Experiences with Weapons of Legacy
- Thread starter Remathilis
- Start date
That's why I threw in the extra abilities - the cold resistance and cold-themed spells - which you would not normally get from crafting to order. In exchange for having to follow a specific path of upgrades, you get better upgrades.
Agreed. I think the easiest way to balance that would be to have each item come with a set of feats you can take which give you special abilities or bonuses when using that item.
The main thing, though, is to recognize that any warrior-type PC is going to sink 50% or so of WBL into his/her weapon, so a Weapon of Legacy has to be at least as powerful as a weapon worth 50% of WBL in order to be worth using. And that means you're going to have to find a way to siphon off that much WBL or equivalent character resources - or else ditch the WBL system altogether and re-balance the game to work without it, which I wholeheartedly approve of but which is a rather substantial project.
I hate the quest idea. It looks cool and thematic and story-focused, but when you think about it, what it means is that the rest of the party has to go on a quest devoted to powering up Bob the Fighter's magic sword; not real interesting for them. And the DM has to find a way to cram some pregen quest (which, based on WotC's track record, will probably be a tedious hackfest) into the existing campaign arc.
As for deducting the gold piece value from the loot: IME, most groups split the profits from an adventure evenly among the party members, which means that instead of charging Bob the Fighter for his sword's fancy new powers and leaving everyone else's profits the same, you're charging Bob a mere 25% (in a 4-person party) of the cost of those fancy powers, and spreading the remaining 75% among the other PCs.
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Will
First Post
I've contemplated this 'substitute for buying an upgrade' idea (and written kinda bad ideas on the subject in past supplements).
One thing you could do:
Go on a quest to find the lost gem of Sankmar, which fits into the pommel of the High Tree's staff that you own.
When you finally find the lost gem, it's understood that the rest of the party gets the piles of loot that accompany it.
Other fun ways to 'buy' improvements:
Research (buying rare books, finding fine materials to experiment with, etc.)
Honoring the ancestors (buying a new temple, fixing up said temple, hiring folks to run the temple, have a huge feast for your ancestors, purification rituals with fine incense)
Repairing the item ('I've determined these grooves were actually platinum filigree' "Ouch. Sam, how much is that going to cost you?" 'Not nearly so much as the adamantine handgrip' "Gak")
One thing you could do:
Go on a quest to find the lost gem of Sankmar, which fits into the pommel of the High Tree's staff that you own.
When you finally find the lost gem, it's understood that the rest of the party gets the piles of loot that accompany it.
Other fun ways to 'buy' improvements:
Research (buying rare books, finding fine materials to experiment with, etc.)
Honoring the ancestors (buying a new temple, fixing up said temple, hiring folks to run the temple, have a huge feast for your ancestors, purification rituals with fine incense)
Repairing the item ('I've determined these grooves were actually platinum filigree' "Ouch. Sam, how much is that going to cost you?" 'Not nearly so much as the adamantine handgrip' "Gak")
Jeff Wilder
First Post
The feats required to use a legacy items are bonus feats, granted to the wielder as soon as a given ritual is completed. There isn't a feat cost associated with legacy items (despite the misinformation in this thread).
Just for curiosity's sake, I selected one legacy weapon more or less at random, for a comparison with crafting. I picked Durindana, Weapons of Legacy p. 75.
Final abilities: +4 holy undead bane longsword (98,000 gp), Saint's Grace [+2 resistance bonus to saves] (4,000 gp), Endure Evil [continuous protection from evil] (2,000 gp), Pelor's Gaze [daylight, 1/day)] (5,400 gp), Pelor's Baleful Eye [+4 levels for Turn Undead] (10,000 gp, conservatively?), Pelor's Protecting Grasp [death ward, 1/day] (10,080 gp), Hallowed Ground [hallow plus daylight, 1/day] (18,360 gp), Pelor's Dazzling Beneficence [total concealment for 15 rounds, c.f. displacement, 1/day] (16,200 gp).
Total Market Value (note that this ignores the x2 modifier for slotless items and the x1.5 modifier for multiple abilities): 164,040 gp.
Cost to Craft: 82,020 gp, 6560 xp, and Craft Magic Arms and Armor.
Cost as Item of Legacy: 55,200 gp, -2 to attacks, -3 to saves, 14 HP.
The cost of the item is high, but it's not as ridiculous as people are making it sound. The biggest drawback, as someone has alluded to, is that this weapon simply isn't powerful enough for a 20th level character, and (as far as I can remember) there aren't any rules for how you independently improve a legacy item.
Remathilis
Legend
An interesting breakdown on cost.
I considered doing the same with the Sunsword (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft). A +5 keen bastard sword which also has the powers of a sun-blade, beats silver-DR (without the -1 for being silvered), casts death ward 1/day, banishment (undead only) 1/day, and undeath to death 1/day.
Trade-off? 16 hp and -3 to skill checks.
I didn't do a math-crunch like Jeff did, but I'm sure you come out ahead (its equivalent to a +9 weapon BEFORE SLAs). Still, is it worth the cost?
One could enchant a sword to be a +5 keen sun blade without the bonus abilities and be just as happy WITHOUT the 16 hp and -3 skills, I guess.
pawsplay
Hero
Really? What's the gp cost of +2 to attacks, -3 to saves, and +14 hp? A good deal more than 27k, I think. A plage green ioun stone costs 30,000 by itself. But really, since these bonuses come "off the top" (ultimately limiting your highest bonus), the proper comparison is the top few tiers of enhancement bonuses for weapons and cloaks. Going from +3 to +5 costs 32,000 gp by itself, and typically, legacy weapons reach +4 or higher.
I thought that if you opted not to complete the quests for whatever reason, you could instead choose to take the legacy feats using your own feat slots to acquire the weapon's properties?
So that could mean up to 3 feats burnt.
Granted, I don't own the book, and my knowledge is based on what I can remember from the last time I browsed (okay, more like read it from cover to cover) through the book at Borders...
Remathilis
Legend
I thought that if you opted not to complete the quests for whatever reason, you could instead choose to take the legacy feats using your own feat slots to acquire the weapon's properties?
So that could mean up to 3 feats burnt.
Granted, I don't own the book, and my knowledge is based on what I can remember from the last time I browsed (okay, more like read it from cover to cover) through the book at Borders...
Your basically right; you could either blow hard-earned feats to unlock the legacy powers, OR do the quests. Generally, the quests are easier and cheaper than a feat.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Huh? A special ability that grants a +2 resistance bonus to saves and a penalty that causes a -3 penalty to saves?
FireLance
Legend
I found an old post of mine which might be relevant to the discussion:
I like the concept of an item that grows in power with the wielder, but don't like the idea of the penalties.
I can see why they are there - even with the legacy ritual costs, the items are underpriced for the powers they provide. Presumably, PCs with legacy items can buy other magic items with the money they save and thus be at about the same level of competence as PCs who do not have legacy items.
So for me, the next logical step was to use money to buy off the penalties.
I actually came up with a very complicated system that priced the cost of offsetting an attack penalty, a save penalty, a caster level penalty, the loss of a spell slot, etc. and was quite pleased to note that the overall cost for each legacy item were fairly close together.
Then, to simplify the system, I averaged the offset costs at each level and compared them to the standard wealth per level table. There was quite a lot of variation, ranging from 19.4% to 45.5%, but when I averaged those numbers, I got something very close to 33%.
Hence, my simplified rule of thumb for legacy items without penalties is that they should cost about one-third of the standard wealth that a PC should have at each level. In order to unlock the next level's ability, the PC should pay the difference in costs (ignore the cost of the mundane item).
Example: At 4th level, a PC's legacy item is simply a +1 longsword (cost: 2,000 gp, ignoring the base cost of 315 gp for a masterwork longsword). The standard wealth for a 5th-level PC is 9,000 gp, and one third of this is 3,000 gp. In order to unlock his legacy item's 5th-level ability, the PC has to pay 1,000 gp after he reaches 5th level. The standard wealth for a 6th-level PC is 13,000 gp, and one third of this is about 4,300 gp. In order to unlock his legacy item's 6th-level ability, the PC has to pay 1,300 gp after he reaches 6th level, and so on.
I can see why they are there - even with the legacy ritual costs, the items are underpriced for the powers they provide. Presumably, PCs with legacy items can buy other magic items with the money they save and thus be at about the same level of competence as PCs who do not have legacy items.
So for me, the next logical step was to use money to buy off the penalties.
I actually came up with a very complicated system that priced the cost of offsetting an attack penalty, a save penalty, a caster level penalty, the loss of a spell slot, etc. and was quite pleased to note that the overall cost for each legacy item were fairly close together.
Then, to simplify the system, I averaged the offset costs at each level and compared them to the standard wealth per level table. There was quite a lot of variation, ranging from 19.4% to 45.5%, but when I averaged those numbers, I got something very close to 33%.
Hence, my simplified rule of thumb for legacy items without penalties is that they should cost about one-third of the standard wealth that a PC should have at each level. In order to unlock the next level's ability, the PC should pay the difference in costs (ignore the cost of the mundane item).
Example: At 4th level, a PC's legacy item is simply a +1 longsword (cost: 2,000 gp, ignoring the base cost of 315 gp for a masterwork longsword). The standard wealth for a 5th-level PC is 9,000 gp, and one third of this is 3,000 gp. In order to unlock his legacy item's 5th-level ability, the PC has to pay 1,000 gp after he reaches 5th level. The standard wealth for a 6th-level PC is 13,000 gp, and one third of this is about 4,300 gp. In order to unlock his legacy item's 6th-level ability, the PC has to pay 1,300 gp after he reaches 6th level, and so on.
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