Do people usually feel debilitating pain in battle? I thought that most pain is delayed in the first few minutes of serious injury. I have personal experience with a broken arm, that felt fine for almost 20 minutes, but was bent the wrong way.

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I would like to see these items have slightly more description in the item name. You call one of these items "Torch", when in fact, it specifically is a torch that reveals magical coded writing. I can think of a dozen "Torch" items that a thief would want. 

A torch that doesn't doesn't have a visible light source.

A heatless torch that produces sparks that follows airflows, for finding hidden cracks and passages.

A torch with hidden explosives or smoke bombs.

A torch with a hidden dagger.

A torch with a hidden compartment for maps and valuables.

A torch with a secret vial of oil thats can be quickly broken, flinging flaming oil into the eyes of unsuspecting enemies.

A torch that has a sparker attached that can be lit instantaneously with one hand.

A torch with a quick release clapper, to snuff it out in a hurry.

All of these are Torches, but plainly, all very different (maybe I should start a list of awesome torches). A list of 30 is not a normal item submission. It isn't designed to be a solo idea for GMs to read through and use in their plot. They are filler material. Something that the GM can scan through quickly, on the fly, to equip and outfit rooms and characters with. For this reason, those numbered titles become extremely important. They need to give a GM, who hasn't read this post in three weeks, a quick clue as to the item's usefullness, when outfitting his dastardly NPCs. Something like "Torch of Coded Writing" would be more useful.

Additionally, if you are mixing magical with mundane, it would be helpful to know quickly which is which. Mundane items are usually easy to aquire, and should be outfitted to far more characters than magical ones. I can't imagine a low level thief or con who wouldn't have a fake id on their person. I can imagine very few who would have a "Warning Amulet". That distinction would be useful.

Separating Genres would also be nice. You mix Fantasy with Sci-Fi here. Your Sci-Fi Items, at the least, should be at the end, probably with some sort of header. At the most, they deserve a separate post.

 

-Nobody

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You set a fire and a chimney, like everybody else in the world. That ice isn't going anywhere. Go to Comment

Will make an edit Go to Comment

I would say that the difference between citizen and resident alien is moot. Go to Comment

I have to agree with echo mirage. These curses aren't very fun, and in my opinion, don't add much flavor, since many of them only ever happen once.

What I would like to see is a potentially fatal progression that can be stopped by releasing or letting go of the item. I understand that these are artifacts of great power, but even still, instant death is a bit harsh. I have enough ways to kill my players without having to resort to this kind of barbarism.

What this SHOULD be, is some sort of not-so-instant-death way of convincing players that they don't want to use that artifact anymore. Not to convince them never to touch anything ever again.

Wracking pain, Temporary blindness, Temporary insanity, glue secretion (they stick to everything), Morphing into a plant (can be uncursed). These are all interesting ways of saying, sure, you can pick it up, but you can't channel it's power without regretting it.

Alternatively, I could see this becoming a nice magical diseases and curses thread.Things that have to be cured or they result in death.

If you want ways to convince players not to run around in traffic, there are more graceful ways to do it. Go to Comment

I wanted to add that some of these are really great. The theme music one is brilliant. Go to Comment

To mimic:

I think, that whenever you create an item, you shouldn't stop there. You should think about how other people use it. How others percieve it. How people interact with it.

I find that when I think about how something will indirectly affect others, or how non-adventurers will use something, that these things take on a life of their own.

Honestly, if I had the time, I could have rambled on forever about the puppet parades, and how the people dress up like puppets and reenact battles, and how some puppets take to adventuring, or how men are often jealous of juju because he can get away with things that they get slapped or scolded for.

I mean, this stuff just writes itself. Go to Comment

She thinks that EVERYONE is evil, and so she is going to kill them all.

When she is done, she intends to kill herself.

Her motivations aren't very rational from a normal perspective, and her world view is largely developed from Stockholms syndrome, and several psychotic disorders caused from years of extreme abuse. Go to Comment

OK, I will change it. Go to Comment

Updated: Updated: Updated: History Changed. I made some changes to the early story, and rebuilt her rise as a villain. Go to Comment

Actually, I'm running this exact scenario right now. It is based on another scenario where I decided to see what happened if I gave one of the players a set of armor that is WAAAAAAAAAAY out of their league. It basically turns them into a semi-divine being. Part of it was the ability to make three wishes every day, but because the character isn't in tune with the armor, they have to be careful with the wording.

I'm taking the armor away next session when a few high level clerics own the group and take the armor, along with any outrageous wealth that they may have gotten. Until then, it has been lots of fun. Go to Comment

Yeah, that was pretty much the idea. I don't know how that story got so serious. The ending isn't even close to how I imagined it.

Oh well. Go to Comment

Update: Update 2 Intro Go to Comment

This Item makes me happy. I wish we had a little more room for little things like this sometimes. Not everything should be apocalyptic in scale.

-Nobody Go to Comment

My first complaint is the grammatical set up of the post.

A: I need more specifics. I don't know what you mean. I will look over it again.

Secondly, assuming this item is mass produced it would quickly become known as defected or regarded as cursed when similar instances of theft began to take place among the holders of this brand of bag (assuming that the exquisite quality is a constant that consumers can identify the craftsman by).

A: Not true. Sid doesn't mass produce them. The creation of them is highly dangerous. There are probably a few hundred in the world, not a few thousand per city. Bags of holding are still expensive, and only travelers tend to have use for them, so unless all the adventurers of the world are getting together to discuss containers...

And if they spot it as cursed, it's just another bag of devouring. Not linked to Sid at all. A good adventurer will disenchant the bag and be on his way. It's just another cursed item. They exist.

Also, other than good craftmanship, there is nothing to distinguish Sid's bags from any other. If somebody did an in depth magical analysis, they could find a few call signs, but it is very rare to look that hard. Sid might not even sell many of them, preferring to leave them for people to find.

And last, rogues (at least in my games )target PC's just like anybody else. It isn't that far fetched to have something stolen unless special precautions were taken.

Next, Sid, if I presented this story to my party and omitted the bits about him stealing they would still instantly know, and moreover stage an assault on him to steal his bag.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Sid reads as a very wealthy trader who is on the non-lawful side. Given his frequent travel, it would literally be impossible to pin down a source of wealth, even if he was on the up and up. PC's might assume that he wasn't buying all of his merchandise, or maybe that he was running a shady bussines on the side, but I think it would be a stretch for them to assume that he was reaching through bags of holding and taking people's possesions.

As for assaulting Sid, good luck. As a powerful trader, Sid is an asset to everybody who is interested in rare things, and his contacts and allies span the world. That aside, the PC's would have to track him down first. He doesn't exactly hold still. Even if they find him, you have to assume that the PC's aren't the only brigands that Sid has ever handled. He wasn't rumored to have a philosopher's stone because he has a large inventory, and he does take precautions.

Sid shouldn't be presented alongside the bags of holding. They should be separate stories, not linked at all.

I don't see why people don't reach through there bags into his chest, if it is a two way street it seems like the first thing I would do.

There isn't anyting to reach into. It's just an extra-dimensional space that Sid also has access to. The evidence of that connection is MAGICAL, not physical. Imagine a room. In this room are two magical portals that only open up when somebody is reaching through. How would one person know that the second portal existed unless they were specifically looking for it.

Besides, you can only reach outside the chest...into what? Thin air? He doesn't put his own stuff into the chest. There is nothing to take.

I know that if my party just spent X days/weeks/months questing down a distinctly important piece of gear just to have it stolen by this guy they would think I set it up just to keep this item just out of their reach.

Did you?

I should add this to my list of DM tricks to keep overpowered items out of PC hands. The point is, that as the DM, it's your call as to what gets stolen. If you don't want the PC's to lose their favorite stuff, then don't let it happen.

Besides, it is usually in Sid's best interest not to take something that will be noticed.

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I really don't think that this scenario is that far fetched. If you have any more questions or commments, please let me hear them.

Thanks for the input,
-Nobody Go to Comment

Updated: Replaced Sid's name with a few pronouns

Comment: I will be giving Sid his own sub pretty soon. I just have to do some work first.

Question: Should Sid's section just be removed entirely from the post? Go to Comment

Now you just have to beat Sid. Good luck. But I do have to commend good, clever thinking. Give that player a cookie.

Thanks for the help,
-Nobody Go to Comment

Updated: made a few minor changes to wording Go to Comment

Update: Made a few quick changes to the tree, including a simplification of the inner eye, and some minor text changes for slightly easier reading. Go to Comment