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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
artifact vs unique magic item?
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<blockquote data-quote="freyar" data-source="post: 3843622" data-attributes="member: 40227"><p>Here's a question for the designers and deep thinkers out there, since it's been bugging me a little: Where do you draw the line between a unique or named magic item and a minor artifact? I find myself asking this question specifically for named weapons, for some reason.</p><p></p><p>Let me illustrate with an example: From Magic of Faerun, which I'm rereading for kicks, we have <em>Arbane's Sword of Agility</em>. Without quoting the (copyrighted) text, we'll say that there are at least a dozen. It's properties: +2 longsword of speed, can cast jump 1/day, can negate darkness as if using a daylight spell 1/day, bearer is protected by continual freedom of movement effect and immunity to illusion (pattern) effects when the sword is drawn. Just looking at that, would you choose (almost-)unique, albeit powerful, weapon or minor artifact? (answer below)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This sword is classified as a minor artifact. But why no creation guidelines? The only nonstandard or non-spell-effect property of these swords is the immunity to patterns, but there are wondrous items <em>in the same book</em> that provide resistance bonuses to patterns, so doesn't seem like a good distinction entirely. Is this just a flavor choice? I'm curious to hear what EN World has to say. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="freyar, post: 3843622, member: 40227"] Here's a question for the designers and deep thinkers out there, since it's been bugging me a little: Where do you draw the line between a unique or named magic item and a minor artifact? I find myself asking this question specifically for named weapons, for some reason. Let me illustrate with an example: From Magic of Faerun, which I'm rereading for kicks, we have [i]Arbane's Sword of Agility[/i]. Without quoting the (copyrighted) text, we'll say that there are at least a dozen. It's properties: +2 longsword of speed, can cast jump 1/day, can negate darkness as if using a daylight spell 1/day, bearer is protected by continual freedom of movement effect and immunity to illusion (pattern) effects when the sword is drawn. Just looking at that, would you choose (almost-)unique, albeit powerful, weapon or minor artifact? (answer below) This sword is classified as a minor artifact. But why no creation guidelines? The only nonstandard or non-spell-effect property of these swords is the immunity to patterns, but there are wondrous items [i]in the same book[/i] that provide resistance bonuses to patterns, so doesn't seem like a good distinction entirely. Is this just a flavor choice? I'm curious to hear what EN World has to say. :) [/QUOTE]
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artifact vs unique magic item?
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