Let's create some humorous, broken magic items like these.

[YCombinator]

Hey everyone,

I'm creating a magic store in my city. It will be staffed by a friendly hapless owner who is desperate to hawk his wares. He's proud of the fact that he's got the best prices in town. He admits his stuff is not top shelf, but still really great stuff. Definitely the best value.

It's fun to get items even if they aren't exactly great. I want to give my players plenty of rewards without unbalancing the game, and keeping it challenging. I don't want anything as powerful as even a +1 weapon or armor. Some of them can be quasi cursed but in a way that's not terrible. Just annoying or inconvenient.

In this shop, he will have three kinds of items. Weak, mundane, and broken. I need help coming up with the broken ones.

Mundane magic items are those that would be useful, great stuff, but totally unnecessary and just luxury. Like clothing that never gets dirty. A mess kit that's always washed. Or a beautiful puzzle toy that could only be made with magic since it's physically impossible. DC 20 Int to solve. Can be tried every 5 minutes. I can come up with this improv style all day. So I don't think we need to list them.

Weak items are items that give a cantrip per day, a +1 to a skill check, or something that has only 4 uses of some small benefit. This site (http://www.lordbyng.net/inspiration/results.php) has a lot of great ones so the store can be filled out with any number of those.

Broken items, which I want brain storm creating, are magic items that mostly work, but are really not that great, or have some major flaw. Hopefully they are also humorous. Without further ado, here's what I have.

Items

Sold as a bottomless bag of Goodberries. One may be extracted per short rest. The berry is not sustenance, nor does it harm the consumer. It does not heal for a hit point either. It is, however, the best tasting food the consumer has ever had. Pleasure lasts several minutes.

Not exactly broken, just a tad ill conceived. One good berry. It restores one hit point upon consumption and will sustain the character for 1 day worth of food, just like a good berry. There is only one berry, however, the berry is immune to the digestion process and maybe extracted from the characters feces three hours later.

A rather large shield about 4' tall and 2' wide. Grants the normal +2 AC. Can be activated once per day and will grant invisibility to anything behind it from the perspective of anything looking directly at it. Lasts for 1 hour.

Glows blue when humans or elves are within a 1/2 mile radius.

Permits telepathic communication to the bearer with any character within 120ft that can be seen. The headband is poor with translation and all messages are close but mangled in sometimes important ways. Other times they make no sense. "I think we're approaching the altar." -> "I think we're hiding in an alter." or "I don't trust this guy. I think he's knows where the cave is." -> "I don't fool this guy. I see he thinks about the cave." Sadly this would be nearly impossible to fake the players out with but some players might continue to role play it for fun.

Like an Immoveable Rod except it does not hold 8,000 lbs., it holds 100 lbs. It also requires only a DC 12 strength check to move instead of DC 30.

Magical compass which always points toward a specific object. Salesman claims it's treasure. It is, but a pretty useless one not worth the trip. Potentially only enough to recoup the cost of the compass itself. It could end up being a large chest with just a ruby worth 50gp or maybe it leads to the bedroom of some completely harmless and innocent couple which a few pieces of jewelry worth a few hundred gold.

Purports to be a headband of insight which can detect lies, however, is entirely too pedantic about the interpretation of an NPCs words. If there is any way to be unreasonably pedantic and interpret what the NPC has said as being technically wrong, even if the character has said the correct thing and is not lying, even if any normal good-faith attempt to understand the character would understand it perfectly well, the headband will cause the character to believe the NPC is lying on an insight check. For example, if an NPC said "I have a horse if you want to borrow it." and the NPC did have a horse he was willing to lend to the characters, the headband would indicate a lie through a passive insight check, due to the fact that this is technically a logically incorrect statement. The fact that the PC is interested in borrowing the horse has no bearing on whether or not the horse actually exists. So saying that one has a horse based on the condition of whether or not borrowing it is desired is clearly wrong. So the headband reports to the bearer that they have been lied to

Not mine, taken from poster on Reddit. Sold under the name Ring of Shadow Perception this ring purports to grant the bearer a huge bonus to passive perception checks to know if they are being followed, watched, or monitored in any way by an unseen entity. In reality, however, the ring triggers randomly.

A magical arrow or crossbow bolt. It returns to the attacker whenever it is fired, so that they always have one. The clerk can demonstrate that this works by lightly throwing it at the wall a short 5 ft away, it taps the wall and instead of falling comes right back to him and he handily catches it. Amazing, right? The thing is that due to shortcuts taken in the making of the enchantment, the bit that slows the arrow down were omitted. The arrows come back with the exact same force as they were fired. The attack must make a dexterity saving throw equal to 8 + their own proficiency + their own dexterity in order to not be hit by the arrow. On success, they catch the arrow. (note this could be potentially very intersting with the Monk's 3rd-level deflect missiles ability.)

[NewDM]

This ring protects the users person from being scryed upon. Scryers can see the person, but cannot see any part of them covered by clothing. Any attempt to see what they have under their clothes or in containers such as purses, bags, or backpacks instead reveal a big sign that says "censored" or a grid of large square squares that are each a single color.

[SharkForce]

i'll give you one that a DM threw in once.

I can't remember the name of the NPC, but let's go with...

mad mohammed's infinitely reusable magic arrow.

it has no bonuses, but is nearly indestructible (in 2e terms, only fails item saves on a natural 1). it is also quite large, almost the size of a javelin (somehow it still works perfectly fine in a bow), and made entirely out of iron (it is also very heavy). the arrow does not return upon being fired, but it is rather easy to find thanks to being so large, and as noted, nearly indestructible. note that there is only one arrow, not a quiver full of them.

(this item was created in response to people not wanting to buy magic arrows, because you only got one use out of them).

[krugaan]

Ring of paranoia would be better like this:

Gives you all the benefits of the alertness feat, but disadvantage on all social rolls, inability to rest (period), refusal to attune any other magical items (and refusal to use any other magical items), and is cursed.

[Dr. Cliché]

Would you mind me stealing the Ring of Paranoia?

[RavensLand]

Cloak of Foliage: Needs at least eight continuous hours of direct sunlight daily or withers and becomes a Cloak of Compost. The Cloak of Foliage grants advantage to stealth checks made near shrubbery. The Cloak of Compost protects the creature from being detected by creatures with scent based perception checks but the character suffers disadvantage on all Charisma skill checks for 24 hours after wearing the cloak (Both mundane and magical attempts to clean the character fail)

[Madbox]

The effects of this potion last for 24 hours. Upon drinking this potion, anyone over the age of 16 is de-aged to 16. Anyone who drinks this potion, regardless of their original age, also has the following effects:
DM may ask for a Wisdom save to not be compelled to make a stupid decision at any time.
Character is treated as a small child by all adult NPCs
Character must make a concentration check for relevant spells at the end of their turn during combat, in addition to all normal concentration checks.
Character has disadvantage on all Persuasion and Intimidation checks on adults
Character has advantage on Intimidation checks versus small children.

[Fighting_Ferret]

Buckler of Bards
This shield is a +1 magical sentient shield that regales it's bearer with tales, songs, comments, and questions all the time (disadvantage to stealth checks).

It glows dimly in the presence of females (like a candle) and becomes very complimentary towards them. If worn by a female in combat, the shield will gallantly praise it's users prowess, even misses and mistakes. If worn against a female in combat the shield will be a apologetic about its duty. If both its user and opponent are female, the shield will make excuses why it shouldn't be involved.

In combat, as an action, the bearer can activate the shield's ability and cast vicious mockery at an non-female enemy within 60 feet (DC 14). If the target makes the save the shield becomes upset and sullen, unwilling to use its taunting ability again until after a long rest...

[KorvinStarmast]

Pedantic Headband of Insight


That ought to be called the Headband of RAW Debates.

I like that bard shield thing. Neat idea.

[Asmotherion]

Ring of social invisibility.
Doesn't make you invisible per say, but instead allowes the user to blend in crowds (more than 5 people) and be perceved as harmless, wile not trigering attention. As long as the user is wearing it and when in a crowd of 5 people or more, anyone trying to make a perception check to find them has disadvantage on that check.

[Shining Wrath]

Amulet of partial trackability.

One of your feet leaves no track when you walk, even through flour or dust. The other leaves normal tracks. Yes, you may attempt to hop, but you will travel at 1/2 your normal speed and will have to make fatigue checks after only 2 hours of travel.

[LordFluffy]

This is a well crafted longbow that radiates strong magic. The weapon is +3. The weapon's enchantments were fudged a bit, however, and it grants no bonuses when fired, only when used as an improvised weapon, striking enemies with the bow itself (as an improvised weapon, it does 1d4 damage). The enchantment is only active while the bow is strung.

[LordFluffy]

This +1 Rapier is well balanced and a fine weapon. The thief who cashed in a favor to get it wanted it to turn him invisible, but the mage he had strongarmed to get the favor had other plans. The user is perfectly visible while holding the weapon, but the blade of the sword is completely and permanently invisible. While this gives the user no benefit to stealth and looks kind of ridiculous (as you're just holding an ornate hilt), some of those who have wielded the blade have managed to use it's properties to surprise their enemies.

Being invisible does make it harder to parry, however, and any ability which uses one's reaction to avoid an attack, including the Shield spell, has no effect on attacks from the Rapier.

[Oramac]

mad mohammed's infinitely reusable magic arrow.

Running with this idea:

Mad Mohammed's Longbow of Infinite Arrows

This magic longbow gives no bonuses, but when the bowstring is drawn, the bow creates an arrow of pure light that can be fired from the bow.

These arrows cause no damage, but do cast bright light in a 60 foot radius, and dim light for 60 more feet as they travel. When the arrow hits any object, it is destroyed and the light it produces is extinguished.

[Gurston]

Eyes of the Beagle

These crystal lenses fit over the eyes. While wearing them, you can see through the eyes of the nearest beagle

[Shining Wrath]

This +1 Rapier is well balanced and a fine weapon. The thief who cashed in a favor to get it wanted it to turn him invisible, but the mage he had strongarmed to get the favor had other plans. The user is perfectly visible while holding the weapon, but the blade of the sword is completely and permanently invisible. While this gives the user no benefit to stealth and looks kind of ridiculous (as you're just holding an ornate hilt), some of those who have wielded the blade have managed to use it's properties to surprise their enemies.

Being invisible does make it harder to parry, however, and any ability which uses one's reaction to avoid an attack, including the Shield spell, has no effect on attacks from the Rapier.

Zelany had a story where the King of the World was assassinated by a man with an invisible blade. "Eyes shall never see the blade that kills you" was the prophecy. "Thus do the Powers have their jokes" were among his last words.

[smcmike]

I like the compass of lousy treasure. I'd have it point to the nearest coinage of any sort - if the character is carrying a coin purse, it just points there. Potentially useful if you think about it.

The tasty berries should allow you to open a cafe and retire, though. The best food ever? That's always valuable.

[FlourescentKing]

The Spork in the Road
This multi-purpose eating utensil is enchanted to dissappear after every meal and reappear during your travels to point you in the right direction. The spork is reusable (but please, wash it!).

[smcmike]

Dagger of Mistaken Returning

A throwing knife enchanted to return to your hand after being thrown. Well, to somebody's hand, anyways. After being thrown it flies to the empty hand of a random person within range.

[YCombinator]

Would you mind me stealing the Ring of Paranoia?

Go for it. That's why I created this thread. I'll be stealing my favorites from this thread as well.


Ring of paranoia would be better like this:

Gives you all the benefits of the alertness feat, but disadvantage on all social rolls, inability to rest (period), refusal to attune any other magical items (and refusal to use any other magical items), and is cursed.

Not sure I like this. It's a decent item in its own right. But mine lets the DM mess with the players a bunch and they might not realize what's going on until it becomes more obvious. A character that can't rest would know this but need to role play it. Definitely potential but totally different item.


I like the compass of lousy treasure. I'd have it point to the nearest coinage of any sort - if the character is carrying a coin purse, it just points there. Potentially useful if you think about it.

Oh that's a pretty great idea too.


The tasty berries should allow you to open a cafe and retire, though. The best food ever? That's always valuable.

Yeah, I don't know about retire on it. They would be able to serve one person once per hour and the pleasure only lasts several minutes. Meal might be the wrong word for this. I intended it to be basically an infinite bag of candy.

[Shining Wrath]

Vertical Compass

A compass that always points straight down toward the ground. Only functions when the bearer has both feet on the ground.

[RickAllison]

I like the idea of the Ring of Paranoia alerting only actual and potential threats. Like warning you in a restaurant when someone is about to attack, but it's really someone about to spill some soup. An item that is useful enough that someone would want to wear it, but that really captures the idea of paranoia.

I course, I hate the Alert feat and similar features, and I would love to set up a situation where a PC is imprisoned because he reacted and attacked the assailant before he could attack...

[smcmike]

Mask of Hideousness

Effectively functions as a hat of disguise self, except your illusory face is so hideous that anyone who sees you becomes hostile.

Magic Mug

Any liquid placed inside this mug is magically transformed into warm, disgusting (but safe to drink) beer. The magic wears off if you ever clean the mug.

[LordFluffy]

Zelany had a story where the King of the World was assassinated by a man with an invisible blade. "Eyes shall never see the blade that kills you" was the prophecy. "Thus do the Powers have their jokes" were among his last words.

Great minds think alike. And sometimes us middling one's catch a good idea too :)

[ChainsawFlwrcld]

A GM once gave a AD&D 2ed thief of mine a Sword of Chaotic Healing that required an attack role to do damage 1d6+STR and once damage was taken a charge could be used to send a healing surge of 2d8+STR down to the person it just damaged. It had 1d4 charges per day but the GM is the only one who knew how many charges were available.

[R.Shackleford]

Heartstealer Gloves

(Figuratively) Recharge (2,4,6): You charm or freighten a creature with to 30' away.

(Literally) Reacharge (1, 3, 5): You say the right words and can reach into a creature's chest and pull out their heart.

[pwykersotz]

I made this for fun back in my early days as a gamer. I had no sense of balance back then, I just made up what I thought was fun. I'm particularly fond of the 1-4 option.


Secret Rod of Wonder

d% Effect
1-4 Your pants become incredibly comfortable and you gain a +1 Morale bonus to attack and damage rolls while sitting.
5-8 A Heroes Feast (as the spell) appears before you. Everyone within 100ft is compelled (DC 25) to eat, drink, and be merry.
9-12 A Fireball (as the spell cast at 15th level) detonates from the tip of the rod.
13-16 Your mind is swapped with the nearest sentient creature.
17-20 The rod turns to solid gold, becomes useless, and can be sold for 1000gp.
21-24 Everyone within line of sight who the wielder identifies as an enemy is afflicted with Tasha’s Hideous Laugher.
25-28 Your body shifts it’s existence slightly and you look like a negative image of yourself.
29-32 A dire lion appears next to the target of the rod. It will obey the wielder for 2d4 rounds before turning on him.
33-36 You become a beacon of either light (33% chance), darkness (33% chance), or a cacophony of noise (34% chance).
37-40 Target gains 1 additional Natural AC as coral grows all over his body.
41-44 You permanently learn a language you could not previously speak. If you cannot learn more with your current skills/stats, a current language is randomly replaced.
45-48 The moon plummets into the sun. A new one of a different color will grow in 1d3 months.
49-52 Your armor gains sentience. If it is already sentient, another item (DM’s choice) becomes sentient.
53-56 Target is turned to solid gemstone (randomly selected type).
57-60 Target gains 1 permanent level.
61-64 The wielder chooses 1 target to become a construct.
65-69 Target explodes in a blast of energy that deals 20d6 damage in a 50ft radius.
70-73 A hurricane force wind with storm clouds and lightning form above the wielder. It has a radius of 50 miles and lasts for 1d4 days.
74-78 The nearest Adult or older dragon is summoned to the wielder.
79-83 All structures, land, and unattended objects within 75ft turn to unmelting ice.
84-88 The next target you kill will rise instantly as an undead with 4 additional hit dice.
89-92 You gain fast healing 3.
93-96 Your evil twin appears.
97-100 A magic item you are wearing turns to dust and a better one (GM’s choice) appears twenty feet away.

[EvanescentHero]

This thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?399328-List-of-Mostly-Useless-Magic-Items) might be of use to you. Thirty-three pages of useless magic items!

[Asmotherion]

Vertical Compass

A compass that always points straight down toward the ground. Only functions when the bearer has both feet on the ground.

That could potentially be usefull in the underdark... if it points the surface ground instead of just down... Or could be a nice "I didn't accidentally step into an other plane/demiplane" check, if it's meant to point towards the core of the material plane.

Anyway, speaking of the underdak, here is an other one I let players use if they happen to play a drow elf on the surface:
Shades of partial darkness (also known in some comunities as shades of the drow):
This is a pair of shades made of smoked glass and imbued with magical darkness. However this darkness is about only 20% as effective as the darkness from the eponymous spell. Wile wearing this glasses, treat light as one step less effective than it's actual effectivness (so, dim light is perceved as darkness, bright light is dim light and daylight is bright light) in reguards to the wearer. This nullifies the drow elf sunlight sensitivity and they may attack normally wile wearing them. Exposure to strong magical light (able to cause radiant dammage) blocks the enchantment for one minute per spell level, during this time the glasses work as normal sunglasses and a drow can see only 60 feet in sunlight, past that he only sees light.

[uraniumrooster]

This Wand appears identical to a Wand of Polymorph, and has had its magical aura masked so completely that attuning to the wand or casting the Identify spell on it will reveal it to be a Wand of Polymorph. It is, however, cursed. When the wielder expends one of the wand's charges to cast the Polymorph spell, the effect only occurs in the user's mind. They completely believe the effect to be real, and no amount of persuading can convince the user that the wand is actually useless. They will continue to believe that the wand is, in fact, a perfectly functional Wand of Polymorph until a Remove Curse spell is cast upon it, after which time it becomes a non-magical wand.

Note: this can appear to be any type of wand. Polymorph just seemed funniest.

[Shining Wrath]

Belt of Unchanged Sex When you don this belt, nothing happens to your body, and nothing changes in how others perceive you. You, however, believe yourself to be a member of the opposite sex and that everyone perceives you as such.

[Giant2005]

If you have played Ultima 7, you will be aware of the Hoe of Destruction, if not I'll explain.
The basic concept is simple really - a Wizard took two orders for magic items at the same time, one was a sword that was to be enchanted to be exceptionally deadly, and the other was a hoe to be enchanted to be a great farming implement. Naturally he mixed up the orders and made the sword good at farming and the hoe a deadly weapon.

You could do something similar. Take a harmless item (something more harmless than a hoe would be best) and enchant the crap out of it. A +3 bonus isn't that great when the item that is enchanted only inflicts 1d4 damage as an improvised weapon and you lose your proficiency bonus when using it. You could even make it a Vorpal weapon in order to make your players actually consider using this stupid weapon.

You could also go the other way and have a Greatsword that is enchanted to be really good at whatever your harmless item of choice was supposed to do.

[uraniumrooster]

If you have played Ultima 7, you will be aware of the Hoe of Destruction, if not I'll explain.
The basic concept is simple really - a Wizard took two orders for magic items at the same time, one was a sword that was to be enchanted to be exceptionally deadly, and the other was a hoe to be enchanted to be a great farming implement. Naturally he mixed up the orders and made the sword good at farming and the hoe a deadly weapon.

You could do something similar. Take a harmless item (something more harmless than a hoe would be best) and enchant the crap out of it. A +3 bonus isn't that great when the item that is enchanted only inflicts 1d4 damage as an improvised weapon and you lose your proficiency bonus when using it. You could even make it a Vorpal weapon in order to make your players actually consider using this stupid weapon.

You could also go the other way and have a Greatsword that is enchanted to be really good at whatever your harmless item of choice was supposed to do.

Lol! Love it.

This simple wooden spoon has all the properties of a Vorpal Blade... except that it has no blade. So it doesn't work.

When you use an action to speak this Greatsword's command word, it begins levitating in place, point downward, making slow circular stirring motions. Gain a +3 bonus to any ability check you make using this property to stir soup. If used in combat, treat the weapon as a non-magical Greatsword.

[Asmotherion]

Inspired by Fable: The lost Chapters, I made a similar frying pan, and a full treasur hunting sub-quest that will end at around level 16.

It deals an extra d4 of all elemental dammage (including force, radiant and necrotic) with each hit, and has 10 charges (1 charge to activate on a successful hit). It is a +3 weapon. It has the finesse and thrown properties too.

The idea is that it's one of the strongest weapons in the realms as it was used to create an artificial divine spark (hints that it belongued to Vecna can be found).

[Markoff Chainey]

Gruzenoms gnomish picture frame
usable by illusionist - instead of casting an illusion, this frame allows an illusion to be cast onto it permanently. The illusion is shown until another one is cast over it or it is dispelled. - very popular among mage university guys who often fill the frame with their fantasies.

headband of telepathic harmony
requires attunement. this headband allows the wearer to read the direct thoughts of a target (the inner dialogue, not the underlying motives, related memories and such) 1/short rest for 10 min. The wearer becomes so deeply empathically connected to the target that she is compelled to always say the truth after using the headband until a long rest, but does so as a reflex and cannot control it.

helm of heightened nobility
requires attunement. this helm is a full helm that grants +1 ac and disadvantage on perception checks. somehow the personality of the previous owner how did in it got stuck.. whenever the wearer acts in a sleightly innoble way (the previous owner was a pious paladin and unfortunately via death forgotten about his own flaws) - the wearer is targeted by a vicious mockery (DC 16) that targets the ability he just wants to use. the helm can only be removed via a remove curse once attuned.