Cursed Items, Artifacts, and Pyrric Victory Items......

[RichSea7]

One of the main ideas both in Faerun ( based upon some of the books in the FR setting I've read ) and in Fantasy Liturature in general is the "Cursed Item". I haven't looked at the toolset much since the OC for NWN 2 came out, so I'm not sure whether they have made "cursed" items as a possibility. This is kind of a major issue in a lot of campaigns..... Artifacts being Uber cursed items that have enourmous power.....

Think about the "One Ring " from Lord of the Rings in AD & D terms....... It is an item that has a permanent Improved Invisibility when worn ( Equiped ). It also slowly moves a PC's alignment towards Evil whether it is worn or even just sitting in the PC's inventory. It also tends to Spawn Nasty Bad Guys ( Ring Wraithes ) when used.

Think about "StormBringer" from the Elric Saga..... Or Excalaber from Arthurian Legend..... These are " Artifact " level items with enourmous power, but enourmous drawbacks as well....

Of couse the idea of an Artifact is that it cannot be easily disposed of or destroyed..... ( Generally there is only one very difficult way to destroy it...such as drop it in the lava in Mt. Doom ) Often it can only be given to a willing recipient, or, like in the case of the One Ring, everyone wants it and will steal or kill to get it.

The reason I started this thread is because I feel that in a High Magic environment like Faerun, powerful items are not only possible, but likely...... In a game sense, to make them not become unbalancing, they need to have drawbacks equal to or in some respects exceeding their usefulness. Even a Paladin's Holy Sword could be made as such an item, as when fighting non-Evil creatures, it could be made to act as only a regular sword..... Perhaps using such a sword would preclude the PC from using any other weapon. Perhaps the item would act as a draw to demons such much as honey draws bears....Thus forcing the PC to fight when he does not want to..... ( Say it has a 1 in 20 chance of gateing in a demon after every Rest Cycle in game terms ) For the right PC, the benefits should only marginally exceed the drawbacks..... For all others the item would be next to worthless.

I for one would like to see some higher level items built on this premise.

[Scavar]

Though technically possible, well at least in the terms of Faerun not sure about the toolset, I doubt stuff like this would ever really show in Sundren.


I could be entirely wrong, but as far as items go it's a Mid/Low Magical area for right now. So maybe like way in the future? Would be interesting though.

[Kaldaris]

Sundren itself is relatively low magic, and these seem like event items to me. :P

[RichSea7]

Aye, the Server does seem to be rather low in terms of magic items..... Usually the design and gameplay reason for this is that if an item casts a 6th level spell even once a day, then it makes all the work of gaining levels for a magic using PC seem pointless......Which is why I brought up the topic in the 1st place..... The goal with more powerful items is to give a great ability ( or abilities ) at a cost in other abilities or player deficits that are nearly equal to the gain given. A powerful item should be relatively rare, but also a mixed blessing when found......

Thus a + 5 set of armor with damage soak that slowly damages a PC over time ( Like regeneration in reverse ), damages a PC by 1d20 when unequipped, and drops the PC's Dex by 3 points when worn would be a great asset in a fight, but difficult to just " slap on and forget ". ( In background/game terms, Perhaps the Armor is a sentient being that feeds off the lifeforce of whomever wears it and resists being removed ). If that armor could not be sold or removed from a PC's inventory except by a DM, and was VERY heavy, just wearing it occassionally would be hard to do as well.... ( Thus only the strongest of PC's could carry this and another set of armor )....Such an item would create unique problems for a PC ( and thus lend to great RP possibilities as well ).

How about a Ring that grants Improved Invisibility 3 x per day and Haste 3 x per day, and raises AC by 3; however, it also reduces universal saving throws by 3 and lowers Charisma by 3..... Also it is cursed and cannot be unequipped once used.....

The possibilities are endless....

Plus such items would be unique with a unique history...... This allows Sundren to keep with the high magic background of Faerun without unbalancing the server or players with such items..... The rationale is that the more powerful the magic placed in an item, the more (often unintentional ) side effects also occur as a part of the item's creation....... Such an idea could even be built into any PC crafting such that any item with more than one ability will gain at least one (negative from the PC's perspective) side effect.

[zkeleton]

I don't know what items you've seen but so far I've seen plenty of items in sundren that have positive and negative effects.

[Raksha]

If you have items as you describe them, they'll fall into three catergories:

1.) Items that have an insignificant drawback in comparison to their benefits, thus rendering it just more complication that doesn't ultimately matter,

2.) Items that have a crushing drawback in comparison to their benefits, thus meaning that no one will ever use them, and

3.) Items whose drawbacks can be very easily overcome, generally by classes that are already comparitively more powerful.

Take your example of the living armor -- a cleric with the right spells can completely negate any of the downsides. Persisted lesser vigor heals HP damage, Death Ward grants immunity to draining effects, and the cleric walks off whistling -- while the poor fighter is crippled due to the inability of any item to provide similar benefits in a low-magic environment. We -don't- need any further advantages for casters, since they're already happy and powerful.

I'd say that instead of spending a lot of extra time scripting downsides, it can simply be left to the DMs to grant such things on a case-by-case basis, with mostly RPed drawbacks and curse mechanisms that aren't so easily overcome. (Deus Ex Machina curse items, for instance, since Remove Curse can be thrown around with ease, and a Miracle isn't out of the question)

I come back to your point that such items should be unique, and rare, and having them sold in stores would sort of defeat the purpose. And when it comes to such items in play, granted by DMs... already happening. ^_^

[lordmaple]

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about Cursed items. There are already "crown of thorns" items available that give you higher benefits with weaknesses.

Oh, you could always restrict the class to avoid people "countering" the negative aspects. Just make the living armor Required Class: Fighter or Class Restricted: Cleric. (Does the latter one exist?)

I had a barbarian that had a Vicious Balanced Fullblade...basically, it was a huge ass weapon that could be held in one hand, but every time it made a successful attack in a round it did 1d6 unresistable damage to my character. It made me really *think* about using it, even though it was really powerful and I had HP out the arse. The majority of the time I stuck to my good ol' trusty two-handed greatsword.

I also had a Ranger/Fighter with a "Sword of Sacrafice"....+2 Enhancement, +1 Vampiric Damage, Keen, bastard sword, but -2 to AC.

There is stuff similar to that in Sundren, however. And anything along the lines of the "One Ring" would almost certainly be an event /have DM involvement. It would be *awesome* though.

There was a cool spot in a Dragon (rest in peace) a while back, that featured Nine Blades of ...something. Each one of them had a specific alignment tied to it, they were all quite powerful; I think they had the returning property, which meant that they could be *thrown* or you could be disarmed and ...*use the force luke*, the weapon is back in your hand in a flash, and they automatically did one free Riposte with a successful parry. I could be wrong on the details of the benefits, but I remember the "curse" being that the blades "called" out other people to challenge the bearer of the blade- and potentially kill him/her. Something along the lines of a permanent Geas or Lesser Geas. It was very cool though....it was *so* Highlander.

The other thing to keep in mind is that a good portion of higher-level magic items (breaking +4, +5), are almost always to some degree sentient. The creator uses a lot of his life force to forge the item, and usually at that level, you are talking about a *powerful* creator. I believe they are called Ego items- and they *can* and *will* control you...these however, would have to be in the hands of a *very good* roleplayer, since I don't think a DM would want to keep track of all of these Ego items.

Anyway, I'm done. What did I say again? Oh yeah, I think they are working on it.