Weapon of the Gods!!!

[Fynn]

Hi All,

My Players stay OUT!!!!!









In a few sessions my players will finally get access to a weapon of the gods that has been essentially promised to the "chosen one" I have a few ideas along these lines but am searching for brainwaves/mechanics. It is a high powered game with little to no arcane magics. The current characters:
1) ranger 8/rouge 4
2) dwarven defender 3/fighter 9
3) Fighter 2/paladin 9
4) Homebrew druid 3/paladin 3/ranger 3


The weapon that I am thinking of is one that changes it's form, Ie be a special thrown/range weapon that returns, and also be able to metamorph into a longsword. Has anyone used anything like this in the past? How did the mechanics of it work? What additions would you like in the area of shocking/flaming/acid summon ninja pirate dinosaur?

Thanks All

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What additions would you like in the area of shocking/flaming/acid summon ninja pirate dinosaur?

<shaking head, tears in eyes, giggling helplessly>

 

[Jack Simth]

So basically it acts much like a Rod of Lordly Might? Not particularly unbalancing. Shucks, there's a core item that does much of it.

 

[Fynn]

Weeelllll.

No I don't really want a Rod of Lordly Might. Sure it can change to be Mace/axe/longsword/lance/javelin but basically the mechanics of it mean that you just push a button and voila! If its a powerful magic object, I'd prefer something that takes a standard action to morph and then it can be...

Xena warrior princess chackra that also adds to your charisma in a armoured.... chestplate and causes you to be able to do the splits

that also morphs in some way to being a

Large Flaming longsword...with ninja pirate dinosaurs

and the standard action to morph the weapon gives the RBDM the opportunity to trip up the bearer in some fiendishly clever way. What I'm after is what would be considered a cool toy that I haven't considered and then I can eliminate everything broken/too powerful. Xena's Chakra of disintigrate anyone? With extra Dinosaurs?

 

[Herobizkit]

The most important thing to consider when handing out such items is that D&D is a "team" game. This means that favoring one player with uberpowers cuts out the need for said player to be part of a team. The other player will ostracize the ubermensch for being overpowered and that'll be the end of your wicket... or party, if the PC decides to kill his former teammates or vice versa.

All that aside...

Back in the day, one of my oldest player's characters had an artifact that was essentially a +7 throwing returning vorpal sword.

The key thing to note about artifacts is that they are created for a purpose; when said purpose is fulfilled, the artifact should dissapear from play. Otherwise, you get a scenario similar to the above. I would highly suggest trying to dig up and old AD&D DM Guide and following the guidelines therein for creating such powerful weapons/artifacts... especially the part about assigning bad side effects.

You could also go the Power Rangers route... have a cool weapon for each party member that can be combined into some kind of uber-weapon to use against Big Bad Things That Can't Be Hurt Without the Uber-Weapon.

One fun idea is a throwing weapon that splits into all kind of smaller weapons that buzz around and hurt monsters, then reform into one weapon on the return trip (like Xena's yin-yang chakram, but better). Have each projectile a different type... acid, fire, electricity and ice (and throw sonic and force in there too if you want), or give each PC dominion over an elemental weapon that, when combined with the others, shoots a powerful beam of force that ignores all DR.

And so on.

 

[Magesmiley]

One thought might be to borrow a page from the Rod of Seven Parts. Make it an artifact that consists of smaller sub-components.

Perhaps it consists of a bunch of pieces that can be assembled into and fitted together in different combinations to make different weapon combinations. You could say create 5-10 arbitrary pieces that could be put together to form different items (with each piece contributing a power to the item it is assembled into).

Conceivably there could be some uber-power that is produced by putting all the pieces together into one big toy.

I'm making this up on the fly, so no criticisms of my names and quick ideas

You might have something like:
1: Hilt A: Grants defender ability
2: Hilt B: Grants keen ability
3: Blade End A: Adds + 3 weapon bonus
4: Blade End B: Adds +3 weapon bonus
5: Blade Middle A: Grants shocking burst ability
6: Blade Middle B: Grants flaming burst ability
7. Mystic Gemstone A: Grants some neat magical power
8. Mystic Gemstone B: Grants some neat magical power

One could assemble the following combinations perhaps:
Hilt + blade end = dagger, gains returning ability
hilt + blade middle + blade end = longsword, gains wounding ability
hilt + blade middle + blade middle + blade end = greatsword, gains vorpal ability
hilt + hilt + blade middle + blade middle + blade end + blade end = double bladed sword, gains vorpal and wounding ability, all bonuses combine to apply to both blades.

The mystic gemsones could be added to any of the weapon combinations (either to different weapons or the same) and add their ability to the weapon. The gems should also be usable when not mounted in a weapon too (heck you could even give them some nasty ability when thrown at things).

Finally give some uber-ability when both the mystic gemstones are added to the two-bladed sword.

I'd make an item like this easy to break apart with a sunder attack too incidentally.

 

[*mon]

Instead of one weapon,how about an artifact [with a special purpose] that generates a weapon for each party member. Individually unique but soso, but when 2 or more strike the same target in the same round spectacular effects occur, including possibly devine slumber if a god is hit by all weapons ,on the same initiative count, in one round, and target is special purpose acceptable.

 

[Ditch]

Just a note on changing weapon forms: there is a +1 enhancement for weapons that allows it to change form into any other weapons. That is, if you made a +2 Longsword of Morphing it would be able to (as a standard action?) assume the form of a +2 Longbow, +2 Mace, +2 Dagger, +2 Short Spear... etc. You get the picture.

High power?

+4 Flaming Burst Morphing Cold Iron Shortsword ~ 100,000 gp

Not exactly pirateninjasauraus spitting, but it's easy to make (and calculate a value).