I am running a game and my players started out at Shadowbrook Manor, an adventure made for Labyrinth Lord. There one character put on a Clock of Alignment Change which operates as the helm of the same name. That character has finally removed the cloak and is back to a happy Cleric.
The player would like to sell the cloak. This brought up a couple questions:
How much would you value this this treasure at for selling?
Would XP be awarded during the sale? Is wearing the cloak which causes problems for the character consider ‘using’ and wiping out the XP?
I don’t think this is considered a cursed item, but I assume cursed items in general are not easily sold nor confer XP to the characters for a sale?
Do you generally require the players to know and identify the items they are selling in order to gain gold and XP from the sale?
Finally, if one character travels back to town while the rest are in the dungeon, and sells some treasure, does the XP go solely to that character or spread out to everyone?
I’ve looked in various other sources. Interesting that the AD&D book specifically gives no XP for this helmet while it does for others, although the ACKS version operates slightly differently.
The AD&D book gives no XP value for a Helm of Alignment Change because in AD&D, it’s considered a cursed item, which have no XP value.
Given the precedent, I’d consider it a cursed item, and selling it would require tricking someone into believing that it’s something that it is not, or finding someone who wanted to use it as a weapon.
That said, ACKS in general gives no XP when items that were used are sold (ACKS page 113: “If the characters use the magic items, they do not get any XP, even if they later sell them.”) So I would definitely not award any XP for selling it.
we can see that a Helm of Alignment Changing has a base price of 75,000 gp. So if they can find someone who wants it, using the rules for selling magic items of unknown provenance (ACKS page 227), that’s how much they can expect to get for it. (Of course, with a price that high, even for a non-cursed item it would take a while to find a buyer.)
I think a Clock of Alignment Change would be awesome and would totally allow it to be sold as a magical item, with the caveat that the wearer’s alignment changes randomly on the hour, every hour.
I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, granting XP for selling a ‘used’ cursed item is a nice consolation prize for having been stuck with one (possibly without realizing it, like ACKS’ cursed swords that convince you they’re awesome), and finding a buyer requires some trickery, which I like to encourage and reward (plus, it’s not like they’re going to get full price for it). On the other hand, cursed items have so much utility! With a little more trickery, a Cloak of Alignment Changing could be used to convert a powerful enemy into a potential long-term ally (or even to destabilize a realm if given to the right target), which are not small things. I guess I feel like if the party hasn’t gotten any utility out of it (has suffered purely negative effects from possessing the item), then I wouldn’t mind giving XP for selling it.
