D&D 5E Curse of Strahd - Sunsword alternative

[Bardbarian]

Make the new weapon an undead slaying weapon. Take a giant slayer and change it creature type to Undead and have it trigger any effects that radiant would but keep the damage slashing. so like it would outright kill a zombie when reduced to 0 no save like radiant damage but its just part of the enchantment. The prone effect is an interesting touch.

 

[Charlaquin]

Gearing up to run Curse of Strahd and I really need a replacement/modification to the Sunsword. Why? Well, we're finishing Out of the Abyss and it featured early on...a Sun Blade. This has been a core weapon for one of my players, including a side-quest to bond with it. So it's prominent.

If we hadn't run OOA, the Sun Sword as-is would've been just fine. But, artifacts need to be unique and another Sun Blade, I'm worried, is a bit anticlimactic. However, I know the Sun Sword is iconic in Ravenloft.

Ideas?

Here’s my pitch.

The Sunsword has long since been shattered. The only blade with the power to kill the Devil Strahd destroyed, putting to rest the last remaining threat to his dark reign over Barovia. But the fated Tarokkia reading reveals that there is still hope; the Sunsword itself was merely a vessel for the power to turn back the Darkness. If another sword imbued with the sun’s light is brought to (the location indicated in the reading), and the proper ritual performed, the Sunsword’s power can be transferred to a new vessel, with which the Devil may yet be slain.

 

[robus]

I don't think the OP is saying the PCs already have the Sunsword, I think he means his players just saw a Sunsword in the last campaign.

I'm not sure that's the case:

Gearing up to run Curse of Strahd and I really need a replacement/modification to the Sunsword. Why? Well, we're finishing Out of the Abyss and it featured early on...a Sun Blade. This has been a core weapon for one of my players, including a side-quest to bond with it. So it's prominent.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I'm not sure that's the case:

It was a core weapon for one of the players in Out of the Abyss which is why they would prefer not to do a repeat in this campaign.

 

[robus]

It was a core weapon for one of the players in Out of the Abyss which is why they would prefer not to do a repeat in this campaign.

Right. Which is why I was helping out elfcrusher

 

[BookBarbarian]

Right. Which is why I was helping out elfcrusher

Helping with what? As far as I can tell his statement was correct. The party does not yet have the CoS Sunsword.

Edit: It looks like the CoS campaign hasn't even started.

 

[seebs]

Ahh, I misread it, I thought they were going on from a previous adventure, where they got a sun blade, and those characters were continuing into CoS, where they'd find another and then have two and it would be awkward, like showing up at a party wearing the same dress as someone else.

 

[Guest 6801328]

In my opinion the Sunsword should never have been put into Out of Abyss. It's canonically a Ravenloft thing, and personally I've never liked the whole lightsaber thing in the first place. I suspect the reason the designers like it is because it effectively becomes whatever type of sword the user wants it to be, which makes it a more versatile magic item placement. (Nothing worse than dropping an important magic item in which nobody is proficient.) And even if the DM is explicitly told to make it whatever kind of sword would be most useful, that puts the decision of who gets it into the DMs hands, rather than having it be a group decision.

So, yeah, dumb item with useful metagame features.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm confused.

Are your players continuing from OotA with the same characters, same loot, etc...and thus, giving the guy who has a sun blade The Sunsword (caps for a reason) would be a little repetitive?
-The solution is simple. What the player wields is indeed THE Sunsword, it has simply been diminished for *reasons* and the quest to find the Sunsword instead becomes the quest to restore the Sunsword to its full glory.

Or are you starting fresh and your player who got the sun blade last time would be a little put off to basically get the same weapon again?
-This makes the least sense to me, since it implies Hypothetical Bob is playing the same character, or a similar enough character again.
-And frankly, The Sunsword had some serious restrictions on who could use it (don't know if CoS removed these). It was entirely possible to run a Ravenloft campaign back in the day and nobody could actually wield the thing.

It is THE Sunsword, not a sun sword. The original you might say. Often imitated, never duplicated.

The Sunsword itself was not a particularly WOW! weapon, pretty much ever. It's setting implications were what mattered since it was basically the only thing capable of destroying Strahd for good. I would suggest to the OP to look into ways to pump up the flavor factor of the weapon. It's less what it does and more what it symbolizes in a setting like Ravenloft.

 

[Ancalagon]

If it's new PCs with same players...

Don't have it just be a sunsword. Have it be THE SAME SUNSWORD. Have bits of obscure legends about the old PCs scattered here and there