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View Full Version : The Madcap [Magic Item-->Pricing/PEACH]



GimliFett
2008-01-10, 01:36 PM
The Madcap {Cursed Item}

Rune 'Blue-Eyes' Daergel continued moving through the house, ahead of the rest of his companions, in the guise of the mayor's majordomo thanks to his recently acquired hat. As the group rounds a corner, they come face to face with the majordomo himself, as well as a squadron of city guards.

"Kill the imposter and his companions!" the real majordomo yells as he moves behind the guards.

"Arrest the imposter!" is what Rune had wanted to say as he tried to point at his twin. Instead he said, "Blemdoonak nee tang!" with a puzzled look on his face as his friends looked at him in horror.

The guards charged forward with their halberds leading.

As a hat of disguise, but whenever the wearer is actively utilizing the disguise ability and comes under attack or finds herself in a life-and-death situation, the user must make a Will save (DC 16) or be confused, as the spell, for 7 rounds. Any result that references the caster, treats the nearest threatening being as the caster for purposes of resolving the confusion. The hat cannot be removed until a remove curse, wish, or miracle is applied.


NOTES: I cannot find anything regarding pricing reductions for cursed items. I'm thinking 1500gp for the Madcap, given the base price of 1800gp for the hat of disguise.

DracoDei
2008-01-10, 07:15 PM
The non-removable aspect doesn't matter SO much if the problem only applies when the disguise is active...
Also, is it one save per ROUND, or one save per ENCOUNTER?

GimliFett
2008-01-11, 09:11 AM
The non-removable aspect doesn't matter SO much if the problem only applies when the disguise is active...
Also, is it one save per ROUND, or one save per ENCOUNTER?

But it's non-removable once the curse is active. Further, it keeps the head slot occupied until removed.

The save is per encounter, though I suppose it might make it a bit stronger (read as: the curse comes into play more often, I think) if it were every round, rather than per encounter, though my initial intent was per encounter. I'll consider wording for encounter initiates the per round saves...

Thanks for the input, DD.

blue_fenix
2008-01-11, 01:29 PM
The only problem with this is that Confusion is one of the singularly worst status effects as written, for two reasons.

1) If a significant portion or all of the party gets "Confused" by an aoe confusion effect, it is highly likely that they will kill each other due to the way confusion forces you to attack the last thing that attacked you. This is far less of a problem when only one player gets confused.

2) Any effect that takes control of the PC away from the player (confusion, fear, dominate, etc.) is just plain annoying and frustrating.

If you're set on having this use Confusion, I'd recommend either writing up a toned-down version of the Confusion effect or at least reducing the duration. Seven rounds is significantly longer than most D&D combats last in my experience.