Legacy Item Penalty Question

[RUMBLETiGER]

The legacy items indicate penalties starting at level 5-20.

If you were to access a Legacy Item and tap into it at, lets say, level 15, would all the penalties retroactively apply, up to the level of legacy abilities you have access to?

 

[SkyCAM]

Yes they would since you need to complete all the rituals up to the point where you can use the item.

But seriously penalties for magic items? Wizard / clerics losing spell level slots? As a DM I loved the introduction of legacy items since they allow nice balancing and the characters loved to get something new out of the item with each advancing level. Since the ritual cost are pretty high anyway and the legacy item isn't even an artifact we decided as a house rule to just ignore the penalties associated with the legacy item. Why in the nine hells would any sane player character otherwise ever pick up such a thing?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I forgot I posted this thread. Thanks for your answer.

I've always conceptualized the penalties from Legacy Weapons as part of balancing what is like granting class abilities from a weapon. Many of the things a Legacy Weapon can do are flavored like class abilities, and therefore appear acceptable to me with (some) of the penalties incurred.

With that said, it also helps that you don't end up paying a bazillion dollars for Legacy Weapons like you'd invest into a magical item. If I had to pay a ton to get a nifty weapon, I'd feel ripped off. With this in mind, I see Legacy weapons as quest items or DM-granted rewards.

 

[SkyCAM]

I really loved the idea that legacy weapons gave the players sort of minor artifacts early in the game and that they could harnish their abilities over their natural progression. We played the Yuan-Ti adventure path and there were plenty of nice legacy weapons in there which i substituted for other legacy items if I saw it fit. The big difference to relic items for me is, that the players got very nice abilities but none of them seamed out of proportion. That is one of the reasons I'm troubled as a master to hand out (even minor) artifacts. Artifacts or relic items have almost no major game impact at a later point of a high level campaign since the players are way to strong. For me playing a arcane caster myself a lot the main reason I want an artifact for is to get sort of "immune" to Mordenkainen's Disjunction.
But looking at a particular item from the Sinister Spire adventure there is a staff called Banrhialorg in there. Very cool for a wizard to have but at the applied penalties? I think not. Completing all rituals costs the player 60,500 GP. Plus -2 CL, -1 skill checks, -2 spell save and a hefty spell slot level loss (up to 8th). Seriously no wizard would except those penalties when he can have all the abilities from other items costing about as much or from spells he can cast.
I just picked up the copy of the adventure and read throug the text. As for your initial question it seems to depend on the item if the penalties are cumulative or not. The text for the staff reads as follows:
"For Banrhialorg, the penalties are not cumulative. Each penalty replaces ones that came before it"
Again I loved the idea of the rituals because they give the player the chance to develop their characters. Getting the required information about the legacy of the item can be an adventure in itself. If you think the item's powers are to strong for the group I'd just at least try to balance them out a bit. CL penalty for a wizard is an absolute no go for example if you ask me.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

oh, right. Rituals cost money. I forgot to consider that.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

What irritated me about Legacy items wasn't that they had penalties, but they weren't commensurate to the benefits they granted.

An unappealing combination of weapon abilities and a few funky SLAs that I have to remember and that have CLs so low that everything you fight will save against them are really not worth attack, save, hit point, and skill point penalties in my book.

That the book used a larger font size than any other release didn't help matters much.

I know I've said this in just about every thread on legacy weapons, but I'd rather spend more money on an item that I wanted than to throw gold down the drain on a crappy legacy weapon.

Hell, I'd have it sharded by an artificer for XP to make other weapons, and to save some other adventurer from making the mistake of investing in it.

Brad

 

[frankthedm]

[MENTION=5122]Jeff Wilder[/MENTION] had a decent post on the subject.

From what I've been able to tell, the main beef against Weapons of Legacy is that the rules actually expect you to pay meaningful penalties for weapon powers that are far, far beyond what you'd normally get for the same amount of gold.

People would have been fine, for instance, if the penalties for a weapon's combat powers were things like "-2 on Diplomacy checks," because for the vast majority of melee-oriented PCs, "-2 on Diplomacy checks" is meaningless. On the other hand, "-4 HP" or "-1 to all attacks" is a trade-off that isn't a no-brainer.

In other words, weapons of legacy, by the book, were balanced, and that's not what people -- me, included, at first -- expected. As such, using them is mostly a matter of whether the DM and the players want the flavor of a weapon that grows in power with the character.

Can DMs and players work out another way of doing a similar idea, without the inherent balance of meaningful game-mechanical penalties? Of course, and in many games that will be a superior way to do things. But if you want weapons of legacy that are game-mechanically balanced, and already created for you (including rules for making your own), Weapons of Legacy is a fine book.

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.

Some links...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/269815-experiences-weapons-legacy.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/161902-weapons-legacy-opinions.html

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Really, I only created this thread here because of the PrC from the book I was using to make the build in this thread.

I went thru the entire book and selected the least-seemingly obtrusive Legacy Item. I think I like Lorestealer for a Warlock build, since Warlocks don't technically cast spells.

 

[CL_meister]

We had a campaign that used them, and there was just no easy way to find the rituals to power up the items, so basically we had inferior weapons for our levels with a few very low level special abilities. But at least our DM didn't impose the penalties on us.