Holy swordings, Badman!!

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I apologise unreservedly for the title.

Anyway, now thats behind us:

What happens if a if a 1st level bad guy picks up a sword with one of these on it?

Holy: A holy weapon is imbued with holy power. Blah. Blah. Blah. It bestows one negative level on any evil creature attempting to wield it. The negative level remains as long as the weapon is in hand and disappears when the weapon is no longer wielded. This negative level never results in actual level loss, but it cannot be overcome in any way (including restoration spells) while the weapon is wielded. Snip.

I guess they get level drained to 0th level. Altough not permenantly...

Do they die, explode, melt, pass out, spawn as something else?

Anyone got any good answers?

For some reason, I have a vision of Paladinbots throwing holy avengers at orcs and shouting - "Catch!".

 

[Flyspeck23]

The level isn't drained to zero, and neither do they die or anything. They take a -1 penalty on nearly every roll (attack, skill checks, saves, ability checks IIRC), and loose 5 hit points. That won't cause them to die, but they might become unconscious.
Their effective level would be 0 for casting spells and such.

That's all there is to it. It's not a pleasant experience, but it's not lethal.

 

[hong]

BTB they die and come back as a wight when the sun goes down. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Feel free to ignore this in your game.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

BTB they die and come back as a wight when the sun goes down. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Feel free to ignore this in your game.

BTB - by the book?

Do you know where it says it?


Out of curiosity. Do you think they would be:

a)A free willed wight.
b)Under the control of the sword.
c)Under the control of the swords owner.
d)Something else?


You're quite right. This does seem non-sensical.

 

[hong]

BTB - by the book?

Do you know where it says it?

DMG p.293, Energy Drain and Negative Levels: "A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight."

Out of curiosity. Do you think they would be:

a)A free willed wight.
b)Under the control of the sword.
c)Under the control of the swords owner.
d)Something else?

Who knows?

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

DMG p.293, Energy Drain and Negative Levels: "A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight."

Curious.


I propose a recipe:

Take X 1st lvl orc warriors.

Make them hold the +5 Holy Lawful Keen sword, until they die.

Next night, they rise from the grave as X +5 Holy Keen Lawful swords.

Keep the original. Sell the rest to 'ye olde magic shoppe' for big $$$.

N.B. be careful not to flood the market.
N.B.2. Make very sure X is not too large, just in case you make wights instead of swords.

 

[heliopolix]

Take X 1st lvl orc warriors...

N.B.2. Make very sure X is not too large, just in case you make wights instead of swords.

Make X as large as your cleric buddy thinks he can handle.

Still, i can see it as an unusual way for an evil cleric to gain a bunch of wights he can (hopefully) command. Just as long as he's > lvl 1.

 

[Gnimish88]

The funny thing is, in one game I played, my fighter had a holy sword, and we had no cleric (I know, I know), so we used the sword as a way of determining the who was evil where possible, using a sort of ceremony where the fighter handed the person his sword to swear by or some such pretense, and a person with a high sense motive watched to see how they reacted to holding the sword. Never occured to me that we might kill someone that way...

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

The funny thing is, in one game I played, my fighter had a holy sword, and we had no cleric (I know, I know), so we used the sword as a way of determining the who was evil where possible, using a sort of ceremony where the fighter handed the person his sword to swear by or some such pretense, and a person with a high sense motive watched to see how they reacted to holding the sword. Never occured to me that we might kill someone that way...

Yikes. If the full on wight creation had been in force, that could have been an unexpected side effect

Cool way to use a holy weapon. I'll have to remember that one!

 

[DarkMaster]

Yikes. If the full on wight creation had been in force, that could have been an unexpected side effect

Cool way to use a holy weapon. I'll have to remember that one!

I am just questioning the fact that an holy weapon would cause the creation of an evil undead, maybe the wight created is good.

Disturbing