Ditching all magic weapons; replacing with legendary weapons.

[Roman]

Excellent idea Byron_Ghost: Allow your the other players to acquire unique traits instead of magical items.

 

[jester47]

Gotta Chime in on this one...

I run an FR campaign. It occured to me that in your generic highvolume of magic item world (such as FR) weapons with bonuses are going to be less than rare. Enough where someone has seen one. I thought about it and I have come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of magic weapons IMC.

The first is a Highmagic weapon, or Truely Magical Weapon. It does somthing. It has one of the abilities. Its baddass, ussually at least an antique, and has something of a history.

The second are the Lowmagic weapons. These get made when someone with some cash or whatever a mage or priest might want strikes a bargain with the wizard or sorcerer and gets some magic on it. (in fact thats the term: Gotta get some magic on this) These are kind of seen as not as neat, but effective.

Every weapon that has ever been a favorite is named.
Every Highmagic weapon is named and has a history.
Everything above a +2 is considered a highmagic weapon.

Even in this case all weapons imbued with anything should have a history of some sort as it took some history to make them. Even the +1 models. NEVER GENERIC. No such thing exists. There may be sets, but nothing that infers a bonus goes without detail. Even a lot of stuff that does absolutely nothing often gets detail and history in my campaign.

Aaron.

 

[d20Dwarf]

I'm not trying to sound like an advertisement, but the idea of having special magic items like you are talking about is a heavy element in the Midnight campaign setting coming out from Fantasy Flight Games. The world is rare magic, as you say, not low magic, and we even refer to it in those words when discussing the setting. I'm not suggesting it as an alternative to your homebrew, which I'm sure is great, but I think you'll at least find some inspiration in the ideas we present. Well, that is every author's hope anyway.

Along similar lines, I'd love to see what you come up with for your world.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I'm not suggesting it as an alternative to your homebrew, which I'm sure is great, but I think you'll at least find some inspiration in the ideas we present. Well, that is every author's hope anyway.

I'll check it out. The campaign setting is already finalized, it's just fitting the d20 rules to it that I'm having to tinker with.

The second suggestion would be to not limit this to weapons. There's already rules for intelligent rods and staves in the DMG. I haven't seen the "Swords" PDF yet, but presumably the rules could be ported to something similar. In this manner, your wizard could have a legendary staff to counterbalance the fighter's legendary sword, even if the staff doesn't have all that much combat potential.

Yeah, in fact this is the first sourcebook in the series. The next one is called Staves of Ascendance and takes advantage of that very concept. I'm hoping to take it all one step further and adapt it to armor, rings, amulets, bows, and so on.

Another concept I'm trying to get across in the setting is that the world is old, so having these legendary items with histories dating back thousands of years gives me the ability to convey age. The "gimmick" of the campaign setting is that it takes place during the world's Apocalypse, and these legendary items resurfacing are basically signs of the end of days. For example, one of the legendary swords I'm planning to integrate is basically the sword used by the Angel of Death to dispense justice to the world -- raining down fire and brimstone, etc. One of the characters finds this sword, and then as he uses it more he unlocks more of its powers and leads himself down the path of becoming the next Avenging Angel, just in time for the end of the world to come and demand such a creature exist.

 

[Tonguez]

The "gimmick" of the campaign setting is that it takes place during the world's Apocalypse, and these legendary items resurfacing are basically signs of the end of days. For example, one of the legendary swords I'm planning to integrate is basically the sword used by the Angel of Death to dispense justice to the world -- raining down fire and brimstone, etc. One of the characters finds this sword, and then as he uses it more he unlocks more of its powers and leads himself down the path of becoming the next Avenging Angel, just in time for the end of the world to come and demand such a creature exist.

Now this sounds very interesting and I'd love to see how you handle it

GM Moridin "okay Pug um your Barbarian 4/Power Sword 4 just gained the Rider of the Apocalypse PrC. You are now 10 feet tall have fire pouring out the top of your head and you voice causes earthquakes - oh you also get a new horse. Um what do you do next?"

 

[thullgrim]

more thoughts on a good idea:
Require an Attunement role to see if someone who finds a legendary weapon can actually use it. Make it a skill or will save, setting the DC based on the powers of the object in question.

It might be worth taking a look at the article in dragon #289 about leveling weapons and other magic items.

Earthdawn had a mechanic where, in order to unlock the powers of a magic item, one had to know certain things, each power a key, for instance: to unlock the Keen ability of a longsword one might have to know the name of the last wielder, or who forged the item, or something along those lines. The more powerful the abiliity the more more obscure the key. After having found the key, the character then had to weave a thread to the item, this could be represented as an attunement, or simple XP expenditure. Put an upper limit on the number of threads one can have, and make each thread more expensive than the last, and you have a convient way to keep the greater magic locked away unless someone makes great sacrifice.

 

[hong]

Hey all,

For my homebrew campaign world, I'm seriously considering ditching the whole concept of generic magic items and going only with legendary items in the vein of those displayed in The Game Mechanics' Swords of Our Fathers sourcebook.

Hong's three-step patented program for converting generic magic items to legendary items:

1) Take every magic item in the DMG.

2) Write a three-paragraph backstory for it.

3) Remove all occurrences of the words "magic item", and replace them with "legendary item".

Et voila, legendary items.

The only difference between a "legendary" item and what's in the DMG is the niche it fills in your world. That, in turn, has nothing to do with game mechanics.

 

[CCamfield]

Moridin, is there any chance you could post your thoughts about Swords of Our Fathers or even do a review? There doesn't seem to be one in the ENWorld archives and I'd like to read one before deciding whether or not to buy it. I'm quite interested in the concept!

 

[jester47]

Also, be careful with how much you write for the weapons. A little bit of history will go a long way. Look at the mialage that sting gets in the hobbit and the lord of the rings. We actually know very little about the blade. The same is true for Orcist and Glamdring. We learn a lot about stormbringer only because it is a character. Mostly your characters might ever pay attention to about a sentance or two. If its more they will sum it up in a sentence or two. If you have a player who's character likes to know everytyhing about a blade, 3 paragraphs is more than enough.

On a side note, the historical magic items found in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale CRPGs are done really really well. I wish I could get a list of them with their histories.

Aaron.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Require an Attunement role to see if someone who finds a legendary weapon can actually use it. Make it a skill or will save, setting the DC based on the powers of the object in question.

Well, if a character is going to get a legendary item in my game, I really intend for them to have it anyways. I don't plan on these things being so commonplace that the players really have to choose between a couple of legendary items.

The only difference between a "legendary" item and what's in the DMG is the niche it fills in your world. That, in turn, has nothing to do with game mechanics.

Hong, perhaps I should have been more specific. When I say legendary items, I am referring specifically to the definition from Swords of Our Fathers; specifically, items that grow in power the longer a characater wields it. Certainly creating an item out of legend is a simple matter of backstory; however, the point of the post is to find out what problems I'm going to encounter doling out these items that are a) incredibly rare, and b) stick with a character for long periods of time.

Moridin, is there any chance you could post your thoughts about Swords of Our Fathers or even do a review? There doesn't seem to be one in the ENWorld archives and I'd like to read one before deciding whether or not to buy it. I'm quite interested in the concept!

I tried to, but the site is rejecting my username and password. Until I can get it straightened out, I posted a mini-review on the RPGNow website under the book's entry.

Also, be careful with how much you write for the weapons. A little bit of history will go a long way.

Oh, I totally agree. I want the discovery of the items' histories to be a slow process, and the point of some adventures. Also, since my campaign is still evolving, it gives me a little leeway in making stuff up on the fly.