Crazy items your DM has gifted you with!

[MammonAzrael]

What crazy items have you gotten from your DM. Custom or otherwise, but something waaay stronger than what you probably should've had. Things that flatten encounters or such. Bonus points if the DM had no idea what they were giving you.

For example, about a year ago I played in a campaign where everyone got a custom magic item from the DM. I was a lv 1 Sorcerer, and a noble. So I requested my item be a signet ring. I got one hell of a ring. 3/day it could cast either Fireball, Lightning Bolt, or Icelance at my CL + 1. And had a permanent, lesser version of Foresight, always warning me of impending danger. I never let that ring off my finger.

And for the DMs, are there any items you've given out that were way stronger than you thought?

[Roc Ness]

Freeform:

Squirrel brain on a string.


As a backup weapon. To kill robot dragons. (Don't Ask)

[jiriku]

Mmmm, deck of many things. My wizard leveled from 13 to 17 in five minutes. For the next several adventures while the rest of the party caught up with me, I was torpedoing our CR13-15 encounters with level 8 and level 9 spells. I mean, really, what is a roomful of CR9-12 demons going to do when you drop wail of the banshee? They're going to die, that's what they're going to do.

The other players must have felt like noobies getting a guild run.

[Malacode]

Umm, headband of +2 untyped to all stats that doesn't take up a slot and repairs itself should it ever be damaged. My Gnome character befriended a god and became it's champion, and this was his main reward. The rest of the party doesn't know what it does yet and they're still freaked out by his sudden "conversion".

[Quietus]

A stone hammer, which my elven cleric took to with gusto. We have a houserule that we get one "free proficiency", which I declared to be a natural ability with hammers; A rust monster had recently eaten my magic longsword.

Turns out that this hammer caused any golem it struck to immediately release its binding spirit and go into berserk mode, attacking anything nearby. Combine with light armor, decent dex, and some good Hide rolls to effectively solo a room of golems, causing a ruckus that drew the dungeon's vampire master out... we (me and my druid companion, and his brown bear pet) used Hide from Undead and Spider Climb to hang invisibly from the ceiling, let him walk past, and ganked him from behind with every single high level undead-wrecking spell we could get our hands on. He misted in two rounds, with our sunbeams/searing lights/berserking golems.

[Mongoose87]

During our summer campaign, my DM gave my Vampire Spawn Crusader a greatsword that healed him equal to damage done with it. Suddenly, that LA doesn't hurt as much.

[Temet Nosce]

Custom ring of +30 Bluff, for a level 5 Beguiler, also items of permanent charm person (I gave them out as gifts, to my new slaves). We ended up skipping the quest (some fetch quest) in favor of turning a kingdom into my toy at level 5.

[Killer Angel]

AD&D. Elven priest of Corellion, 2° lev.
The DM gave me an Helm of brilliance....

D&D 3.5. Human sorcerer, 7° lev.
a book with blank pages, that I can use to write spells on them, using such written spells as they were scrolls.
The book is magically connected to the “magic pool” of the Royal Academy of Magic, composed by 100 wizards and sorcerer of various levels. I don’t have to know the spell, to write the “scroll”: I choose a spell, and it writes by himself on the book.
The book can contain 15 total levels of spells in any combination… so I can write (for example) one 1° lev. Spell, three 3° lev. and one 5° lev… but the funny thing is that, once casted, the spell is gone, but the pages turn blank, ready to be written again.
I don't want even think to what could be the prize of this item. Practically, I have full access to ANY spell in the PH, for free, being limited only by the difficulties in casting spells of a too much higher level. I am the Schroedinger wizard sorcerer.

[Kaiyanwang]

My DM had moments of real madness, but the first thing that comes in my mind was a knuckle of ham usable as a 2H weapon. Quite effectively, too.. but pieces went away at each blow so it had sort of a durability.

[gdiddy]

Once, as king's rewards, a DM I was playing with gave to the party:

A Shield that when fighting on full defense and stationary, added full BaB to AC. It also made the character completely immune to knock back effects.

Two intelligent +2 courtblades that gave a +2 insight bonus to AC that were sisters and could only be used together.

A sword that added a character's Cha modifier to its AC or attacks and damage, depending on a command word.

My character got a plot of land perfect for raising "Masterbred" heavy warhorses. (+2 to every stat and +10 move speed.) And my character then got filthy rich selling the damn things.

[Dr. Lagrangian]

our first campaign (2nd ed) by a bad dm (he had the friend player) had:
--the boots of running really fast (like really fast)
--the repeating crossbow, crossbow, crossbow... (mnigun)

--a solid cubic foot of mythril (that we bought an entire auction with)
--a bag of infinite gold (illusionary, the remaining mythril and gold were stolen in the night by a undetectable theif that didn't steal our other powerful loot or wake us)

--rings of Captain Planet (I got earth ... and I wrote my name on the moon, sorta).

The rings summoned the DMPC wizard/railroad conductor (kinda like an elminster)
until it didn't work anymore.... eventually it turned out the wizard was playing us, and when we got wise, he revealed that all the rings superpowers were actually illusory.

I got a vorpal sword (the only time it went off was against the uberdemon... but I was no chosen one)

oh and there was the sword of destiny, that he drew with a computer program in 3D. It was too heavy for anyone but the DM's friend to lift.. but the friend was a wizard. When the final battle started, the DM destroyed most of us, but we had to use the sword. I (the fighter) couldn't use it, so the wizard did... and promptly missed everything and got killed. To make up for it, he brought his other DMPC back into the fight, ad she took the sword and killed the demon.

That last DMPC? it was a elvin spellblade (a custom class) of much higher level than us, and much more awesome than us. and it was a woman who had a habit of hitting on another particular player's character... guess which one.

oh, and in the end the entire campaign turned into time travel.... something blew up, led us to go after the demon, we found it in a portal, and blew him up. I think we indirectly gave the magic sword to our younger selves too.

[Draz74]

Hoooooooo boy.

The Watchful Eye: an amulet that always watched for danger, then tried its best to protect me therefrom. Meaning anytime any effect attacked me, the attack got interrupted by the amulet lashing out with a random effect. I don't remember the table of effects exactly, but suffice to say it was something along these lines:
1d6
1 - no effect, attack succeeds
2 - attack blocked by force field
3 - attack reflected at attacker
4 - attack succeeds, but weapon used in attack is shattered (no save)
5 - attacker petrified (no save)
6 - attacker vaporized into a puff of steam (no save)

Helmet of Bonus Experience: permanently bestowed 22,000 XP (or the equivalent number; this was in 2E) when placed on head, then vanished.

Demigod Ferrets: ok, they weren't items so much as cohorts. But the point is, there were two of them, they came loyally under the control of my character, and they were each under a constant Shapechange effect.

[taltamir]

+1 flaming longsword that gives the wearer 20 fire resistance. Oh, and it's cursed, due to someone killing a god with it at some point, and once you pick it up, you can't use any other weapon. Oh, and it casts fireball using the wearer's level, on the wearer, whenever he rolls a 1...so eventually, as the wearer grows stronger, the power of the sword will inevitably consume him, to say nothing of everyone around him.

In a 5th level 10 person party in which we were going up against a nasty blizzard type setting, everyone was real defensively specced and couldn't do crap for damage, and it was about the only magic item we had...still, it was so, so frustrating watching the paladin drop/kill party members left and right with that thing without a hint of remorse, and I just couldn't get anyone to see any real downside to it, ICly or OOCly...1 in 20 means every 10-15 combat rounds it goes *boom*, not one in a million...

*sigh* Lovely campaign, awesome flavor, and I guess a lot of his magic items were like that, with the hidden cost/flavor and what not, but very frustrating.

multiclass to get fire immunity :).
But your team mates are still dying all around you. So either ditch it or split up and play a new character.

[Killer Angel]

+1 flaming longsword that gives the wearer 20 fire resistance. Oh, and it's cursed, due to someone killing a god with it at some point, and once you pick it up, you can't use any other weapon. Oh, and it casts fireball using the wearer's level, on the wearer, whenever he rolls a 1

20 fire resistance helps.
It's a cursed item, but definitely not so bad, it's useable. And if you roll a 1 in the middle of the enemies' line...

[Radiun]

An item discussed but not implemented.

Snide Whiplash, an NE intelligent whip with 10 wisdom, 14 charisma, and 14 intelligence who can talk
It has 10 ranks in Bluff and Knowledge (Local) and has the special purpose of slaying constructs and is very vocal and forceful on the subject, but doesn't wish to fight anything else. Has 20 ego

Is a +1 Keen, Merciful, Throwing, Returning, Collision, Eager, Skillful Whip
Collision: +5 damage
Eager: Draw as a free action
Thrown 10 feet and returns to the square it was thrown from
Skillful: All can use it without feat
Stats
Damage (S/M): 1d2/1d3 +6 (+1 weapon, collision) +1d6 (Merciful) subdual slashing
Threat Range: 19-20 / X2

There you have it, the worst +10 intelligent weapon ever

Note that whips just... don't damage things with armor, like constructs

[Ashtar]

When I was the DM of a Dark Sun campaign, one of my players obtained a Ring of partial reality from a meddling trickster character known as the Chaos dealer.

Ring of partial reality:
Powers:
- 3/day Limited Wish
Limitations :
- Will twist wishes by adding unwanted side effects to the wish.
- Has a 33% chance of acting as a Ring of Delusion for each wish (DM rolled, which means I usually chose which wishes helped the plot).
- Cannot work against the chaos dealer or her agents.

[Fitz]

old groups first 3rd ed game, my level 4 paladin got +1 full plate that gave +2 untyped cha bonus and heal on himself 1/day as a free action, usable at any time.
Took about 3 levels to start countering that one item.
Fitz

[Samb]

Short sword +4 with the following enhancements: power storing (with HET on it), vicious, lucky, psychokintic burst.

anoth DM gave me a psicrown that had every "energy" power and PP pool that refilled itself everyday.

[Heliomance]

An Orcish Doubleaxe which 1/day could at command turn into ay other weapon, up to and including a ballista.

[Flying Dutchman]

In the campagin i was in last school year the DM handed each player items that leveld up with us.

our hexblade got a +3 longsword that was treated as "defending". and also passivly boosted his AC. It also had the mind an an angel trapped in it. Which was funny because the DM also gave him +3 plate armour with a demon trapped in it. So he had some mental issues after that.

Our Healer got a stone that could, entangling roots people, dispell magic in AOE, and give boosts to heal checks and raised his will save by 3.

I as a wizard got a ring, that added +1 to my effective caster level, as well as letting me raise the save DC of one of my spells by +4. which he may have regreted when i disentigrated, the solo mob in one of our last battles on the first turn.

Our swordsage got a crazy cape that have him i think it was +4 agi, and an extea boost to reflex saves as well as bounus MS. but i don't remeber exactly what it did.

[dentrag2]

Hah, i remember randomly rolling a longsword that ended up with ten properties. It was something like Vorpal Firey Shocking Icy Icy Burst Shocking Burst Firey burst, Mighty Cleaving, Throwing, and that was before it became an INTELLIGENT ITEM. It blinded our wizard for a round when he cast Detect Magic on it.

And this is in the campaign i was playing as a were-spider in.

[Ernir]

I gave my players absurdly powerful stuff, and don't tell them about it.

My players stay out:

Spoiler

Show

One of my groups is carrying a gemstone that serves as shackles for a greater deity. They know that is what it is, what they don't seem to have realized is that they could be communicating with the god, and that they are in a premium bargaining position.

In another group, one of the players wrote it into his back story that he was deluded into thinking that he used to own a "Burning Greatsword of Evisceration", but it was turned into a butter knife. A butter knife he now carries at all times.
I decided that he is actually right, the thing he has in his pack is a Flaming, Vorpal Greatsword +1, permanently enchanted to look and feel like a butter knife. If someone ever nukes him with a lucky enough Dispel Magic, its true nature will once again be revealed.
He is level 4.

The craziest thing I have gotten from my DMs is probably a Bag of Tricks.

[Assassin89]

In the campaign last year, several people got interesting items.

I once found something called the Book of the warlord in one adventure. It gave whoever read it the leadership feat, max ranks in knowledge: history, the ability to remove fear once per day. If I had the leadership feat before reading it I would have gained a +4 inherent bonus to one stat.

The psychic warrior once received an intelligent bastard sword that had continual deathwatch, telepathy, detect evil, and the ability to craft illusions. How is the sword? Let just say its weapon type says it all.

[Dr. Lagrangian]

I have more!

in one campaign (might be based on balder's gate, but I never played it), the party was somehow related to an evil god and we all got super crazy powerful rings. being an evil god, our rings would do good stuff for us, but harm our party members later. None of us knew what the rings did.

All we knew was:
1) to activate our ring, we just go to the dm and say we activate it, he knows what happens
2)whenever someone activates a ring, something bad will happen.

I was a sorc. my ring would:
Double any damage I did, but the extra damage would later be dealt to my teammates (this happened randomly, a hit would go through that would have missed, a sve would fail, etc). I used it a lot.

The barbarian got a ring that: would halve any damage, but give it to us

The rogue could avoid any attack, but then one of our misses would hit.

the paladin never used his... someting about saves maybe?

Anyway, in the big finale, we all used our rings a lot.

[DragoonWraith]

My players stay out

Awwww!!!

(I didn't think of the fact that when I quoted this, the spoilered material would be in the quote. I saw enough of the first paragraph to realize it wasn't our group, so that should be ok, heh. Sorry bout that!

That Gelatinous Cube definitely had me second-guessing selling that Necklace of Fireballs...)

[Korivan]

Like said before, Deck of Many Things. Especially when the DM lets the player hold on the cards and draw whenever they want.

Rings of Wishing as a starting magical item (only at times when we had a DM that made wish worth it, others made wish the worst spell in game)

Magical mounts at first level. One guy wanted a warhorse for is mount, DM made a list, picked at random, gave him a nightmare...then it dragged his character to the nine hells. I had a flying type of paladin in 2nd edition, I asked for a griffin or a hypogriff, thinking those wern't too powerfull, I got a mature gold dragon. Completely wreaked encounters.

[Rhiannon87]

This item isn't overpowered, but it's definitely the best item I've ever gotten as a reward.

It is a chest of average size and appearance. The chest has a false bottom. Removing the false bottom reveals a narrow flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs is a door, and behind the door is a 15x15x15 room. If you put stuff in this room, the chest will sort it-- books on bookshelves (and alphabetized!), weapons on racks, money sorted into treasure chests, dead party members into meat lockers, etc. All of which is cool.

But then we learned that, if you speak the correct command words, a new door will appear. Inside this door is a room with a strange set-up of rings, chains, and levers; long story short, you put on a ring and pull a lever, and you're transported to a very similar looking room. In Sigil. In the basement of a shack that is guarded by an adamantine golem wielding starmetal weapons that recognizes you as the owners and requests that you leave the rotting body parts of attempted invaders in the room with it because it likes the aesthetic.

So, yeah. There's that.

[Golden-Esque]

Not so much overpowered as it was amusing, our DM gave us an enchanted Trident that had the Returning Property at roughly second level. It was meant to be a plot device, as whomever touched the trident got a flashback of every single memory the Trident had; you see, the Trident kept a personal memory of all the horrible things it had done, from murdering lovers, to best friends, to families of the wielder.

Whenever the trident was thrown, you had to make a Will save or be forced to throw it at something (even if it's a friend) next round. Rolling a Natural 1 sent you into a beserker rage where you attempted to kill everyone.

The item was meant to go to our Aquatic Elf ranger, but we got into a huge fight between the party, and our Paladin of Slaughter (Evil Party, lol) got a hold of it. Of course, she rolled a natural 20 on the Will save and got rid of the thing, but anyone else who touched it had a gollum-like need for it; I'm assuming because since the trident "ate" misery, it made you feel good to throw it.

Anyway, hilarity ensued when our Kinetics Psion used his powers to fling the trident out of the ranger's hands when he went beserk; the Trident's powers were also rooted in psionics, so it established a mental link with our psion, and all of a sudden, our poor Aquatic Elf lost his story!

Best magic item EVER.

[Kelunas]

This DM lived for ridiculous items...

Level 8:
My "enhanced" familiar... Bunny Rabbit, Undead Zombie, Breath Weapon 4d4 Cold, 2 Eye Rays Disintegrate, when slain, rises from it's ashes like a pheonix and is fully restored with no penalty. He had this nervous twitch in his neck which gave a 1/3 chance of his rays and breath going off target... I named him "Twitchy"

Level 10:
Tome of Max HP... all hit dice rolls for hit points are maximized.

Level 15:
Scroll of Zin-Carla, (yeah like in Drizzt) animate any dead as uber-powerful zombie that is loyal as long as I concentrate... used it on a Hecatoncheires (that epic level thing with 100 greatswords)

Level 15:
Armor of Legacy, made using "god-metal", Full plate AC 10, +5 Enh, Indestructible, Undispellable, Polymorph Self at Will, 1/Day Haste, Bonus Feat Corrupt Spell

Level 18:
Scroll of Vengeful Gaze of the Gods (305d6 damage... used a Miracle to maximize it)

[vollmond]

At the beginning of our current campaign, our quest-giver gave each party member a magical weapon.

My Druid/Ranger got a Holy Flaming Splitting Elvencraft Energy Bow (with the holy/flaming buffs also applying in quarterstaff mode...)

The Fighter got a +5 Flaming Speed Vorpal Bastard Sword.

Rogue received a +3 Flaming Speed Vorpal Short Sword and a +3 Defending Flaming Spell Storing Wounding Dagger.

Our Monk/Cleric got an Amulet of Mighty Fists and an Amulet of Natural Armor, re-fluffed as two parts of a whole: when worn together, they also grant +3 to Strength bonus.

All the items were also automatically Item Familiars.

Did I mention we were level 9 at the time? We're still recovering from the huge damage/WBL boost we got, though the new weapons are definitely a lot of fun :-) At his first opportunity, the Rogue boosted his items' sapience, so now we have 3x the wisecracks from that side of the table during each encounter...

If any of my group is reading: hi!! *waves madly*