Autolevelling Items

All of these weapons allow for A) Spending cash in some form to power up the weapon and B) Using captured loot to upgrade the weapon. If it were me, I would try and tie the manner of upgrading to the personality of the weapon itself.

Great ideas here, Unwise! Definitely a very interesting take on it.

In plain rules-speak, I guess you could have a table that shows you when you're allowed you to make a "payment". As you typically gain new item awards between 1-4 levels ahead of their given level, you could maybe average that out and say you could make the payments 2 levels ahead of time.

In this sense, you're effectively getting the enchant magic item feat bound into a single item, but your effective level is raised for the purpose of upgrading. Very interesting.

Story-wise, I love all these by the way, especially "A Fitting End".
 

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Sorry to get a littel off topic, but I just thought I would mention a concept behind some of my above ideas.

One of the things I like about the story based items is that they offer the player some intangible rewards for roleplaying and a character background. For instance, the owner of The Fitting End will be decked out in extravegantly wealthy clothes and jewelry. Their armor will be no more effective, but will be stunning to look at.

In effect, the player gets this 'soft' benefit for free, since they would have just spent that money on buying a new weapon. This has little in-game effect and no combat effect, but is a nice reward for a fleshed out character and helps define the characters personality and appearance.

In the case of The Iron Blade of Saint Eldan, the non-tangible reward would be the PC being loved by the poor (and looked down on by nobles?). A bit like the 3e Peasant Hero option. This helps define the character as charitable. Normally a charitable character is very hard to play, as you give up the combat effectiveness that it is assumed for your level. Does any group really want their paladin defender to give his money to the poor rather than buying better armor?

Giving to the poor; establishing a charity; buying an inn; living like a nobleman; sending money to your family back home; wasting your money on ale and wenches; buying a library of books; maintaining a household staff. All of these things are character defining, but from a game mechanics point of view are not only a waste of resources, but will hurt your characters development in very real ways if the GM sticks to treasure parcels.

As a GM I jump on any opportunity to give a reward that cannot be spent on weapons/armor/etc. It really helps define characters and makes the players feel good about their characters development.
 

You could also consider giving a free daily dose of a minor ritual, in addition to what you've mentioned.

Perhaps the wielder of The Fitting End also gains the permanent benefit of a Fastidiousness ritual. No matter what he's wearing, he looks his best. The proverbial falling into a pile of excrement, but coming up smelling like a rose.

The owner of The Iron Blade of Saint Eldan, no matter where he beds down at night, finds the place to be free of vermin (Banish Vermin ritual).
 

All items in my campaign scale. At 6th they become +2, at 11th they become +3, and so on. I have a low magic system, so this helps with the group not randomly finding tons of magic items while on the home world. However, when they venture to another plane, like the Shadowfell, they find all sorts of cool stuff.
 

I can think of two possible options:

1) Use the Transfer Enchantment Ritual. Every so often he could use the ritual to transfer some more powerful enchantment to the weapon, making it more potent.

2) Story-wise, you could treat it like sockets in some online RPGs. i.e. In a treasure parcel, add a fire ruby. That ruby can be added to the sword to transform it into a +1 Flaming Longsword.
 

I can think of two possible options:

1) Use the Transfer Enchantment Ritual. Every so often he could use the ritual to transfer some more powerful enchantment to the weapon, making it more potent.

2) Story-wise, you could treat it like sockets in some online RPGs. i.e. In a treasure parcel, add a fire ruby. That ruby can be added to the sword to transform it into a +1 Flaming Longsword.

[sblock=Pyramid of Shadows spoiler]I used that concept in Pyramid of Shadows, which is notoriously weak on treasure. Each time that the party found one of the Soul Gems, Vyrellis would draw most of her life3 energy out of it, leaving enough behind to add +1 to the enhancement bonus of an item. No stacking.[/sblock]
 

I'm not going to bother reading all the replies, and maybe my advice is late. If so, simply ignore it;

This is a common thing I do with my campaigns. I usually allow each character to have one "Heirloom item", which can have been given them by a family member, a teacher/mentor, a weird old man in a curiosity shop, or maybe they just found it, or maybe they made it, or whatever they want. This item levels up with them. However, I found that simply leveling up to the next bonus isn't quite as fun. It's not satisfying to have this item that's so very important to you and which means so much, then have it be no more powerful than any item you could get through Create Magic Item.

What I do is I take it's nature and expand upon it a little. If what they have is a weapon, then I also give that particular weapon a property no other weapon of that type has, such as 'brutal 1' on a spear. Half-way between that item getting each additional enhancement modifier, I try to give it something else. Nothing way super-great, but something that makes it notably better in a way beyond simple attack and damage bonus and whatever cool property it began with (flaming, for example).

By tenth level I come up with a way for the item to always be with it's owner, whether it instantly teleports into the scabard if it falls from their hand, or if they can will it into their hand, or if it flies back to them, or whatever. It offers zero mechanical bonuses (all magical thrown items are returning anyway), but it's cool and offers some interesting improvised uses to the clever player.

Weapons offer the easiest extra effects or abilities (new weapon qualities weapons of that type normally lack, expanded crit range, increased damage die, "bleeding" damage), and then you can do effects otherwise useful but not necessarily offensive (minor scrying abilities, minor healing or regenerating ability, increased speed... you're only limited by your imagination).

The problem is, don't do too much to make the weapon superly-mega-badass. If you make it brutal, increase it's crit range, and increase it's damage die, it suddenly becomes a MUCH better weapon, all around. I'd suggest one or two abilities that increase damage output. Brutal isn't too bad, as it only increases minimum damage, but something that increases maximum damage output is dangerous if you go overboard.

At any rate, simply leveling up alongside the owner, while cool, isn't quite cool enough, in my mildly humble opinion.
 

Just as a side note to the entire bonuses approach: in one campaign, I included bonuses, but only to a certain extent. My campaigns don't go beyond early paragon levels, so in essence I give out 1 fixed +1 bonus to all defenses and attacks at level 5, and then items that give +1 or +2 (and maybe, MAYBE, a very rare and unique +3 item). I tweak my magic items too, that become more rare and usually have greater abilities.
 

I do this with my rare items. The item's level is based on the wielder's, and at specific levels it goes up in pluses or gets more/better abilities.
 

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