help me balance this magic item

[Camman1984]

I want to add a custom magic item into our campaign as there has been very little scripted treasure for arcane casters in this campaign book.

Our caster is a wizard who likes undead summoning (mostly zombie animals to appease our cleric). he is also a shameless optimized who reads ahead on the campaign guide when nobody is supposed to so he can pretend he has worked it all out ;)

to this end I want a fun item for him, but with a sting in its tail.

magic staff
requires attunement
max 10 charges (1d6+4 at dusk)
faint evil aura
sentient and wishes to get back to it's previous master (a bbeg in campaign)

2 charges - speak with undead
3 charges - cast mage armour on undead, lasts until dusk or if charges on staff are exhausted
1-10 charges heal 1d6 to undead creature per charge used

I want a curse to, maybe something along the lines of disadvantage to all wisdom or charisma saves versus undead, but is that too harsh?

I also considered a vampiric strike attack with the staff but it seems too much.

any advice would be appreciated.

[pangoo209]

You could make it (as a "curse") refuse to bring it's previous wielder to harm, resulting in WIS saves versus the staff trying to charm them, or causing the staff to stop allowing the pc to use it

Just throwing ideas out there:smallwink:

[Ebon Rogue]

Instead of a curse, I'd just have the staff inconvenience the wielder at critical moment. Maybe force the wielder to take psychic damage and break concentration, or try to turn the undead in a internal struggle based on contested rolls. You don't really need a specific game mechanic when you want a sentient magic item to screw with its wielder, so just have fun with it. Play the staff like its another NPC, just stick shaped and very angry!

Also to note, some zombies might have natural armor, which is incompatible with Mage Armor. I'd smooth that out with the minions he has, or just give a generic +1 or 2 AC for X minutes.

[Matrix_Walker]

The staff's yearning for it's creator is so powerful, that when a bearer attunes to the staff, it casts a Suggestion on them to "return the staff to it's rightful owner" (which may mean delivering it, or raising a necromancer from the dead to bear it, etc). you can give it a special duration and say they get a saving throw every 8 hours/day/whatever to break the effects. If they make the initial save (or a successive one), they have control of the staff... for now.

But it has a nasty habit, due to that pesky yearning... it wrests itself free from attunement at the height of it's powers, on a roll a 6 when it regains charges . The bearer is free to attune to the staff again.

Or you can simply say it casts the suggestion again on that roll of 6.

[Camman1984]

i wound rather the downside be a consistent long term effect rather than a switch I can just flip at arbitrary points. I want him to slowly become aware that the staff is not all good and if he makes the decision that it isn't worth the price and he jumps through the right hoops he can get rid if it. just having a "computer says no" moment during a big important fight just feels unfair as a dm. his behaviour is irritating but I still want to treat him fairly.

I am thinking that this staff may even be a 'plant' by the bbeg to give him a potential back door into the party

[Matrix_Walker]

I want a curse to, maybe something along the lines of disadvantage to all wisdom or charisma saves versus undead, but is that too harsh?

I also considered a vampiric strike attack with the staff but it seems too much.

any advice would be appreciated.

What if it restored it's charges by depleting the Attuned user's HP, and those HP could only be restored by the vampiric attack? While the damage persists, they have disadvantage on saving throws VS the forces of darkness... That gives them the penalty, and an out to escape it, and reinforces the necromantic nature. They get to enjoy it's benefits, but start out in a bit of a well because of it at the same time.

[Ebon Rogue]

i wound rather the downside be a consistent long term effect rather than a switch I can just flip at arbitrary points. I want him to slowly become aware that the staff is not all good and if he makes the decision that it isn't worth the price and he jumps through the right hoops he can get rid if it. just having a "computer says no" moment during a big important fight just feels unfair as a dm. his behaviour is irritating but I still want to treat him fairly.

I wouldn't consider it unfair if the player insists on using a sentient staff that wholly bent on evil and the death of the party. I generally have sentient items act on their abilities(int ,wis, cha) with the wielders when a conflict between morals arise. Think of Crenshinibon, for example. It slowly over time can warp the weak of mind into an evil conqueror. In that case, I would have contested wisdom checks each day and over time change the PCs ideals, flaws, and even alignment. This would be my way of sentient item interactions. A battle of wills. Though I digress.

Some potential downsides could be:
- Appeasement. The staff requires tribute of some kind periodically in order to keep assisting the wielder. This could be the form of money, spell slots, innocent blood, self-flagellation, ect

- Knowledge. The staff's nearby allies know where the staff is. The wielder automatically fails stealth checks against the staff's allies, and gains no bonus from half or three-quarters cover.

- Aura of Annihilation. The staff emits a aura that deals 5 necrotic damage to any creature that ends it's turn within 30 feet of the staff. Undead and the wielder ignore this damage. This effect cannot be turned off.(Shamelessly stolen from Mister Volo)

[Vogie]

i wound rather the downside be a consistent long term effect rather than a switch I can just flip at arbitrary points. I want him to slowly become aware that the staff is not all good and if he makes the decision that it isn't worth the price and he jumps through the right hoops he can get rid if it. just having a "computer says no" moment during a big important fight just feels unfair as a dm. his behaviour is irritating but I still want to treat him fairly.

I am thinking that this staff may even be a 'plant' by the bbeg to give him a potential back door into the party

You could borrow the lore from The One Ring from LOTR or Frostmourne from WoW - the staff was wielded by the BBEG, and corrupts the wielder over time. However, when the PC received it, it was too far away for the BBEG to have any influence. As the party gets closer to the BBEG, he starts hearing voices, being called to join the BBEG, and maybe even the staff getting a bit stronger. The PC will become more and more attached to it, and if they drop it, it eventually makes him/her into an undead minion of said BBEG

[Zorku]

Fleshsculpting seems like a fairly appropriate theme that's absent from the usual list of necromancy, but won't break the game terribly.

A couple of charged make a siamese twin out of some zombies, who then act pretty much like two distinct zombies except that they only take up one space, so the one creature gets to move on two different initiatives, only takes one hit from aoe attacks, and all that other fun angrydm's Son of Boss article type stuff. This will get silliest if the zombie animals have suitable appendages from grappling and you have ledges to throw enemies off of.

When the zombie animals start talking in human voices and then later have some disturbingly humanoid arms stitched onto them that can amp up tension with the cleric ("You said you weren't doing humans!" "I didn't!" "Well that staff of yours sure seems to have!") as a nice foreshadow to something being wrong about this.

Well, I mean, MORE wrong than flesh sculpting already is.

For a damage spell I think I'd go with something like 6 charges for a stinking cloud. The zombles won't mind that, and again, if they have grapplin arms then their enemies are gonna have a bad day.