Weapon plus

[Shade]

In our campaigns, we have several +4 and +5 weapons. But that is largely due to the fact that we still use the "+" system of damage reduction/magic.

 

[diaglo]

How significant is a -2 to hit at 16th level?

i don't think it is significant for AoO or as a standard action.

the problem i think comes with the Full attack. much like trying to decide how much of your BAB to use in a Power attack.

 

[Darmanicus]

Don't like the penalties with those weapons, especially the - to saves arrgghh.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

There's an additional cost to the weapons beyond penalties. They require you to burn from 1 to 3 feats in order to "wake up" the weapon, in addition to spending the cash and taking the drawbacks. That's what really gets to me. The weapon is taking the place of potentially very useful abilities, but it doesn't give you back as much as you're losing.

It reminds me of the way that metamagic screws you twice: first by taking a feat, and second by taking up a higher level spell slot. I don't actually have the book, so I can't do any fine analysis, but I wonder if, given that you spend three of your seven feats in order to get a sword to work, it wouldn't be reasonable to just drop the penalties to attacks and saves and call it even.

Also, whose bright idea was it to make the prerequisites for the various feats appear at levels at which nobody gets feats? Like 11th. Nobody will be able to get their 11th level ability until level 12, so there will never be a smooth progression with any of the weapons.

 

[Vurt]

There's an additional cost to the weapons beyond penalties. They require you to burn from 1 to 3 feats in order to "wake up" the weapon, in addition to spending the cash and taking the drawbacks. That's what really gets to me. The weapon is taking the place of potentially very useful abilities, but it doesn't give you back as much as you're losing.

I don't have the book so I can't really verify this, but I believe the "wake up" feats you get for free as bonus feats as part of the ritual. Still have to spend the cash though.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I don't have the book so I can't really verify this, but I believe the "wake up" feats you get for free as bonus feats as part of the ritual. Still have to spend the cash though.

Cheers,
Vurt

If that's true, then it seems more reasonable. I only had the opportunity to spend an hour with the book, so I may have missed that part. Nobody I know plays with them, so...


Anyway, does that mean you can take the feat without performing the ritual if you like?

 

[Vurt]

Anyway, does that mean you can take the feat without performing the ritual if you like?

The recent White Plume Mountain Revised download on WotC's site has the mechanics for three legacy weapons at the back. It seems to imply that performing the rituals are how you get the feats.

For example, for the legacy trident Wave:

Raise the Asterian: You must find the wreck of the sailing ship Asterian and bring its figurehead above the surface of the water. Cost: 13,000 gp. Feat Granted: Lesser Legacy (Wave).

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[DonTadow]

They seem quite balanced to me, considering the POWERFUL magical effects that come with it. Those weapons are more than the attack bonus.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The recent White Plume Mountain Revised download on WotC's site has the mechanics for three legacy weapons at the back. It seems to imply that performing the rituals are how you get the feats.

For example, for the legacy trident Wave:



Cheers,
Vurt

Hmm...that seems to say that you can get the feat for free if you raise the wreck. But if you don't want to find the wreck, can you use your regular feat to "cheat" the weapon, wrest its power from it in a battle of wills, or the like?

 

[Pants]

Hmm...that seems to say that you can get the feat for free if you raise the wreck. But if you don't want to find the wreck, can you use your regular feat to "cheat" the weapon, wrest its power from it in a battle of wills, or the like?

There's probably nothing stopping you from houseruling it that way... though a lot of the charm of the system comes from the rituals and history involved with the weapon. Still, if I get the book (for Christmas), I might consider doing away with the penalties, especially if everyone in the party has a legacy weapon.

Back to the question:
Usually the weapons in our games hover around +2/+3 with a buttload of special abilities tacked on. My players preferred to up the pluses on the weapon back in 2e/3.0, but now they like the special abilities better. Thank you 3.5 DR.