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Whats the coolest magic item that you have run into and why was it cool?

For me it may have been this giant bag of neverending rope. The party needed to get down this many thousand foot deep air shaft, so as DM I left a giant bag of rope up top. The bag was very heavy, 100 pounds, and the rope couldn't be cut, or the whole thing would lose its power. But you could pull as much rope (3/4" 3 strand hemp) as you needed or wanted. and the rope was magically strong enough to ignore its own weight. 

The party forgot all about the airshaft when they saw the rope, they figured out how to haul it out of the dungeon because they thought it was cool.

I think the limitations that it had were as much a part of what made it interesting as were its powers. 

There was a mirror in 3e that trapped one person that looked into it.  If there was a person trapped, another person looking at the mirror would release the first.   

We had some fun times with it, before just deciding it was too broken good and giving it to an npc.

To me was a homebrew item called Hideous Healing Potion. What it did was to heal all your hit points, but it would render the user useless sick in pain for half an hour.
I think it was nice because I never liked the normal healing, this potion was like the common saying: no pain no gain.
It was once used on a monster so the PCs could escape while the monster was in pain.
After the first time used, we've used ever since in many campaigns.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 5:06PM, bluespruce786 wrote:

Whats the coolest magic item that you have run into and why was it cool?

Two intelligent weapons from different campaigns.

Frosty: a dagger that dealt cold damage, but was a drunkard. The special scabbard had a channel into which the user would pour some sort of drinkable alcohol, and Frosty would only work when the alcohol was absorbed. When the dagger hit, not only did it do its normal damage, it injected the alcohol into the target. He was a mouthy SOB, too! The second thing that made this item really fun is that its owner, Allanon, was also a drunkard. The ranger did his best fighting when three sheets to the wind, and once had to sober up to give evidence in court. He said it was the worst week of his life.

The second -- well, let me post the "owner"s description. The "owner" in question is an archer, and you will see why I put "owner" in quotes:

Hedrules is a longsword +3, +6 vs Outsiders. It is intelligent and communicates by telepathy to it's wielder only. It has enough ego points to require an initial will check. (I think this was int+wis+cha+d20 vs about 45+d20) and additional checks any time you are in the presence of an outsider and not actively attacking with the sword. Hedrules does not have any senses of its own but if you can see, smell, or hear an outsider Hedrules will instantly recognize it. Hedrules will respond by psionically shouting "Outsider!  Attack! Attack!  Attack! Attack!  Attack! Attack! Attack! Attack!"  But it won't say "That's an Ice demon, kill it with fire" or even "That's a whosiwhatsis", because that would be treating you like a partner in it's outsider-hunting enterprise and Hedrules' attitude is more like you are the taxi driver.  If Hedrules wins an ego check it will "take the wheel and drive" for itself, relegating you to a position as a back-seat observer until all known outsiders have been destroyed.  At that point additional checks can be made until you regain control, which had better happen fairly soon because Hedrules is not interested in fleshly concerns like food, water or sleep. Or tactical considerations for self preservation.

Hedrules is uninterested in idle conversation, even about important topics like outsiders, because you are a mortal and it is a SWORD and how could you possibly know anything worth hearing anyway?  From behavior I would guess it has a lawful neutral alignment.  It will sometimes demand particular courses of action that it believes will allow it to attack outsiders, leading to "interesting" arguments. [Owner] rarely remembers that he doesn't need to vocalize during these arguments.

Deck of many things, hammer of thunderbolts, sphere of annihilation, vorpal swords, soulfire armor, bow of the solars, mirror of life trapping, mirror of mental prowess, tomes/manuals, ring of nine lives, cloak of arachnida... yeh, too many to list. Oh yeh, and any +x item is always awesome.