Weapons of Legacy: does anyone have it yet?

[ShaggySpellsword]

I think the fact that part of the cost of a legacy item being personal costs to ones self is really neat. It reflects the weight and responsibility of taking upon a legacy, plus the weapon is drawing on your personal power to increase its own.

As for them being worst than regular items? The +1 legacy longsword you find is still a +1 longsword, and it won't give you drawbacks until you perform the ritual, so the weapon certainly isn't worse than any other +1 sword, and has additional options, so its really better.

I love the books because it allows a system that more closely resembles the kind of magic items in the fantasy novels I have read. It is more legend and story based, reflects the power intrinsic in stories. Very cool.

 

[JoeGKushner]

How does it compare to say the items you can bond with in DMG II or the Item Familiar feat from Unearthed Arcana or the various products by The Game Mechanics, most of which are published by Green Ronin?

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Here is my question in a nutshell.

Are you having to take those negatives to have a nifty item with a backstory?

1. Can you make a Legacy weapon at each power level using the existing Item Creation/Generation rules (which are extremely flexible once you start adding in Magic Sections from books other than the DMG). The drop & replace method.

2. Are Legacy weapons more powerful for the cost than standard D&D items. At high levels those 'generic' items become very powerful.

3. If you lose the Legacy Item, do all the penalties go away?

4. Will more than 1 Legacy Items just become a pain in the a**? Since each items requires 3 quests to 'activate' it. That means 3 side treks per Legacy Item, doesn't it?

5. Any limits on how many Legacy Items a character can posess? Do the Penalties stack?

6. If confronted with the choice of a +1 Longsword or a +1 Legacy Longsword which would your character chose? (Assuming each had the same amount of 'fluff' backstory). Take the +1 now, knowing you'll need to replace it later, or take the +1 Legacy knowing you'll have to do who knows what, spend X xp, and take a bunch of negatives IF you manage to activate the higher powers. (For instance -3 to saves might suck for a fighter, as even at 20th level they only have a base of +6. Barring a Wisdom bonus (which probably won't be very high in any case), or magic items, that would give him a +3 vs a lot of All-or-Nothing Saves).

7. If you have a long history of making your own, detailed, magic items, what does this book offer that's new? I've been custom tailoring Magic Items to game worlds & PC's since the beginning of 2nd ed. What's this book got I don't already know?

Thanks.

 

[Laman Stahros]

Ok, I'll see if I can answer your questions here.

Here is my question in a nutshell.

Are you having to take those negatives to have a nifty item with a backstory?

1. Can you make a Legacy weapon at each power level using the existing Item Creation/Generation rules (which are extremely flexible once you start adding in Magic Sections from books other than the DMG). The drop & replace method.

No, legacy items cannot be based on a magic weapon with a plus higher than +1. The legacy progressions generally should make the drop & replace syndrome a little less prevalent.

2. Are Legacy weapons more powerful for the cost than standard D&D items. At high levels those 'generic' items become very powerful.

A little, but not that bad.

3. If you lose the Legacy Item, do all the penalties go away?

You can renounce the legacy, which causes you to recover the personal costs (the penalties).

4. Will more than 1 Legacy Items just become a pain in the a**? Since each items requires 3 quests to 'activate' it. That means 3 side treks per Legacy Item, doesn't it?

Not all legacy items have 3 rituals, some only have 2, some have 1.

5. Any limits on how many Legacy Items a character can posess? Do the Penalties stack?

I don't see any limits in the book on the number of legacy items for a single character. As a DM, I probably wouldn't give more than one to any one player. YMMV.

6. If confronted with the choice of a +1 Longsword or a +1 Legacy Longsword which would your character chose? (Assuming each had the same amount of 'fluff' backstory). Take the +1 now, knowing you'll need to replace it later, or take the +1 Legacy knowing you'll have to do who knows what, spend X xp, and take a bunch of negatives IF you manage to activate the higher powers. (For instance -3 to saves might suck for a fighter, as even at 20th level they only have a base of +6. Barring a Wisdom bonus (which probably won't be very high in any case), or magic items, that would give him a +3 vs a lot of All-or-Nothing Saves).

You can't tell a legacy item from a non-legacy that easily. You don't spend any XP to activate a legacy item, unless your founding a legacy.

7. If you have a long history of making your own, detailed, magic items, what does this book offer that's new? I've been custom tailoring Magic Items to game worlds & PC's since the beginning of 2nd ed. What's this book got I don't already know?

I'm not sure.

Thanks.

Hope I helped.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

You can't tell a legacy item from a non-legacy that easily. You don't spend any XP to activate a legacy item, unless your founding a legacy.

OK.

How do you know you have a Legacy Item then? (and not just a 'normal' item with a good backstory).

How do you decide to found a Legacy (in game terms). Isn't the Item already a Legacy?

Is this similar to the Annoited knight from the Book of Exalted Deeds or the Weapon Scions from Epic Handbook?/Unearthed Arcana? I forget where.

 

[Banshee16]

Apologies for the hijack, but I don't believe this is true. If you go back through treasure tables, published modules, etc., I truly believe you'll find that the average quantity of magic items has not changed.

What's changed is that the game now overtly assumes a certain level of magic items, making it a bit more difficult for individual DMs to tailor the amount down, if doing so suits their own tastes. And it's certainly made it easier for PCs to create/determine their own. But comparing the games as written and published, I think the magic item quantities were a lot closer than people realize.

I'm not sure I agree.....I ran enough adventures I wrote in 2E, as well as pre-published adventures in Dark Sun, Birthright, Planescape, and Dragonlance, that I can at least attest to the official adventures...NPCs often had a few potions, a few permanent items, and one or two weapons, if that. Many NPCs, had literally 4-5 magic items....a sword, shield, armor, maybe a ring, and 2-3 potions. In 3E, they've got *way*, *way* more.

I converted my Planescape party who were lvl 5-6 to 3E, and started running under 3E rules. They were running into all sorts of resource shortages because they were coming from 2nd Ed. where they had very few items, to 3E where the game was assuming that they had a lot. It's balanced that way. I could only fix the situation by either decreasing the challenge of encounters or increasing the number of items they had.

Banshee

 

[Laman Stahros]

OK.

How do you know you have a Legacy Item then? (and not just a 'normal' item with a good backstory).

How do you decide to found a Legacy (in game terms). Isn't the Item already a Legacy?

Is this similar to the Annoited knight from the Book of Exalted Deeds or the Weapon Scions from Epic Handbook?/Unearthed Arcana? I forget where.

Legacy items have omens (example: Exordius, a legacy longsword, is +1 when found. When wielded in battle, tendrils of white light stream from the blade). Some are rather dramatic (Exordius), while others are rather minor (a blade that is always warm to the touch, even in the depths of a blizzard.

Any minor magical item can become a legacy item. You can find a legacy item (if the DM chooses to place one where you can find it) or circumstances may grant you the chance to found a legacy.

For example, the party (four characters; a fighter, a cleric, a wizard, and a rogue) is fighting a minotaur. The fighter goes down hard, the cleric rushes to help him, the wizard is injured and low on spells, and the rogue manages to get a critical sneak attack that kills the minotaur in the nick of time. The rogue would likely have a chance of founding a legacy with the sword due to the significant event of downing such an opponent like that.

Nope, different rules. Though the Scions rules from Unearthed Arcana are similiar, I personally prefer the rules in Weapons of Legacy. I suspect that the Scion rules may have been the basis for the Legacy rules.

 

[kilamanjaro]

I'm not sure I agree.....I ran enough adventures I wrote in 2E, as well as pre-published adventures in Dark Sun, Birthright, Planescape, and Dragonlance, that I can at least attest to the official adventures...NPCs often had a few potions, a few permanent items, and one or two weapons, if that. Many NPCs, had literally 4-5 magic items....a sword, shield, armor, maybe a ring, and 2-3 potions. In 3E, they've got *way*, *way* more.

I converted my Planescape party who were lvl 5-6 to 3E, and started running under 3E rules. They were running into all sorts of resource shortages because they were coming from 2nd Ed. where they had very few items, to 3E where the game was assuming that they had a lot. It's balanced that way. I could only fix the situation by either decreasing the challenge of encounters or increasing the number of items they had.

Banshee

Sorry for the off topic post, but my experience was just the opposite. When my players converted over their characters from 2nd ed. to 3rd I made them get rid of items to get them close to the wealth guidelines. They were so far over it wasn't even funny.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Legacy items have omens (example: Exordius, a legacy longsword, is +1 when found. When wielded in battle, tendrils of white light stream from the blade). Some are rather dramatic (Exordius), while others are rather minor (a blade that is always warm to the touch, even in the depths of a blizzard.

So you can't tell a Legacy Item from a 'normal' item. As many 'normal' items often have little, visual, audible 'fluffy' bits in the text description. Or if you happen to already present your magical items with a uniques to them so they aren't thought of as "Vorpal Weapons, Isle 5".

Any minor magical item can become a legacy item. circumstances may grant you the chance to found a legacy.

For example, the party (four characters; a fighter, a cleric, a wizard, and a rogue) is fighting a minotaur. the rogue manages to get a critical sneak attack that kills the minotaur in the nick of time. The rogue would likely have a chance of founding a legacy with the sword due to the significant event of downing such an opponent like that.

So, I've been putting Legacy Items in my games for years. While not all of my 'Legacy' items have penalties associated with their use, many do.

All in all, I'll flip through this some time. But, I doubt I'll ever pick it up.

 

[jester47]

It seems to me that a DM could just make up a +1 sword and give it a history. Then as the player finds out more about the history of the weapon the DM can reveal ways to give it more power that fit with the characters and the campaign. Thus no one really ever has to loose the special sword. I don't think you need a huge rules system to do this.

Not on my list.