Factory Second Magic Items

[The Dark Fiddler]

I'm sure everybody's familiar with the concept of factory seconds, items that have a small error in them, not enough to ruin them but enough to make them hard to sell, and are therefore sold at discounted prices. I was wondering, why do magic items seem to always works so well? They can't all be made perfectly, can they?

So I came up with the idea of Factory Second magic items. Either the mage enchanting them messed up when crafting them, or maybe the person enchanting them was in a bit over their head and didn't actually have the skill to make the item. Or maybe, in order to successfully make the item, the caster needed to cut corners somewhere. Point is, here's some magic items that function more-or-less as intended.

• Boots of Speeding - As boots of speed, except a character under the effects of the haste effect cannot move less than their full speed if they take a move action.
• Sword of X-bane - Functions as a sword of X-bane when attacking an X, but cannot hit any other creature at all.
• Ring of Protection x - Absorbs up to x damage per attack. However, it merely delays the damage taken for 2d3 rounds.
• Amulet of Reflection - Reflects harmful spells and effects back at their source, but doesn't provide any protection to you.
• Ring Armor - This armor provides DR 5/Piercing, but is completely bypassed by piercing attacking.
• Immovable Rod - Functions as an immovable rod, except that it moves 10 feet per round in a direction based on the planet/plane's rotation.

Anybody else have ideas? They can be based on existing items or new items, ranging from "situationally more useful than the normal item" to "strictly worse, but that's why it's cheaper".

[Sudain]

I like this idea.

Give high level costly items a massive discount for them being broken or 'junk' and let your players play with the defective items. :)

[erikun]

There aren't any factory second items because there aren't any factory-made items. Most items in fantasy settings are assumed to be custom-created in a psudo-medieval style, and so you don't have items sold with a minor fault; you just have good-quality items and poor-quality items.

Your idea certainly isn't a bad one, though, and shares similarities to many cursed items (except not being so negative).

[MonkeyBusiness]

I've used this concept in gaming and it is an awful lot of fun. Even the players, once they get over their initial dismay and disappointment, think it makes the game more interesting.

Sometimes a "factory second" is a PC's first (botched) attempt at making an item. One PC in a game I ran tried to concoct a potion of invisibility. Instead of telling him it failed, I secretly checked to see if the character could tell by looking at the botched potion if it was a dud. He could not. And so the fun began.

I decided the potion "sort of" worked. The person who swallowed it became invisible briefly. But then he started to feel sick. When he started throwing up, he became visible again. Sadly.

In another case, a PC (a paladin with a destiny her player was unaware of) discovered her sword had powers she had not known about. She did not know that this was her family's ancestral blade, which was attuned to her and would slowly reveal more powers as she went up in level. But to make it fit better with the story and not. Link it in her mind to her increase in level, I had the sword gain new abilities when she behaved heroically. But "heroic" behavior did not necessarily mean a battle (once it occured because she overcame the un-paladinly urge to kick an NPC in the butt) so it sometimes seemed quite
random to her. Even when the sword gained an ability, she had to learn how to call it forth. It took her ages to realize that the sword *could* do all the seemingly random things consistantly, if only she called upon her deity while in a state of grace. But before she figured that out, she thought she'd gotten a malfunctioning second-hand sword ... which was in keeping with her character!



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[Bouregard]

Magic Items are usable by nearly any corporal being. So what happens if a "clever" magical item creater decided to cut corners in that area?

A Ring of Protection X may be usable by gargantuan creatures like dagons and medium humanoids alike... but this heavily discounted one can not.

The ring was ceated by a gnomish artificer for gnomes. So why bother with an enchantment that wide it for say medium humanoid creature fingers? Time is money.

Or a healing potion.. come on who needs 1d8 hitpoints? A commoner has 1d4 hitpoints.. so how about we take one empty bottle and a healing potion and water it down a bit? Noone is going to notice the difference or comes back alive to complain.

[kieza]

How about:

-Potions of Fire (etc.) Protection that absorb twice as much damage as normal ones, but wear off suddenly if they take more than a certain amount in a single hit.
-Boots of Flying with two settings: Off and Straight Up at Top Speed.
-A Splitting projectile weapon...that fires one of its two projectiles per shot straight backwards. (Whenever you make an attack, you can make a second at a -5 penalty against a creature positioned so that a line between it and the primary target passes through your space.)
-Boots of Wall Walking that become slippery on horizontal surfaces. (Make a Balance check...)
-Shocking weapon that also acts as a lightning rod. (Whenever creatures within X distance of you take lightning damage, half of it is transferred to you.)
-A "Siege Stone:" A small rock or chunk of metal that stores up kinetic energy and unleashes it all over six inches of distance when triggered. Unfortunately, this one rebounds...
-A Defending weapon that doesn't do anything but defend. (Gives you Combat Expertise at +/-5.)

[MonkeyBusiness]

How about:

-Boots of Flying with two settings: Off and Straight Up at Top Speed...

This made me laugh out loud ... I'm going to have to use that sometime!
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[Slipperychicken]

Magic item guidelines already have rules for race restriction being -30% price, and skill restriction (like needing X ranks in a specific skill) is -10% price.

Those +10 speed boots (Boots of Bounding and Springing?), but there's a 60% chance you fall prone if you move faster than your speed.

Winged Mask, but at CL 1 (need to reactivate every minute), makes easily-heard wing-flapping sounds (fail Move Silently checks), and there's a 5% chance you fall every 30min of continuous flight, cumulative for each hour, to a maximum of 95% at 5 hours. If you fall, you fall hard, take the damage, and it takes either 8 hours of inactivity or a DC 30 UMD check (no retry until next time it fails) to get it going again.

[Glimbur]

The Ring of Invincibility is a classic. It works exactly as advertised: the ring is indeed invincible. It doesn't make you invincible, because that's a much harder spell. It can work similarly (but less dangerously) with invisibility.

For a higher power option, consider a Dancing Sword. The problem comes in getting it to stop... it keeps attacking for, say, 3d4 rounds after activated. If there aren't enemies left to target, your friends are in trouble. Funny paired with a Frenzied Berserker.

A Ring of Water Walking which is more like a Ring of Water Is Jello. Keep moving and you're fine. Try to hold still and you sink.

[Rorrik]

In my current game my players have what is effectively a bag of holding that can hold up to 3000 lbs and weigh next to nothing, but any time you put your hand in you remove something at random. Unfortunately, the previous owners were using it to move and it is filled with furniture(some broken, some sound), magical devices(most vaguely useful, some dangerous), rotten food, giant rats, silverware, and loose change.

[Cespenar]

Faulty weapon enchantments time.

Flaming: As default, but also deals 1 fire damage per round to you each round that it's active, as it burns your hand.

Defending: As default, but the weapon forces you to use total defense each turn, making you unable to attack.

Ghost touch: You can't hold it. Only incorporeals can use it.

Merciful: It doesn't deal any damage.

Returning: The weapon deals its base damage to you on its return, unless you succeed at a DC 15 Reflex save to catch it.

Vorpal: On a natural 1 on the attack roll, you sever your own head, automatically killing yourself.

[Dead_Jester]

This is just asking for a Paranoia-esque R&D testing of magic equipment by the PC's. Next time the PC's meet Sharn's artificers' guild ...

[Dire Panda]

Oh boy, these could be fun in my current campaign (the art of crafting magic items has been long lost and the PCs are trying to rediscover it). A few more ideas for the pile:

• Frost weapon: Constantly freezes nearby moisture. Under normal atmospheric conditions, it's covered in a thin layer of ice, but if the wielder goes swimming...
• Shocking weapon: Also a bad idea to take underwater.
• Returning weapon: The user has to make a Reflex save to catch it properly (DC equal to his own attack roll) or it hits him too.
• Ring of Feather Falling: Slows both upward and downward movement, even the voluntary kind. Enjoy trying to use the stairs.
• Ring of Regeneration: Some tainted hydra blood was accidentally used in the recipe. Whenever this ring regenerates a limb, there's a 25% chance that two regrow from the stump. The second limb lives only a few hours but has a malevolent will of its own.
• Ring of Telekinesis: The wizard who created this didn't properly break physics, and so momentum is conserved. Using the ring's telekinesis to move an object also moves the user.
• Rod of Wonder: In keeping with its chaotic nature, three times per day the rod randomly fires at someone in range.
• Amulet of Natural Armor: Provides its AC bonus as usual, but disfigures the user's skin (perhaps it grows scales).
• Bag of Tricks: The drawn animal might be hostile. For wackier games, add a 1% chance of drawing a vorpal rabbit.
• Belt of Giant Strength: Boosts the wearer's strength, but doesn't reinforce his bones or tendons. Every time he makes a sudden movement he has to make a Fortitude save or injure himself with his newfound strength.
• Ioun stones: The stone's orbit around the user's head was miscalculated and slowly decays, eventually whomping him in the cranium. 1d4 minutes after the stone is activated, it strikes the user and deals damage as a sling bullet.

[Trog]

Sword +1, Flaming: While you wield it everything you say becomes *FABULOOOUUUUSSS!*
Arrow +3 of returning: fires back at the shooter when it misses the intended target.
Oil of Impact: Almost normal effects. >_>

And finally...

Today's Special:
Dust of disappearance: Hey! If you can find it... it's yours.

[Funkyodor]

I like including magic items with problems.

Maybe a Merciful, Shocking Burst, Humanoid (pick one or use all) Bane club (Taser) but is cursed and forces all damage you deal to be non-lethal (even when you're not using the club). Call it the Olive Branch.

Or a headband that grants Blindsight, but slowly causes blindness.

A rod of absorption that instead of having usable charges, can be detonated for 1d6 per charge destroying the rod... and if it gets fully charged, it automatically and immediatly detonates. Call it the Potato Masher.

Potion of etherealness that permenantly puts the user into the ethereal plane, give it 3 doses.

Ring of Wishes that can only grant wishes spoken to the wearer, as if the wearer were a genie.

[newBlazingAngel]

A rigged deck of many things at a heavy discount. Their are bonus bad cards, but again, discount.

A robe of eyes where the eyes are real, squishy, and sensitive to poking.

Hat of disguise that only allows ridiculous stereotype disguises, such as a fat man pretending to be a woman.

Decanter of endless X. Who knows what might come out? The only command word that works is geyser.

A carpet of flying that can only hold as much weight as a normal one of similar design.

[DigoDragon]

I wholeheartedly endorse this idea. In fact, I've done similar things in my past D&D campaigns. Every so often the party gets a magic item that is slightly "off" in its abilities, though I try not to make them too inconvinient.

Ideas I've used:
Ring of Featherfall that had a small random chance that you would just hover in place instead of float down. Not necessarly a bad thing unless you were intentionally trying to jump down somewhere.

Necklace of Fireballs that detonated square-shaped bursts. I'm surprised how annoyed the players can get when trying to use square-shaped bursts.

+2 Longsword of Shocking that occasionally exhibited the "Vicious" property. Damage to the weilder was all electrical.