Vice Bracers (5e Equipment)

Wondrous item, rare Despite the name, a single vice bracer can work individually, and often doesn't have a pair. This mundane-looking leather item tightens onto the wearer the moment you don it making it impossible to remove by normal means as long as the item is cursed. When someone not wearing it speaks the command word, the item tightens further, constricting the wearer and digging hidden spikes into their flesh. The wearer takes 1d4 piercing damage and 1d10 bludgeoning damage at the start of each of its turns that this effect is active (this damage cannot reduce you below 0 hit points; and while this item is active cannot hold or grasp anything with the hand of the affected arm without succeeding on a DC 15 Strength saving throw each round at the start of your turn. The creator of the item may use a second command word to choose to make the damage lethal, crushing the arm in a bloody mess that can cause the wearer to bleed out, increasing the damage to 1d10 piercing damage and 3d10 bludgeoning damage each round, destroying the limb when it does 30 percent of the wearer's hit point maximum as damage. They may also use a third command word to end the damage of either effect, but still leave the item impossible to remove normally. The creator of the item may use a fourth command word to end the effects, allowing the wearer to remove the item. The curse of the item is broken when a remove curse spell or better magic is used on it, but the force of this inverts the item's compression, causing it to harmlessly but noisily explode outward from the wearer's arm, destroying the item. The item can be saved (though mundane, except for the alternate version below) if a greater restoration spell or better magic is used to end its curse. Casting identify on the normal version of the item reveals every command word it has unless if the caster is wearing it. Alternatively, the item may appear identical to bracers of archery, and an identify spell reveals it as such. Such versions are very rare, and have the bracers of archery effects if in a pair, but only while the damaging effects of the item aren't active.

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