Cursed treasure.

[Aeson]

I DM a game where most of the players seem to care more for the treasure than anyting else. One even said he wanted me to run a Monty Haul session.

I hate the greed. I know I will not change them, but I thought I might have some fun with it. I want to have a cursed item in the next treasure they find. I would like to make it dificult for them to get rid of it and make a sub-plot out of it.

They will at some point go to Carceri. I want to connect the cure for the curse to the plane.

The Monty Haul guy likes to try to take everything he or anyone else can carry. I thought of making the cursed item something not commonly cursed but they could not resist.

I thought maybe making the cure a drink of water from a river in Carceri.

Any suggestions?

 

[Man-thing]

I love cursed items. But I tend to play games set in the Known World and it seems like 1 in 10 magic items was cursed in those old modules.

How about this...

WINTERSCARRED SILVER (DC 20)

History: The death of Olaf Stonesinger and his bodyguards in the Winterscarred Mountain was a great loss to their clan. In tribute to the Olaf and his bodyguards, 8 silver ingots were forged and were left with their bodies in the tomb to mark their sacrifice for the good of the clan. Olaf’s courage against the gargantuan remorhaz became a legend to be respected and remembered. It became a tradition that each day the men of his clan toiled for silver in the Winterscarred Mountains and each day the men of his clan would visit the tomb of Olaf to pay their respects. The clan was blessed for their reverence and dedication to traditions for centuries, until a young thief named Razul Shalesplitter stole one off the silver ingots and fled. In outrage at the sacrilege perpetrated by one of his clansmen, Kragmor Thornwarmer, the high priest and spiritual leader of the clan, brought his god’s fury to bear upon the claim. First he laid a powerful curse on the remaining 7 silver ingots and then he called a great glacier down upon the mountains sealing the tomb and silver mine off from the rest of the world. The clan was forced from their holdings, their prosperity, and their traditions. Now the clan exists as a shadow of its former glory and its members endlessly travel and search for the missing ingot that has robbed them of their destiny.

Description: Winterscarred Silver is the name given to any of the 7 remaining ingots that were first laid in remembrance of the Stonesinger sacrifice. These ingots are palm-sized, square and have been stamped with the image of a miner’s pick. They possess no magical properties beyond their two-fold curse. Any creature who takes one of the silver ingots for their resting place in Olaf’s tomb is immediately seized by the curse and will not part with his ingot unless he is trying to returning to it rightful resting place. Any time another creature asks the cursed creature for material or finance assistance the cursed creature must make a Will save (DC 18). If the save is failed the cursed creature must provide that assistance to the creature as best he can and make a second Will save (DC 18). If the second save fails as well the cursed creature will explain, “I freely will give all that you ask and I can provide for I, like a base villain, have stolen a silver ingot from the sacred
Stonesinger Tomb and it is all that I will ever need.” This curse can only be lifted if
all 8 silver ingots are returned to the Stonesinger Tomb in the Winterscarred Mountains. (This item was inspired by Michael Hammes and Phillip Reed’s Adventure Locations: Ice Tomb of the Dwarf Lord)

Strong enchantment; CL 14th; Craft Wondrous Item; bestow curse, suggestion; Price 4 g; Cost to Create NA; Weight _ lb.
Detect Magic: Does not detect as magical.

There I think that is the most greed-oriented of my cursed items.

 

[EricNoah]

Or to drive the point home, have (whatever it is) permanently stick to one of his hands. Just can't let it go. Hinders ability to hold weapons, shields, cast spells, etc.

 

[Dross]

I've had players that have also tried to get everything they could get their hands on, one even took a sheild and longsword even though he had always used a greatsword. He got the weapon that did not allow any other weapon to be used and required a foe's blood every day (or Will save DC 12 + days without killing). It was meant for a Paly at the time.
It could work even better if someone who does not have appropriate feats (or even proficiency) takes that item.
Also have the item make the bearer look like something else (in Carceri a Devil maybe) that can be countered by the party but uses up a good chunk or resources to do so.

Another tack is the intelligent item that is useful but still a pain. It could have
a) a different viewpoint to the PC. Different alignment, outlook on certain critters. It could be honourable and prevent the PC attacking first/flat footed/helpless foes.
b) Try to be helpful but uses it's abilities to often, especially the #/day ones, say casts fog cloud once the weilder looses 20% of their HP (also a curse if you wish)
c) something similar to Sting's proximity alert, but have the light a lot harder to smother (afterall, how else will it be noticed if it is sheathed? )
d) be useful to the weilder but harmful to the others in the party. Magical darkness that the PC can see through but other party memebers cannot, silence spell cast whenever ANYONE nearby casts a spell, weilded or not.

For Carceri:
Have the item call out to a certain tyoe of foe for help, or threaten the foe.

Hope this helps

 

[Deng]

Another tack is the intelligent item that is useful but still a pain.

This is a really good idea, it's been used on us before. If you can make the item speak as well you can have a lot of fun with the roleplaying.

You could have it be really rude and say inappropriate things to people the owner respects (or their superior )

Have it lonely and starved for attention so when there isn't really anything happening (such as at night when they are camped) have it start to sing to itself loudly (even better if you are a bad singer and not ashamed to sing loudly to your group!!!) to try and chear itself up... it could cause all sorts of things to notice the party.

Although things like this can seem like minor annoyances that most parties could ignore what would they do if their magical breastplate started saying the Queen is having an illicit affair when they are in an audience with the King

 

[Azalnubizar]

hmmm how to tell greedy PCs that there r other things than just power/wealth...

...what I always found interesting is the small border between greedy & evil.
And that would be my suggestion exactly.
Try to find out how far they would go in their lust for wealth/power.
There r two ways to explore that. One would be a good person testing them, the other would be an evil person trying to buy them out.

The important part here is, IMO, that the PCs do not know from the beginning, that they r being tested and what the full consequences of their acts are.

Thinking of an example of being tested by good...
...a silver dragon of above CR of the group (maybe about CR+4) is taking interest in their actions. Maybe he has heard about them being greedy and wants to teach them a lesson or he is looking for an adventurer group for some kind of future mission and wants to find out if this group would be worthy... whatever his reason, he transforms into some kind of relatively helpless creature, takes a bit of gold & magic trinkets from his treasure and lets the group stumble upon him on some point during their travel...

if the group really tries to take the treasure from him, he will transform into dragon and extract justice upon them. That doesn't mean he will have to kill them (and it should be apparent to them, that this dragon would be very hard to overcome), but he could just take from them what they would have taken from him and brand them as thieves or murderers (even spread the word... this would make it very difficult for the PCs). Loosing some of their treasure and not getting any more support in cities (maybe even being banned by some) could teach them a lesson. If it doesn't - well think about continuing as evil group...

...which brings me to the second option. Have some evil master-villian learn about the group and decide to corrupt them. He might set up some sort of plot, where, in the beginning it seems to very simple about who is good and who is evil. They should be paid really well to make sure they enter the adventure.
Once they bashed themselves through the evil minions, they come upon the chief-antagonist (one of the master-villians minions) and he reveals to them, that the whole plot wasn't much about good vs evil, since the good side hasn't been all that good all the time and the evil side was just defending itself (or something like that). Now make a proposal to them (and the proposal should be something the characters really want, since the master-villian has taken some research on them). And make sure, that the PCs know, that they won't get the price if they just attack. As payment, the evil side demands to have the good side handed over to them (not the PCs, but those involved in the plot). If they agree they are handsomely rewarded (and maybe should even think about changing their alignment, since it is everything but a good act to sell the good guys to the evil side).
From then on, they will be on the blackmail-list of the master-villain, whenever he needs some xtra power. He might be carefull, not using them in thoroughly evil acts in the beginning, but with every act on his behalf they become more and more entangled until he probably would have enough to have them hanged in town, if he revealed what they have done (and thrown out of church or whatever). Their alignment will gradually start changing towards evil... now it's up to the group to decide if they really want to become evil or confront the villain. In the latter case they will have to pay their price and have probably learned their lesson - n the first case, you have an evil group, but maybe that's just what your players would enjoy more.
Having a greedy evil group might be quite easy to handle - just through some money at them and they'll do what you want...

 

[Herobizkit]

I woudl suggest borrowing an idea from the old artefacts of AD&D 1st edition. They possessed many powers, but also had several side effects ranging from annoying to lethal.

Make all-new magic items; each magic item has a boon but also carries some minor or major side effect. For example, a warrior finds Gauntlets of Ogre Power that actually make him "as strong as an Ogre" (+2 STR), but also as clumsy (-2 DEX). Or, maybe they make him Large-sized. OR, it might even polymorph the PC into an actual Ogre, which cannot be reversed without removing the gloves, which cannot be done without the requisite remove curse spell.

Always a price for power...

 

[Voadam]

Or to drive the point home, have (whatever it is) permanently stick to one of his hands. Just can't let it go. Hinders ability to hold weapons, shields, cast spells, etc.

Golden goose. Folklore knowledgeable players might be suspicious, but someone will take it anyway.

 

[brehobit]

On the useful-but cursed thing:

Sword of everhitting:
A sword which always hits. The user takes damage equal to the amount the attack missed by. Natural 1s result in double damage. Putting down the sword in combat requires a standard action to try, and you fail on a DC 15 will save. This is a darn handy weapon, but it can easily kill you. Otherwise provides a +1 damage, +0 attack.

Ring of unseeing.
It acts as a ring of invisibility. But in "stressful" (DM call, but generally if the PC is rolling dice) situations the character must make a DC 15ish will save or go blind. Blindness lasts 1d4 rounds after the inviso is dropped. If save is made no other save needs to be made for a minute or two.

Ring of fast healing:
Provides fast heal 1. Once warn *no* other forms of healing will work until the ring has been off for 24 hours.

 

[Aeson]

a lot of good ideas.

I like Eric's idea. I had thought of that also. A twist on it was that the item had a parasite that infested the character. I'm not sure what the parasite should do. I know players hate to lose control of the character but a mind controling parasite could be interesting.

I think if there is a save vs the curse I should roll it. It's better than asking those that handle the item to roll. They would know something was up. I think it could be fun(for me) for them to figure out what is going on.