Intelligent Magic Swords? (2e AD&D)
- Thread starter James Gasik
- Start date
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Back in AD&D days we were flush with talking swords. Not so much since 5e.
Celebrim
Legend
Personality score of a sword is the combined score of its intelligence and ego - not it's Ego alone. That sword is dangerous. It outright murders most people that touch it (15 damage), and it's going to flat out dominate most relationships it has.
Reasonably common. They play a major role in the backstory of my homebrew world. I try to have at least one show up in any campaign I run because they are fun. I would probably not have one with that brutal of personality score though, because you risk turning a PC into an NPC.
Oh ok, I guess I need to re-read that section, I had thought Ego was the main component to consider, since the text says "any weapon with an Ego of 19 will consider itself superior to all characters".
It is strange then that the abilities of swords with high intelligence (languages, reading, telepathy) also increase their Ego scores...
Typical. "Hey, we made intelligent swords as a rules patch for Fighters; oh and 25% of the best weapons in the game have this feature! But of course, we can't give you a benefit without a ton of restrictions, so say hello to having your weapon dictate what your character does!"
I always chalked that up as someone or someones being big fans of Michael Moorcock.
Last edited:
rgard
Adventurer
Yes and Blackrazor comes to mind.
I know its not 2e, but I just looked in Old School Essentials to see what they have re: intelligent magic swords, and it reads: Pg 222 Referee's Tome. "Probability: If a referee wishes to randomly determine whether a magic sword is intelligent, the probability is 30%."
That's, like, a lot... Having started in Ad&d, I think we never paid that much attention to the probabilities of sentient swords, and left it to the DM to determine if any swords we encountered were sentient. And if they were, they were plot critical items in the adventure or the campaign, not some random treasure we'd find (again, unless plot critical).
Naturally, as mentioned by @Dannyalcatraz and @rgard, once we read Moorcock, then it was all about Stormbringer and then its second cousin Blackrazor. And oh yes, we went after Blackrazor...
And Mournblade, a.k.a. Ravenbrand.
Or the King of intelligent weapons you don't want to get near, Ebonbane.
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
OSE is taking that probability directly from B/X. (Cook Expert, specifically; Moldvay Basic doesn't have intelligent swords yet).
That "if a referee wishes" part is I think a nod to how it was often used in play. As I recall 1981 Expert doesn't present it as an optional rule.
I think your experience from AD&D was pretty common. Between the chance of intelligent swords being easier to overlook in AD&D's much more sprawling magic items section, and some DMs just not wanting to deal with the hassles of ego struggles and playing intelligent swords like additional NPCs, I think a lot of campaigns had fewer intelligent swords than the rules prescribe.
Voadam
Legend
The only AD&D intelligent weapons I remember off the top of my head from modules was the three from White Plume Mountain.
Scanning some of my PDFs I see there is one in the Temple of Elemental Evil. GDQ has two in the hill giant part and adds two for slave lords (that were not there in the original modules). Desert of Desolation has none.
I generated a number of random magic items for NPCs and starting higher level PCs in AD&D and don't remember ever doing an intelligent sword. I don't think I rolled on the 1e intelligent sword chart when doing so. Looking back at it, putting that in its own section instead of the general magic swords part really obscures that it is supposed to apply as a chance for all random magic swords.
Scanning some of my PDFs I see there is one in the Temple of Elemental Evil. GDQ has two in the hill giant part and adds two for slave lords (that were not there in the original modules). Desert of Desolation has none.
I generated a number of random magic items for NPCs and starting higher level PCs in AD&D and don't remember ever doing an intelligent sword. I don't think I rolled on the 1e intelligent sword chart when doing so. Looking back at it, putting that in its own section instead of the general magic swords part really obscures that it is supposed to apply as a chance for all random magic swords.
On a tangentially related note, I noticed in the 1e DMG there is a table for randomly determining an artifact, but I can't see any way to generate one as treasure. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think you should be able to generate artifacts randomly, and they should always be placed by the DM, but the existence of "Table III.E Special" (page 124) is just weird.
Celebrim
Legend
Table III Part 1 Miscellaneous Magic (3% of magic items) gives a 1% chance of a random Artifact appearing (on a roll of '17'). So in theory 3 in 10000 items in a random horde should be artifacts or relics, although I think there is a note warning the DM to be careful about placing artifacts.
Oh thanks, I don't know how many times I pored over those tables and didn't see that!
Voadam
Legend
It is also referenced on page 136
"Items are listed alphabetically. Artifacts and relics are listed (1%) on table E.1., directing the reader to E. Special for enumeration. These items are detailed after all other miscellaneous magic. If you do not desire such an item to occur, substitute a bag of beans, or the next item on the table."
"Items are listed alphabetically. Artifacts and relics are listed (1%) on table E.1., directing the reader to E. Special for enumeration. These items are detailed after all other miscellaneous magic. If you do not desire such an item to occur, substitute a bag of beans, or the next item on the table."
As I've pointed out many times as I stood in flames. DND was never designed to be a low magic or low resource game. Back in the day (70's 80's)if you went to a gaming club and played a game it was almost gaurranteed someone would have an intelligent sword. Which usually sucked because it had it's own agenda that didn't always line up with the party.
Ben from Periapt Games
Explorer
I think some DMs conveniently overlooked the rules because they're a bit of a hassle to manage with only a moderate payoff: there's some fiddly initial setup and then you have another intelligent entity around to track.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
It feels like the kind of thing that's good to do once per campaign, but unless you're playing things for laughs, I can't imagine anyone, players or DM, wants a half dozen magic items sharing their opinions, trying to get people killed, attempting to force the mortals into battle, etc.
One cool intelligent item at a time is probably best.
I can agree that nobody really wants a ton of Intelligent swords laying about the campaign. 25% seems awfully high, and while I know Gary intended for them to be a "cool thing" for Fighters, they seem to be more hassle than they are worth, having to track when the sword's personality might be able to dominate the Fighter's- a powerful sentient weapon can be a real monkey's paw.
I was just struck by the fact that the game is like "oh yeah, intelligent swords are more common than magic battle axes", which didn't quite match my experiences.
I was just struck by the fact that the game is like "oh yeah, intelligent swords are more common than magic battle axes", which didn't quite match my experiences.
Orius
Hero
More fun facts, alignment isn't evenly distributed across intelligent weapons either in AD&D. Randomly rolling alignment most often gives NG and TN weapons followed by LG, while CG, CE, and NE ones are rare. And since neutral weapons except for TN can be used by any character of the non-neutral part of the alignment, they tend to be toys of good warriors.
