The 10 Stupidest Dungeons & Dragons Items
Posted at 5:04 AM Aug 05, 2008
By Teague Bohlen
Dungeons & Dragons, as a game, is largely stuff-driven. Since the purpose of the game isn’t so much to win, but rather to survive and thrive, the accumulation of stuff is a big part of the experience. Now add to that the idea that some of that stuff not only makes you more wealthy, but also more powerful, and the idea of “my stuff” just got a lot more important. There’s a good reason why gamers connect with Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Every character who’s around for a while gets their “precious," whether it be a Necklace of Fireballs or a Vorpal Sword +4.
But that’s not to say that every item in D&D is worth coveting. In fact, some things are downright dumb, for one reason or another. So here, a list of the worst “stuff” that D&D has to offer—everything from the badly thought-through to the sorts of things that no adventurer wants to find in a dragon’s hoard.
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10) Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity
Is there a purpose to this item existing, except for a DM to allow its discovery by an adventuring party, see the fighters’ eyes light up, hear someone exclaim “A girdle of giant strength!,” watch the players dice for dibs, and then savor the light of hope dying in the winner’s eyes (and the laughter of everyone else around the table) when they don the girdle and turn (invariably) into a girl? No. And it makes it worse that there’s virtually no logical reason for any character in a fantasy setting to ever spend the time and money to make one of these, outside some very extreme (or kinky) circumstances. It’s nothing but a big fuck-you from DM to player, beginning to gender-bending end.
9) Bag of Holding
Admittedly, a bag of holding is on the awesome side of stupid; it’s not the item itself in this case that’s dumb, but rather its unintended effect. It’s supposed to allow the bearer to carry multiples of the weight they’d otherwise be allowed to lug around. Instead, it effectively acts as a reason to ignore the realities of encumbrance altogether. Which most players probably do anyway, because it’s a pain in the ass, but still.
8) Apparatus of Kwalish
Even artifact-level items can suck, and this one certainly fits the bill. The Apparatus is basically a small, magical submarine, which carries with it the same curse that Aquaman lives with every damn day: that it’s only cool in very few, water-based situations. Oh, the Apparatus tries to make itself worthwhile in other ways, like by imitating (in movement and ability) a giant crab, but still…a giant crab? That was one piss-poor idea, Kwalish, whoever the hell you are.
7) Glaive-Guisarme
Is it a glaive, or a guisarme? Does the blade have a fluke mounted on the back, and is that blade curved on the concave edge? And why do I need to know this if it does the exact same damage as the more commonly-known halberd? That sound you hear is an entire population of otherwise rabid-for-the-rules gamers suddenly not caring anymore.
6) Ebony Fly
Figurines of Wondrous Power are sort of cool things. Little carved statues of animals that come to life and help you when so commanded? Neato. So much so, in fact, that the popular (and very broody) Drow ranger Drizzt had a companion, Guenhwyvar, who was a panther version of the figurines. However, every group always has its weakest member, and that dishonor falls to the Ebony Fly, who admittedly “is the size of a pony and has all the statistics of a hippogriff”—but in any case, it’s still a fly, which means it throws up every time it lands. Put that disgusting thing away.
5) Potion of Jump
This is one of those items that seems to be ubiquitous in lower-level treasure chests, because it’s magical, but useful only in some situations, and/or so underpowered so as not to be unbalancing in the least. (See also: Wand of Light, Potion of Gaseous Form, Ring of Sustenance). Chances are that if a character makes it to fifth level or so, he or she will have one of these in their stash of stuff, because not only are they everywhere, but they’re also rarely used. After all, it just makes you jump a little farther than you might otherwise. Whee-fucking-ee.
4) Ioun Stones
Admittedly, Ioun stones are some of the most useful magic items in D&D, as, depending on the color, they can give attribute bonuses, regenerate HP, absorb spells, or other genuinely helpful effects. But their usefulness is somewhat mitigated by the fact that to work, they have to rotate around the player's head at 1d3 feet. This is only the tiniest bit noticeable to anyone who sees you, and because Ioun stones are the only thing that orbit around people's noggins, it's kind of like carrying your magic sword at the end of a ten-foot pole with a sign saying "Magic Sword; Please Grab at Your Convenience."
3) Talisman of Ultimate Evil
This item could be a victim of its own hype. Call something “the talisman of ultimate evil,” and you expect some pretty black shit, you know? But all this really does is open a flaming hole in the earth that swallows a cleric of good. Which is pretty “ultimate evil” for that one cleric, I guess, but all things considered, that’s one limited one-trick pony. It might have been better for this item had it been called something a little more modest, but then “flaming hole-opener” just brings up all sorts of other connotations best left alone at the gaming table.
2) Ten Foot Pole
Everyone buys one when they’re starting out a character, and no one seems to question it when you carry the thing around for the next few years—even when you want to pull it out of your backpack (like it was Mary Poppins’ carpet bag or something—which come to think of it was just a Bag of Holding, wasn’t it?) and finally put it to use. Sure, it’s great to test the floor for traps, but no one thinks about where you’re keeping a pole that’s about twice your height? Try carrying around a ten-foot pole just for a day, and see how long it takes you to think “fuck this, I’m putting this son of a bitch down.” The only way to carry a thing that tall would be hoisted over one shoulder—which would not only prevent you from being prepared for combat, but would also hinder maneuvering in most dungeons and take out your whole party in one swing Three Stooges-style if you turned around. Falling into the occasional pit trap here and there (it’s just d6 damage per 10’, you baby) is totally worth not carrying around something the relative height of an old-timey streetlamp.
1) Dice Bags
Sort of a meta-item, I guess, because it exists in the real world…which makes it all the worse, really. And I’m not talking about the usual Crown Royale bag that you keep in a drawer with your rulebooks and miniatures; I’m talking about the dice bags that are meant to attach to your belt like it was a pouch of magical reagents or something. Even at a role-playing convention, this is thought to be taking the whole gamer-thing waaaay too far. And in a strange sort of circularity, it works in the same way that #10 on this list does—by completely emasculating its wearer.
Comments
Our group has made the 10 foot pole a mandatory item that can't be used.
It's our little in-joke.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 05:38:28 AMHAR! @ dicebags. Anyone wearing "garb" at a convention is someone to be shunned. I used to work the dealer's area for game companies and I hated being cornered by unwashed geeks in drag wanting to regale me with their favorite RPG war stories. Include the ones in combat boots and greasy camouflage print wife beaters yammering about their 100 ton jumping mechs. The Horror! I love the smell of game geekery in the morning, it smells like, ummmmmmmmmm................
Posted 08/05/2008 at 07:41:05 AMRecently there has been a trend of giving away samples of Axe, which is like perfuming a corpse. I guess those dice bags can hold an emergency spritzer to keep normal people from tossing their cookies.
Nice. All those items do indeed suck and very true about the encumbrance system. Although I always made my players look after that because they would get away with way too much and they were annoying.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 07:57:47 AMHaha, nice list. and i have to agree, but with the bag o holding and the 10 foot pole situation my party has taken to carrying a cart with them to lug around all their crap. And the girdle, is more a way of smacking annoying players back into shape...but its so much worse when it turns into an even bigger fight when they realize what the item does... god i hate my party...
Posted 08/05/2008 at 10:34:12 AMHa. Totally right about Bag O Holding. Seemed cool at first --but we just abused it, like everyone else. Throw some wenches in there for later.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 10:52:19 AMTeague is the only one I know who has a set of "odd number sided" dice.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 11:00:25 AMWell, The thign about a bag of holding... there a limited amount of air in there to breath, i think we calculated it to last for...20 rounds for a type 1.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 11:52:50 AMGirdle of masculinity/Femininity is an excellent item for long seaborne adventures.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 12:43:34 PMThe Ioun Stones are certainly stupid. They were created by Jack Vance for his Dying Earth novels, which is the same place the 'study & forget' system of magic that's been used until just recently came from. Originally they didn't float around your head like some kind of retarded cartoon bird, you just kept them in your pockets, or around your neck, or in your dresser drawer at home.
I guess Gygax just thought the floating thing was cooler.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 01:02:40 PMThats a stupid article everything there is unique and certainly adds to any games.
The ten foot pole is only a couple of sliver much cheaper than a ladder you could buy a ten foot pole and turn in it into a ladder and sell it, you dont have to carry it around but it still has tons of uses i.e. pole vaulting. If you have ioun stones you are powerful enough to kill anyone trying to take it.
This article is bad and you should feel bad for writing, your time could have been spent doing something constructive.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 02:13:39 PMI for one am guilty of buying a ten foot pole every time I make a character, but it is not entirely useless. It can make a good improvised spear, provided you have a dagger or something similar to sharpen it with (I always made sure to have a dagger, no matter the character class). Or you can chop the ten feet into shorter lengths, sharpen them all, dig a pit, and make a nice painful pitfall trap. Other than those uses, though, yeah, the ten foot pole is worthless. Also, while it is useless, the apparatus of Kwalish can be used to terrorize little villages.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 02:31:14 PMRe: Glaive-Guisarme
Gary Gygax had a thing about pole arms.
Re: Ioun Stones
Gary Gygax and Jack Vance had a thing for each other. It wasn't pretty.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 03:51:12 PMThe "Ten Foot Pole" Really made me laugh! This was a great list.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 04:17:11 PMUm, you're doing it wrong.
If you're not using everything in the game to its maximum COMEDIC potential, then you're obviously the type of idiot who would rather play Halo 3 just to pwn n00bs on the internet; the type of idiot who would spend thousands of hours to get a lv. 70 in WoW just to fund a low-level uber badass toon so you can lord your 1337 l00tz in front of the people who are playing the game for the purpose intended by its creators, which is to have fun and enjoy time with your friends.
Counting down:
10: That girdle you've got there is maybe an excellent way to pass your hideous self off as a lady. What spy, thief, or ambush bait wouldn't drool over such a thing?
9: The bag of holding doesn't come around in the game until you're basically too cool for school; too cool to need to sell anything of yours for money. Just like the ring of sustenance, it is a device created by the game's creators intended to give players a "real" excuse to forgo the tedious aspects of the game.
8: Assuming my DM isn't an idiot (and he's not), I won't see that crab-walking sub unless I'm in a sea-going campaign. Regardless, COMEDIC VALUE! If for no other reason, you could distract a green dragon for about 15 seconds while you get the drop on it.
7: It's called style. Look it up? There are a lot of weapons that have the same stats and most people just go for the highest damage/crit ratio but some people like to make a character who maybe was only ever trained in the glaive-guisarme, and can't USE a halbard whatsoever. Your characters, assuming you make them, probably have the depth of an olsen twin.
6: That fly sounds effing badass. I would use its puke as an impromptu oil slick, maybe, or maybe I would just have it carry my foes to a garbage heap somewhere far away.
5: DM is god. If DM gives you a potion of jump and doesn't give you a situation where it might be used, find a new god.
4: Ioun Stones: If you have these, you can defend them aptly I'm sure. If you can't, well then I guess you don't deserve them, do you?
3: A badly named but still pretty not stupid item. Score half of one point for you, good sir.
2: The pole...ah, the pole.. DAMN YOU POLE!!!!!!!!
1: Meta item is meta. And anyone who brings one not to a game is the stupid item of the two.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 05:00:30 PMI don't understand every player wants to be better. but we all can't be great. so all these items are excellent. but you know all the people playing want there imaginary characterr to be great even though we all suck.
take what you can get and screw with your party in fun ways or challenge the dm with your suckitude.
also the girdle is a great item because of (ROLEPLAYING?) remember the basic idea? just take the girdle off.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 06:05:44 PMOne of my cheekier DM friends substituted a new item for the bag of holding in his campaigns. It was the wondrous "Fanny Pack of Unbridled Acquisition". The charm of this object was it reduced the user's charisma by 1d3 points, and when filled to 85% capacity it would require a roll to see if it would render 1d10 magical objects stored within inert for a random period of time (DM's choice).
Posted 08/05/2008 at 07:26:18 PMIts funny to see people getting defensive over the list. Come on nerds, lets face it, not everything in DnD makes good sense! Obviously, you can use anything if your creative, it doesnt mean its not a stupid or poorly thought out item. If your buying 10 foot poles and making ladders to resell, your just abusing the system, much less ladders are cheaper than 10 foot poles (or where at least, i dont know the current price in v4). The girdle of sex change?! Sure, its great for the spy who wants to be a different sex, what wizard is using his hard earned experiance to be a girl (or boy). Not saying it cant be used, that ocean idea was really funny! But its still a poorly thought out item. Just because its in the rule books, and just because you can find a use for it, doesnt make it a good idea. The grappling rules suck, but i still make grapplers because i like role playing the character, the rules suck tho. So come on, stop getting offended because he insulted the 10 foot pole. Some of the rules suck, but obviously its still a fun thing to do, lets laugh it up! Good list, made me smile.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 07:33:10 PMbag of holding is perfect for storing dead PC until you can find a raise dead.
the best 'stupid' item would have to be the barrel of monkey's. good times.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 10:09:38 PMI think any adventurer riding a giant fly into battle would score quite a few freakout points on the enemy.
Posted 08/05/2008 at 10:09:53 PMI'm an avid gamer, and an avid critic of its source guides. Take a look at what first-time campers buy for their trip, and watch gleefully in three days time what true buyers remorse looks like. D&D is sort of the same way. Does anyone really remember to buy a lamp along with the lamp oil, or do they just use it to set a gelatinous cube on fire like everyone else?
Speaking of gelatinous cubes, I'd like to see a list of the the top ten screw-you monsters in D&D. I'm talking about the rust monster who eats your masterwork plate mail because you ate the last twinky when the DM was in the bathroom. Or the mimic that eats your greedy thief. Bag of holding? How about he bag of devouring! How about a list of all the grudge monsters that leave a team going "that f-er did WHAT?!"
Posted 08/05/2008 at 10:13:48 PMSo defensive over a game, lol I don't think I am missing out on anything. Cool list though!
Posted 08/06/2008 at 04:06:01 AMWe created our own useless items just for sh*ts and giggles. My fav was the Staff of Ugliness(ugly stick). It had a -10 to hit, but a successful hit would take away 1 point of charisma.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 04:56:28 AMSee, we kept a half-dozen mice in our bag of holding (they don't breathe much, and easy to catch in the rat-infested dungeons). Then we'd tie one to the end of the 10-foot pole... walk with the mouse-end ahead of us to trigger any life-force-triggered traps (glyphs, etc.).
Oh, and our 10-foot poles were really 4 hollow 3-foot poles, that slotted together, so we could toss ;em in a pack.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 10:33:26 AMPotion of jump is excellent for urban thieves - you get to a roof instantly, whether for breaking and entering or fleeing the guards. Not stupid at all.
Ebony fly is also awesome.
In fact, I didn't see any stupid items listed. (Sure there might be some, but I don't bother to seek any for now.)
Posted 08/07/2008 at 01:13:03 AMI laughed at the list. Let's face it, the whole idea is to have fun - so if an item is silly and we are having fun - who cares? If you have a creative group they can find a way to make the stupidest thing useful. I bet others could come up with lists that they felt were stupid and some of us would find that list funny, too. It's all in your perspective.
Posted 08/07/2008 at 06:43:55 AMThis was, by far and away, the biggest waste of cyber space that I've ever run across. And I'm an old school D&D fan too...
Posted 08/07/2008 at 04:52:30 PMThose suggesting "just take off" the girdle or that it would be a perfect spy tool, etc. don't understand the girdle. It was a Cursed Item up through 3rd and couldn't be removed without the help of a cleric or other magical means to remove curse. This point of the article was that why would anyone waste the resources to create this when they could create something useful.
Posted 08/08/2008 at 06:44:48 AMCursed items are sometimes made by accident. A Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity might well have been intended to be a Girdle of Giant Strength. Likewise, a Helm of Opposite Alignment might have been intended to be a Helm of Telepathy.
A major evil wizard in my old 2E campaign accidentally became a good guy this way (Neutral Evil to Neutral Good). He faked his own death and changed his appearance, and is a legend under two names.
It's not the item, it's how you use it.
Posted 08/08/2008 at 08:04:12 AMI don't mind the Girdle, because sometimes it pays to be a Dr. Girlfriend.
Posted 08/11/2008 at 02:11:25 PMThe ten foot pole has a lot of uses. My players once defeated the tomb of horrors with only a ten foot pole, a portable ram and 2 ropes of climbing
Said ram and ropes where then used as an alternative means of transport and trap-avoidance
Posted 09/26/2008 at 04:59:18 PM