he is the proud owner of a cursed treasure seeking parrot...The Dread Parrot Roberts!

Within minutes he was looking for crackers to feed his parrot. The second the cracker touches the parrot's lips all hell break loose. It starts swearing and squawking like it was acid. It starts shrieking and flinging bird feces everywhere "I am a regal and proud denizen of the high seas! I do not quench my pallet with such paltry fare as a rancid wafer! I demand that my appetitie be appeased with only the finest cuisines!!!"

I was played a ranger/bard that was more or less the front man for our group and I am increasingly alarmed by the angry bird feces splattered merchants and others now giving us some very nasty looks. We throw out some hasty apologies and hightail it to somewhere secluded. We try to feed this bird everything and nothing is making it quiet down. Our wizard finally grabs a handful of silver and crams it down the bird's gullet. It instantly gets quiet and makes yummy noises, then falls asleep on the barbarians shoulder. About thirty minutes later it wakes up and in a thunderous voice tells us to "DIG like yer yellow bellied hides be at the devil's doorsteps. Put your backs into those shovels and dig at yer feet!!!"

We dig about three feet down and find a necklace...maybe 10 gold in value...hmmmm. The bird eats money...falls asleep then finds treasure.

We forcefed this bird about 10,000 gold in an hour and it took every bit of it. It fell asleep overnight and in the morning...well it crapped out a glass bottle with a treasure map in it. Five hours of real time and a week in game time later we locate the buried treasure...which is an empty chest with a bottle of rum in it. The Dread Parrot chuckles as we see this and says "Sorry boys...I needed a drink!" and it begins laughing hysterically.

We fooled around with this parrot for about five sessions. It COULD lead you to great treasure...or garbage. There was no real ryhme or reason to it. At the end of the campaign the DM showed us all the tables he made for the thing. Tons of random behvaiors and possible outcomes. We never did figure out half of what it did mostly just that it ate coins and not crackers. But it was tons of fun and completely bizzare.

MesiDoomstalker
2012-03-13, 12:43 PM
Dread Parrot Roberts...

I wanna steal borrow this for a character concept (pirate-themed of course). May I?

Kaveman26
2012-03-13, 12:48 PM
Absolutely I will see if i can get the tables he generated.

Sgt. Cookie
2012-03-13, 12:53 PM
A small clockwork dragon (6 inches)

That is the best reason behind wanting an Item Familiar I have ever heard.

Kurald Galain
2012-03-13, 01:30 PM
My favorite was a gemstone that, when a command word was used, produced a big flash of light, blinding everyone in the direct vicinity (including the party and wielder). The party eventually found a way around this, deciding on a code word for "everybody close your eyes NOW!" which was used right before activating it.

Balain
2012-03-13, 03:04 PM
I posted about this one a long time ago. This magic item has become so famous in our D&D group it now makes an appearance in every game. The dm that first introduced it to a game even got a friend to draw a picture of the item.

It is a bag of holding made from a yeti's scrotum that acts like ring of sustance when sucked.

Lea Plath
2012-03-13, 03:29 PM
A pot that would make fine cusine out of potatos and only potatos. Mashed, boiled, jacket, croquets, the works.

A book, bound in mouse skin, that showed the death of every mammalian vermin in 20 miles (which we used to solve a mystery).

A genie that had no magical powers, but was hard working. When we asked for enough money to buy the house we were trying to buy, he went off, started begging, eventually worked his way up to the top merchant in the realm, and gave us the money, about 4 months after we had needed it.

A trumpet thingy that gave its owner the ability to drown out any noise with an incessant buzzing.

Calanon
2012-03-13, 04:13 PM
My first and what I'd like to believe my "main character" had his arm cut off when he was a child despite this he still attempted for Magic so he applied Still Spell to all his spells to avoid Arcane Spell Failure, at around 3rd level or so I managed to kill a skeleton and the party cleric told me I could get that grafted on to me (The Arm) so I could become effective. Went on this long adventure to find a guy that would graft it to my arm and eventually succeeded at around 12th level (Picking up the graft flesh feat myself). Might not mean much to you but that arm saved me so much and made it feel like I actually accomplished something :smallsmile:

Welknair
2012-03-13, 04:38 PM
Three words. Bag. Of. Urine.

Lord Il Palazzo
2012-03-13, 04:51 PM
I once gave my players a glass jar containing a tiny red summoning ooze (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040905a&page=5) that, when shaken dances around a la flubber. The players talked about finding a wizard to sell it to, but still haven't gotten around to it.

Velaryon
2012-03-13, 05:28 PM
Can't think of any that I have handed out to my players, but I can think of one that was given to another PC in a game I was in, and one I've heard stories about from another friend.

First is the Bow of Bad Luck. When an arrow is fired from the bow, it instantly disappears. The target struck takes normal damage, but the damage is caused by a random unfortunate event that happens right when they would have been hit - they trip on a gnarled root and sprain their ankle, a branch snaps off a nearby tree and falls on their head, you name it. Oddest result we ever saw was an owl dying of a heart attack as it flew by about 50 feet overhead, and falling on my fighter's head.

Another one I've been told about was the Bag of Endless Muffins. As the name suggests, you could withdraw an infinite number of muffins from it. The party this item was given to once used it to escape a pit by filling up the pit with muffins until they were close enough to the top to climb out.

Dr.Epic
2012-03-13, 05:34 PM
I got a rock.


:smallwink:

Cicciograna
2012-03-13, 05:41 PM
This was the description I read to my players when I gave them the most bizarre treasure:


At your feet lies a strange object, never seen before: it is a weird-looking metallic device, heavy and bulky, with many protrusions and appendages on the sides and a sort of mobile strut on ins back; on a side there's a strange pulsating red light, while on the lower side there's what looks as an handle with a trigger, as a crossbow. As you get it, your face unconsciously turns to a diabolical grin out satisfaction, and the words "Oh yes!" rise to your lips. On the side opposite to the red light there are engraved three letters: B...F...G...

Yes, I handed the BFG9000 (http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/BFG9000) to my players, with enough cells for 2 shots, which they used against a poor dragon, utterly fragging it. I even referenced the Doom Wikia to modelize correctly its damage output.
One of my players, who was particularly fond of Doom, greatly appreciated the gift.

Mono Vertigo
2012-03-13, 05:44 PM
Three words. Bag. Of. Urine.

Jarate? The Sniper's (in)famous unlockable.

Ksheep
2012-03-13, 10:18 PM
I got a rock.


:smallwink:

Our party once found a 10' diameter sphere made of sandstone. Then the other half of the party found a 10' diameter dodecahedron made of obsidian.

Then the first half of the party found a life-sized statue…*of a mountain… made out of sandstone… with a 10' diameter hole in the side, halfway up. We found it in a dragon's hoard… which was in a cave deep underground.

Cicciograna
2012-03-14, 04:33 AM
I played a monkey assassin once who received a pineapple as a sarcastic "reward" from a noble.

He later used that pineapple to break out of the aforementioned noble's prison.

I remember you. You posted this story on the playground asking advice on how to break free from the prison. If I remember correctly there was also an Handy Haversack involved.

Averis Vol
2012-03-14, 05:10 AM
The strangest piece of loot i ever gave out was Probably "Helga, the completely non-magical woodsmans axe of dead wood bane."

the story behind this was that my PC's were traveling through a forest to get to the city of Forel when they came upon a small town that had been destroyed by a half-fiend hexblade (story arc BBEG) that just plane shifted away after they arrived. so seeing there wasn't anything they could do to help this city they went through looking for supplies. what they found was four daggers, some rations, three potions and a marionette doll. so they were getting ready to leave when one of my PC's noticed a particularly well drawn axe (a hobby of mine is drawing weapons, so i took a little extra time on this piece of scenery) and pointed and said "what is that?" i looked at it and chuckled and just told em it was an axe in a stump but they refused to accept this. so they ran over and started casting all kinds of spells to discern what it was, making spellcraft and craft :weaponry checks and the like. now the first three times this amused me, but after thirty long minutes i cracked and said "FINE!, ITS THE COMPLETELY NON-MAGICAL AXE OF DEAD WOOD BANE" after this, the table went quiet for a bit.....then the paladin says "im'a keep it, and clean it aaaaaand........call it helga!" so from then on whenever they ran into a door they couldn't open Skald the paladin waddled up and chopped away with his completely non-magical axe of woodly destruction (in addition to doing +2d6 Vs. dead wood it also bypassed hardness) that glowed green and smelled of pine to bust it down. he even used it once to intimidate a mimic by brandishing it, destroying a desk and explaining the long list of crap it destroyed.

sadly non of my DM's are this fun so no interesting loot for me.

DigoDragon
2012-03-14, 08:12 AM
I got a rock.
:smallwink:

In one party, the druid had what he called his "X-Ray Rock". When applied to a window, it lets you see inside. :smallamused:
Can't dismiss the effect afterwards though...

Lord Il Palazzo
2012-03-14, 08:55 AM
Another one I've been told about was the Bag of Endless Muffins. As the name suggests, you could withdraw an infinite number of muffins from it. The party this item was given to once used it to escape a pit by filling up the pit with muffins until they were close enough to the top to climb out.This reminds me of the Jug of Endless Ale the party's dwarf barbarian was given by a goddess in my first campaign. The character had a tendency to solve his problems by offering people ale (he always carried plenty) so the goddess though this would be a reasonable gift. We used it to make a ton of gold by opening a lemonade-stand style ale shop at a major festival and underselling all the local bars.

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-14, 11:13 AM
First is the Bow of Bad Luck.

Okay this was hilarious.

The best item I've ever given my PCs was found in the bottom of a pit trap in a really long dungeon. It was a wand of Create Wand (the created wands, obviously, were also wands of Create Wand). They still haven't run out of uses for those (though the obvious use, making any number of nice bonfires, is problematic if you don't want the fire to spread: burning the Wands tends to set them off, which results in an exploding pile of wands shooting recursive, burning wands all over the room...).

Cicciograna
2012-03-14, 11:18 AM
The best item I've ever given my PCs was found in the bottom of a pit trap in a really long dungeon. It was a wand of Create Wand (the created wands, obviously, were also wands of Create Wand). They still haven't run out of uses for those (though the obvious use, making any number of nice bonfires, is problematic if you don't want the fire to spread: burning the Wands tends to set them off, which results in an exploding pile of wands shooting recursive, burning wands all over the room...).

I'm sure it does exist somewhere some class feature that allows to use wand charges to do nasty things: this item would be perfect and ready to start abusecalypse.

Divayth Fyr
2012-03-14, 05:38 PM
(though the obvious use, making any number of nice bonfires, is problematic if you don't want the fire to spread: burning the Wands tends to set them off, which results in an exploding pile of wands shooting recursive, burning wands all over the room...).
Why did I instantly think of using them as a grenade of sorts? Light a wand on fire, throw it into a room, lock the door.

Skyrunner
2012-03-14, 06:31 PM
Wow, there are a lot of funny treasures!

I loved the Completely Non-Magical Axe of Dead Tree Bane.
And the X-Ray Rock.

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-15, 11:39 AM
Why did I instantly think of using them as a grenade of sorts? Light a wand on fire, throw it into a room, lock the door.

They actually "cleared" most of a dungeon like this once. The fire wasn't even the main weapon; everything inside actually suffocated/died of crushing damage from the exponentially-increasing number of burning wands. Once the fire had gone out from lack of oxygen, they reopened the door... and then spent something like a week in-game excavating the dungeon so they could actually move forward. :smallsigh: They actually missed out on a fair bit of treasure that way; it just got buried and they were tired of digging.

Pokonic
2012-03-17, 04:37 PM
Oh, how can I forget about the Orb of Endless Heat?

It was a fist-sized red sphere from the staff of a mage the party was supposed to kill and take his stuff, but ended up blowing up his realm. Hence the only thing left from his uber-staff was a little red ball, which I semi-spitefully gave the party bard too as a "reward". Said little ball gave off a good amount of warmth, like a snuggly blanket, and it actualy saved the party once by holding it to a magical ice-door and melting it.

Brauron
2012-03-18, 07:59 AM
In a Pathfinder one-shot I ran last night, the monsters in the dungeon-crawl offered the PCs their most wonderful treasure as an attempted bribe to get them to stop killing them (they were tooth fairy/leprechaun-esque little monsters, using the Mite stats as I only had Bestiary 1 available).

It was a kettle full of human teeth.

Heliomance
2012-03-18, 07:55 PM
My favourite piece of treasure I've ever given out was a set of Nolzur's Marvellous Pigments. Unfortunately, due to various circumstances, the red paint had all been spilled, and there wasn't any left.

They could paint anything they liked - as long as it didn't involve red in any way!

Kuma Kode
2012-03-18, 08:39 PM
The best thing I ever gave my party was an intelligent, extradimensional container named "Clarence the Talking Box."

Clarence talks in Common by flapping the lid to the box like lips, and is very cynical and sarcastic. He can only contain coins; any other items placed in him encountered the interior of the box (and he'll spit it out and complain). He was instantly aware of how many coins he contained and could even do currency exchange. He became the party's mascot, carried around and used like an investment broker. He even had the ability to produce a slip of paper like a receipt.

The rogue of the party became fast friends with him, and she started carrying him around, feeding him all the money she stole, and things were great between them.... until she tried to spend her ill-gotten gains.

Clarence is a penny-pincher and "encourages" others to be frugal as well. By that, I mean he withheld her money from her because he thought she was mismanaging it. After some Diplomacy rolls and a lot of grovelling, telling him how awesome of a magic item he is and how he's the best talking box ever, he eventually forked over the dough.

She started to keep a good portion of her money herself after that, and things went back to normal, and she even found a craptacular "Robe of Semi-Useful Things" which contained extradimensional pockets. When she reached in, she pulled out a random mundane item that was essentially worthless, except for a few creative uses such as pouring a pitcher of iced tea on a fire elemental.

It was only when she stopped carrying him around did she discover his other power: Clarence can access and manipulate other, non-intelligent extradimensional items. She reached into her robe during a puzzle in a dungeon only to find a note from Clarence stating that he was very hurt that she would go behind his back and use another magic pocket, especially after everything she said to him. He called her a liar and a betrayer and hoped that she learned her lesson.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" She cried out, and everyone busted up laughing, including her. She talked to him about it, but he refused to let her use the item any more, and told her it was for her own good. She ended up having to stroke his ego again, apologizing for using the item and promised to never use it again except for tea and because it was warm. She told him he will always be her favorite talking box. She then made a point of never using the robe for anything when Clarence was around.

Years later, we still talk about that goddamn box. He was a fantastic hit, and I'm considering bringing him back during a military campaign as a kind of advisor/bank.

Archpaladin Zousha
2012-03-18, 10:44 PM
The item everyone I've played with NEVER forgets is the infamous half-orc men's magazine. Originally a joke written onto the character sheet of the dynamite-stuffed-caber-tossing half-orc Sir B*tchsmack, the item somehow worked itself into any subsequent campaign, often just appearing in someone's backpack without explanation or fanfare. Anyone who looked at the "lovely" pictures within was forced to make a Will Save or become so traumatized that they immediately fell backwards down the stairs. Always. Even if they were in the middle of a desert. Somehow the magazine conjured a flight of stairs behind its readers, and then compelled them to tumble backwards down them. We never fully discussed how it worked, but it didn't take long for my brother to weaponize this joke item, once using it to great effect against a giant scorpion out in the desert.

Makiru
2012-03-19, 04:56 AM
A duck, covered in harmless fire, with ice skates for feet. It was just a random experiment we encountered in a lab, but I knew I had to have it; it was just too awesome to not take. The duck has been my loyal mount ever since.

A pair of chainsaws wielded by Kratos and fully powered up. They're actually my old chainsaws that I have to give him in the past at some point.

The head of a steel predator my character killed that he ripped off as a trophy, which he later used as a shotput to knock out a demon.

Three different games. Three amazingly silly items.

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-19, 11:06 AM
In a Pathfinder one-shot I ran last night, the monsters in the dungeon-crawl offered the PCs their most wonderful treasure as an attempted bribe to get them to stop killing them (they were tooth fairy/leprechaun-esque little monsters, using the Mite stats as I only had Bestiary 1 available).

It was a kettle full of human teeth.

This is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Did it work?

Pokonic
2012-03-19, 03:25 PM
In a Pathfinder one-shot I ran last night, the monsters in the dungeon-crawl offered the PCs their most wonderful treasure as an attempted bribe to get them to stop killing them (they were tooth fairy/leprechaun-esque little monsters, using the Mite stats as I only had Bestiary 1 available).

It was a kettle full of human teeth.

Tell me that they used it in the next sitting as a way to track there way into a forest, Jack&Jill style.

Mazeburn
2012-03-19, 03:29 PM
From my last campaign, a singing sword which only knows folk music aaaaand a hat that changes colour to complement whatever you're wearing. :smallbiggrin:

Pokonic
2012-03-19, 03:34 PM
Oh, and my PC's once found a fake magical ring with the words "Made in Faerűn" inscribed into it. That was a hoot in my Ebberon game, I assure you.

The Bandicoot
2012-03-19, 03:41 PM
In the game I'm running a player asked me if I could have his character find a magical prayer-bead necklace. So the cursed pair of gloves I had planned for him turned into the cursed prayer-beads.

Also, another player asked for a ring inscribed with the entire lyrics to "Re:Your Brains" by Johnathan Coulton. Debating weather or not to give it to her xD

Kurald Galain
2012-03-19, 03:51 PM
From my last campaign, a singing sword which only knows folk music aaaaand a hat that changes colour to complement whatever you're wearing. :smallbiggrin:

Speaking of hats: I had the Hat of Knowledge in one of my campaigns. It was an elegant hat that would telepathically give advice on whatever you were doing at the time, ranging from the useful to the obvious to the unwanted snark.

Sneaky Weasel
2012-03-19, 05:00 PM
The weirdest treasure in any campaign I've ever played was a dire octopus. A dead one. I was DM, and it was a random encounter. They killed it after a long fight, and then the party rogue decided to keep it. What for, you ask? Well, he had max ranks in disguise, and I ruled that by wearing the dead body he would add +10 to his disguise check. So he masqueraded as a giant octopus for the rest of the campaign. It's surprising how many situations are helped out by this, and it did give a nice circumstance bonus to Intimidate.

Pokonic
2012-03-19, 05:17 PM
The weirdest treasure in any campaign I've ever played was a dire octopus. A dead one. I was DM, and it was a random encounter. They killed it after a long fight, and then the party rogue decided to keep it. What for, you ask? Well, he had max ranks in disguise, and I ruled that by wearing the dead body he would add +10 to his disguise check. So he masqueraded as a giant octopus for the rest of the campaign. It's surprising how many situations are helped out by this, and it did give a nice circumstance bonus to Intimidate.

Presumably, it helped with convincing the local Mindflayer cabal to let them in thru the front door.:smalltongue:

Lemmy
2012-03-19, 05:41 PM
That X-ray rock, Completely Non-Magical Axe of Dead-Wood Bane and Clarence, the Talking Box made me LOL!

Let me see, there was an enchanted hair brush, it would randomly change hair color and style with a single brushing. However, it'd change not only the user's hair, but the hair of everyone in a 30ft radius, no save.
It's was pretty fun seeiing a king and his court have their hair turned into curly blue with green tips.

Oh, there was Torag's Wrench. A magical tool that could be used as a +1 mace and gave a +2 bonus to Disable Device and Knowledge(Engineering)

And the Anciet Watering Can of Doom! When filled with holy/unholy water and used to water a plant, that plant would grow 2 size categories and turn into a half-celestial/half-fiend ent, depending on which kind of water was used.

Lastly but not least, the Necklace of Shameful Invisibility. It could turn anyone invisible for 1h, 5 times a day and could be activated with a swift action. The catch? Its effect were slowly progressive... 1st 10 minutes, only your clothes and equipment were made inviisble, 11 to 20min, your body would be translucid. 21 to 40min, you would be completely invisible. Then, it would slowly reverse the process... 10min translucid, then 10min with inviisble clothes and finally, you'd be completely visible agains.
We could use a full-round action to make it work properly, however, the invisibility would only last 10min and there was a 50% chance of it just making your clothes/equipment invisible for the duration of the effect.
We gave it to the hot female elven rogue, so it was a win/win situation :smallbiggrin:

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-19, 05:54 PM
Presumably, it helped with convincing the local Mindflayer cabal to let them in thru the front door.:smalltongue:

In my experience, getting into the cabal is the easy part.


Do NPCs count as treasure? Because we've picked up some really whack NPCs in places where you'd expect to find a few gold or something. Example:

After killing a bunch of giant crabs on a beach we found an unconscious, well-dressed, middle-aged guy named Frederick, who was basically a Knight except I'm pretty sure he was only classed as Fighter. He couldn't remember the past four or five years of his life, but he was looking for his homeland, which was someplace called Andalasia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_%28film%29) that we'd never heard of (campaign is in Faerun). He was several levels higher than us, and was a great asset, if a little overaggressive (but we always had warning whenever he was about to charge into battle: he wore a helmet at all times, and flipped the visor down before engaging). It turned out he also had a brain aneurysm, so any time he got critted with a bludgeoning weapon (more often than you'd expect) the DM rolled % to see if he died. He didn't last too long, but he was certainly a... treasure.

tahu88810
2012-03-19, 06:12 PM
If NPCs do count as treasure...

In one campaign I ran, the Drow Rogue in the group saved a goblin runt and subsequently spent over a quarter of his wealth kitting it out with the best crossbow possible. In a party of level 8s, that level 1 goblin commoner was almost as useful as everyone else.

In a campaign I played, my idiot hedge knight once acquired a chain that allowed him to grapple enemies from afar. He acquired it by willfully jumping onto the incredibly-high pillars that a group of githyanki wielding the items were doing their monk-thing on, allowing himself to be grappled and pulled into the pit, and then dragging a githyanki down with him.

In another campaign I played, my Tiefling Wizard, who claimed to be the son of Asmodeus, was granted a raven's head in reward for one of his many obnoxious deeds (he was more annoying than evil, i guess). This head didn't do anything, but he would sometimes make it talk.

The aforementioned idiot knight skewered a kobold in a charge during his first adventure. He kept its corpse on his lance as a decoration, and would often refer people to it as his "secretary" if they were annoying him.

In a campaign I ran, the party once acquired the statue of a pigeon while robbing an eccentric nobleman's house. It was magical, but they couldn't figure out what it did. That is, until they entered a major city and every pigeon in said city immediately flocked to them.

In another campaign I ran, the warforged acquired addons for his shoulders that essentially did little more than act as platforms to carry his many, many homonculi. He turned into a mobile weapons platform, basically. Less bizarre, and more cool I guess.

Heliomance
2012-03-19, 06:38 PM
Oh yes, I also have to give an honourable mention to the Mirror of Flattery. It shamelessly, fervently, and without surcease flatters whoever is standing in front of it.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

"Why, you are of course, my dear! My you're looking ravishing today, aren't you? I bet all the young men are fighting over you, aren't they? Such beauty, such grace! I must say, my dear, it is an honour to reflect such perfection, truly an honour!"

It keeps on going for as long as I can possibly think of things to say. The sole female in the party adores it!

MonkeyBusiness
2012-03-19, 07:27 PM
Heh. I am really enjoying reading this thread! "Clarence the Talking Box" is a scream!

One "treasure" in a game I ran was not so much discovered as it "occured". The players were in an area saturated by druidic spells, and any magic cast on a plant or plant-based item had unexpected side-effects. So when a sorcerer animated a rope, it *stayed* animated. It followed them around, developed a personality, and became the sorceror's familiar eventually. I kept a sock in my dice bag to use as a puppet to pantomime the rope's responses to requests. Once or twice the rope performed some "Lassie" type feats and, yes, did indeed rescue someone who fell down a well.



.

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-21, 10:58 AM
Not bizzare per say, but I think this deserves a mention anyway-- in a campaign where we, as the PCs, are extremely poor (we're basically terrorists; people don't do business with us so much), we actually managed to do something that resulted in us finding some real, honest-to-god random treasure. Since it was such a rare occurrence, he rolled it right in front of us, and lo and behold: a Medium-Magic Longsword comes up!

So, he starts rolling its enhancement, and gets "Special Ability and Roll Again." Sweet! He rolls again, and gets a +2 enhancement bonus. So far, so good.

Now for the special ability. It is at this point that our crazy DM manages to roll between 96-100 four times in a row. For those of you not keeping track at home; there is a 0.000625% chance of this occurring, or one in 160,000. With each progressive roll, we start to lose it a little more. By the time he rolls the fourth one, we're basically just yelling incoherently. (Shockingly, he doesn't manage to roll any more "roll again twice" results). The final descriptors on this random "medium" magic longsword:

+2
Frost
Flaming Burst
Shocking Burst
Ghost Touch

Total bonus equivalent: +8

Reaper_Monkey
2012-03-21, 01:11 PM
The final descriptors on this random "medium" magic longsword: +2, Frost, Flaming Burst, Shocking Burst, Ghost Touch

Not wanting to rain on your parade... but for the probabilities required to produce said weapon, it don't half look a bit lacklustre. It has been a while since I've played d&d to be sure, but that's two underwhelming on-crit abilities, and a foe specific upgrade... plus it doesn't really scream awesome...

Of cause due to the shear randomness of its creation nothing is stopping the GM from, you know, sorta prettying it up a little? Giving it a more unified theme and unique enchantments, throw in a cool backstory and some lore to go with a style upgrade instead of just "medium longsword"... Or at least throw Keen in for free to make those burst enchants worth a damn.

Kuma Kode
2012-03-21, 02:23 PM
Not wanting to rain on your parade... but for the probabilities required to produce said weapon, it don't half look a bit lacklustre. It has been a while since I've played d&d to be sure, but that's two underwhelming on-crit abilities, and a foe specific upgrade... plus it doesn't really scream awesome...

Of cause due to the shear randomness of its creation nothing is stopping the GM from, you know, sorta prettying it up a little? Giving it a more unified theme and unique enchantments, throw in a cool backstory and some lore to go with a style upgrade instead of just "medium longsword"... Or at least throw Keen in for free to make those burst enchants worth a damn.

Longsword isn't the worst weapon to have crit-based powers on, and that's still 3d6 points of energy damage with each swing. For the level it seems like they were at, that's not bad at all.

Dr.Epic
2012-03-21, 02:33 PM
A magic ring that made you immune to magic missile. The ironic thing is it was looted from the treasure room of a queen after the mage killed said queen by blasting her with magic missile.:smallwink::smallbiggrin:

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-21, 02:44 PM
Not wanting to rain on your parade... but for the probabilities required to produce said weapon, it don't half look a bit lacklustre. It has been a while since I've played d&d to be sure, but that's two underwhelming on-crit abilities, and a foe specific upgrade... plus it doesn't really scream awesome...

Of cause due to the shear randomness of its creation nothing is stopping the GM from, you know, sorta prettying it up a little? Giving it a more unified theme and unique enchantments, throw in a cool backstory and some lore to go with a style upgrade instead of just "medium longsword"... Or at least throw Keen in for free to make those burst enchants worth a damn.

Longsword isn't the worst weapon to have crit-based powers on, and that's still 3d6 points of energy damage with each swing. For the level it seems like they were at, that's not bad at all.

The real tragedy was that the only person in the party who could use it already had a special ancestral weapon, so it really only ever got used for its ghost-touch. Then again, having a ghost-touch sword around sure was nice.

Regarding the sheer multitude of silly, subpar effects: yes, indeed. But frankly, take a look at the table (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#holy): anything originally designated as a medium magic item can't get any single ability better than +2 equivalent. Sure, keen & spell-storing would have been a stronger +2 equivalent, but no one was about to complain at that point. It was just a silly weapon found in a random chest at the bottom of a river (and if we'd ever decided to just sell it, it's still worth a lot of money, unoptimized or not).

LoneStarNorth
2012-03-21, 02:44 PM
At one point in a game I was running, the party came across an ancient ruined house. Not a temple or a castle or anything, just a house. It was loaded with magic items which served everyday purposes.

Hairbrush of Grooming: When used, it cleaned your entire person and gave you a minor bonus to Diplomacy checks for a little while afterwards.

Spoon of Safety: Would bend and recoil from any poisonous material.

Fork of Poison: Had a 10% chance to poison you every time you used it to put something in your mouth. It was pretty weak poison though, so it was clearly a prank rather than an instrument utensil of evil.

Automagic Broom: Would magically set about to clean an area if you stood it upright.

Chamberpot of Holding: Like a bag of holding, but it can only hold one thing. If you use it too many times without emptying it, when you finally DO empty it it recreates the effect of a gust of wind spell. But not with wind.

Other than those items, the clear winner for strangest treasure would have to be the clockwork chicken. When you wind it up and set it loose, it hops around and plays music for a little while, which fascinates everyone nearby if they fail their save.

The Bandicoot
2012-03-21, 02:47 PM
Expanding on my last post: The Malfunctioning Gnomeish Battle Belt. +2DR/Piercing -2Dex -2Cha tracks your kills by turning one bead red for each kill. Can only be removed after being defeated after 17 years or by.....y'know.....using the clasp. Currently being worn as a necklace by the group fighter(unarmed swordsage)

Dr.Orpheus
2012-03-21, 03:06 PM
Rusty spiked armored wheelbarrow with The Penetrator written in blood on its side. It was the most horribly inefficient tool I have ever used to one hit a pit fiend. It required a move action to change its direction, it had a -10 ft. movement penalty going up hill, +10 ft. bonus going down hill, and when ever it made contact with any thing during a charge attack it did 3d6 damage then broke down until you could make a craft check DC 25.

Karoht
2012-03-21, 03:39 PM
It's storytime. Tell us the story of the oddest piece of treasure you've ever run across in a game, and if/how it came in handy.

Our GM was particularly finicky about us changing currencies. Namely converting gold > silver > copper and such. He made us track EVERYTHING.

Well, to make it easier to sell anything, or to quickly convert large amounts of copper pieces into silver, we found a tube among the copper. If you put silver in one end, out the other end came copper. If you put copper in the other end, out came silver. Eventually we had a whole set, going from copper > silver > gold > platinum > gems. It was incredibly handy because one could convert a gem down to gold, add other gold from something like a treasure chest, and then convert the total to an equivilant value gem for easy portability. Or if you needed 10K worth of diamonds and happened to have the money to buy it, boom, diamonds.
It is relevant to note that the conversion was 100 copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to 1 gold, 100 gold to 1 platinum, and all gem prices were in platinum prices.

Well one day we find a particularly expensive gem. We then decided it would be a good idea to rig all the tubes together into one massive tube, and drop the gem in at the top. Our DM spent about 2 minutes with a calculator, then proceeded to explain what we had just done.

The first conversion just made a noisy clatter of money sounds. Like dumping out a very full piggy bank onto a hardwood floor.

The second conversion made was an incredibley loud clattering, kind of like a dozen machine guns firing at a series of steel drums. We'd rigged the mega-tube to stand upright and let gravity do all the work. At this point, the tube fell over.

The third conversion, we began to see coins hemmoraging out at all the joints, and a tiny little garnet even made it's way out of the top.

The fourth conversion, due to the direction the tube fell, pointed the exit of the monotube at the party rogue (randomly determined). The DM asked for a Reflex save, I'm not sure the DC, but the DM just flat out said he failed and that Evasion did jack squat for what happened next.

The tube exploded in a spray of copper coins, powerful enough to send the tube flying out of the house we were in, and threw the rogue out the locked front door and all the way to the end of the block, nearly killing the Rogue. Copper pieces were everywhere. Imagine if 10 dump trucks of unrolled pennies just lost their load on one road. That was this little street. Pennies everywhere. The locals SWARMED out of their homes to fill their pockets and buckets and watering cans and bathtubs and any kind of container they could fill and still have strength enough to move. We made off with about 3% of the coinage. For reference, this is the part where I came back from the restroom.


Sadly, that gem's actual value was only ever speculated on. I guess the plan was to count pennies for a decade to figure out it's actual value, rather than just roll an appraise check. Though given estimates of how many pennies were likely on the ground (helped that I worked at a bank at the time), I think we can safely say that the gem would have been listed as 'priceless'

ngilop
2012-03-21, 04:01 PM
the colest item that I ever had was a tiny box about the size of a cellphone that played theme music. for all kinds of things.

oh whats that we are exploring an old monestary cellar.. and BAMMO THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKLpJtvzlEI) starts happening

oh uh oh.. we are being chased in our sleepwear by cultist of the goddess of lust who happen to own the inn and most of the hamlet we were staying at and POW THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg) starts.

it was pretty epic of a thing.

Shpadoinkle
2012-03-21, 04:02 PM
I've wanted to give my players this one a couple times but never got the chance.

An odd looking wand- it's a flat piece of wood, approximately as long as the distance from a man's elbow to his wrist, and about as wide as two fingers held together. One side is blank, the other bears strange markings you don't recognize. The markings are very orderly, possibly some kind of writing, but not in any language you'd recognize. When used, it allows you to find the dimensions of any physical object you touch it to, and doesn't use charges.

It's a ruler.

DaedalusMkV
2012-03-21, 07:16 PM
My group has run into a few odd things over the course of our adventures, but since we're currently mostly doing prewritten modules none of the over-the-top absurd stuff. Let's see...

Necromantic Cheese. We never did figure out what it did, since none of us had the courage to touch a wheel of fine cheese that "Radiated a necromantic aura several times more powerful than any undead you've encountered so far". Apparently it had pretty good resale value, though, because we got over 1000 gold for it. Thank goodness for gloves.

Figurine of Wondrous Power: Jade Platypus. I honestly think my GM made this one up. It could turn into a real Platypus for an hour a day, at which point it did pretty much nothing. We kept it around for a while as a novelty, then sold it off when we realized we hadn't actually done anything with it, and it cost about as much as a bottom-tier Bag of Tricks.

Then there was my first campaign, way back in highschool. The most notable thing we got out of that one was the "Want of Defenestration". It was a wand that could be used once per day to cause someone to take the shortest possible path from wherever they are to the nearest outdoors location, flying through the air. It usually invovled going through a window or chimney, but when we used it against... I think an ogre or minotaur or something, some sort of scary humanoid melee monster, at the end of a dungeon deep in the bottom of a cave "The indignant shouts faded slowly away. You guys Arcane Locked the only door, didn't you..." He was still there when we got back up there in the morning. :smallbiggrin: There was also the "Robe of Invisibility", which turned invisible while worn for everyone but the wearer. It pretty much existed so one of our players had an easy way to see female NPCs naked after he kept pestering the DM about this sort of thing.

Grendus
2012-03-21, 09:33 PM
A Kender Trap. It was a bag that if anyone but the owner tries to get something out of it, it does some miscellaneous prank to their hand (mouse trap, electric shock, bite, cold custard, etc) and they can't get the item. Of course, this was in a setting with no Kender, and nobody in my party actually knows what a Kender is, so there was much hilarity to be had as they tried to figure out the name. Useful item though, good for keeping pickpockets from taking your stuff.

Yes, I stole that from the useless items thread. It was brilliant.

Kuma Kode
2012-03-22, 12:55 AM
the colest item that I ever had was a tiny box about the size of a cellphone that played theme music. for all kinds of things.

oh whats that we are exploring an old monestary cellar.. and BAMMO THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKLpJtvzlEI) starts happening

I was working on a homebrewed class when I clicked that link. Thanks to you, I feel like this is the class advancement table that will decide the fate of humanity.

Gravitron5000
2012-03-22, 07:48 AM
Necromantic Cheese. We never did figure out what it did, since none of us had the courage to touch a wheel of fine cheese that "Radiated a necromantic aura several times more powerful than any undead you've encountered so far". Apparently it had pretty good resale value, though, because we got over 1000 gold for it. Thank goodness for gloves.


Of coarse it was expensive. That cheese is to DIE for :smallcool:

NowhereMan583
2012-03-22, 08:07 AM
I ran a campaign about a year ago where I took some joy in giving out only magic items I had dreamed up myself, so as to prevent the experienced players in the group from knowing what to expect. Some of my favorites were:

Diminutive Golem of Trap Finding: A small stone golem, easily fit in a pocket, carved to look like a kobold. It was extremely stupid and completely mute, but it had the supernatural ability to unerringly detect and avoid traps. If you set it on the ground, it would run straight ahead until it found a trap... at which point it would avoid setting it off. It took a couple tries before the party figured out how it worked -- when they first found it, they set it down and it ran off, so they of course chased after their brand new magical item, even when it nimbly hopped onto the wall and skittered along using tiny, tiny handholds. Not being able to climb on the wall themselves, they kept running on the floor next to it... straight into a pit trap. Which, of course, the golem avoided.

Ring of Command Insects: (My players dubbed this the "Ring of Ask Bugs".) Insects were bound to obey the commands of whoever wore the ring, but they didn't have to like it. They came when called, and the wearer could speak to them, but they were deeply sarcastic and hostile, always looking for an opportunity to twist the wearer's commands and screw them over. The PCs never tried to use it for anything more than information gathering, for fear something would go horribly wrong.

The Anatine Axe of St. Anaximadros the Apostle: (Also known as "The Axe of the Apostle", because I think I'm funny.) It was a greataxe stylized to look like a duck, with the blades engraved to look like spread wings. When they found this artifact, the bard rolled her bardic knowledge check and got the following: "St. Anaximadros was a famed creator of magical weapons during the Pelorian Holy War. This was one of his more peaceful creations, however. When a companion of his was baleful polymorphed into a duck, St. Anaximadros forged and enchanted this axe in such a way that striking the duck with it lifted the curse." The axe was completely useless in combat, turning incorporeal every time it struck a living thing. Its actual enchantment was that any living being struck with it got the chance to re-roll a saving throw against an ongoing effect, magical or otherwise. However, the players assumed it was a joke item, like the bag of indestructible marbles they could never find a use for, and referred to it as "The Axe of De-Duckification". It apparently never occurred to them that its enchantment applied to anything other than people who had been turned into ducks.

MesiDoomstalker
2012-03-22, 08:14 AM
items the PC's never learned how to use correctly

And this is why my DM lets us do Arcana/K:Arcana or other such checks as approriate to deteremine what an item does.

Dust
2012-03-22, 05:51 PM
The Lime Rock was a naturally-formed semiprecious hunk of rock that, with the proper command words, could increase the speaker's magical potency temporarily.
The command words had to be a limerick.

cattoy
2012-03-22, 06:04 PM
A piece of paper with an NPC's name on it.

My PCs long lost mother turns out to be an assassin with a book of grudges sort of thing and my PC's etiquette teacher turns out to have previously been on the list. (said NPC is actually a cover ID for a powerful wizard)

Leon
2012-03-22, 11:03 PM
...
Necromantic Cheese. We never did figure out what it did, since none of us had the courage to touch a wheel of fine cheese that "Radiated a necromantic aura several times more powerful than any undead you've encountered so far". Apparently it had pretty good resale value, though, because we got over 1000 gold for it. Thank goodness for gloves.


Eat it and gain "The Unwise" title

Jay R
2012-03-22, 11:14 PM
Automagic Broom: Would magically set about to clean an area if you stood it upright.

If I ever give out one of these, it will start carrying water. And nothing short of epic magic will stop it.

And if we're playing at my house, I will put Dukas's "The Sorceror's Apprentice" on the CD player.

Lemmy
2012-03-23, 09:41 AM
If I ever give out one of these, it will start carrying water. And nothing short of epic magic will stop it.

And if we're playing at my house, I will put Dukas's "The Sorceror's Apprentice" on the CD player.

What are you talking about? Just "kill" the broom with an axe! Break it in a million pieces! What could go wrong? :smallbiggrin:

The Bandicoot
2012-03-23, 10:22 AM
What are you talking about? Just "kill" the broom with an axe! Break it in a million pieces! What could go wrong? :smallbiggrin:

Obviously you've never played in one of my games. :smallamused:

Jay R
2012-03-23, 02:32 PM
What are you talking about? Just "kill" the broom with an axe! Break it in a million pieces! What could go wrong? :smallbiggrin:Obviously you've never played in one of my games. :smallamused:
NO, but he has seen Fantasia, which it appears that you have not.

Jarrick
2012-03-24, 02:41 AM
My group was running a high-seas-themed campaign, which started out with the PCs (A warforged cleric, a (human?) bard, and a half-dragon monk) hiring on with a certain ship's crew to seek a hidden treasure. This was cut short when, for plot reasons, "that accursed kraken" finally caught up with the old captain and promptly dragged him and most of the crew into the depths for reasons to be divulged later in the campaign. The ship was damaged and slowly sinking, but the party managed to spot a small tropical island in the distance. With some difficulty they managed to get the ship pointed at the island and arrived later that evening, beaching their ship to stop it from sinking.

They decided to explore the island right away and, just as night fell, they found the sole inhabitants of the island: a tribe of primitive goblins so far removed from the outside world that they had no spellcasters of their own. They were in the middle of some kind of ritual complete with dancing around a bonfire. The party decides to introduce themselves.

The warforged steps out first, to which the goblins all drop what they're doing and glare in amazement. The party bard capitalizes on the shock and casts dancing lights on the warforged to give him a heavenly glow. The goblins immediately bow down in reverence to their new god, and later inform him that they will follow him unconditionally if he can best the might of their old god. Their old god was a particularly old and vicious owlbear, which after a tough couple rounds of combat was beaten by the warforged.

The goblins cheered and danced and from thereafter regarded the party as their leaders. The goblins helped repair the ship and (after some training) became the crew of that ship for the rest of the campaign.

So yes, my entry for most bizarre treasure: a tribe of goblin native sailors.

The descendants of that goblin tribe and their war god have made appearances in subsequent campaigns.

Lemmy
2012-03-26, 12:54 PM
NO, but he has seen Fantasia, which it appears that you have not.

Indeed I have... At one point I even played an awakened rat wizard... :smalltongue:

Someday I need to make a awakened hippo dervish dancer bard

Morithias
2012-03-28, 11:17 PM
Just got out of a play-by-post forum campaign, where at then end of the campaign we ended up with the weirdest artifact ever (and yet probably the most dangerous artifact ever). The "Love Note".

As in a Death Note...that creates Love.

If you write two people's names in it on the same line they fall it love, under the following conditions.

1. You must imagine their faces when writing the names.
2. The two people must have met at least once.
3. They have to be biologically compatible I.e. BOEF Chart, no making a human fall in love with an ooze.
4. You cannot write your own name.

Needless to say the party went nuts and started writing names, and occasionally writing the same name more than once...only at the point did the DM reveal that the Love Note doesn't create "real love" but rather the same effect as a potion of charm person....on both sides, infatuation if you will.

Needless to say our next campaign is probably going to revolve around destroying the damn thing.

Vknight
2012-03-29, 12:13 PM
Chaos Dagger; Its a long thin dagger that every hour has the single gemstone in its center change colour.
The player that uses the dagger rolls a d6(Determining the damage type) at which point I roll a d100 if its a critical hit or failure. Otherwise I roll a d10(determine if damage gets a bonuses)
This one weapon has over 10tables with it.
And my players love it tossing it back and forth. They came to love it at the moment the dagger caused a Dragonborns breath weapon to explode outwards rather than in a cone. Its a silly simple dagger that the players enjoy.

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-29, 12:37 PM
This one weapon has over 10tables with it.

Its a silly simple dagger that the players enjoy.

:smallamused:


My players ended up in the City of Brass at some point, and decided to go to the market. That city being what it is, I told them anything they could imagine was available there, for the right price.

-The NG cleric bought a slave (to be fair, she freed her).
-The druid bought a Decanter of Endless Flour (he used it mainly for cooking, but one one occasion he did give himself immunity to fire and then use the Decanter and a candle-equivalent orison to flamethrower his way through a crowd of low-CR creeps of some kind).

NowhereMan583
2012-03-30, 07:43 AM
Chaos Dagger; Its a long thin dagger that every hour has the single gemstone in its center change colour.
The player that uses the dagger rolls a d6(Determining the damage type) at which point I roll a d100 if its a critical hit or failure. Otherwise I roll a d10(determine if damage gets a bonuses)
This one weapon has over 10tables with it.
And my players love it tossing it back and forth. They came to love it at the moment the dagger caused a Dragonborns breath weapon to explode outwards rather than in a cone. Its a silly simple dagger that the players enjoy.

Could you share these tables? This sounds pretty cool.

Vknight
2012-03-30, 02:00 PM
I'm actually going to have to remake them as my computer went out last night and the file is corrupted. I use a labtop during session for things that are important enough to the story the players need but to little importance for me to print(Or to keep them from knowing the results/math)

But sure once I've remade them, I'll put a copy up.