If you don't already have it, I recommend searching around and picking up a copy of the 1st ed. AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. The description of artifacts and relics in there should form a nice template for how to design unique magic items with great power as well as horrific side-effects.

Off hand, whatever effects you give your items, I'd say it's probably best to only sprinkle in the "true" artifacts very rarely; enough to keep player's on their toes, but not so much that they become passé or begin to seriously unbalance the game or make your players feel like you are out to get them.

Galadrin wrote:

Hail Krimmr! Long time PDF-owner and lurker, I just got the box set in the mail yesterday (it's gorgeous! The people who get the next book edition are going to miss out!) so I thought I'd post.

Welcome aboard Galadrin.

Thanks all for the replies and welcome! The AD&D DMG is a good suggestion—I'll have to check it out. To clarify, of course, I'm not just looking for magic items that have negative side effects when used. I'm actually most interested in magic items that are so powerful that they change the way a player plays the game. This is a dumb example, but a magic item that slowly made a character become ethereal would change how one plays his or her character.

To be honest, I got the idea from flipping through an old-school gamebook (basically a choose-your-own-adventure book with dice rolls) and I noticed how the player character would always treat new magic items with caution, stuffing a ring in his pocket until he could get it identified. Of course, this has everything to do with the limitations and style of gamebooks—every new item would come up for use at some critical point later on in the story, when suddenly the true purpose of the ring is revealed... Oh, you don't have the ring? Go to page 86...

While I'm not interested in simulating the mechanics of gamebooks, so that magic items just become keys to unlock predetermined obstacles, I am interested in capturing that sense of hesitation and wonder gamebook characters have when they stumble across something new and unknown. In my experience of D&D, most players respond to new magic items by just "throwing it on the pile" with the rest. Magic items should be very rare (without precluding other ways of supplying characters with +1 swords) and very weird. I'm not sure I can come up with sufficiently weird effects that also do not break he campaign, however...

Last edited by Galadrin (8/31/2014 9:42 pm)

There's a book from Goblinoid Games called 'Realms of Crawling Chaos' that has some great Weird Artifact generation tables in it. Fits right into Hyperborea.

Reminds me of Numenera. Isn't that game all about weird items?

Wlecome Galadrin!
I too often change existing magic items or create new ones. I agree that magic items should be rare, even unique in some cases and that they should change not only how the party responds to the world, as you say, but also how the world responds to the party. Powerful magic items should be highly sought after and powerful people will kill for them. So if a 4th-level party finds the Hand of Vecna and brings it into the nearest town, people will be talking about that and word will get around.

Generally, the advice here is what I would say, I will only add that I sometimes add a penalty/cost/curse to using the item. I think about what the item does and what the cost might be. For instance, a ring of poison resistance, might drain the wearer's Constitution by one point to power itself. Another point might be that many items are ancient and were created by ancient beings. If those creators are around, they might want it back. Basically, I like to give to most powerful items a history and a place in the wider world.

Last edited by joseph (9/02/2014 1:55 pm)