Bizarre/creative uses on magic items in-game

[ArqArturo]

In my years of gaming, I've come across, once or twice, that players (me, even) find interesting ideas and uses for certain magic items.

For example, and this is actually something pretty neat, a bag of holding can be a really cool disguise device, you just put your arm/leg/head over the bag, and you can disguise as a cripple, or a decapitated body, depending on the circumstance. Add that to some clever magic use/disguise kit use, you can pull off some interesting things.

Another item my players have come across that can work, is the Quiver of Lies, from the Book of Vile Darkness. Most of my players like to play brutes, so not many of them have ranks in Sense Motive (but they do have them on Intimidate), so an item that springs forth an arrow/bolt whenever the character lies is pretty good.

[Segev]

I was in a game once where the party Samurai deliberately allowed himself to be swallowed whole by a flying red dragon. He then activated his immovable rod.

[Hamste]

My personal favourite is using Feather Token (Tree), throw it underneath a creature in a tight space and watch as they are crushed by a giant tree spawning from nowhere.

[GlorinSteampike]

I was in a game once where the party Samurai deliberately allowed himself to be swallowed whole by a flying red dragon. He then activated his immovable rod.

I had a friend who got 2 immovable rods and dreamed of doing this. I don't think he ever got enough HP/acid resist to manage it, so when they fought a dragon on an airship he spent most of his time Master Throwing at it's eyes.

I once used a portable hole as a portable prison. I don't know how clever it was, but a bottle air and everlasting rations makes for good use of taxpayer dollars.

[ArqArturo]

Also, weapons stored in their scabbard, and then placing the scabbard (not the hilt) inside a bag of holding makes for a great way to smuggle your greatsword.

[elonin]

How much did that dragon weigh? I'm also guessing that it could make the dc 30 strength check. I would rule that it would take some damage but wouldn't necessarily be fatal.

In a group I've played in we had a hireling healer that we kept in a portable hole with a bottle of air, items of continual light, and a library of books.

[ArqArturo]

In a group I've played in we had a hireling healer that we kept in a portable hole with a bottle of air, items of continual light, and a library of books.

"Ok, we're fine now. Back to the pokeball with you".

[Phelix-Mu]

My personal favourite is using Feather Token (Tree), throw it underneath a creature in a tight space and watch as they are crushed by a giant tree spawning from nowhere.

I'm gonna make a list of "50 Fun Uses for Tree Tokens." It is, without reservation, my single favorite item. 400gp for an instant colossal living object. My favorite use for them is a combo involving reverse gravity and creatures entering some kind of discrete area.

[Slipperychicken]

Also, weapons stored in their scabbard, and then placing the scabbard (not the hilt) inside a bag of holding makes for a great way to smuggle your greatsword.

Until someone casts Detect Magic, of course.

Also a great way to get your Bag of Holding punctured with vigorous motion.

[JaronK]

Lyre of Building + Animate Dread Warrior on a Bard = a crafter who will build you a whole castle without stopping. Nice.

JaronK

[Hamste]

I'm gonna make a list of "50 Fun Uses for Tree Tokens." It is, without reservation, my single favorite item. 400gp for an instant colossal living object. My favorite use for them is a combo involving reverse gravity and creatures entering some kind of discrete area.

Don't forget, apparently living trees are immune to disintegrate. Use them to block a shot (Can be used to block any spell or ranged attack that needs a line of effect by readying an action). I will have some suggestions if you make a thread of it (Ladder could be one as well)

[Phelix-Mu]

Until someone casts Detect Magic, of course.

Also a great way to get your Bag of Holding punctured with vigorous motion.

Let me just be the first to say that this conjured up some "not safe for work" images when I read it.

I like using portable holes as expensive fish tanks/cages. Stick a critter in it with a bottle of air, cover the opening with a permanent wall of force, and levitate the surface on which you opened the hole.

Portable holes also make nifty cells for transporting low-level prisoners, from what I recall.

[Nettlekid]

I am dying to get Swallowed Whole by a variety of monsters that I'd torment from inside. Ipecac, to make them vomit and become nauseated. The already-mentioned Quaal's Feather Token: Tree, to put...a tree inside them. See what fun happens with a Decanter of Endless Water.

One of my favorite weird items isn't a proper magic item, but a Sizing Riverine Shield is great fun to mess around with, because it's basically a Wall of Force that you can carry around with you and make as big or small as you want. It's useful as a bridge, a boat, and of course a shield. I like to add Spellblade to it (shields can be used as weapons, so I think it's okay) to make it absorb Disintegrate, removing its biggest weakness.

[Slipperychicken]

Let me just be the first to say that this conjured up some "not safe for work" images when I read it.

I like using portable holes as expensive fish tanks/cages. Stick a critter in it with a bottle of air, cover the opening with a permanent wall of force, and levitate the surface on which you opened the hole.

Portable holes also make nifty cells for transporting low-level prisoners, from what I recall.

I must be either getting more mature (or developing some Freudian disorder) since I completely missed that.

Just bear in mind that the prisoner can simply puncture the bag to escape, although he's "lost forever" if he does so. Make sure you treat him well enough that he doesn't consider suicide as an option.

[Phelix-Mu]

I must be either getting more mature (or developing some Freudian disorder) since I completely missed that.

Just bear in mind that the prisoner can simply puncture the bag to escape, although he's "lost forever" if he does so. Make sure you treat him well enough that he doesn't consider suicide as an option.

I know that a bag of holding can be punctured, but I don't find any text in portable hole indicating that it can be damaged the same way from inside. I guess a DM could rule that the walls of the hole are made of cloth, but I always pictured the walls of the hole like the walls of a real hole...solid.

I was gonna use the permanent wall of force to prop open the hole, so it can't be closed from the inside.

If I were describing space-bending dimensional storage, I would have been more explicit.

[Mr.Sandman]

That wand of Magic Missile you got at 3rd level makes a great bug killer at 10th.

[Rubik]

I've always enjoyed items that can imbue unarmed strikes with magical weapon special qualities, such as bracers of striking and necklaces of natural weapons. Throwing and distance (combined with other distance boosters) are really fun, since you can hurl your body with an attack action and gain a lot of in-and-out-of-combat maneuverability, which in some ways can be better than flight. Sizing and metalline are also really fun, especially on a monk (whose whole body is a weapon).

And I've always, always loved the psychoactive skin of proteus. Ye gods, if I could only have one single magic item IRL, it'd be that. So much awesome, even at a flat ML 7. So many low-level monsters can be exceedingly powerful if used in the right circumstances. Dissolve any non-blueshine metal at will? Gain the ability to fly, swim, or burrow, as well as the ability to breathe in water, or not need to breathe at all? Gain immunity to fire or cold? Hold Person and Confusion at will? Turn into any object of any size whenever you want? Disguise yourself as a mundane plant? Fly in the air and turn into a giant block of lead to crush things? And don't forget immortality through periodic shapeshifting into a young body. With some ingenuity, the possibilities are nigh endless.

[Necroticplague]

Ethereal reaver. A strong magic item, normally used by adventurers on the Material plane to go toe-to-toe with that on the Ethereal. However, doing the reverse it significantly more effective.A ghost that has de-manifested can just stand on the Ethereal, slashing away at suckers on the Material that can't hit back, or probably even see them.

[Guyver87]

I'm not sure if it fits the theme, but two members of my group managed to pull off something fairly crazy during our last session.

During this particular campaign our group was hired to finish off wounded Red Dragon, who managed to escape after the army founded by the group of nobles fed up with the flying fire breathing lizard burning their villages raided his cave.

Our characters easily dispatched the dragon, and after rummaging through his hoard we found several interesting magical items. Sadly none of us knew, that GM decided to be a troll this time.

Because some of them were cursed.

Like the expensive looking trident that had the awesome power... of detecting fish in the water. It is also cursed, so anyone that grabs it becomes immediately obsessed with it, and generally behaves just like Gollum.

Of course our Wizard got cursed, when trying to identify it. We helped him to get rid of the curse (Said help consisted of Warblade giving him a concussion with an Epic Bitchslap, and Cleric taking the cursed item from his hand, while protecting himself by wrapping the trident with the piece of cloth), and exited the cave.

Where the other example of GM's trolling was waiting.

In form of high level (20-something) female Drow Cleric, with a lot of magical equipment, and specialized build created solely to wipe the floor with our team.

By the GM's rough estimate, our heroes shouldn't be able to survive more, than two turns. But he didn't expected how crafty certain players could be...

Namely our Wizard, and Paladin came up with a plan, using said cursed trident, piece of cloth, and elixir of invisibility.

First, the Wizard teleported them near the Evil Cleric Babe, in the meantime bypassing the Repulsion Field she was covered with [Requiring quite high Will Save Roll], and somehow survived being hit with her magical weapon, not to mention the fact, that he also made another successful roll, to prevent himself from being teleported to another dimension by the weapon's enhancement.

Secondly, he touched the Big Boss Drowbabe with the Cursed Trident, which required getting through her obscenely high AC, further boosted by the ****load of magical items, and spells. And yet, he pulled it off somehow...

Then the Paladin took the Trident (Still holding it through the cloth), poured the Elixir of Invisiblity on it, and then threw it somewhere.

This made the Drow Priestess to frantically look for the invisible artefact on the ground, instead of focusing on killing the heroes, which let them survive a lot longer, than GM expected, and severely wound her.

Sure, we still had lost, but it was a fun fight.

And GM's face, when they managed to pull it off was simply priceless.

Sorry for bad English, I'm a lazy non native speaker...

[Telonius]

My favorite was an item I sprung on my PCs - a Dracolich's phylactery. Before becoming a lich, he defeated a foe with a powerful Bane Dragon, Bane Evil greatsword. He took the sword, and crafted a really fancy scabbard to go with it. The scabbard was made of lead on the inside, and was ever so slightly too long; the phylactery was embedded in the scabbard's tip. He then put the sword out "into circulation." Nobody would ever think to break up the sword-scabbard set, so the phylactery would always go with the sword - whose purpose is dragonslaying. If the lich were ever defeated, it would be a fairly short time before the phylactery was taken near the body of a dragon. So he'd have a fairly quick regeneration. It's lead-lined, so it would never detect as Evil.

The players defeated the dracolich two or three times before getting serious about finding its phylactery. They eventually cast Discern Location, which (hilariously) almost led to them Sundering the sword. Fortunately for them, the spell was still active when they were about to do that; the Cleric casting the spell kept pointing at the scabbard when the sword had been drawn.

[gr8artist]

My favorite creative use of an item was strangely mundane. I had some lvl 2 players in an arena making some quick cash while investigating some cultists. Sneaky guy went invisible... and there's not a lot of counters at lvl 2 available to 2 rogues and a paladin. But the Amazing Rifto was fast on his feet, grabbed a nearby pot of gruel (time was just after breakfast) and made a ranged touch attack blindly at a chosen square (the last one the guy had been on). Dude hadn't had a chance to move yet, gets plastered by 1d3 points of boiling soup, and is now perfectly visible to our two rogues. Yeah, he didn't last long after that.

I've used immovable rods to suspend rival players when going down an elevator. Suddenly the half-ogre is hanging by his backpack looking very confused.

I once ran the players through a weird campaign that involved a trip to the world of greed, where they had to barter their life force for strange currency to buy things like senses, directions, and getting their gear back. (the fact that they didn't know they were selling life force to get this stuff was priceless. Oh, I just sign here and you'll give me 30 more coins? Neat.). Once they caught on, they started to look for other ways to make greedcoins. Well, they could sell their souls. Not forever, mind you, just a little service contract. And you got paid based on several factors, such as contract length, your usefulness in a fight, and any moral obligations you adhered to. All of them eventually made contracts with this red-skinned outsider, and I believe the longest was for a month of service. Then one of the players sold a few of his magical items, gathered a bunch of coin, and bought everyone elses contracts. Just so they knew... at a moments notice, she was their boss, no questions asked. (under penalty of purgatory).

And Lorvain throwing his greatsword with his 2rd iterative attack and cleaving a guy in half at 20' was a remarkable feat. Not bad for an attack at -11. He dropped the first guy with his first swing and wanted the double REALLY bad.

[BowStreetRunner]

I once ran the players through a weird campaign that involved a trip to the world of greed, where they had to barter their life force for strange currency to buy things like senses, directions, and getting their gear back....Then one of the players sold a few of his magical items, gathered a bunch of coin, and bought everyone elses contracts...

The reminds me of the Proposition Player comic. Absolutely classic.

[Morcleon]

Using the -2 Cursed Sword for Iaijutsu Focus. Since Quick Draw doesn't allow "Quick Sheathe", you can have the -2 Cursed Sword and a dagger. You draw the Cursed Sword, attack with Iaijutsu Focus, drop it, then Quick Draw the dagger. Except that due to the Cursed Sword's curse, you draw that instead. Now Iaijustsu Focus again.