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Friday, May 23, 2014

What Do You Consider to be one of the Most Under-Appreciated Magic Items?

Wand of fireballs. Staves of power. Flametongues. Rods of Might. Kick ass magic, to be sure. Powerful, to be sure, but are they "fun"?

Personally, as a player and a DM, I've always felt that Wands of Wonder were under-appreciated. Just by it's very nature you can expect no two wands to be the same, because even if both wands are using the same by the book table, the results will be different.

Me, I always liked making custom tables foe the Wands of Wonder I've introduced into games.

So, what are some of the under-appreciated magic items in your campaigns?

10 comments:

  1. Things like these ;-)
    http://mad-kyndalanth.blogspot.de/2013/05/magic-item-sendricks-box-of-voices.html

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  2. I've recently come to love the "Scroll of Protection from X"

    Any class with a high enough Int to read can use them, and they will ward off enough of one type of creature (lycanthropes, undead, elementals, devils/demons, etc.) to let you either escape or figure out how to deal with them without getting yourself hurt.

    And the scroll of protection from magic is really worth so much if you are ever going up against a spell-casting villain.

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  3. My players learned to have a healthy fear of the Wand of Wonder. It became their "Well, we're screwed" magic item, used when things weren't going well in the hopes that it would create an upset...which oddly enough, the dice seemed to produce when things were dire.

    ....until the time they decided to use it just because and the fighter had to get refitted for his...oh, actually, *her* armor....

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  4. none are underappreciated because all are rare.

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  5. Under-appreciated. Hmm...

    I'll go with Slippers of Spiderclimbing. Not being on the floor has a lot more uses than just getting over a wall.

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  6. In my campaigns scrolls have always gotten short shrift, though I don't have a conscious reason to explain it. In general I think that swords +1, +3 versus "X" are often snubbed because of overall weakness, but are great for inspiring players to pursue specific goals in the sandbox.

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  7. Ioun stones, the idea of a character orbited by a tiny constellation of beneficial asteroids is fantastic, but I've never actually seen them used in a game.

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  8. Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity for sure.

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  9. Quaals feather token - a feather that upon command grows to a enormous tree (believe some 100 feet) in a round. I've got it several times, and it has saved me from troll latrines and whatnot.

    I once threw it under a black dragon.

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  10. I was always fascinated by the Apparatus of Kwalish, maybe since one of my characters was roasted alive inside one during an epic battle against a red dragon. I've included all sorts of variants in my games, (mole, squid, lizard, etc usually as relics of the Ancient past.

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