A solid work for magic item fans
Legendary Weapons is the third series in the Artifacts of the Ages line. Starting with Swords and Staves (a print compilation of two books) and then moving onto Rings before making an appearance in both Unearthed Arcana and Arms & Armor 3.5, Artifacts of the Ages brings together a new set of items for characters of all classes. The book is edited by Marc Schmalz and features many names familiar to d20 fans including Owen K. C. Stephens, JD Wiken, Rich Redman, Sean K. Reynolds and Any Collins among others. This is a 43 page PDF that retails for $5.00 and is available from RPGNow.com
A legendary weapon is one that has a base set of powers but if the user follows a scion prc for that weapon, and each weapon has different requirements depending on it’s base powers and how powerful it can become, the user unlocks new abilities for the weapon. In other systems, this may require an experience point cost or the item has to be an artifact but it can be wielded by anyone. The scions PrCs mimic the core classes at a reduced rate, the reduced abilities being compensated for with the legendary weapon’s abilities.
Interior art is handled by Jacob Elijah Walker while the cover is by Clarence Harrison. The book uses standard two-column layout with the ‘interior’ side of the PDF using a watermarked image of an axe for a border.
The book starts off and notes the various appearances that the core prestige classes, the Scions (battle, spell, faith and swift) have appeared in and details how the book is assembled. However, you really don’t need any of those other books.
See, the book includes new variants of the scions for each type. Originally, the scions were based on the idea that your character would fall into one of the four main character types, fighter, mage, cleric or rogue, and gave the character abilities similar to those in his main class, but at a reduced amount. Now this left other classes like barbarians and monks at a distinct disadvantage.
This book tackles that issue with new variants for the different scions. What this means is that your barbarian doesn’t become more fighter like, but rather, gets his barbarian abilities latter than he normally would or that your druid doesn’t have to give up improving his wild shape abilities altogether. Best of all, the main scion types are also listed and even more impressive is that the authors have a specific weapon conversion with recommended variant scion classes for legendary items previously published by the Game Mechanics and Green Ronin. This makes a lot of sense and allows characters to continue to advance as the player originally wished while getting a unique item.
The book then starts right off into the different weapons. Each one starts with the name of the weapon, the designer, history, various DC checks for different skills, like knowledge history, the requirements to become a scion of the weapon, restrictions preventing a character from using the weapon, attributes, base information about the weapon, and then special abilities which increase as the user gains further levels in the scion PrC.
Let’s take a look at Gorgonheart, a heavy mace crafted from the flesh and bones of a dragon-gorgon. Anyone can use the weapon as a +1 heavy mace that has petrification resistance. To become a scion however, you have to have a base attack bonus of +5, Iron Will feat, a base Fortitude Save of +4 and have resisted a petrification attack in the past. The weapon must then be dipped in the blood of a creature with the petrification attack as a racial ability.
As the user progresses through the scion PrC, the weapon continues to improve in ability, at 10th level being equal to a +5 heavy mace. More importantly though, the user gains bonuses of another sort like Con and Str ability boosts and improved initiative. The user also gains a Petrifying Blow, casting a stone to flesh spell upon his target. Other abilities are also listed, giving the user a good reason to stay in the PrC through the entire progression.
If there’s anything I’m disappointed at, it’s that the book doesn’t follow through on one of the initial statements. The book claims that “One may find more exotic legendary weapons in these pages than one may initially expect.” Let’s examine the weapons here real quick; trident, composite longbow, urgrosh, bastard sword, falchion, greataxe, greatclub, heavy mace, greatclub, rapier, siangham, kama, punching dagger, guisarme, longsword, longsword, and heavy flail. Some not often used weapons are included here, but a lot of exotic weapons? No, not by any stretch of the imagination.
That’s a small flaw though. The histories are richly done and included various checks that allow a character with high skill ranks to fully understand where the weapon comes from. Many of the weapons have links to weapons in the previous book, giving that whole ‘legendary’ world where these weapons are taken from more depth and background than some current campaign settings have. Each weapon have an adventure hook so that if the GM wants to quickly include the weapon in his campaign, it’s not a problem.
Speaking outside of the game mechanics, there is one problem with the items. Not everyone is going to want to enter the scion PrCs, even with the more generous alternatives included here for variants of the core four. In addition, some campaigns might feel a little too magic rich if everyone is using such a weapon. In my Forgotten Realms campaign, I’ve been using Draakhoorn, the Dragon’s Doom, a great sword meant for a spell scion and right now, the user is at 6th level of his PrC. I’ve gotten a lot of use out of the various hooks for that character from the book and it always amuses some to see a mage wielding a greatsword. However, it’s only one item from a book of them.
I imagine that these would work well for themed groups or for the GM whose always running short campaigns and wants heroes of multiple worlds wielding unique items that grow in power with them.
For anyone looking for a good collection of unique magic weapons with history and adventure seeds just waiting for campaign inclusion, Legendary Weapons is perfect for you.
