Magic Items

[Ail]

Hi

I seem to be full of doubts today. This one concerns magic items. Do you use 'untainted' magic items in your campaign, that is, simple magic items like a sword +1 without bad effects? Why, or why not?

I don't like the idea that any magic item will have to be somewhat corrupted. This may be an idea I wrongly got from reading message over the years, because I see some NPCs with magic items that seem to have no negative side. Still, I agree that all of them should be some kind of history that makes them special and revered, and I do think that more powerful magic items (like a +2 sword) should have some inconvenient (and I don't see myself giving away a +3 weapon of any kind, but if I did, that would probably be the most I would use... at least for now).
What about magic armour, rings, cloaks and so on (that is, protective gear)?

Thank you all.

Ail

[Fido]

I do believe that there is also good in Ravenloft. Not everything is evil or tainted. A regular +1 ring of protection is very possible, I think. (By regular, I don't mean that you can find one on the counter of your everyday bakery. I mean without bad effects.)

It's a low magic setting, and every magic item should have a story, be it small. It doesn't need a bad story. Not every item is cursed.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I agree. Making every item cursed takes away a major fun aspect of the game, finding cool stuff. But cool stuff is even cooler with a backstory, in my opinion, so while it may function like a +1 sword, it must never be refered to as such. It may be the legendary death sword of kleb knarr, or the shadow blade of the lord of the fey, or somesuch. And even without a curse, a creepy backstory can make players wary of using it.

[Jester of the FoS]

+1 sword? No, never. A magical sword with a neat description and a possible name and backstory, yes!

Simple items work as long as you keep the game-effects muted, it's a magical sword but the exact powers and plus unknown. Emphasise the emotional attachement and the sword itself, not the numerical bonus. And small little special quirks or minor powers are nice too.

[Jasper]

I just have any +1, +2 sword be a masterfuly made weapon- A $500 battle ready museum quality sword in contrast to the $50 flea market knock offs.

I do allow a few +3 swords that were magicly forged with no bad sideffects but it usaaly has a specal occasion tied to its creation (corination of a King or end of a war)

[Dion of the Fraternity]

I use/create Legacy Items (Weapons of Legacy) for my campaigns, so every +1 weapon (even masterworks) has an intricate backstory.

[Manofevil]

Perhaps this is all so, but it's clear that RavenLoft is a setting where cursed weapons are bound to far outnumber magical ones. An average sword which lasts long enough to kill fifty people, regardless of circumstances, has a good chance of catching the interest of teh DPs. A good way to think about it might be two or three dozen magical uncursed weapons could exist throughoput the 'Loft (from various sources including outlanders) in proportion to an average of two-three dozen cursed weapons per domain.

[Faust]

Well what about mages? Dont you thinkt hey are cretaing magic items? I mean there is a school of mage in Hazaln so its highly possible that the mages from there create a bunch of magic item(whitout cruse) Also think of all the wizard npc, the outlander weapons. Most magic weapon are probably not cursed. As for all magic item having an interesting backstory, well it depend. Its cool to find mystrerious magic item or item that are magic but dont look magic(that sword bough in the flea market could be magical whitout anyone noticing it...) or maybe finding a magic weapon in mist oubliette(why was it there?).

Anyway maybe its just me: the characters are heroes anyway so they should be equipped like heroes. Phat lewt are cool!

[Dion of the Fraternity]

the characters are heroes anyway so they should be equipped like heroes

equipped responsibly, of course.

[Undead Cabbage]

Well what about mages? Dont you thinkt hey are cretaing magic items? I mean there is a school of mage in Hazaln so its highly possible that the mages from there create a bunch of magic item(whitout cruse) Also think of all the wizard npc, the outlander weapons. Most magic weapon are probably not cursed. As for all magic item having an interesting backstory, well it depend. Its cool to find mystrerious magic item or item that are magic but dont look magic(that sword bough in the flea market could be magical whitout anyone noticing it...) or maybe finding a magic weapon in mist oubliette(why was it there?).

On this note, for every true genuine magic items there are out there, there are ten times as many fake ones. In Hazlan I always pictured this market where unexpecting adventurers can find themselves emptying their purse on Dr.Phils Magic items for the teenage spirit (well, not quite, but fake trinckets Charlatans would sell).

Giving a story to all of your magic items keeps it ROLE play and not ROLL play. I'm not a big fan of a bunch of adventurers walking up to the local smith and saying "Can I buy a +1 dagger?". It ruins the mood, be it gothic or otherwise.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Good point about the outlanders as a magic-item source, Faust! While the setting may have outgrown its weekend-in-hell roots, the fact remains that it's always been the rest of the D&D cosmology's answer to the Bermuda Triangle: folks check in, they very seldom check out. As the VRGttM so-recently pointed out, a lot of ensnared outlanders are adventurers, whether good or evil; in plenty of cases down through the centuries, the permanent magic items they'd brought into the Land of Mists will have outlived their bearers. My guess is that most of the powerful, non-cursed items which (rarely) turn up in the Ravenloft setting will have gotten there this way.

For weaker items, OTOH, Ravenloft's natives are probably up to the task of producing their own. Potions, scrolls, and wands, in particular, could be accounted for as the handiwork of resident NPCs; some minorities, like the voodan and the Canjar Vistani, are even specialists in such work. A lot of items distinctive to Ravenloft's Renaissance domains, like magical spectacles or firearms, would certainly not be imports from your average outlander-world, and some construct-style items (like Figurines) might be setting-specific products of the same obsessed creativity that births dread golems.

I disagree with Manofevil's suggestion that a mundane weapon ought to become cursed, simply because it's been used a lot. The Dark Powers shouldn't be wasting their time, IMO, corrupting non-sentient entities or objects -- they certainly haven't bothered to create any domains ruled by run-of-the-mill (hence mindless) zombies or skeletons, for example -- so if a weapon becomes cursed through DP intervention, this ought to occur a a result of the misdeeds of its wielder, not the blade's own (passive) role in death-dealing. In effect, the weapon starts out as its evil wielder's curse, then keeps on causing trouble after it's finished him/her off.

[order99]

Now, I for one could see Intelligent magic items become Cursed, though perhaps more in the way a character would-more power, more side-effects and drawbacks.Since most intelligent items are purer in alignment than than your average PC(by thier nature) mostly Evil-aligned items would be affected.Woe betide a Paladin's Holy Sword falling prey to madness though, or to its wielder's...
In time,perhaps such items would become Paragons of Depravity, minor Artifacts, by the same process the truly lost become Darklords.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

True, magical items with sentience would be eligible as darklords; there are already two precedents for this, with both Ebonbane (obviously) and that accursed crown from "Feast of Goblyns". OTOH, both of these artifacts had the additional feature that their evil came from a creature's essence, entrapped within -- a powerful fiend inhabits Ebonbane, and the soul of the necromancer Daglan was trapped within the crown -- so it's more consistent if only objects with inhabiting spirits would be potential darklords (a la the House of Lament). A magic item that was created evil, and has no more independent choice in this than a fiend does, is probably not what the DPs are looking for in a darklord, any more than a regular fiend would be.

But a sentient magic item could certainly be cursed for its crimes, even if it's unworthy of the DPs' attentions and thus makes no Powers checks. An NPC would, however, have to figure out that the item is to blame for his or her sufferings (rather than its wielder), to invoke such a curse upon the correct target. Imagine an evil sword that takes over wielders and forces them to kill Vistani; other Vistani then curse the wielders, but the sword simply passes into a new wielder's grasp unscathed, leaving the poor Ego-dominated puppet to cope with the curse's effects....