Any of you had a magic item with a strange eccentric effect or side effect?
Those are way, way more cool and fun with their alternate properties that could enlighten or change the course of the action.
You don’t need to change any regular item much or go overboard on an item creation for a mechanism to be fun, useful and compelling. The risk and effect or backfiring effect could be simple, original and in perfect harmony with some lore of your campaign…
Example: One player inherited his master old wand of fire… worn out and slightly battle damaged. Since no roll was required to attack/aim at a target… the owner had to roll a D20 anyway… On a roll of 1 the charge would be spent with very light fiery effect from its tip, on a 2 it would launch a flaming beacon that would do 1d4dmg and might start a fire at the focus point… then on a 20 the wand release the desired effect with an additional 1d4xd6 of blazing fire at the expense of an extra-charge…
Every use of that wand would create laughter or a ripple effect among the players…
The suspense was killing you literally!!!
I am a huge fan of custom magic items, and I like to tailor an item to a particular character.
We had a ranger in our group whose player would constantly miss "to hit" rolls by 1 or 2. Not just sometimes, but pretty much every time. He'd need an 18 to hit, he'd roll a 16 or 17. Not a 4, not an 11, not anything which would miss badly, but just enough to barely miss.
So the DM took pity on him and gave him a handful of arrows which had a +3 enchantment to them - not +3 "to hit" and +3 damage, but rather +3 split between them. If the roll missed by 1, the arrow would hit and the remaining 2 points of the bonus would be applied to damage. If the roll hit on its own, all 3 points would to to damage.
When I was DMing I had a player who was new to the game and who was very hesitant to risk entering combat, despite being one of the more formidable fighters in the party. I arranged for her PC to acquire a Sword of Vampiric Regeneration, which restored 1 hit point to its wielder for every five hit points of damage it did to an opponent. Having this weapon had a profound effect on the player. Before she had the sword, she would constantly count her hit points before entering combat. After she got it, well, this direct quote from the player says it best: "I'm a bit low on hit points. We're going to have to get into a fight soon so I can get some back." Of course, just to keep things fair I occasionally adjusted the damage she was taking, adding a point here or there to make up for the regeneration effect, but she never noticed.
It was me that posted the arrows on DF.
I can't take credit for that one. My friend Steve (a.k.a. TNE2300) was DMing for us at the time and came up with that one.
I can take credit, however, for a number of magic items based on bad puns, including the Ram Bow, and the Elephant of Surprise.
The Ram Bow
This black recurve bow is made of ram's horn and can be broken down into three pieces (for ease of carrying) and reassembled. It features a complex arrangement of pulleys which no bowyer has yet deciphered and which allows an arrow held at full draw to be held for up to ten minutes with very little effort.
This ability comes in handy, because once the item is activated, if its wielder nocks and draws an arrow, and stands out in the open, the wielder is completely immune to normal missiles until such time as he releases the arrow. This enables the wielder to stare down his enemies while missiles fly all around him and take careful aim before shooting.
In addition to its normal damage, if a natural 20 is rolled, the arrow loosed from the Ram Bow explodes into a very dramatic fireball (the fireball measures 10' in diameter and does 3d6 points of damage, and otherwise conforms to the wizard spell of the same name).
There is no command word for this item. To activate its magic, the wielder must strip to the waist and tie on a red headband and a small jade necklace.
The long term effects of using the Ram Bow are not entirely pleasant. The wielder's lip begins to drop on one side and his voice drops several octaves and tends to come out in short, barking sentences.
The Elephant of Surprise
This item resembles one of the Figurines of Wondrous Power. It is a palm-sized ball of rose quartz roughly carved into the shape of an elephant.
Its magic is deployed by speaking a command word aloud, and tossing the item onto the ground, whereupon the figurine becomes a full-sized (pink) elephant. The elephant appears, trumpets once, and immediately returns to its stone form. The entire process takes no more than a few seconds.
The elephant takes up a considerable amount of room, roughly 8' wide x 15' long x 8' high, and any creatures or objects occupying that space will be roughly shoved aside. The force of this shoving is not sufficient to cause much damage to people (only 1-4 hp, save for no damage at all) but it will destroy any breakables in the area (save vs crushing blow).
If deployed in a room too small to contain it, the elephant will only expand enough to fit the room.
The elephant weighs in at about five tons and if the floor is insufficient to hold its weight, it will crash through the floor (and possibly through one or two floors beneath, although typically the elephant returns to its stone form before crashing through more than two floors).
Although the elephant is not capable of doing very much damage, its usefulness stems from the effect it has on people in the vicinity. Obviously the sudden appearance of a huge elephant, and the subsequent damage to its surroundings, will have a considerable impact upon all who observe the phenomenon. Everyone within sight of the effect (unless they have seen it before and knew it was coming) will be awestruck and completely unable to take any action in the round during which the elephant was deployed, and will suffer a -5 to their initiative roll on the following round.
