[OT?] Fred Saberhagen's Sword books & D&D

[Mort]

I seem to remember Shieldbreaker not being able to harm animals...

Heck, a 1st level peasent can defeat the wielder of Shieldbreaker, if he puts down his club first.

The gimmick in the book was a very few people knew the specific strengths and weaknesses of the Swords.

This idea would be most effective in a D&D setting if NONE of your players had read the books. Don't tell them about the books, except maybe mention that you stole this idea somewhere. They can discover the powers (and vulneribilities) of the Swords on their own.

Also, in the books, the Swords have a habit (magical? who knows)of changing owners regularly. You don't want each party member to be waltzing around with a Sword all the time.

You can steal adventure ideas from the books. A man with Wayfinder is hiring people to loot the main vault of X temple/bank... The party is hired to deliver Stonecutter to a noble who needs it to dig out a bandit lair... Farslayer has been wreaking havok among feuding families, but suddenly vanished from the scene.... A new gambler is always winning and the casino wants to know why (Coinspinner)... They must use Sightblinder to infiltrate the camp of a warlord with the MindSword to rescue a princess.... etc....

But they should rarely be able to keep a Sword beyond the adventure they need it for.

I'm pretty sure no one in my group has read the books and have been toying with the idea of introducing some of the swords.

The problem is something like that can take over the campaign and I'm not sure I want to go there.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Also, in the books, the Swords have a habit (magical? who knows)of changing owners regularly. You don't want each party member to be waltzing around with a Sword all the time.

Coinspinner (speaking of swords that I have no idea how to model the powers of) has this explicitely as one of its properties -- you can't keep hold of it for long.

Farslayer, of course, has this as a natural side effect of its abilities -- to use it, you gotta lose it.

The rest probably just tend to turnover because they're highly, highly sought after magical artifacts that tend to incite people to do the whole "kill you and take your stuff" thing.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

I don't know. The characters are always talking about the incredible superiority of these blades to any they have handled before, even when the enchantments are not activated. They always talked about their uneartly perfection, unnatrually keen and hard blades, and wholly remarkable metal.
What do the enchantments of a D&D world really do except make blades super-keen and super-tough?

I guess I'm just not seeing "+5, Keen, Vorpal." I could maybe get behind "+2." Remember that the people of Saberhagen's world aren't used to dealing with overtly magical weapons.

Also, it ignores all armor bonuses....

That's probably a good mechanic, yeah -- and it'd be just about perfect for Dragonslayer: It makes touch attacks versus Dragons.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I guess I'm just not seeing "+5, Keen, Vorpal." I could maybe get behind "+2." Remember that the people of Saberhagen's world aren't used to dealing with overtly magical weapons.

You're right.
But they also don't exist in a world with other magical weapons. In a world where every captain of the guard has a +2 weapon, the Swords need to be a bit more special.

That's probably a good mechanic, yeah -- and it'd be just about perfect for Dragonslayer: It makes touch attacks versus Dragons.

And renders them immune to draconic breath weapons and draconic magic. Always deals critical hits for x3. Grant's wielder +20 to AC versus dragon attacks.
Dragons are bigger and tougher in D&D than they are in Saberhagen. If the Sword doesn't let a low level fighter take out an Adult Red Dragon single handed, it's not powerful enough.

Always keep in mind that these are God Forged Ultra-Major Artifacts.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Well, there are two different approaches to this:

Do you want a faithful conversion of Saberhagen's Swords to D&D terms?

Or do you want D&D items that have the same impact on a typical Greyhawk-Like D&D worlds that Saberhagen's Swords did on Saberhagen's world?

The two methods are likely to yield wildly dissimilar results.

 

[Dark Eternal]

Well, there are two different approaches to this:

Do you want a faithful conversion of Saberhagen's Swords to D&D terms?

Or do you want D&D items that have the same impact on a typical Greyhawk-Like D&D worlds that Saberhagen's Swords did on Saberhagen's world?

The two methods are likely to yield wildly dissimilar results.

I agree. And I think that it would be just as fun to try it either way. If you were to faithfully reproduce the Swords, then design a campaign world in which to use them that had the same general ambivilance of Saberhagen's setting, I think that could provide for some very interesting gaming. In this case, however, you would almost have to build the campaign around the Swords. They would be the primary plot devices in such a setting.

If you do it the other way, then you can add the resulting Swords to a pre-existing campaign setting (which is much easier to do!), and they don't necessarily have to be the center of the campaign. Rather, they could become a major device in whatever the central plot of your pre-existing campaign is.

The third option - and the one that most appeals to me - is to create an entirely new set of weapons; instead of reproducing the Swords, reproduce the concept that they are based on. Come up with unique powers. Then introduce them into the game in a similar fashion to how the gods unleashed the Swords. Using this setup, you completely negate the question of whether any of your players have read the books, and know the secrets of the Swords. You could go with either of the above scenarios - build a new world and start a new campaign centered around your god weapons, or introduce them as a sub-plot (albiet a significant and very influencial sub-plot) in an existing campaign.

No matter which of these you do, I have to agree Merak completely on one point - these aren't items the players get to keep. Somehow, the weapons have to find their way away from the PC's. Also, there should never be a point when the players have the majority of the weapons in the party's possession. Or, if they ever do, play it out the way it did in the books. Anyone who has even one of these weapons becomes a target for all the powerful and influencial people in the world who want the weapons for themselves. If the party has most of them, then everyone will be trying to find them and get the weapons - being able to net several of these things in one shot, after all, would immediately make whoever accomplished it one of the most powerful people in the world.

I'd really like to get some more input regarding all of your thoughts on the matter - it's nice to have someone to bounce ideas and suggestions off of, and get feedback from!