The Sword of Air and Darkness
In Dungeon Crawl Classics, the Sword of Air and Darkness reads like a routine magic weapon. A +2 bonus to attack and damage, nothing to write home about. The interesting text sits on the crit range: a natural 19 or 20 shunts the target to the ethereal plane for 1d6 rounds. That is a variable removal, not a kill, and the variance is the whole point.
Tables consistently botch this two ways. They forget to roll the duration, so the banished foe drifts back whenever the judge feels like it, and they treat the effect as flavor rather than a window. One to six rounds is enough to focus the rest of the encounter, split the enemy line, or reposition before the target returns swinging. The sword also carries a darkness spell, usable once per day on a result of 18, which is a battlefield tool the wielder tends to hoard and never spend.
Then there is the cursed part everyone ignores until it bites. Each night the wielder makes a Will save, DC 12, or loses Luck permanently. Luck does not come back on its own in DCC.
At the table: On a natural 19-20, roll the 1d6 openly and count it down aloud so the ethereal window gets used, not wasted.
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