Cursed items/weapons/loot

#1

I’ve been playing some variant of the mobile game “pixel dungeon” off and on for several years now, and one of the things I like about it is the random occurrence of cursed loot.

Essentially, when you are traveling through the dungeon picking up items from dead baddies or chest or wherever, you don’t know the value of the items you’re collecting. By value I mean stat bonuses or other modifiers. The item card shows up in your inventory with a number and a question mark next to it. The number is a generic value for a basic item of that type (i.e. you pick up an axe, the item card displays ‘14?’ Because basic axes do 14pts of damage.) But until you equip said item you don’t “know” what it does. There are “scrolls of identify” in the game that you can use to determine the exact nature of the items as well.

Some items are cursed items and your character can’t unequip it until the curse is removed. Cursed items give some sort of negative modifier. I’m wanting to try and incorporate this into our games. So I started writing some stuff out in my journal today, here’s what I’ve come up with:

  1. A cursed item has its original modifiers reduced by a number equal to the “curse level” i.e. silver gauntlets original modifer is +3 str, silver gauntlets with level 4 curse will grant a -4 strength until the curse is removed.

  2. Cursed items require effort to unequip. Use basic effort

  3. Cursed items have a negative impact to the bearer.

  4. Curses can be removed by a magic user via “remove curse” spell.(player or NPC)

  5. Curses have 4 levels, level equals 2x amount of effort in hearts required to unequip item and 2x amount of effort in hearts to remove the curse.

  6. Curses may be identified by magic users with a wisdom check against the target. Must succeed 1/2 the curse level rounded up times. (I.e. level 1 curse needs 1 success. 2 needs 1, 3 needs 2, 4 needs 2.)

I’m still working on the basics of how the “remove curse” spell will work, but I’m leaning towards it being a wisdom spell.

Let me know what you think!

Thanks,
Chris

#2

Have you looked at the Cursed Loot table in the book? Don’t know if it’s really what you’re looking for, but it could have some good stuff in there. I haven’t used Cursed Loot much, but depending on your players I could see it being a lot of fun. It would make the Identify spell WAY cooler.

The way of explaining curse levels is a little confusing to me.

What does it mean that Magic Users can identify curses with a WIS check against the target? Does that mean without having the Identify spell?

#3

So the level denotation is only really to give it a measurement of: how detrimental the modifier is and and how much effort required to remove it. I wanted to have some correlation between hearts of effort to remove and how large the negative effect was. I didn’t really want to go above two hearts of effort to remove a curse, but wanted more than two points of “reduction”. Hope that makes more sense? One other benefit that I thought of with 4 levels is that the curse level can be random via D4 roll.

Not necessarily, I’m just thinking about switching the identify spell to a WIS spell instead of INT, but I may just make up a new WIS spell dedicated to identifying curses.

#4

Got it. I have thoughts! Do it your way, of course, but here’s how I would tackle it. I like random d4 rolls, and I would tend to agree that more than 2 HEARTS of effort to remove is BRUTAL.

I think a tiered approach is the best way to do it.

Maybe…

  1. Check
  2. Attempt +1 HEART
  3. HARD Attempt +1 HEART
  4. Attempt + 2 HEARTS

That’s not better, but it might be a little more intuitive.

I personally would allow WIS and INT Identify spells. Wizards use INT, Priests use WIS, they have different methods, but either one can get the job done.

I could see ruling this a bunch of different ways, but maybe a Magic user can identify a curse with no spell if they complete 1 HEART of Basic Effort, while having the Identify spell allows them to roll Magic?

Whatever you decide to do will work, as long as you know what you’re going for. I would recommend making sure that your players are interested in the possibility of Cursed Loot. I know some people love that stuff, while others aren’t into it.

I think it’s a pretty cool system, and it would work really well with CHESTS and finding random treasure in a dungeon somewhere. I’d love to use more CHESTS in my own game and throw more Cursed Loot in there. I did have a player roll TWO Rings of Betrayal in one session. Totally random, 1d6 to pick the table, and 1d100 for the item. It was weird.

#5

I like cursed loot, but perhaps not in the way most people think. I’m not a fan of what is usually a reward (treasure) being a gotcha moment the PC can’t see coming (surprise - that sword you picked up give you a minus to hit, and it’s glued to your hand now!), but I do like items that are extremely powerful (the Soul Blade does 3d12 damage, but every foe you slay with it costs you 1d2 points CON; if you are reduced to -1 CON, you become a wraith), and/or cursed items which compel behavior (the sigil or the god of greed makes you steal from every shop or tavern you enter, and you cannot tell anyone it was you, or admit that you did it). The second requires more buy-in from the player, or it won’t be fun for them. The point is to create interesting problems to solve, and tough, meaningful choices to make. Like the Monkey’s Paw was cursed, but it still granted wishes, and that’s what made it interesting.

#6

I should have clarified, in the pixel dungeon game, you know when you collect the item that it is cursed, you just don’t know “how cursed”. It will say “such and such item pulses with dark energy” or something to that point. In that game, if you have inventory slots available maybe you hold onto that axe with the unknown curse until you can identify it. But if something causes you to lose your other weapon and that’s all you have left, you’re going to equip it regardless if you know what the curse is or not.