There's good ideas all around here. Thank you to all.
Some replies:
some player would argue that you don't craft a dull sword, let alone an indestructible one. Therefore, it should be keen, if not have Sharpness or Vorpal on it.
and that since Sharpness chops of limbs and stuff, effectively modeled as a crit, that it should be able to crit on anything with limbs and stuff, not just humanoids with organs.
Hmm. Vorpal might be a bit too much. I don't want to tack too much onto it, but I would like it be useful as long as possible without being too unbalancing.
If braced with immovable rods, I reckon there's some way to force something else into it, as some kind of auto-hit effect. (immovable rods + sword in the path of a moving dragon. if it don't dodge, it must needs be punctured as the sword CANNOT move, bend or break.
How would you attach the sword to an immovable rod so that the thing that attaches the two together doesn't itself break?
Since a sword leaves sword wounds on a victim. An indestructible sword would leave indestructible sword wounds. These wounds would thus be indestructible and thus never heal.
Yeah, I don't follow that at all.
I think what Janx was getting at is that "indestructible" in and of itself is not all that meaningful from a game point of view. Sure, the sword can't be sundered (which depending on campaign may or may not be a big deal), and you can do all kinds of gimmicks with it - use it as an unbreakable lever etc. But, as most games (or at least most campaigns) are not that nitpicky about weapon breakage, the sword won't necessarily be any better that other swords - at least for what a sword is supposed to be used for. So in that regard an indestructible sword won’t have that big an impact at all.
The campaign is going to be against people who'll be destroying whatever they can get their hands on. The sword belonged to them. Something they can't destroy in the hands of their opponents is an ideological threat to them.
Now the sword being indestructible leads to all sorts of avenues for giving it an incredibly rich history (preferably bloody with lots of deaths both of its wielder and others) so that’s definitely something going for it.
Oh, most definitely.
Which leads to the real point (as Janx mentioned) – does the sword being indestructible make it a better sword? Does it sunder better, does it penetrate damage resistance better, is it any better balanced than other swords, etc?
Yes, yes, possibly, and yes.
I think a good way to do this would be to make the sword scale with level (the more powerful the individual wielding it, the better the sword becomes etc.) Something like – at 1st level the sword is an indestructible magic sword (no bonus) at higher levels it’s a +1 sword then a +1 keen sword etc. all the way up to +5 vorpal sword (Kind of like weapons of legacy – without all of the wonky mechanics).
I'm liking that a lot.
Or for the purpose of sundering - it's considered a +5 weapon (and thus could sunder even highly magical weapons, unlike most swords)
I was thinking something along those lines.
True, but you may be able to sucker your foe into trying to sunder YOUR (indestructible) weapon, in kind of an "Oh yeah, let's see how YOU like it!" type of thought.
This means 2 things: 1) he's not attacking you or anyone else for damage and 2) if he keeps trading sunder attempts, he WILL lose eventually.
It's a gambit, but one that might work.
...Now, if there was something the party needed to do with such an item like deal with a sphere of anhilation or some such, maybe it might be more interesting but unless they knew they had to find something indestructible, it isn't likely to motivate any players I know to go after it.
I am going to offer them situations where they can take advantage of it, if they so choose.
If I were a PC, I'd use this indestructible sword to sunder the mightiest pen, then beat it into an uncreatable plowshare.
A mightiest pen? Consider it done.
It WOULD also make the perfect adventurer's pokestick. And there is the possibility I might use it as a wedge to keep a ceiling from coming down, a wall from closing in, and other forms of cog-jamming sabotage.
I'd use it to thwart traps, especially crushy type traps. So the stone block is slowly lowering from the ceiling. Just wedge the sword up so when the block meets the point with the pommel on the ground - the trap stops. Yeah, getting the sword out would be problematic.
You could stir up lots of things, like acid, lava, spheres of annihilation (though the fact it didn't vaporize would possible conceal the true nature of the annilhilating sphere).
You could thrust it into wagon wheels or moving gears and watch the machines bust up.
I'm sure given time and inspiration we could come up with more ideas.
So, you have the prybar of the gods. Need to open a magically sealed vault? Rig a lever with an elephant at one end and this sword as the fulcrum.
Sundering volcanoes seems like a potentially useful scenario.
Jeweler's paste + delayed blast fireball = special present for your new friend.
Win a bar bet. With Thor.
All good suggestions for things to include in the campaign. Whether they'll actually happen will depend on the players.
Seriously, if i were really worried about my sword being destroyed, I'd have to consider:
A) dangerous and difficult quest to get an indestructible sword, or
B) spend 15 gp on a spare sword in case my main one breaks.
Until the swords you regulary use cost more than that.
Anyway, the sword would be one of the rewards for the intro adventure to the campaign.
So, if you have a weapon that cannot be broken, having a PC who takes advantage of that fact by breaking other things with it is...forseeable.
Some much so that I might drop a hint to one of the players beforehand.
It was one of those things that seemed unbalancing in the short term and distorting in the long term: build a PC around sundering and the ref will naturally create counter measures: unsunderable weapons or have the foes all have multiple weapons at the ready or sunder the party's weapons more than they desire or simply use more foes with natural weapons. As you say, foreseeable. So why invest in sunder.
Which was pretty much my experience as well. Hence, an attempt to focus on it to see what would happen.
I think that a lot of what I would do is already covered, unbreakable pry bar/wedge being the primary one. Frankly, I think that this is a cool idea which your players will enjoy. They should also be able to go underwater, traverse swamps, etc., with no fear of rusting/corrosion.
If you haven't already placed the item, I would consider having it found wedging a Star Wars-style "trash compactor" from closing. When the PCs recover the weapon, it takes a short bit for the gears to start moving again, and they stop before fully compacting (because the sword has been there so long, and the pressure has damaged the mechanism).
Thus, the PCs have some idea what the sword is upfront, as well as an idea of how to use it's indestructible powers. Who knows? They might leave it in a trap themselves, to be found by some other adventurers 100 years hence......!
Ideas made of solid gold. Exactly what I needed.
Damn RC beat me to it while I was posting. Again!
That's okay. I liked your ideas too.
I would sell this indestructible headache off to some rich benevolent wizard...
Except that possession of the sword in that case will make the wizard a primary target of this campaign main bad guys. He might refuse to buy it, and just set them after the PC's.
