How to make an Unholy item safe for use?

[Damon Griffin]

Short of Wish, Limited Wish or Miracle, does anyone know of a way that the Unholy weapon quality might be removed from a weapon? or flipping the alignment so that it becomes a Holy weapon instead?

Our party just captured a fairly cool weapon -- a repeating crossbow a 100-shot capacity (extradimensional clip) being used by an assassin. Since the weapon's Unholy and we're all good aligned characters, we can't really use the thing as is. But like the man said "If it could be turned, it would be a powerful ally."

I can't find any spell other than the three listed above that look like they'd have any effect. What about using the normal rules for upgrading magic items? Any qualified spellcaster could take this weapon and add qualities to it via the rules for magic item creation; can those same rules be exploited to remove existing qualities, or substitute one for another?

I'm crossposting this to House Rules, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking an existing rule option, hence this message.

 

[Painfully]

As a DM, I cannot see it happening, even with a wish spell. You would have to "unmake" the unholy quality first, and then make it into a holy weapon. Why go through the trouble?

It like trying to make a flaming weapon into a frost weapon. You are asking to change something from one extreme quality to another, each of them diametrically opposed.

Perhaps something about the way it was created prevents it from ever being made into its opposite. For instance, a holy weapon might have to be blessed by a celestial, while an unholy weapon has to be soaked in the blood of a devil. Thus, a holy weapon's blessing protects it from the qualities of devil's blood, while objects tainted with devil's blood prevent good blessings from having any effect.

Strictly rules wise, I don't think you are going to find any clear answers. This is really the domain of your DM. But what you can do is to have your characters spend some time and money to study how unholy weapons are made. Chances are your average adventurer doesn't know much about holy/unholy weapons without a high knowledge skill. So find somebody who has that knowledge, even if they might be a devil, or a deity. Somebody has to know the answer. The fun part is working it out in the game, and in character.

Good luck!

 

[Zhure]

A successful UMD check?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I'd allow it, but it would be difficult. The party could either embark on a quest to have the weapon cleansed of evil by a powerful Good Creature (perhaps an Astral Deva or even a Planetar,) or they could pay to have a wizard bestow the Holy property on the weapon.

But choosing the wizard has its downside. The Holy and Unholy properties would cancel out, but the weapon would still be considered +5 with regards to further enchantment costs. That is, a +1 Unholy weapon is overall +3. Getting the Unholy cancelled would require the weapon be upgraded with Holy (to a total of +5.) Afterward the weapon would effectively be a +1 weapon (Holy and Unholy negating each other) but count as a +5 weapon for any further enchantment costs.

 

[Damon Griffin]

I'd allow it, but it would be difficult. The party could either embark on a quest to have the weapon cleansed of evil by a powerful Good Creature (perhaps an Astral Deva or even a Planetar,) or they could pay to have a wizard bestow the Holy property on the weapon.

An elegant suggestion, which I've passed on to my DM for consideration.

Our party wizard could even attempt this once he gets one more experience level under his belt. He's currently 9th level, and took Craft Magic Arms & Armor as his 9th level feat. But since he's good aligned, and suffers a negative level just by handling the weapon...

EDIT: I heard back from my DM, who said the above solution might be allowable, but then revealed enough information about the weapon to demonstrate that it's not economical in this case.

The crossbow turns out to be +3, unholy(+2) and quick-loading(+2), so we'd have to pay to turn a +7 weapon into a +9 weapon. Much cheaper to just destroy this one and build a new +5 weapon from scratch.

 

[coyote6]

Our party wizard could even attempt this once he gets one more experience level under his belt. He's currently 9th level, and took Craft Magic Arms & Armor as his 9th level feat. But since he's good aligned, and suffers a negative level just by handling the weapon...

If the weapon becomes both holy and unholy, then both good and evil folks will get a negative level for handling it.

It'd be a great weapon for some militant neutral type, wouldn't it?

 

[Damon Griffin]

If the weapon becomes both holy and unholy, then both good and evil folks will get a negative level for handling it.

It'd be a great weapon for some militant neutral type, wouldn't it?

We have a Lawful Neutral rogue, and he is the one who captured the weapon, so he'd be entitled to it. But we also have a Seriously Good cleric in the group, who would just be completely creeped out by letting him use an Unholy weapon as is.

The hope was that the two qualities would counter and cancel each other out, as certain Good and Evil spells do.

 

[Shin Okada]

But like the man said "If it could be turned, it would be a powerful ally."

Somehow, I got a feeling that it alway fails ....

But anyway, by examining that crossbow, your ally mage could make smiler weapon (neutral one, or good counterpart) by himself.

If your party need to get money for this, maybe you can convince some good authority (temple or something) to "extradite" that unholy weapon. A good temple don't like that evil weapon to be exist. But you happen to have it and can sell it to possibly-evil guys if you want. So a good authority may pay you money to get it and break or seal eternally.

 

[Damon Griffin]

Re: Re: How to make an Unholy item safe for use?

But anyway, by examining that crossbow, your ally mage could make smiler weapon (neutral one, or good counterpart) by himself.

If your party need to get money for this, maybe you can convince some good authority (temple or something) to "extradite" that unholy weapon. A good temple don't like that evil weapon to be exist. But you happen to have it and can sell it to possibly-evil guys if you want. So a good authority may pay you money to get it and break or seal eternally.

Uh, no. Our cleric would go ballistic if we tried a stunt like that (either selling to evil types, or coercing the good aligned clergy to buy it from us so we don't sell it to evil types). Since our cleric also happens to be my wife (in real life, not in the game), I don't want that to happen.

Fortunately, all of have either enough moral fiber, or enough enlightened self interest, NOT to try to sell a +3 unholy quick-loading crossbow to the sort of people who would cheerfully turn around and try to kill us with it.

 

[Shin Okada]

Since our cleric also happens to be my wife (in real life, not in the game), I don't want that to happen.

Wow! So a cleric in the gaming world and a wife in the real world? What an extreme power gaming .....