Tell me about weapons of legacy

[Olaf the Stout]

I don't have the book anymore so I can't look it up to be specific here, sorry.

I got the impression that you were talking about the Legacy feats. These were the feats that you got after performing one of the rituals related to the legacy item. These feats were bonus feats that you got upon successfully completing the ritual. You didn't have to spend a feat slot on them as well. If you did then the Weapons of Legacy certainly wouldn't be worth the cost.

Olaf the Stout

 

[GQuail]

I don't have the book anymore so I can't look it up to be specific here, sorry.

Well, like Olaf says, the feats that are required to use the items are free with the ritual - albeit a ritual that requires some sort of in-character task, and a decent gold expenditure.

There are feats which allow you to improve usage of certain abilites (for example, spell like abilites can be empowered) but they are by no means obligatory to make such an item worthwhile. (that's perhaps a matter of opinion, of course - but I'm pretty sure the kind of spells that such items are packing are relevant enough at the appropriate levels.)

My game uses Weapons of Legacy a bit - one Half-Orc barbarian PC has a dragonbane Greataxe, the Dwarf Wizard has a Quarterstaff that's acquiring powers connected to astrology and time. They're at level 11 now, and just reaching the stage where further progress must be made to make the items next set of advances kick in - and the Half-Orc player in paticular in champing at the bit to get them.

Yes, the penalities are there, and some people might find them counterintuitive - why should a magical weapon that gives you pluses to hit also give you a negative to BAB? But then, my group were pretty cool with the "Stormbringer-style magical weapon which changes you" approach, and in both cases that I've used them it's been for ancient items where it's easy to imaginee them being a hindrance as well as a boon because of all the power invested in them. People who cannot see beyond the losses of HP or to hit are really missing the scale of these things, IMHO - like Heap says, it's not so much as to make a character incompetant in battle or anything. How big a deal is a lost 3rd level slot, or a -2 to all saves? You'll notice it, but considering you're somewhat ahead of the treasure curve now, it's a clear tradeoff.

Weapons Of Legacy is a pretty cool book, in my opinion. The exact rules are perhaps something for personal taste, and how bad the penalties and how strong the items can be flavoured to taste - if you're comfortable with the power level it will produce, chucking all the negativesand using the power scaling option is just as valid a way of doing things..

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I think the idea of Weapons of Legacy is very cool. It's not that DMs have been incapable for decades of creating powerful weapons, but it's nice that the designers recognized that it's fun to have a weapon grow with a character. It's also good that they recognized that truly powerful items do need to be balanced out somehow.

I'm one of those people who has felt for years and years that D&D is too much about what a character owns, and not what the character himself can do. Even so, I disagree that Weapons of Legacy exemplifies that negative aspect of the system. First, Weapons of Legacy is all about finding a reason not to have "disposable" items, but rather to forge a link with a once-or-future heirloom item. Second, the powerful weapons tend to replace multiple other items the character in question might otherwise own and use.

All that said, I was also taken aback by the penalties associated with the weapons. I found myself thinking, "Wait ... I have to take a -3 to attacks in order to unlock the +4 of the weapon?" I don't particularly like that aspect of the system, perhaps especially because they didn't really offer any game-world explanations for why legacy weapons would behave that way.

On the other hand, I find myself puzzled by the implicit idea behind some of the posts above that legacy weapons should have been offered "as is" without something balancing their drastically lowered cost. I've given it quite a bit of thought, and I'm not sure how to implement such balance, other than the way the designers did it.

My thoughts behind giving the players Weapons of Legacy "as is", without any of the negatives was that, as written, the negatives seem to put a lot of people off wanting a Weapon of Legacy. I love the idea of weapons that grow in power with the player, instead of being throw away, so to speak, when a better one comes along. I tried to think up a better balancing system for the weapons but couldn't. I figured that as long as each of the players had 1 item each it wouldn't matter that they were unbalanced compared to players without a legacy weapon. As long as no PC in the party is much more powerful than any other PC it doesn't matter. If they start waltzing through encounters I can just up the challenges.

It works for me. Your experience may vary.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Gundark]

When you hit someone with them, they don't take damage until three or four rounds later.

D'oh!!!!!!

 

[Valesin]

I also hated the mechanics of how the Legacy Items worked, so I came up with my own mechanic where, instead of having cumulative penalties, you spend action points to activate some of the more esoteric item abilities. Each item has an 'always on' ability that improves with level (although much more slowly than the standard items) and other abilities that are acivated for X amount of time by spending action points.

A also give out more APs in my game than the Eberron standard, which helps.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

The book isn't perfect, sure.

But it's a full hardbound book that was professionally put together that covers ground that, until that point, had mostly been covered by feats, articles in Dragon, or part of a chapter in a book devoted to other things.

I think it's ahead of what's come before it.

The BIGGEST issue, I think, with the book is that it puts something hotly desired by PLAYERS, big cool magical items that grow with their user ... but counters it with something that 90% of players are going to react on a base emotional level negatively to ... nerfing their character (or character costs).

Other systems focused on "taking a feat" ... that's a character cost, but one players are more open to because they feel like they are actively taking MORE POWER ... "I take this feat, I get a cool weapon" as opposed to "I take this feat, I can't take another feat".

Some have used "Prestige Classes" ... which are, again, a character cost ... you're taking a level in this PrC which doesn't advance your BAB as far as a level of Fighter, or that doesn't advance your save as much as a level of Wizard, or doesn't give you as many HP as a level of Cleric. Again, players are open to this because they are TAKING MORE POWER ... they "take" a "level" of a class, that's an increase, that's growth ... nevermind that taking this level is a nerf compared to a similar level of another class ... which is the point. The class itself is the character cost, by providing less-than-optimal advancement as a trade to the more powerful weapon.

WoLegacy's problem was they didn't sugar coat it enough to get past the player gag reflex. You get the item ... sweet ... but penalties are the DONE TO YOU. The player is no longer the actor here, the item is. The item is "doing things to" his character ... nevermind that it's actually LESS PENALIZING than a level of a sub-optimal PrC (like those found in Unearthed Arcana, and I did the math). The fact is the item becomes the actor and INFLICTS character costs on the PC instead of the player being the actor and TAKING something less optimal.

Players just aren't going to like it. It works to their advantage, really. The PrC method, you're losing out on actual BAB ... taking, for instance, a class with 3/4 BAB instead of 1/1 BAB might net you out the same lower attack bonus as, say, a WoL giving you -2 to attacks. But that lower BAB slugs your iterative attack progression, the rate you qualify for other feats, etc. The attack penalty is actually SUPERIOR for character power.

I think it's a superior system ... but it was obviously designed in a vaccuum. It didn't take into account player psychology successfully.

--fje

 

[MerricB]

The penalties add up over time and really, imo, reduce the overall effectiveness of the item and the character. Additionally, when you are paying gold and XP for something already, I don't agree you should get more penalties stacked on top.

XP? You lose XP as well? Where does it say that?

There's a minor XP penalty if the PC himself is creating the legacy item, but that's it.

If you want Weapons of Legacy to work with only a gold cost, it's 2,000 GP for each of levels 5-10, 6,000 gp for each of levels 11-16, and 36,000 gp for each of levels 17-20. (A total gold cost of about 190,000 gp, rather than the 50,000 gp you actually pay plus penalties).

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

I think it's a superior system ... but it was obviously designed in a vaccuum. It didn't take into account player psychology successfully.

Very nice assessment. I agree.

WoL's triumph is that it allows the player to retain the abilities granted by the class choices they've made without forcing them to take superfluous feats or prestige classes. It's weakness is that the stark penalties are obviously severe.

Cheers!

 

[Gargoyle]

I've had this book for a while, and like so many others I love the concept but hate the implementation, for most of the above reasons.

I would compare owning a legacy item to paying taxes. You pay income tax. And state income tax. Then you pay sales tax on a purchase of property. Then you pay property tax. It feels like you're getting penalized too much, even if your taxes are low.

WoL are given as a reward in a treasure. Then you spend time and money researching its history. Then you spend money for a ritual. Then you have penalties to various stats, at least one of which is probably important to you. Then you pay for another ritual, etc. Sometimes the penalties take away things that you just gained...for instance the Bones of Li-Peng become +2 nunchaku at 7th level, and you also get a -1 attack penalty (something every monk needs I'm sure). The Scarab of Aradros is a scarab of resistance +1 at 5th level, but you get a -1 to all saves at 6th. It's just a bit annoying.

If I ever place these as treasure, then I think I'll just have them ignore the penalties and the ritual costs completely, and charge a single feat to unlock all the abilities available to them a their level, and let them have the feat back after some time if they ever lose the item or want to sever the bond.

 

[Gargoyle]

The BIGGEST issue, I think, with the book is that it puts something hotly desired by PLAYERS, big cool magical items that grow with their user ... but counters it with something that 90% of players are going to react on a base emotional level negatively to ... nerfing their character (or character costs).

This sums it up quite nicely.