The most fun / interesting magic items?

[SangoProduction]

Let's say any magic items that are basically itemized spells are similarly off the table. Because we all know what spells are.

Now, onto the list of interesting an fun magic items that would be neat to see, or even purchase, if all your gold wasn't spent on keeping your character actually relevant to the CR.

EDIT: Actually, I suddenly realize just how terrible it's going to be to keep up with all the listed items, especially once I sleep. I'll just let the entire thread be the list. Maybe highlight my personal favorites, later on.

[Aracor]

Training Dummy of the Master from the Arms & Equipment Guide.

Probably the only magic item that you can pass among different people and they all get the benefit simultaneously.

[Venger]

Excellent choice. I love the sparring dummy of the master.

If I had to pick one, probably the ring of spell-battle. Probably the item that fundamentally changes gameplay the most and provides functionality that's hardest to replicate.

[Vizzerdrix]

Ship in a box. I've never not been able to find a use for an entire sailboat that I can summon. Block passages in a dungeon or city. Drop a boat on someone. Wedge it between trees for a secure campsite. Why, I even used it to sail on water once!

[TheCount]

The many rods.

specifically, the rod of ropes and the classic unmovable rod.

and shapeshand.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

My absolute favorite is the illithid humanoid skin graft psychoactive skin of proteus with the extradimensional kangaroo pouch. So insanely useful it's not even funny.

After that, probably a riverine +1 morphing/sizing/metalline poison ring sized for a Fine-sized creature. It can turn into any weapon of any size, and it can be riverine or adamantine (for ignoring hardness) whenever you want. And even Medium-sized poison rings have no measurable weight, so crafting it from riverine costs, at most, 1 cp extra. This is utterly fantastic as a utility item, since weapons have a ton of out-of-combat uses, such as a Gargantuan riverine quarterstaff to hold up a collapsing ceiling, or acting as a makeshift bridge to cross a chasm. A dagger can wedge a door shut for additional security, and a Huge riverine heavy shield (which is a bashing weapon) can be wedged into a hallway to block enemies from attacking the party, keeping you from getting pincer-attacked. And if you started with a Fine-sized arrow or shuriken, it's 1/50 the cost of a regular +1 melee weapon.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Arms & Equipment Guide has a lot of fun ones.

Off the top of my head, all the Regalia artifacts are cool, but special mention goes to the Crown of Neutrality, which (among other benefits) automatically and without fail detects lies, truths, and half-truths, but requires the wearer to point out any falsehoods they detect (including their own).

There's also a magic item that is basically a toy bird, and you can see through its eyes instead of your own while on the same plane. This is noteworthy for being a relatively cheap and very flavorful way to bypass blindness.

Oh, the Amulet of Ooze Riding! Makes you completely immune to ooze attacks, which has the side benefit of letting you ride Gelatinous Cubes (you steer them by using a tapping stick to trick their senses into thinking there's prey in that direction).

From the Eberron Campaign Setting, I'm a big fan of the elemental vehicles. Stormships in particular are real cool. Combine a Stormship with a Lightning Turbine (A&EG) for permanent double speed and with Lightning Ballistae (Heroes of Battle) for sustained heavy firepower, without the normal drawbacks of having to wait for a storm. That said, the fact that they work by basically enslaving an elemental for eternity skeeves me out a bit.

[Hiro Quester]

I play bards a lot. A Lyre of Building in the hands of someone who can easily pass the DC on perform checks can also be used very flexibly, which is the prime characteristic of a good magic item (rewarding player creativity). 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days.

My bard has used one to:

• clean up after an epic battle or disaster. (e.g. repair the village after the red dragon attacked your party there, so reversing the town's attitude towards the party from troublemakers to heroes),
• to create the kind of battlefield you need when you have time to prepare by digging holes, creating trenches and pits, etc.
• Build a bridge for a caravan of wagons, then tear it down after it after the caravan had passed
• Reshape a tunnel or dungeon
• hide really big things (like a dungeon entrance) under forest debris
• Make thousands of snowballs, in piles, and a huge snow fort, so the town's children could have the best snowball battle ever
• Set up a circus tent and associated festival decorations
• etc. etc.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Oh, the Amulet of Ooze Riding! Makes you completely immune to ooze attacks, which has the side benefit of letting you ride Gelatinous Cubes (you steer them by using a tapping stick to trick their senses into thinking there's prey in that direction).

Unfortunately, any ooze that is covered in acidic slime and isn't immune (or heavily resistant) to acid tends to die very fast, so good luck on finding oozes that this works with.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Unfortunately, any ooze that is covered in acidic slime and isn't immune (or heavily resistant) to acid tends to die very fast, so good luck on finding oozes that this works with.

... I don't get it. What does acid or acid immunity have to do with the item?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

... I don't get it. What does acid or acid immunity have to do with the item?

Most slimes that you can ride in are of the type that are covered in acidic slime but are not immune or resistant to the slime that they're covered in, like the ur-example, the gelatinous cube. In fact, by RAW, none of the oozes in the SRD exist because they kill themselves with their own acid in short order. I guess you could ride around in oozes that don't have acidic slime or that are immune to their own slime, like a genius loci or a ruin swarm, but you won't find that many of them. I was going to suggest flesh jelly, but they don't exist either, and for the same reason.

[SangoProduction]

Most slimes that you can ride in are of the type that are covered in acidic slime but are not immune or resistant to the slime that they're covered in, like the ur-example, the gelatinous cube. In fact, by RAW, none of the oozes in the SRD exist because they kill themselves with their own acid in short order. I guess you could ride around in oozes that don't have acidic slime, or that are immune to their own slime like a genius loci or a ruin swarm, but you won't find that many of them. I was going to suggest flesh jelly, but they don't exist either, and for the same reason.

Let's not really get into this as this is rather off topic, but that claim is analogous to saying that because a human has acid in their stomach, and aren't acid immune, no human exists. Even ignoring that it's D&D, and things exist because they exist.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Let's not really get into this as this is rather off topic, but that claim is analogous to saying that because a human has acid in their stomach, and aren't acid immune, no human exists.

But that begs the question, do D&D humans actually exist?

[JNAProductions]

But that begs the question, do D&D humans actually exist?

In the game? Yes.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Human stomachs are immune to their own acid so long as everything's working correctly. Remember, everything's assumed to be the same as reality unless there's a rule stating otherwise.

[Bohandas]

I find the decanter of endless water appealing because of its potential for watering settlements in the middle of the desert and powering perpetual motion waterwheels

[Efrate]

Marvelous pigmints. Just paint what you need.

Honorable mention to feather token trees for being cheap and just dropping trees on things is a good way to solve a LOT of problems.

[Quertus]

Well, the first 2 posts covered 2 of the 5 items I've found most useful in campaigns (the other 3 being an eager warning weapon, Helm of Teleportation, and anything to counter magic (spell blade, ring of counterspells)).

Most fun? I would go with anything with a table of chaos effects (Rod of Wonder, Deck of Many Things, Bag of Beans, Well of Many Worlds… although some of those may only exist in 2e).

Special mention to anything that the GM creates whole cloth: Decanter of Endless Lava, Ring of Taffy Elemental Summoning, Figurine of Wondrous Power (gnat swarm, hatchling dragon, gelatinous cube), Green Lantern Power Ring, Rod of Tentacles (who needs the Wizard to Polymorph the Fighter into a Hydra?), Bow of Unerring Sneak Attack (allows Sneak Attack at any range), Tower Shield of Invisibility (complete with "property of Milo" on the back), Portable Mud Hole, Boots of the Flaming Path, auto map, Dice of Random Teleportation / Summoning (think Warhammer "distance and direction" dice, but with additional dice thrown in; if any comes up "monster", monsters are summoned; otherwise, Teleport in that direction) Chrome(atic) Book of Knowledge, Etc etc etc.

[aglondier]

The most fun at the table...Rod of Wonder, Deck of Many Things...anything that throws a monkey wrench into common sense and sanity...

[Jazath]

Deck of Many Things, Horn of Blasting, Staff of Wild Magic (In our campaign), Golem Armor,
And my favorite: The Ring of Winter

[Bohandas]

Let's say any magic items that are basically itemized spells are similarly off the table. Because we all know what spells are.

What about an item that's under the effect of a spell? I think you could do some cool stuff with a three or four foot rod of tungsten that's been shrunk down to two and a half inches with shrink item. For one thing it would be a potent weapon if you flicked it at someone and then unshrunk it in the air