bad/cursed items

Aside from identifiable items i would also suggest cursed items and suchlike, items that you might consider not picking up at all or that make you think twice how to fill your inventory or what item to equip right away in a dungeon.

Example 1: Chipped gems
You pick up an unknown gem but its yet unusable and beside the colour you wont know what this gem is until it has been fixed in a town. During the time its chipped it might give you a slight debuff-aura from inside your backpack because at the end its a highly magical item which has been damaged (that cant be good for you). so you might want to think about it if the trouble is worth the transport and the money to repair the gem.

Example 2: Cursed equipment
The usual "you equip it and a negative effect is suddenly shown and you cant unequip until curse is removed"-stuff. (scrolls to lift curses might be a good additional items for such an addition.)

Example 3: Broken equipment
Already broken equipment- too broken to know what it might do. needs to be repaired and then it can be identified and in the end- will the item be worth all the cash you invested?

Any other ideas/examples like that?
any comments?
do such items already exist IG?

like the idea of cursed items. but i´d rather imagine them like some extremely good items which at the same time do a very grave debuff. So Kind of like a wand which gives you masses of mana but halves you defense.

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M3phisto wrote:

like the idea of cursed items. but i´d rather imagine them like some extremely good items which at the same time do a very grave debuff. So Kind of like a wand which gives you masses of mana but halves you defense.

ditto that. And i agree most likely what M3phisto proposed. It would add other dimensions to PoE, makes items much more varied and makes players excited even more ! Hope other users at least give this idea a shot.

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M3phisto wrote:

like the idea of cursed items. but i´d rather imagine them like some extremely good items which at the same time do a very grave debuff. So Kind of like a wand which gives you masses of mana but halves you defense.

I like this. This is sort of what they said they were doing with unique items; it would be nice to see these effects to a lesser extent on other items.

As long as it's not NetHack (which is an awesome game) where cursed items tend mostly to just be bad.

Bump for justice.

I also would like at some point to see negative, 'curse' modifiers that have a chance of occurring on magic items.
- Perhaps in order to obtain a 'perfect' stat in something really desired, it will automatically randomly attach a negative modifier when a perfect roll happens.
- After a random number of scrubs (scours) the item gets a negative modifier that would consume a high level stone to get rid of.
- When randomly adding a modifier to a magic/rare item using a stone, there is a chance of a negative modifier instead of a positive one.

This sort of thing would increase the complexity of item crafting immensely and I can imagine it would spark a whole subgenre of weapon/armour theorycrafters who spend their time delving into the mysticism of modifier ranges and counters to negative modifiers and how to create the best items for very specific/unique builds...

It will also mitigate the blossoming of 'perfect' items within weeks of full release due to the sheer volume of crafters, increasing the value of truly powerful items.

Cursed items open up a whole realm of possibilities when it comes to trade because otherwise desirable items may be well neigh useless to one player because she doesn't have an effective counter to the curse, while another player is happy to trade for the item because he has a different build/item set that can allow him to deal with the negative modifier and realize the benefits of the item.

This sort of thing has been suggested before (I liked it then, still do); the way I'd like to see it implemented is by having certain prefixes/suffixes provide both a benefit and a drawback (such as +life/-mana, or +%attack speed/-%run speed), rather than mods that are just plain bad. Mods like the prefix on this flask here:

We can largely thank Gary Gygax (may he rest in peace), co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, for many of the elements we see in RPGs today, including this one.

Problem is, though there are examples of powerful items with dire side-effects in folklore and fiction, completely crocked ones, or items which are crocked for no particular reason, should be eschewed. I think that the "chipped gems" idea in the OP is reasonable, but including crocked items which are going to turn up with any kind of frequency demands some justification.

Are they items which resulted from failed creation? Apprentice-level test items which should have been destroyed? Items actually under some sort of (potentially removable) curse? Damaged items which no longer function as they once did? Or are they intended to be the way they are, to reflect some special purpose or function?

Such things simply shouldn't turn up all that frequently, or they could make picking up loot like walking through a minefield. I prefer rewards to be rewards, and items like the "sapping" flask, above, to be a matter of weighing pros and cons, rather than millstones to hang around characters' necks until they get this or that remedy.

Some creative "curses" might include:

*Causes certain enemy type to attack bearer, either prejudicially, or with a bonus (foeslayer item)

*Weapon doesn't work for dual-wielding (jealous weapon)

*Flask which, when drunk from, reduces some defensive capability (drunken flask)

Of course, in all these examples, the item should confer substantial bonuses, otherwise, making it potentially worth using, despite the handicaps. This may lend itself better to the occasional unique/elite item, since designing these should involve some thought, rather than random generation. =^[.]^=

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M3phisto wrote:

like the idea of cursed items. but i´d rather imagine them like some extremely good items which at the same time do a very grave debuff. So Kind of like a wand which gives you masses of mana but halves you defense.

Love this idea. Makes you think twice about what you equip.