Intelligent Magic Swords? (2e AD&D)

[zenfr0g]

Remembering back to my days of playing and DMing AD&D as a young lad, intelligent magic weapons tended to float more towards detect things like enemies (e.g. Sting) and less full blown intelligent weapons (e.g. Mournblade). One DM in our extended group, loved to toy with them and you learned the hard way not to touch any intelligent magic items in his campaign unless you were not very attached to your character. So, pretty much a thing that depended on your DM.

While White Plume Mountain is most well for it's named (and kind of over powered) magic items, I think Ed Greenwood and his column in Dragon magazine is where named magical items blossomed. He was terrific about writing about unique magical items that had these interesting back stories and abilities that were not stupidly overpowered.

 

[James Gasik]

Remembering back to my days of playing and DMing AD&D as a young lad, intelligent magic weapons tended to float more towards detect things like enemies (e.g. Sting) and less full blown intelligent weapons (e.g. Mournblade). One DM in our extended group, loved to toy with them and you learned the hard way not to touch any intelligent magic items in his campaign unless you were not very attached to your character. So, pretty much a thing that depended on your DM.

While White Plume Mountain is most well for it's named (and kind of over powered) magic items, I think Ed Greenwood and his column in Dragon magazine is where named magical items blossomed. He was terrific about writing about unique magical items that had these interesting back stories and abilities that were not stupidly overpowered.

The Magister was one of my favorite supplements; Ed could make a fairly simple magic item seem cool by giving it a history and some flavorful effects. A sword that drains potions and scrolls for power? A shield that turns into a bridge?

I wanted cool stuff like this, but many of my DM's were terrified of numerical advantages and so shied away from magic items. And I can't 100% blame them, there really are items that completely warp game balance out of proportion- a Holy Avenger in the hands of a Paladin suddenly makes evil spellcasters a joke, there's a lot to remember when a Ring of Free Action is in play, and a Helm of Brilliance will temporarily turn your Fighter into an avatar of destruction until he burns out all the gems!

 

[Lanefan]

I wanted cool stuff like this, but many of my DM's were terrified of numerical advantages and so shied away from magic items. And I can't 100% blame them, there really are items that completely warp game balance out of proportion- a Holy Avenger in the hands of a Paladin suddenly makes evil spellcasters a joke, there's a lot to remember when a Ring of Free Action is in play, and a Helm of Brilliance will temporarily turn your Fighter into an avatar of destruction until he burns out all the gems!

Part of the joy as DM is coming up with ideas for new items and properties that are a) fun in play and b) not broken. Recent example: a visored full helm that allows unimpeded vision and hearing to the wearer...but only when the visor is down.

I've come up with many a ruling for Rings of Free Action, not all of them beneficial to the wearer. For example, water no longer impedes your progress, meaning that if you fall out of a boat it's like jumping out of a plane - you're in free fall until you hit the bottom.

Never DMed a Helm of Brilliance...or a Holy Avenger, for all that, though there's not been much call for those as Paladins are rare in my games.

 

[James Gasik]

Part of the joy as DM is coming up with ideas for new items and properties that are a) fun in play and b) not broken. Recent example: a visored full helm that allows unimpeded vision and hearing to the wearer...but only when the visor is down.

I've come up with many a ruling for Rings of Free Action, not all of them beneficial to the wearer. For example, water no longer impedes your progress, meaning that if you fall out of a boat it's like jumping out of a plane - you're in free fall until you hit the bottom.

Never DMed a Helm of Brilliance...or a Holy Avenger, for all that, though there's not been much call for those as Paladins are rare in my games.

The "frictionless water" ruling is one I've seen before, but in my mind, it counters the spirit of the effect- "move and attack normally" to me, means things that affect the movement of the person the spell is cast upon, not forced movement due to things like gravity.

And, in fact, if gravity is something that impedes movement, then don't jump, because you'll find yourself in Wildspace, lol.

 

[Orius]

a Helm of Brilliance will temporarily turn your Fighter into an avatar of destruction until he burns out all the gems!

Or a well-placed spell incinerates him...

 

[Lanefan]

The "frictionless water" ruling is one I've seen before, but in my mind, it counters the spirit of the effect- "move and attack normally" to me, means things that affect the movement of the person the spell is cast upon, not forced movement due to things like gravity.

And, in fact, if gravity is something that impedes movement, then don't jump, because you'll find yourself in Wildspace, lol.

Solid things impede movement also and an R of FA doesn't help get through those. Which means gravity works as normal. Things that try to bind you don't work but if you're confined into a very small space you're still stuck there. But water - yeah, that might as well not exist for you - you move normally through it (where "normal" means as if it wasn't there), meaning you also fall normally through it.

 

[James Gasik]

Solid things impede movement also and an R of FA doesn't help get through those. Which means gravity works as normal. Things that try to bind you don't work but if you're confined into a very small space you're still stuck there. But water - yeah, that might as well not exist for you - you move normally through it (where "normal" means as if it wasn't there), meaning you also fall normally through it.

I could have sworn there was a Sage Advice on this topic, but I wouldn't even know where to start looking- literally hundreds of questions were answered in Dragon over the years, and most were quite silly, lol.

So would you rule that a character falling while under the effects of Free Action/Freedom of Movement couldn't benefit from Feather Fall?

 

[Lanefan]

I could have sworn there was a Sage Advice on this topic, but I wouldn't even know where to start looking- literally hundreds of questions were answered in Dragon over the years, and most were quite silly, lol.

I learned pretty young to ignore SA. Still hold that view today.

So would you rule that a character falling while under the effects of Free Action/Freedom of Movement couldn't benefit from Feather Fall?

Hmmm....I've always* allowed it to work but now you've got me thinking...maybe it in fact shouldn't work. Nice catch. (I'll direct the complaints from my players your way...)

* - on those rather rare occasions Featherfall ever gets cast. It more often appears as a property of some magic device or other and even then doesn't arise often.

 

[nevin]

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.

that makes sense. how many people are going to make a CN weapon ?

 

[Voadam]

that makes sense. how many people are going to make a CN weapon ?