Flavorful/Fun Items (That aren't very Powerful)

[ArcanistSupreme]

I'm currently running an extended series of one-shots for one of my players in between our normal sessions. I told him up front that I didn't want him getting too far ahead of the others in power level and would be adjusting the rewards accordingly, but I still want to reward him with some fun swag. I'm thinking things like extra healing potions (which is too expensive to spend real money on), a potion of fly or adjustable disguise, sovereign glue, an escape ladder, a bag of holding, or a horn of fog. I'll let him know that he's free to give the items away, but he can't sell them.

For the record, he's a 6th level Stalker, but since I'm not letting him sell the items, price doesn't really matter if the effects aren't that powerful. So what are those weird items that you always wanted but could never justify buying for any character?

[noob]

Rod of wonder(I never had a character who would be of the kind to use it)
But there is a bug which is that you can create approx 800 PO per day by using it every round for 8 hours.

[atomicwaffle]

two of my favourite items are Ring of Sustenance and Boots of Landing.

[AmberVael]

Well, honestly I do end up buying a lot of the things I'm about to list... but most of them are just cool and a bit useful rather than something that will really reshape the game.

-Shiftweave
One of my favorite items, Shiftweave is a cheap piece of clothing that can turn into any of five outfits determined at its creation. Go from sneaky black suited ninja to party ready courtier in seconds! Its a super fun item, very classy and stylish. Having an instant superhero phone booth is not going to unbalance anything though. (Magic Item Compendium, 133).

-Travel Cloak
The travel cloak has all an adventurer's real necessities condensed into a nice waterproof cloak. It protects you from the elements, it provides all the food and water you need, and even turns into a tent. If you have a travel cloak on, you can get traveling at a moment's notice. (Magic of Faerun, 166).

-Survival Pouch
Its like a bag of tricks, except instead of useless animals it contains helpful items! You can pull out anything from a mule to a lit campfire. Very handy. Highly recommended. Ultimately its not much different than spending a handful of gold on a mule and some packed common items, but it does save space and have style. (Magic Item Compendium, 188).

-Belt of Many Pockets
The most compact storage item on the market! Not a big sack you have to lug around or a hefty backpack, the belt of many pockets is pretty much the ideal adventuring item, an item that combines the style of having inexplicable numbers of pockets and pouches and the ability to have enough items to sink a battleship that seem to appear out of nowhere and never encumber you. It has some limitations in terms of the size of things it can carry, but it sure does have a lot of volume. (Complete Arcane, 147).

-Watchlamp
Look! No hands! An eternal torch that requires no light and hovers around you. Alternately you can give him a gray ioun stone with everburning torch cast on it, that works about the same, and both are pretty fun. I recommend making Watchlamp a slotless item, it doesn't really need to take the form of a circlet. Making it a weird ioun stone would actually be pretty cool. Yellow sphere ioun stone? (Magic Item Compendium, page 147).

[Unbodied]

There's a list of essential magic items that has a lot of fun ones.

https://m.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/2cv8z8/master_list_of_essentialuseful_magic_items/

Sleeves of Many Garments
Disguises and RP while very cheap
All classes
Slot: writs
200gp

Soul Soup
Allows an extra saving throw against mind effecting when washed with it
All classes (Party Item)
200gp

Traveler's Any-Tool
Can become masterwork tools for more most Craft or Proffession skills
Characters with the skills
250gp

Key of Lock Jamming
"Seals a door shut and makes it harder to break down, situational, but useful."
All classes (Party Item)
400gp

Pathfinder Pouch
Great for smuggling and money
All classes (especially typical rogues)
1000gp

Quick Runner's Shirt
1/day extra move action
All classes (especially physical classes)
Slot: Chest
1000gp

Hat of Disguise
"1,800 gp to be a shapeshifter? Hell yes!"
All classes (especially Rogues)
Slot: Head
1800gp

Gloves of Reconnaissance
Look through up to 15ft of solid material for 10 rounds/day
Every Class (Party Item)
Slot: Hands
2000gp

Handy Haversack
Move action to retrieve something with no AoO
All classes
2000gp

[Milo v3]

Gloves of shaping is pretty cool:

These soft leather gloves are constantly encrusted with clay between the fingers and allow the reshaping of otherwise durable materials. The wearer can shape objects with hardness 8 or lower (stone, wood, leather, and so on) as if it were soft clay. While it's possible to rapidly make crude shapes (shaping roughly 1 cubic foot of material per round), creating fine detail or moving parts requires additional time and an appropriate Craft check, at the GM's discretion.
Materials with more than 8 points of hardness are still affected, though not so dramatically. The wearer may treat these materials as having half as much hardness when attempting to damage or reshape them. For instance, a steel bar normally has 10 points of hardness, but the wearer of the gloves may treat it as having hardness 5, and shape it with woodworking tools.
The gloves only affect shaping materials with the wearer's hands or handheld tools, and only when the wearer desires to do so.


Hat of Disguise
"1,800 gp to be a shapeshifter? Hell yes!"
All classes (especially Rogues)
Slot: Head
1800gp
Hat of disguise isn't that amazing anymore now that you have to keep reactivating the effects IMO.

[Geddy2112]

two of my favourite items are Ring of Sustenance and Boots of Landing.
Both are amazing-in pathfinder we have boots of the cat, which are better for any fall over 20ft.




Sleeves of Many Garments

Traveler's Any-Tool

Quick Runner's Shirt

Handy Haversack

All of these are incredibly useful.

[ArcanistSupreme]

I like a lot of these suggestions. I think I'm going to ere on the side of "useful/fun for RP but not combat". So Sleeves of Many Garments, Traveler's Any Tool, and the like are in, but Handy Haversack and Quick Runner's Shirt are out. I'm willing to throw in 3.5 items too, so any really obscure or obscenely overpriced ideas are welcome.

[Geddy2112]

The robe of infinite twine (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/robe-of-infinite-twine) is a lot of fun, and occasionally useful. If nothing else, the party can have a ton of rope...

[Nibbens]

Immovable Rod = Win!

[noob]

That Rope of Climbing nobody use and that everyone forgets once they are high level enough for buying it or having flight.
Then there was the bag of infinite caltrops who could produce 5 use of caltrops per day and had a cost of 800PO which allowed then to make the players say that caltrops should be cheaper thanks to the magical continuous devaluation created by this magic item but that was mostly not used.

[marphod]

If you want to give rewards that feel significant but have little in the way of long-term game effects, consider giving the PC something like Action Points as a reward.

Taking a queue from the Living DnD campaign, you could also give the PC a set of tokens, which can be activated and consumed (not an action) for a +1 to any skill role. (which were essentially the awards for 'winning' a table -- that is, being voted the best RPer at the table).


Pretty much any low-level consumables are good rewards, or more long term items that are a benefit to the party in general, rather than the specific character (portable housing, summonable horse and buggy). Or simply one time use virtual points to the character's Ki Pool.

[Oberon Kenobi]

Aside from some of the fun stuff that's already been mentioned, I'm really fond of the Mallet of Building. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/m-p/mallet-of-building)

Solidsmoke Pipeweed (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/solidsmoke-pipeweed) and the Investigator's Pipe (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/investigator-s-pipe) are fun, though they might be a little too directly useful.

The Tengu Drinking Jug (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/tengu-drinking-jug) lets you cook up your ramen noodles and have fancy tea parties in the middle of the wilderness, which is great.

[ArcanistSupreme]

The robe of infinite twine (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/robe-of-infinite-twine) is a lot of fun, and occasionally useful. If nothing else, the party can have a ton of rope...

Love it. I can't seem to find the section that says you can't wear a robe and armor. Is that doable with Pathfinder?


Immovable Rod = Win!

Oh yeah! He would LOVE one of these!


That Rope of Climbing nobody use and that everyone forgets once they are high level enough for buying it or having flight.
Then there was the bag of infinite caltrops who could produce 5 use of caltrops per day and had a cost of 800PO which allowed then to make the players say that caltrops should be cheaper thanks to the magical continuous devaluation created by this magic item but that was mostly not used.

I like the Rope of Climbing. I feel like the Bag of Infinite caltrops could be good enough it might see use every now and again but not too good. I like it.


If you want to give rewards that feel significant but have little in the way of long-term game effects, consider giving the PC something like Action Points as a reward.[...]

Pretty much any low-level consumables are good rewards, or more long term items that are a benefit to the party in general, rather than the specific character (portable housing, summonable horse and buggy). Or simply one time use virtual points to the character's Ki Pool.

I think I'm going to avoid Action Points just out of laziness. I don't want to have to track another resource or have to learn the rules just so one player can use them like twice. Single use items can kind of accomplish the same thing anyway. I was thinking about some party items (like bag of holding or those spoons that make gruel), so I like that idea.


Aside from some of the fun stuff that's already been mentioned, I'm really fond of the Mallet of Building. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/m-p/mallet-of-building)

Solidsmoke Pipeweed (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/solidsmoke-pipeweed) and the Investigator's Pipe (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/investigator-s-pipe) are fun, though they might be a little too directly useful.

The Tengu Drinking Jug (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/tengu-drinking-jug) lets you cook up your ramen noodles and have fancy tea parties in the middle of the wilderness, which is great.

I love all of these. I think they would fit another character's personality a little better (and I'll have to make the pipeweed usable to non-halflings, but whatevs), so now I have to talk him into a solo adventure...

[Oberon Kenobi]

Love it. I can't seem to find the section that says you can't wear a robe and armor. Is that doable with Pathfinder?...Huh. According to the SRD, robes and armor explicitly take up different slots (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#TOC-Magic-Items-Slots) in Pathfinder, so I guess you can. Never realized that!

[ArcanistSupreme]

...Huh. According to the SRD, robes and armor explicitly take up different slots (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#TOC-Magic-Items-Slots) in Pathfinder, so I guess you can. Never realized that!

Am I crazy or was that different in 3.5?

[Oberon Kenobi]

You're not crazy; In 3.5, magic armor and magic robes take up the same slot. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#magicItemsOnTheBody) Though I think you can wear mundane armor with robes, if you're into that sort of thing.

[jstingray]

My DM created an artifact called The Dagger of Deciphering Blood Type. It does fire damage for type A, cold for B, both for AB, and normal for O.

[noob]

Artifact is a little the opposite of what you are supposed to speak of in this thread.

[Psyren]

Am I crazy or was that different in 3.5?


You're not crazy; In 3.5, magic armor and magic robes take up the same slot. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#magicItemsOnTheBody) Though I think you can wear mundane armor with robes, if you're into that sort of thing.

Pathfinder also split Head into two different slots (Head and Headband.) This allows your bard or rogue for example to wear both Circlet of Persuasion and Hat of Disguise in PF.

[marphod]

Pathfinder also split Head into two different slots (Head and Headband.) This allows your bard or rogue for example to wear both Circlet of Persuasion and Hat of Disguise in PF.

I think that is more splitting Head/Face into Head/Headband/Eyes, but yeah.


However, there still isn't a Pants/Pantaloons/Hose /Britches slot, which seems wrong; and no division of the lower leg into multiple slots like Anklets, Feet, and Toes (Or Spats, Shoes, and Galoshes) while there is Wrist, Hands, and Ring(s).