Useless magic items

I’m going to have to kill you for that one. <tracer whips out his arrow of chipmunk slaying and his bow, dwarven thrower>

I already thought of a good use for the ring of invulnerability a while ago:

“Oh no! That 30 ton stone door is sliding down into place! If it closes completely, it will seal off this chamber and we’ll suffocate! If only we had some little indestructable object we could stick between the door and the sill to keep it from closing all the way…”

Was that in 1st Edition AD&D, or 2nd/3rd Edition?

Reason I ask is 'cause, in first edition, 1 g.p. worth of silver weighed 5 times as much as it did in 2nd and later editions.

I take that back.

In 1st Edition AD&D, one g.p. worth of silver weighed TEN times as much as it did in 2nd Edition AD&D.

For two reasons:

  1. All coins in 1st edition weighed 1/10 of a pound each, while all coins in 2nd edition weighed 1/50 of a pound each. And:

  2. In 1st edition, the exchange rate was 20 silver pieces to the gold piece. In 2nd (and 3rd) edition, the exchange rate was 10 silver pieces to the gold piece.

Of course, a list of 101 Spells Not Worth Memorizing has been circulating on the 'net for a while, too.

That sounds less like a “useless” magic item than a genuine cursed magic item.

Ah, the glory days of the vengeful D.M.:

Dungeon Master: “In the treasure chest, you see a gold scarab broach.”

Player: “I pick it up and pin it to my shirt.”

Dungeon Master: “Hah! It eats its way to your heart and kills you! You’re dead!”

I wonder how many of those are in Progress Quest.

Worst one I saw along those lines went something like this:

DM: Ok you have found a robe.

Player: Cool, i’m casting Identify

DM: Well, you’re getting the image that it’s a Robe of Blending.

Player: SWEET! I’m putting it on!

DM: Save vs death

Player: WHAT?!?!?

DM: It’s a Robe of Blending…Cuisenart stye.

:smack:

My girfriend’s Wand of Insuffiecnt Paranoia while Ordering Goods Over the Internet.

She’s been getting interested in Wicca, Tarot, Runes and such of late.

A wand she ordered, whose photographed ornate beauty meant she wasn’t too miffed about it’s excessive delivery time finally arrived today.

It’s two inches long.

milo

It’s not how long your wand is, it’s what you do with it.

Not that I would ever hijack a thread or anything, but I once put a magic roachclip in one of my dungeons. Say the activation word and it became a giant crocodile or a pterandon, depending upon what the activator wanted. After 12 uses, it reverted to a normal roachclip.

Hence, in my world, it was still useful. :smiley:

This is great! I used to play this game with my friends way back in high school.

Gimme a while, I’ll post some good ones.

First spell on the list is Acid Trip. Who the hell says that’s not worth memorizing?!

3 minutes huh? I wondered as I posted it.

Do you have something you’d like to share in this thread? :wink:

milo

“Invalid thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster”

Man, that’s one of my favorite threads, all right.

I use the keyboard of accurate linkage and the sobriety potion for this result.

And remember to click the link on preview. :smack:

milo

Ring of Gaseous Form. The tough part was taking the ring off when you wished to revert to solid form…

Some seemingly useless items
Potion of Flatulance, embarissing, but the magically created methane could be usefully explosive in a confined space, the smell could also be made use of.

Potion of tree talking, the user could talk with trees or any other plant, and the plant could understand to the limit of its powers, but the user could not understand what the plant says (if anything) back to him/her. Of course a whiley and charismatic character might just persuade some shriekers to keep quiet.

Amulet of air breathig (for gilled creatures to breathe out of water), not healthy for lung possesing beings.

Robe of colours, changes colour on command, can be useful to someone sneaking arround a city.

Sun-powered lantern: Will glow indefinitely as long as it’s exposed to sunlight.

Spell of False Hope: Gives the caster the unbreakable delusion for three rounds that he is in no danger and cannot be harmed. (Granted this might actually be useful against certain types of psychic attack).

Mobius Incantation: To cast this spell, you must first sucessfully cast the Mobius Incantation.

Measure Poverty: Tells you how much money you don’t have.

Break Horse: This doesn’t mean train horses to accept riders, it means to actually break them.

Enigma Summons: This spell summons objects that are explicitly forbidden to exist under the rules of the game, such as high technology in a medieval setting. The object will be non-functional and unidentifiable. All the characters in the game can do is wonder what the heck it is. The object can only interact with the rest of the world as an inert mass of a certain size and weight.

Potion of Boredom: When swallowed, causes a prolonged state of acute boredom.

Tree Count: Tells you exactly how many trees are growing in a given area.

Combination Spear/Mace: a polearm with a standard spear head on one end, and a mace head on the other. Poorly balanced and difficult to use, they are sold by mail order only.

You blew it, Lumpy. :smiley:
Break Horse would be useful to cast on a charging mount. Not only would the horse be toast, but the rider is going to suffer unpleasant consequences.
Potion of Boredom Hell, I would throw this down the gullett of a dragon, or a purple worm.