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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010836" data-attributes="member: 172">Artifacts of the Ages: Swords and StavesArtifacts of the Ages is d20 System fantasy supplement that introduces a system to create artifact style magic items that progress with the character. The book is written by JD Wiker and Rich Redman of The Game Mechanics, an upstart game design house started by some ex-WotC game designers. The book is published by Green Ronin, and is actually a compilation and updating of two PDF products released by the Game Mechanics: Swords of Our Fathers and Staves of Ascendance.A First LookFormat: 80 page perfect-bound softcover; $16.95.Art: Both cover and interior art is by Clarence Harrison. The cover features the art from the PDF forerunners of this book. The front cover shows an evocative illustration of a warrior reaching for the sword in the grasp of a skeleton. The back cover depicts a woman holding a staff overhead with lightning behind it, under the instruction of an old man. The interior illustrations are mostly limited to depictions of the described items, but there are a few larger pieces. Overall, the art is of good quality and I found it appealing.Layout: Two column layout throughout, with occasional sidebars that protrude into one column and use some margin space. A moderately dense font is used, with closely spaced lines and paragraphs; overall the text density is good.OGL note: For those for whom OGL issues are important, and who are used to the typical generous and praiseworthy open content statements by Green Ronin, beware. Perhaps due to the fact that this book was written by another design house, it has the sort of "crippled OGL" statement that closes names of game elements that Sword & Sorcery Studios and Malhavoc typically use.A Deeper LookThe need that Artifacts of the Ages hopes to address is that of legendary items in the D&D game. Longtime players of the game know that a weapon that is wonderful when it is acquired may be discarded as a worthless trinket a few levels later. You would never see this sort of thing in a fantasy novel.The way it achieves this is through prestige classes. Each legendary item has an associated prestige class. These prestige classes have basic features similar to major core class. However, each legendary item starts out as a minor magic item, but as the character gains levels in the associated class, more powers of the item may be accessed.Each class is patterned after one of four central classes, called scions, the battle scion (most appropriate for fighter types), the spell scion (for arcane spellcasters), the faith scion (for divine spellcasters), and the swift scion (for rogues and monks). Each legendary item is keyed to one of these central classes, but actually represents a distinct class; for example, a battle scion for one item cannot activate the extra abilities of another item. In most cases, the basic abilities of two scions of the same type are the same (though there are some differences between those who use staves and those who use swords), but the entry requirements for each legendary item is different.The first chapter provides the rules for the scion prestige classes. Chapters two through five are each dedicated to the legendary items for battle, spell, faith, and swift scions respectively. Each legendary item entry contains the entry requirements for the scion prestige class when used with that item, an advancement table of sorts that describes the abilities the item gains as the character gains levels, as well as the history of the item complete with DCs for knowledge checks that reveal useful information about the item.The items are essentially treated as artifacts. They are not assessed any price, though I wonder if that is a wise decision. Though I understand that artifacts are considered "priceless" in the D&D game, it seems obvious that the power of the legendary items are such that they grant a character more power than can be explained by loss of class abilities of the scion classes compared to core classes; the scion class abilities are almost as potent as core classes. That being the case, GMs who rigorously regulate the value of magic items per the DMG would probably want to consider who much of the standard treasure allotment the character should be considered to be consuming.Scattered throughout the text in the item chapters are a number of interesting adventure hooks to give the GM ideas for integrating the items into the game.One appendix discusses how to design legendary items the way that the book does, so GMs can make their own if they desire.ConclusionOverall, I like the concept a lot. It provides a method to pull d20 System fantasy games a bit closer to some of their literary roots, and make artifact style items a more intriguing addition to the game without unbalancing it.As stated, the most significant drawback I see of this system is that while it does a good job of making the items level appropriate, it doesn't give you very good guidelines on how to adjust normal treasure allotments to account for the character's possession of the legendary item.Overall Grade: B-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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