DM’s, What are your favorite useless magic items?

hey everybody brian von va here back at it again with another set of d d stories and today we have a concept that even i might be able to get behind a little bit your favorite useless magic item like a uh a gold coin that refuses to go into your pocket in your pocket only why it may be magical but it's you know useless so to that end we're going to explore that today with dms of reddit what are your favorite useless magic items also if you have a story you'd like to tell us you can do so in the comments below or on our subreddit r slash mr ripper the wizardless wand this wand becomes a completely normal wooden stick within 15 feet of a wizard otherwise this wand gives a plus one to spell attack rolls and damage and plus two to damage from spells wizards can't learn bonus points if you give it to a wizard of course wand of indecision as a bonus action you can spend one charge to make one enemy you see doubt it's every move the target must succeed a charisma saving throw or give up its movement or at's action until it saves against the effect curse every time the user tries to activate this wand they must also make a charisma save to consider if they find it a good idea to use this one [Laughter] losing the bonus action if they fail the saving throw the wand itself has three charges and regains one d6 minus one d4 so you roll a d6 and then you subtract 1d4 from the result and charges per day my players love the wand of indecision because it leads to a lot of fun role playing in which the players themselves are indecisive about whether or not to use the wand the artificial bag this magic duffel bag was found in a dumpster behind an artificer's workshop it appears to be an early prototype made in the effort to mass produce magical items however in an unfortunate typo in the runes has led to the bag producing items of dubious utility once per day the owner of the bag can say the command word caviar temptor and pull a random magical item from the bag some items include but are not limited to the boots of teleportation once prolonged rest you can activate these boots these boots and only these boots teleport to the location you specify as if using the word of recall spell boots of banana resistance i don't want potassium today no bananas for me you now have advantage on any dexterity acrobatics rolls when slipping on a banana that's actually kind of useful i think boots of levitation these boots levitate when not worn boots of noisy speed these well-made and stylish boots give the wearer an extra plus 10 feet to his or her movement rate the problem however is that the boots are very squeaky very very squeaky in fact they are so squeaky that the wearer gets a whopping -10 on rolls to attempt to move silently the cape of good hope the wearer will never feel hopeless or despondent nor believe in victory in the long run to be impossible cloak of dramatic billowing makes anyone look heroic optional plus one charm but a downright liability when you're trying to sneak up on people the girdle of cobalt strength makes your strength score six yes this would have been a decent bonus to carry capacity on a few characters over the years the glove of settle the a glove that when used to slap someone who a pimp hand makes them realize what a they're being and that they need to chill the out dc 13 calm emotions next up we have the ring of signaling two rings the wear of either ring can change the color of the crystal of the ring with a thought the other ring turns to the same color that's actually quite useful and quite interesting the ring of secret invisibility the ring causes you to turn invisible but only when nobody's looking the ring of invulnerability this ring can never be destroyed ring of invisibility when worn this ring becomes invisible how about a cursed vase that has a small illusory valuable item rare coin necklace or gems in it if someone reaches in to grab the item their hand becomes stuck in the vase can be removed with remove curse or it is easily broken if broken the vase repairs itself in a few hours when not observed upgraded version if broken while someone's hand is trapped inside it reappears the next morning or after a rest still stuck to its current victim oh that's terrifying the mean version the speed it repairs itself increases the longer it's been stuck to one person from a few days to one day to a couple hours to whenever someone isn't looking at the limb the vase is attached to that's disturbing and cruel the sentient version the vase knows everyone who knows it's cursed and will tip over or wobble a little so as to trap people who are trying to break or escape it nothing like the party finally getting the thing off the rogue's arm only for it to now be stuck to the barbarian's foot then you leave it on a shelf and it falls onto someone's head when they least expect it then it turns out the vase is a part of a set and you end up with a party afraid of pottery and now that's why link destroys all the pots he ever sees it's a little thing from the trinket list in the player's handbook which is a tiny little mechanical crab that moves around when not observed the party is obsessed with what it could mean or be but truth is is that it's just a little mechanical crab that doesn't like to be observed beg pipes of invisibility you're invisible as long as you're playing the bagpipes the flaming sword a sentient sword that insults its wielder after every missed attack it survived three sessions before they tried to sell it wouldn't say completely useless but there is an item that just makes me laugh called the belt of pants which is an illusory belt that gives the wearer the illusion of themselves wearing pants i put a replica of bilbo's sting in my campaign a plus one short sword that glows a cold blue when orcs are nearby the only player character in the party who had use for a magic short sword was the ranger who himself was a half-orc following the events of the campaign it made its way home with the player's orc tribe who venerated it as a holy artifact the sword that always glows well you never need a night light with that one ring of attunement this ring grants you an additional tumen slot requires attunement cape of billowing from xanathar's guide there are a bunch of great common permanent magic items in that book orb of slope detection oh god it is perfectly round and rolls went on a slope i once gave my party a spoon of unbending just normal sized spoon that can't be bent now a noob might think it's useless but any veteran knows an indestructible spoon is uh priceless a coin that always lands on the opposite face of the last time it was tossed i thought this was a list of useless items i could find a million uses for that a million gold uses the breeding hat if left alone with another hat it produces a third hat which is a cross between the two parent hats all hats thus produced are also breeding hats but have no additional enchantments original idea by pro capets on tumblr if i recall correctly and if i pronounced that correctly also that is not useless because you could be your very own hat salesman the pipe of smoking it is a magical pipe that has a gem embedded in the bowl that glows a dull orange when puffed on and produces a small stream of smoke it's literally a tobacco pipe but you can't put anything to smoke in it the magnifying glass of ants speak this item is only usable in broad daylight oh my god and you must look through the glass at the ant you wish to speak with until they become a charred corpse in which case you must eat the ant because it is a delicacy in many countries my dm is really fond of the shield of expressions it's literally just a shield with a face on it that you can change the expression of we basically just used it as an excuse to post a bunch of memes at random times saying that was the shield's current expression a magical ring which will locate the nearest magic item it always locates itself vampire robes the robe doesn't appear when the character looks in the mirror amulet of auto esp allows the wearer to read his or her own mind but no one else's waffle boots turns any kind of food into waffles but you must tread on it a shiny penny a standard copper piece that is always shiny no other magical properties ring of gustatory sagacity this allows the wearer to determine one food that a given target either loves or hates it will not specify which clammy gloves that makes me want to just blow up right there always feel slightly damp when worn no mechanical effects aside from causing whoever's wearing it to want to vomit and die glamourweave my pc in another campaign has a strip of glamour weave around the band of his hat so sometimes he'll have it say something like go team and rotate around the hat like a jumbotron thimble of thumble when you wear this thimble on your thumb your fingers on that hand become thumbs thumbs up i once gave my party a pig whistle which remains infamous to this day once a day the whistle would summon a pig to appear from somewhere nearby behind a thin tree or from under a pile of leaves out of their pack etc this pig was friendly to whoever held the whistle as well as anyone they were friendly with the pig would hang out and do pig things for 10 minutes and then it would wander out of sight and vanish in the same way it had appeared that sounds like trouble in the making and if you guys ever tried to make bacon with it i would not be surprised it's not technically a magical item but my character is convinced that it has some sort of magical properties an elven dictionary filled with terms used in the presence of royalty he's a goblin and can't read or understand elvish in the slightest wand of mimic detection it's just a stick you poke objects with to see if they react the goblin's skeleton key it locks any keyhole you stick it in i quite enjoyed my flute of summoning ducks i read that totally wrong when i first saw that when played shortly after a duck would waddle up to the player and act as an animal companion the player got it and used it most in the desert always fun to see a duck inexplicably waddle out from behind a sand dune that sounds really cute and just like the pig whistle except uh i guess it's when the duck will stay forever i don't know we need expansions on this project come on now stone of detect tension a small stone with a humanoid face and a vaguely embarrassed expression on one side when within 30 feet of a socially awkward moment the stone coughs loudly [Laughter] used bag of holding a normal bag of holding except everything that comes out of it is covered in glitter oh you bastard a cursed pirate's hat that has the player talking in pirate slang yar [Music] the rock of healing as a bonus action you may strike someone with the rock dealing 1d4 damage they then receive 1d4 healing timora's deck just a little something i created all attempts to identify it makes it appear as the deck of many things oh don't touch it until you draw a card of course any card then all that happens is you hear a woman laughing then all attempts to identify it reveal it as tymora's deck i'm kinda proud of him the senseless acts of beauty the axe looks sharp and shiny but when you try to hit someone with it it increases their charisma by one until the end of the combat hey everyone brian von vega here back at again checking after the vid make sure to leave a like subscribe and ring that bell to get notified when we post or in the rare case we go live also leave a comment down below the story of your choosing that you'd like to tell one of us and we will read it here possibly or you can do so on our subreddit r mr ripper to come say hi to me just head on over to my actual website brianvonva.com links are in the description below and you can find all my socials i primarily stream on twitch but i'll be getting back into youtube eventually that being said i try to end things on a positive or at least a happy note and today i really like this set of stories because honestly if you if you really get creative most things that you hear in this kind of story is not gonna be that useless like a cursed pirate's hat that talks in uh pirate slang and all that you know a rock of healing if the rock of healing you do somehow magically get one d uh a one d four and you always land on a one you're doing one damage but if you heal for four you at least got three points of healing even though you know you gotta pelt somebody with rocks every so often so i mean it's kind of funny but none of these are all terribly useless all ideas all items have some small point to them be it comical effect or not so the next time you sit there and think oh man i just came up with a useless item think of it like krillin krillin from dragon ball z got the hottest girl ever and everyone said he was a useless dumbass look at that children now you have a krillin in your party congratulations obviously it's not the same thing because uh your little item won't have a really hot blonde woman chasing after you with extreme superpowers but you never know it might happen all the love please be safe and enjoy the comedic effects of me as i try to make everyone smile because the world kind of sucks but hey if we can smile one more day that's all we can do all love be safe be happy i'll see you next time bye for now

Channel: MrRipper

Views: 84,969

Keywords: MrRipper, Dungeons and Dragons, dnd stories, reddit stories, please sub for nat 20s

Id: B7VZQslff7I

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2022