Tell me about weapons of legacy

[cignus_pfaccari]

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.

Also...the benefits don't appear to be worth the costs, at least for me. The weapons etc seem to be cool, but not really cool enough to justify the penalties.

Brad

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Another addendum ...

I do think that some of the provided WoL are ... subpar. Design-wise. They actually serve to HEIGHTEN the gag-factor for players because, as shown, they'll do something like ... give a +1 Resistance to saves ... then give a -1 to saves ... which just says: "I'm churning water here."

Instead it would be better to design the items with non-other-item-bonuses ... swords that give +1 to saves and -1 to saves aren't that much fun. Swords that are better swords, or which give you some special bonus for fighting undead, or which cast an attack spell thematic to the sword, etc etc. Those are cool. Then it's just a -1 to Saves instead of churning water.

Poor unique item design for some of the items isn't to say the system is bad. If folks notice, I used mine to enhance what my character DOES, by using some of the more flavorful bonuses ... +1 to Cleric Level for turning undead, Undead Bane, Protection from Evil, etc. I didn't, say, add +2 Con (Hit points for the HP I lost ... ugh) or Random Spell 1/Day (to replace the spell slot I lose). It accentuates the anti-undead beatstick factor instead of trying to shore up its own penalties ... I take them, I ignore them.

It's probably more fun for players when they get to design their own. I'll say that. Especially when you can tie it to the adventure and write the history and all that other stuff. Or if you can tie the item into the adventure as the GM ...

For instance, in this Age of Worms campaign, I've been hoping we'd find like a Legacy item of the Wind Dukes that would have lightning and air powers and whatnot that would grow and tie itself to the game.

The designers sort of did a no-penalty thing by handing out an item early that appeared to be (and gave the bonuses of) a minor item ... then later when "something happens" it becomes a nicer item (if you weren't a sucker and sold it) ... but of course, when that happens, it's already accounted for in the total character wealth AND is of the appropriate level before you can do it, etc etc. Less treasure is given out to account for this item that's already there becoming "better".

--fje

 

[MerricB]

One of the few "really cool" abilities that a WoL can have is that of Creature Compass. It's primary ability is to allow you to detect evil outsiders (or whatever) within 60'. That's not so great. What's great is its ability to bypass the DR of any creature of that type.

I've got a lot of Legacy Items in my games. (Four in Age of Worms, four or five in my Ulek game). They are a *lot* cooler when you design them yourself.

Consider this bow for a rogue in Age of Worms, an undead-heavy campaign:

Bow of the Raven
+1 composite shortbow
5th (-): -
6th (-2 hp; -4 skill ponts): +1 corrosive bow
7th (-1 attacks): Creature Compass (Undead)
8th (-1 skill checks): +5 enhancement bonus to Hide checks
9th (-2 skill points): -
10th (-2 hit points): +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity
11th (-): +1 corrosive undead bane bow
12th (-2 skill points): 1/day-invisibility
13th (-2 attack): +4 enhancement bonus to Dexterity
14th (-2 hit points): 1/2 rounds-Grave Strike -permits sneak attacking of undead
15th (-2 skill points): -
16th (-2 skills): +2 corrosive undead bane bow
17th (-): +6 enhancement bonus to Dexterity; at will-invisibility
18th (-2 hit points, -2 skill points): +4 corrosive undead bane bow
19th (-3 skill checks; -2 skill points): +5 corrosive undead bane bow
20th (-2 skill points): 2/day-greater invisibility
(Least: 1700 gp; Lesser 12000 gp; Greater 40000 gp)

Cheers!

 

[Thanatos]

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!

Yes, but its yet another penalty for making something custom that fits your character and concept that you wouldn't get it you just picked up W_o_L_#_34.

I didn't see where it said that about WoL with only a gold cost per level and no penalties.

In any event, I use a different system that I used back in 1e where character pay a combination of gold/xp slowly over levels and everyone seems fine with it. All total it comes out to about 20k gold and 30k xp for a +10 equal item, but I allow them to go up to 15 so it top out at about 50k gp and 75k xp (over the course of about 18 levels, so its actually not a huge chunk of xp). No penalties other then a hit to the pocketbook and a slightly slower advancement (which everyone seems to prefer since it's not affecting abilities).

Since they can advance it at per level if they want and I make sure all the players have one, its never presented any kind of actual balance issue...you invest in it or you don't at your discretion.

The truth is, I really, really wanted to like and use WoL. I even saw the Author post where they said their examples were built not to spec, but more powerfully...and calculating some of those penalties, I was going...wow...that basically cuts the performance of the character and item down signifcantly and those are overpowered weapons.

I find:

-18 skill points, -8 hp, -2 Attacks with all weapons, -3 to all skill checks, on top of 53.7k gold

too counter-productive to hit a character with. Especially one that isn't optimized. I also find it stupid that you get this weapon...train it up and suddenly your less skillful all the way around...can't attack as well (negating part of that +5 attack bonus you are paying for) and your stuck with it and lose the gold (possibly the xp)...etc. It really did give me the feeling of hurry up and wait.

So, I really liked the concept of this book, I just wish they would have found some other way to balance it out. But, I found a method that my players all agreed was acceptable and excited about, so ultimately, thats all that matters.

Heap - Thanks for posting that...I just wanted to get a perspective of how you were getting this stuff to work so well for you in your game and to get a feel for what it was like. When we tried and tried in our game and it just was too harsh for some of the penalties...Age of Worms...I really wanna play in one of those some day.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

One of the few "really cool" abilities that a WoL can have is that of Creature Compass. It's primary ability is to allow you to detect evil outsiders (or whatever) within 60'. That's not so great. What's great is its ability to bypass the DR of any creature of that type.

I've got a lot of Legacy Items in my games. (Four in Age of Worms, four or five in my Ulek game). They are a *lot* cooler when you design them yourself.

Consider this bow for a rogue in Age of Worms, an undead-heavy campaign:

Bow of the Raven
+1 composite shortbow
5th (-): -
6th (-2 hp; -4 skill ponts): +1 corrosive bow
7th (-1 attacks): Creature Compass (Undead)
8th (-1 skill checks): +5 enhancement bonus to Hide checks
9th (-2 skill points): -
10th (-2 hit points): +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity
11th (-): +1 corrosive undead bane bow
12th (-2 skill points): 1/day-invisibility
13th (-2 attack): +4 enhancement bonus to Dexterity
14th (-2 hit points): 1/2 rounds-Grave Strike -permits sneak attacking of undead
15th (-2 skill points): -
16th (-2 skills): +2 corrosive undead bane bow
17th (-): +6 enhancement bonus to Dexterity; at will-invisibility
18th (-2 hit points, -2 skill points): +4 corrosive undead bane bow
19th (-3 skill checks; -2 skill points): +5 corrosive undead bane bow
20th (-2 skill points): 2/day-greater invisibility
(Least: 1700 gp; Lesser 12000 gp; Greater 40000 gp)

Cheers!

Hey, just reverse-engineering your design here, and I had a couple of questions: how do you get the +4 to Dex at level 13? It's a menu E ability, which means it should take a slot from 12th level plus the 13th level slot. The 12th level slot is used to take a menu A ability, rather than a menu D ability, but I don't see any indication that you can take menu A abilities "for free" using higher-level ability slots. Also, how did you apply at-will invisibility at the same level as the +6 enhancement bonus?

I'm actually thinking of giving a slightly redesigned bow of this sort to a character in my own AoW game, so I'd like to make sure I understand how it was built.

edit: for that matter, where did you get at-will invisibility? I figure grave strike was an ad-hoc addition, but it's harder to determine for stuff like this, since I'm not yet that familiar with the book.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I find:

-18 skill points, -8 hp, -2 Attacks with all weapons, -3 to all skill checks, on top of 53.7k gold

too counter-productive to hit a character with.

The weapon is essentially a +7 weapon, a ring of invisibility, and gloves of dex +6 all rolled into one. By my calculations, its roughly 182,000. The invis function is about a ring of invisibility (20,000, x 1.5 for added function), and the dex is 36,000 * 1.5, on top of the 98000 for the weapon.

So you trade the above for about 130k gold. Equal? I dont know. But what I do know is that that trade sucks even more if you have someone with craft arms and armor in the group. The cost of the weapon becomes 91,000. Would you trade those penalties for a savings of 37300? I wouldnt, none of my players would either.

Would you allow someone to make a magic item that gave them an untyped +2 to all attacks, +3 to all skills, +8 HP and +18 skill points for that? I probably wouldnt.

One common feat trumps the system. They should have included a way for someone with craft arms and armor to mitigate some of the penalties easily.

I'd actually place the weapon more like a +5 weapon, since the wielders have the same attack roll. So thats more like a base price of 134,000 gold. Less the cost of rituals, and the party without craft arms and armor saves 80,300 gold. If the party has access to someone w craft arms and armor, the cost drops to 67,000, with a net savings of 13,300 (ie, completely worthless).

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

I did away with the penalty system all together without any detrimental effect in my game- further, people stopped being walking armories and were very dedicated to their weapons. Some cool weapons you can modify for the game can be found in the PDFs put out by the Game Mechanics.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The weapon is essentially a +7 weapon, a ring of invisibility, and gloves of dex +6 all rolled into one. By my calculations, its roughly 182,000. The invis function is about a ring of invisibility (20,000, x 1.5 for added function), and the dex is 36,000 * 1.5, on top of the 98000 for the weapon.

You forgot to figure in Creature Compass (undead), grave strike (not quite at will, but unlimited uses per day anyway), and greater invisibility 2/day. Creature Compass is probably about the equivalent of a +1 weapon modifier, which makes it a +8 weapon (128,000 gp). Grave strike is unlimited use of a 1st level spell with a duration of 1 round (8000 * 1.5 = 12,000 gp*). Greater invisibility 2/day is a 4th level command word activated spell with two charges (20160 * 1.5 = 30240 gp). That adds up to a total of 254240 gp. Also, the entire cost of the item should be multiplied by 2 because the item does not take up any body slots (whereas a ring, gloves, and assorted miscellany would take up several). So it ought to cost 508480 gp. Crafting it yourself would cost 254240 gp. The penalties are therefore worth something of the order of 200,000 gp.

*I calculated this as use-activated rather than command word-activated because I assume that the grave strike ability in the weapon is a swift action rather than a standard action; otherwise the power would be useless.

I'd actually place the weapon more like a +5 weapon, since the wielders have the same attack roll.

That's not really fair. What we're doing is pricing out the item's benefits, and then considering whether the costs--including attack penalties--are worth it. Also, enhancement bonuses |= attack bonuses. A +5 weapon does more damage than a +3 weapon, even when wielded by a character with a -2 penalty to hit.

 

[Thomas Percy]

I'll give my every PCs such a "weapon", but I'll ignore the penalties. Less maths, I don't worry about balance because I'm DM.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You forgot to figure in Creature Compass (undead), grave strike (not quite at will, but unlimited uses per day anyway), and greater invisibility 2/day. Creature Compass is probably about the equivalent of a +1 weapon modifier, which makes it a +8 weapon (128,000 gp). Grave strike is unlimited use of a 1st level spell with a duration of 1 round (8000 * 1.5 = 12,000 gp*). Greater invisibility 2/day is a 4th level command word activated spell with two charges (20160 * 1.5 = 30240 gp). That adds up to a total of 254240 gp. Also, the entire cost of the item should be multiplied by 2 because the item does not take up any body slots (whereas a ring, gloves, and assorted miscellany would take up several). So it ought to cost 508480 gp. Crafting it yourself would cost 254240 gp. The penalties are therefore worth something of the order of 200,000 gp.

*I calculated this as use-activated rather than command word-activated because I assume that the grave strike ability in the weapon is a swift action rather than a standard action; otherwise the power would be useless.

That's not really fair. What we're doing is pricing out the item's benefits, and then considering whether the costs--including attack penalties--are worth it. Also, enhancement bonuses |= attack bonuses. A +5 weapon does more damage than a +3 weapon, even when wielded by a character with a -2 penalty to hit.

I'd say its more than fair, since you deal 2 points more with the bow, but lose 2 points from everything else. IMO, untyped attack penalties are MUCH worse than a specific weapon enhancement bonus, since they apply to grapple checks and a ton of other stuff.

The improved invisibility, being a similar power, would actually receive a discount, rather than a cost increase.

And the cost of the item shouldnt be multiplied by 2. Its an added property of the weapon (hence 1.5). Or do you multiple all weapon properties by 2, since they dont take up a slot? Thats certainly not implied anywhere, and you need to wield the weapon for it to take effect. Also, why add the penalty for multiple functions on the same item, and the slotless penalty? The slotless penalty should trump the 1.5 in all cases, as since they dont have a slot, it doesnt matter if they are one item or multiple items.

Regardless, it still sucks if you have someone who can craft items.