A magic sword that can instantly kill anything it touches but it’s stuck in it sheath and can’t be removed.
That’s just a regular YA novel sword
A potion of True Healing… heals 1d8+2 damage, recipient MUST truthfully answer the next question they are asked. Sell the characters 6, but don’t tell them about the truth serum. Let them figure it out on their own.
Boots of Elvenkind… except Elves can hear you.
A bag of holding that contains infinite clowns. Every time it is opened, 1d4 clowns come out. The clowns are useless in combat and attempt to distract, annoy and mock the holder. While this could be used as a distraction, the clowns will follow the holder, drawing attention to them. You could create a table for what kind of clowns you get (mime clowns, pie throwing clowns, balloon animal clowns, magician clowns, etc). The clowns will wander off after 1d6 minutes. Where the clowns go and what they are (Illusions? Demons?) is unknown.
There’s so much role playing potential in the ability to create a giant mob of clowns at will by repeatedly opening and closing the bag. You almost don’t need anything else!
Spawn them as a distraction!
Use them to hide!
Plug any entry or hallway at will!
Build yourself a mountain of clowns to scale any wall!
Never starve again with their endless supply of pies! (Eaten fresh off your face.)
Use their weight to bring down any air-/ship!
Air drop them on your enemies! (Assuming they have a weight and are bound by gravity, they do damage - all you need is a bit of levitation, a tower, airship or a ceiling to hang from.)
Just crush your entire party by spawning hundreds of them in a closed room!
The possibilities are truly endless.
Sell the bag to a lich to keep him from robbing graves, collect big $$$ for the unique magic item, and the bounty from the town
As a diabolical GM, I can think of so many ways to make these strategies backfire. :D
That’s half the fun! Sometimes, the true clown you spawn is yourself.
Just crush your entire party by spawnibg hundreds of them in a closed room!
Relevant (semi-NSFL) scene from Invincible season 3.
Jesus…
That’s certainly not great, but this show has way worse.
Herd them ahead of you to clear traps
I can’t see any of these working as intended. Clowns don’t subscribe to reality
Spawn them as a distraction!
Some of them cause a big distraction that accidentally points directly towards those you don’t want to be seen.
Use them to hide!
One of them will look giant and big to hide you while the others honk and gesture/point behind, clearly showing where you are.
Build yourself a mountain of clowns to scale any wall!
Crabs in a bucket. None will let you climb. You must stay to hear their jokes…
Never starve again with their endless supply of pies!
Shaving cream pies. Ain’t nobody got time to bake 30 coconut creams
Use their weight to bring down any air-/ship
They all blow up helium balloons to help it float. Unless you want it to float in which case their balloons turn into bowling balls at the last second with a big shrug.
Air drop them on their enemies!
See balloons
Just crush your entire party by spawning hundreds of them in a closed room!
Clown car logic. You’re all “crushed” but it’s just extremely difficult terrain.
Luckily, most of these arguments assume living clowns. Something that can be easily remedied, it just shifts the entire problem space to doing it fast enough!
On that note, what’s their EXP value?
They just despawn and it’s 1/10^(78) xp per clown.
A fraction of 1 EP for each atom in the universe.
Immortal Clowns of Jest. Zero XP and their death only fuels development of further abilities
If my PCs responded to the clowns this way, I would absolutely make the clowns demons and the “bag of holding” a portal to a circus themed layer of the Abyss. And that’s the campaign now.
It turns out the ruler of this layer of the abyss appreciates your lust for violence and mass murder. That’s probably not actually… good? For you?
I don’t know about you, but the prospect of becoming a warlock themed around blood, flesh and clownery sounds pretty sweet to me!
I’d definitely play that campaign.
I would definitely let you play that in my campaign. Also reminds me of that bad guy from One Piece.
Exactly this. Also, one of the clowns will have a trombone to play sad trombone noises at you.
Never starve again with their endless supply of pies!
Probably bad that without the parentheses, I was already assuming this was some kind of horrific Sweeny Todd situation.
That’s just practical thinking right here! Someone else argued for shaving cream pies, which naturally leads to the counterpoint of cannibalism.
No, but the pies are a bit off, so they always give you the runs.
Immovable Rod: Only one end of the rod is fixed in space, the other end swings freely.
Immovable Rod: when activated, it becomes fixed in its position in space, ignoring the motion of the planet. The moment it’s activated, it flies off into the sky or through the earth depending on the time of day, destroying everything in its path.
Potentially extremely useful with a lot of planning, once.
Oh boy, now we run into the problem of “there is no such thing as a neutral universal spatial grid/position”. Since all position is relative, perhaps pressing the button locks it in place relative to the sun instead of the planet? Maybe this special version is marked with a sun symbol, if you’re lucky.
Also note that Immovable Rods typically have a maximum weight or Strength check that can either cause them to deactivate or move them or whatever. 8,000 pounds and DC 28 Str come to mind from one or another version, so this probably wouldn’t tear through the whole planet, but it could still rough up some buildings and moderate rock.
Immovable pendulum
That’s awesome actually. Would be incredibly useful in a shop.
Scroll of Gorilla Warfare. When used summons 15 gorillas. These gorillas are wild and do not obey orders given by the caster.
The gorillas disappear after 1d12 rounds. This effect ‘echoes’ 1d6 times, effectively recasting the spell after 1d6 rounds.
Sword of charisma: But it attracts bugs for some reason.
Amulet of protection: Stops heals too.
Boots of speed: Brakes not included.
Wand of light: Slightly radioactive.
Potion of restoration: Removes buffs as well, kills undead.
There was an older barbarian subclass that was immune to magic including beneficial magic. It was dumb and wonderful
Removed by mod
Ring of protection. Grants everyone around you protection in a fairly large radius. Might be useful for long range combat, maybe. Might also be useful to navigating certain environmental hazards.
Boots of Flying. They can fly, but only have a carry weight of a few pounds. If you’re more than say ten pounds, the little wings flap but gain no altitude. They are not autonomous. Might be useful in condunction with other magics to reduce weight.
Gauntlets of Ogre Might. Do not affect strength. They do tell you the odds of nearby ogres taking particular actions. They might do this, they might do that, and so on.
Hammer of Striking. Social bonuses when organizing labor. Combat bonuses only when near many allies.
Boots of Haste. Gain extra actions but large penalties to all checks. Haste makes waste. May be useful if combined with large bonuses or fixed outcomes (eg: DND diviner wizard).
Hammer of Striking. Social bonuses when organizing labor. Combat bonuses only when near many allies.
Pair this with the Sickle of Means. Does double damage and gives Ranger favored enemy bonuses against employers, nobility, land owners and clerics, so long as the wielder forswears ever becoming any of those things. When used to harvest grain, doubles the speed at which grain can be harvested and magically doubles the final yield of the harvest as well. However, if the grain is not freely and equitably distributed (especially if the wielder charges for it), the next time they use the sickle they will immediately fumble and critically hit themselves for max damage.
Sword of ghostly might: One owned by a powerful warrior who came back as a vengeful spirit. Neglects to mention that the sword is also a ghost, and therefore can only deal damage to spirits.
Bag of holding with a preexisting hoarding problem
Can’t-trip - only works when you don’t want it to
Book of spells, but you have to spell out letter by letter each time you cast
Magic rope - an animated rope that can be commanded to levitate and tie knots. When placed in any container, pouch or pocket, it immediately gets tangled up and take 1d6 minutes per 5ft of rope to untangle. Other objects in the container also become tangled with the rope, and take 1d6 minutes to remove individually, entangled objects are released immediately when the entire rope is untangled.
Magic rope is unable to be cut by any non-magical item.
it immediately gets tangled up and take 1d6 minutes per 5ft of rope to untangle
Should be a Dexterity check per 5ft per 1d6 minutes to make it even more diabolical.
Not quite the same, but a Paladin in a campaign I was in once bought a Shield of Missile Attraction for cheap because the shopkeep thought it was cursed.
I hope while they were walking around, a projectile would just donk right into their shield on occasion, just to keep them on their toes. :)
They walk past a llama pen on the way back to the tavern.
Barkeep: “Uh… I’ll have Gretchen draw you a bath upstairs.”
LOL. That one’s really clever!
I’m sure there’d also eventually be a raging debate at the table to whether pigeon poop, whilst technically being a “projectile”, counts as a “missile.” Then something like “Was the pigeon aiming for something?”
…In which case you could set that shield up in the town square and all the statues would be squeaky clean!
Caltrops of Seeking. Drawn to metal and increase chance to damage/hit metal boots.
They stick together though and must be manually placed one by one over an extended period of time.
Wouldn’t metal boots protect your feet from the caltrops?
I have a spreadsheet full of these somewhere. The 2 that my players got that I remember them using are:
Emperors armor: +3 full plate armor with no strength or armor proficiency requirement. When you look at yourself or in a mirror you see yourself in full plate armor, but to everyone else you are naked and if anyone tells you that you are naked the armor and all your possessions cease to exist. My player made it the shopping district in the heart of the city before someone told him.
Staff of disintegrating: when activated, it disintegrates. The player that got this one saved it for a boss fight. He found it hilarious though.
If staff of disintegrating can be activated remotely you can make traps with it
Magic sword of infinite sharpness.
Sheathing the sword, or holding it by the hilt, quillons, or pommel causes it to become incredibly heavy.
Reminds me of this CalebCity’s sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8Mh9LPNAkI
