D&D 5E Make a Flawed Magic Item

[Rossbert]

Everyone knows about magic items and their cursed counterparts, but what about helpful items that just happen to have a significant drawback?

I am curious to see what we can come up with.

For the purpose of making them an actual choice. Any flawed item can only be removed during a short or long rest.

Some examples:

Goggles of Darkest Night - Grant darkvision out to 120 feet, but no vision beyond that is possible, regardless of light level.

Billowing Cloak - Halves your walking speed and grants a fly speed equal to your normal speed. You have disadvantage on stealth and perception checks that involve hearing on any round you flew.

Amulet of the Forest - Grants resistance to bludgeoning and piercing damage and vulnerability to fire damage.

 

[jasper]

Boots of the Horse. Allows +10 speed, you can turn into a horse once a day. Disadvantage on stealth do to you clobbing around the house.
Heroes Feast Gear. Heroes feast once a week. Disadvantage social skills since it only beans, beans, beans.
These are not the .... you are looking for. Advantage on persuasion check. If you fail people think you are criminal wanted in 7 city states.
Light Saber +1. This is +1 long sword which gives off dim light. Random disadvantage check.

 

[Blue]

Radiant Coin Purse - This small leather coin purse can hold up to 3000 gold coins without gaining weight or size. Only gold coins work, other coins and any other item falls through as if the bag is immaterial. The Radiant Coin purse glows brightly, and any coins taken from it also glow for d4 hours and detect as magic.

Lot of really cool things you can do with lots of glowing gold. Except, of course, spend them since every shopkeeper will be wary of glowing, magical "coins".

 

[5ekyu]

Ring of Growth
At will the wearer can cast enlarge on themselves. However, the ring does not expand to fit the new size so they suffer 1d4 damage and lose a digit making the hand unusable until after a long rest.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[merwins]

Pincushion

A named shield peppered with holes -- enough to be a a sieve.
Identify reveals it to be a +2 shield with advantage on saves against all spells that target the wielder.

Against any mundane or enchanted arrow, it negates all armor and magical defense bonuses for the wielder, and its own bonus becomes a negative.

AC = 10 - 2 (Pincushion) + DEX bonus + nonmagical (race/class) bonuses

If an enchanted arrow strikes the wielder and releases a spell, the wielder still gets advantage on the save. The shield's just terrible about arrows themselves.

Special note:
If the wielder is in the area of effect of Conjure Barrage, they take triple damage, no saving throw.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

The magic item creation rules in GURPS had a great table of minor quirks. The only one I remember was, "This item only regains charges while immersed in bat blood."

 

[Eltab]

Boomerang of Returning.
(For most purposes, treat as a Thrown Dagger.)
Throw this at a target. If you hit the target, it magically flies back to your hand.
If you miss the target, you must roll (in order) to hit every possible target along its straight-line flight path back to you.
If you miss the primary target and all possible secondary targets, the boomerang returns to you. And auto-hits YOU. For maximum damage.

Stealthy Ring
When you decide to try to be sneaky, this ring grants you a +2 to your Stealth roll.
One hour after that, every sound you make while travelling (such as footsteps on the ground) is magnified. You take a continuous -2 penalty to Perception checks for the next hour.

Condiment of the Master Chef
This bottle of spice provides a zesty enhancement to the taste of any meal. At least, the maker thought so. He liked super-hot foods; even one grain of this spice will make any meal-sized portion of food taste like a Flame-Out or a Hellburger. Make a Constitution check at -5 to eat more than one bite. If you fail, you cannot eat any more and suffer the initial effects of starvation.
There is a plus to this, though: you have a one-time-only "breath weapon" which does 1d6 Fire damage in a 15' cone directly before you. (editor: cantrip-scale damage and to-hit bonus) This ability fades away when you take a short or long rest.

The Emperor's New Clothes
Don this attire and you become Invisible. Unbeknownst to you, the clothes remain visible to everybody except the wearer. However, it looks to you like the clothes disappeared and you are unclad.

 

[Nevvur]

The Priceable Object: This magical item can take the form of a weapon, set of armor, or literally anything. It confers a -2 penalty to Charisma, and whenever the wielder hears a discussion about the pricing of magical items, they must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 20). On a failure, the wielder must yell loudly to the gods demanding they impart knowledge on appropriate pricing schema for all magical items.

 

[Charlaquin]

Cement shoes of swift swimming - reduces your speed to 0 and gives you a swim speed equal to twice your speed (in that order.)

Blindfold of darkvision - gives you darkvision out to 120 feet as long as it completely covers your eyes.

Invisible cloak - This cloak is invisible. Wearing it does not make you invisible, but it does keep you warm.

Auto-scrying mirror - (Requires attunemrnt) Looking into this mirror automatically allows the user to remotely view the attuned creature as if it were the subject ofthe Scring spell.

 

[Unwise]

Gauntlets of Ogre Strength (and size) - They work as per normal Gauntlets of Ogre strength, however the wearer gains an immense supernatural appetite and goes through a growth spurt. Over time, perhaps many years, they grow to be the size of a particularly fat ogre. This has pros and cons and it is an interesting point of character development as they decide how important their physique is to their character. In a particularly strong group I played in, the item went to a gnome thief, who quickly decided that stop wearing them when he became the size of a dwarf.

The Hoe of Destruction - A Vorpal weapon, that just happens to be a hoe, which is an improvised 2 handed weapon. The alchemist got a little confused...

The Sword of Ploughing - This sword is magical but has no bonuses to attacks etc. When it drags in the ground, it easily ploughs a ditch through even rocky ground. It is +3 against earth creatures and can quickly break up earthen works with the same power a horse drawn plough.