1d100 Curses for Magic Items

A great way to throw players off is with cursed magic items. Simply take a regular magic item (which identifies as such), roll on this table, and add the accompanying curse to the item. Unless explained otherwise, these curses only affect the character or item when the character is attuned to it. The curse may linger after the character breaks their attunement to the item, which a remove curse or greater restoration spell can fix. At your discretion, these effects may also only happen if the character uses a cursed weapon and rolls a natural 1 with an attack with it, expends its charges, or other triggers.

Curses for Magic Items

d100    Curse

1. Whenever you miss with the weapon, it hits you instead.
2. You gain a random form of long-term madness that doesn't end until you end your attunement to the magic item. The form of madness changes randomly daily at dawn.
3. A swarm of insects is attracted to the item. The swarm is friendly unless attacked, but buzzes noisily, causing you to automatically fail on Dexterity (Stealth) checks related to being silent. If you kill the swarm, a new one slowly reforms over the course of 1d4 hours.
4. You gain vulnerability to a random type of damage. Roll a d10 to determine which: (1) acid (2) cold (3) fire (4) force (5) lightning (6) necrotic (7) poison (8) psychic (9) radiant or (10) thunder.
5. Whenever you roll a 1 on an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw, you gain a form of short-term madness.
6. You grow devilish horns and your eyes glow red. You have disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks made with good- and neutral-aligned characters and advantage made with evil-aligned characters.
7. You are blinded when you are more than 10 feet away from the item.
8. You gain 1d4 pounds each time you finish a long rest.
9. Your mouth disappears. You no longer need to eat, but you cannot speak, or breathe out of your mouth. And you still need to drink water, which means you must drink through your nose.
10. Your skin becomes dry and cracked. If you are not doused in at least 1 gallon of water each hour, you gain 1 level of exhaustion.
11. You can't smell or taste anything.
12. Nonmagical flames are extinguished when within 30 feet of you.
13. Other creatures cannot sleep whenever they are within 300 feet of you.
14. Animals within 30 feet of you are hostile to you.
15. You must eat and drink six times the normal amount each day.
16. When you begin a long rest, you fall asleep and nothing will wake you until 10 hours have passed.
17. Every time you meet a new creature, a voice whispers in your ear "Kill them."
18. Your attunement with other magic items breaks and you cannot attune to other magic items.
19. You suffer from chills and heat exhaustion. You automatically fail checks and saving throws related to extreme weather.
20. You lose any darkvision you have and your ability to distinguish color.
21. In order to buy something, you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw with a DC equal to the number of total gp you are attempting to spend.
22. Your alignment changes. You determine it by rolling a d6 twice. On the first roll, a 1–2 indicates lawful, 3–4 neutral, and 5–6 chaotic. On the second roll, a 1–2 indicates good, 3–4 neutral, and 5–6 evil.
23. When you attune to the item, a ghost emerges from it and attempts to possess you. If it fails, it attacks instead.
24. You take 4d10 psychic damage when you attune to the magic item and when you break your attunement to it.
25. One of your ability scores is reduced by 2. Roll a d6 to determine which: (1) Strength (2) Dexterity (3) Constitution (4) Intelligence (5) Wisdom (6) Charisma. A greater restoration spell restores the ability to normal.
26. You age 3d10 years. A greater restoration spell restores your age to normal, but only if you are no longer attuned to the item.
27. You shrink one size category and all damage dice that you deal with weapons is reduced by one step (for example, you deal 1d4 damage with a mace instead of 1d6).
28. You have disadvantage on one type of skill check.
29. Whenever you take damage, you take an additional 1d8 necrotic damage.
30. You restore half as many hit points when healed magically.
31. You cannot regain hit points through magical means.
32. Your skin, hair, and/or eyes becomes a sickly yellow color.
33. One of your legs grows longer than the other, reducing your walking speed by 10 feet. You also have disadvantage on Acrobatics checks.
34. Two of your teeth turn into tusks, making it difficult to speak.
35. Your arms become tentacles with fingers on the end; your reach increases by 5, but your Charisma is reduced by 2 (to a minimum of 1).
36. When you roll for initiative, you are immediately affected by the crown of madness spell (DC 15), targeting random creatures within range.
37. When you are brought to 0 hit points, you become a wight with all its hit points. You fiercely guard the magic item and attack any creature that comes within 10 feet of it. If this form is destroyed, you revert back to your normal form, at 0 hit points but stable.
38. You can't read or write.
39. The world seems to go by faster. You have disadvantage on initiative checks and your speed decreases by 10 feet.
40. You are under the effect of a permanent bane spell.
41. When you take damage from a creature, you are frightened of it until the end of your next turn.
42. The item gives you pleasant but distracting daydreams. You have disadvantage on Wisdom checks.
43. An imp becomes your annoying, unhelpful, disruptive, unwelcome familiar. No one else can see the imp, and when it is brought to 0 hit points, it reforms 1 minute later.
44. Your proficiency bonus becomes +0.
45. Magic detects you as if your creature type was an aberration, fiend, and undead.
46. Every fourth time you use the item, you are banished as if by the banishment spell for 1 minute.
47. You become haphephobic. Any creature who wants to cast a beneficial spell on you with a range of Touch must succeed on a melee spell attack against your AC or lose the spell.
48. When you use the magic item, an aura of silence as per the silence spell appears in a 15-foot cube centered on and following the magic item and lasts for 1 minute.
49. Potions have no effect on you.
50. You gain no benefit from taking a short rest except being able to roll Hit Dice.
51. When you attune to the item or break your attunement to it, roll twice on the Wild Magic table.
52. You gaint a gaunt appearance and have disadvantage on death saving throws.
53. Your racial abilities, except for size and speed, are suppressed.
54. When you attune to the item, make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, you begin to turn to stone and are restrained. You must repeat the saving throw at the end of your next turn, becoming petrified on a failure or ending the effect on a success. The petrification lasts until you are freed by the greater restoration spell or other magic.
55. When you attune to the item, it casts power word pain (DC 15) on you. If the effect does not end after 1 minute passes, you die.
56. When you attune to the item, it casts true polymorph on you (DC 15), attempting to turn you into a sheep.
57. The weather is always terrible within 1,000 feet of you.
58. A floating rain cloud floats above your head, drizzling rain onto you and extinguishing open flames within your space.
59. When you hold a gem in your hand, its value begins to rapidly (and visibly) decrease by 1 gp per second that you hold it. If a gem's value is reduced to 0, it crumbles into worthless sand.
60. A shadow appears every time you finish a short rest and attacks you.
61. A shadow appears every time you finish a short rest, fiercely attacking everyone but you as if it were protecting you from them.
62. You are unwilling to part with the item, wearing it or keeping it within reach at all times.
63. Each time you use the Disengage action, your walking speed reduces by 5 feet. If your speed is reduced to 0 feet, you fall prone. Your speed is restored after you finish a long rest.
64. You sink like a stone in water and automatically fail on Strength (Athletics) checks to swim.
65. Whenever you shoot ammunition out of a ranged weapon, it always breaks on impact and is irretrievable.
66. Whenever another creature within 10 feet of you takes damage, you take 1d4 sympathetic psychic damage.
67. Your melee attacks within 5 feet are always nonlethal, and you cannot attack a creature that is at 0 hit points.
68. Each time you take a long rest, you have a specific dream, such as wandering around a flat desert full of rocks, swimming in a burning lake, or talking to a beautiful fey creature. Each long rest makes the dream scarier. After the third long rest, you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or gain no benefit from the long rest. The DC is 10 and increases by 5 after each success. After a failure, the DC resets to 5.
69. When you, the player in real life, sneeze, your character catches fire, taking 1d10 fire damage at the start of each turn until a creature succeeds in putting it out with an action.
70. You age much more quickly. For every year that passes, you age 5 years.
71. One of your hands detaches and becomes a crawling claw under your control. If it is still alive and nearby when you break your attunement, it reattaches.
72. You must always shout when you speak.
73. Your appearance becomes fascinating to children. Children can't help but stare at you and often follow you around just to look at you.
74. Whenever you search for traps, you always find one, which may or may not be real.
75. When you wear or wield the item, it sticks to you and you cannot doff it or let go of it.
76. Each night, 1d4 of the gold pieces in your possession turn to worthless lead.
77. Whenever you are mostly immersed in water, your sex changes. This can happen no more than once per hour.
78. You turn into a rabbit during the full moon every month.
79. You can only take an action or a bonus action, not both.
80. You no longer have reactions.
81. Alcohol becomes a powerful hallucinogen for you.
82. Whenever you deal damage to a creature, you must apologize or take 1d10 psychic damage.
83. Divination magic you cast always gives the wrong information.
84. You are afraid of the sun and you take 1 radiant damage whenever you start your turn in sunlight.
85. Whenever you take damage, you gain a level of exhaustion that lasts for 1 minute.
86. Your skin becomes ashen and splotchy. When you are brought to 0 hit points, you transform into a zombie. You remain in this form until you die.
87. You have disadvantage on Intelligence saving throws and checks made to discern illusions, and you automatically fail on saving throws made to maintain concentration.
88. Each day, you have a 5% chance of being conjured to a different plane as a summoned minion of a spellcaster. If you die on the other plane, your body and gear reform at the place you last were on the Material Plane after 24 hours. 
89. You see glimmering lights everywhere, imposing disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to see.
90. You constantly feel as if you're being followed, wherever you go.
91. At the end of each long rest, you lose a possession of your choice if you do not succeed on a DC 10 Intelligence (Investigation) check.
92. Your blood becomes acidic. Your skin turns a yellowish color, and whenever you take piercing or slashing damage, you and each creature within 5 feet of you takes 1d4 acid damage.
93. Beasts of CR 1/8 or lower are frightened of you.
94. You repel metal. Armor takes twice as long to don, and when you roll a natural 1 with an attack roll with a metal weapon, you drop it.
95. Your reflexes deteriorate. You have disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws.
96. You lose your luck. Whenever you roll a 20 on an ability check, saving throw, or attack roll, you must reroll the die and use the second result.
97. Your hands get shaky, and you are unable to tie knots or write.
98. If a monster you are attacking yields, begs for mercy, or flees, you must stop attacking it and acquiesce to its pleadings in the most amicable way possible.
99. All your items and clothing become invisible.
100. Undead within 300 feet of you always know exactly where you are and are drawn to you.