Weapons of Legacy

[Shadeydm]

I am starting to get the impression that this is a failure of a product.

 

[pawsplay]

I am starting to get the impression that this is a failure of a product.

REALLY??? What would give you that idea?

 

[pawsplay]

What I keep hearing is that the only major flaw with the book is that the penalties are too high.

The obvious question, then, is: How hard is it to scale them back appropriately?

Corollary: How hard is it to design an appropriately balanced legacy item from scratch?

I think the concept is flawed, and it would simply be less of a problem if the penalties were smaller.

Edit: Oh, yeah, and unlocking the powers requires very high Knowledge rolls, which incidentally, by the RAW, do not allow rerolls. I think you are maybe supposed to "research" things, but D&D has no native researching rules.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

Technically, one could offset the penalties by purchasing magic items with the money saved from having a legacy item.

I wouldn't say the product is a failure. It's a sound idea that was weakly executed, but definitely still useful.

Regarding Knowledge rolls, you can also take it to a sage and have them research it. I think DMG II provides guidelines for researching or using contacts such as sages. There are also variant checks (i.e. - other Knowledge skills or the use of Bardic Knowledge, I think) suggested toward the back of the book.

In the end, I think the worse thing about the book is the presentation rather than the mechanics. I think there is too much information scattered about in odd locations. It pretty much boils down to:

1. Obtain the the item and observe its omen.
2. Identify its non-legacy properties.
3. Learn its lore with an appropriate Knowledge check, including variant options, or take it to a sage.
4a. Meet the requirements to use the legacy item
4b. Perform least, lesser, greater legacy rituals with associated costs to freely obtain respective bonus feats that grant access to the respective legacy abilities.

The one thing I throw away is the requirements to use the legacy item. It's bad enough trying to meet requirements for feats and PrCs so a PC doesn't need one more complication hindering character design.

The other thing they needed to spell out more clearly was the levels with which the legacy feats are associated. The book alludes to those levels in the requirements for the legacy feats, but simply spelling it out in a table or in the benefits of the feat description would have been better.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Technically, one could offset the penalties by purchasing magic items with the money saved from having a legacy item.

Except when you break them down, you dont actually save much. In my example with Coral's Bite, the weapon is more expensive than something you can make yourself AND you suffer the penalties. To make it worse, you pay upfront for the entire benefits of a ritual, but get the powers spread out over several levels.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

Except when you break them down, you dont actually save much. In my example with Coral's Bite, the weapon is more expensive than something you can make yourself AND you suffer the penalties.

Right, but making it yourself requires feats, time and XP.

To make it worse, you pay upfront for the entire benefits of a ritual, but get the powers spread out over several levels.

Powers that are automatically available at their respective levels.

 

[JustinA]

Weapons of Legacy has been out for a good while now. I am curious for those who picked it up and used one or more items in their DnD campaign how did it work out?
Were you happy with it and did it require much tweaking?

I recently posted this in a different forum:

So I'm coming kinda late to WEAPONS OF LEGACY, but I've got a legendary weapon that I need to give to a low-level PC and it seemed like it might be the perfect fit. So I borrowed a copy from a friend and sat down to read through the book and see what I could bash out.

Wow. This is one of the worst supplements I've seen. Oh, there have been some third-party D20 stuff that's worse, but not by much. It reminds me of some of the worst dreck TSR was cranking out during the darkest days of 2nd Edition.

It got off to kind of a rough start when the authors just kept repeated the same ra-ra, pom-pom cheerleading of themselves. Then the book started repeating the exact same description of what a weapon of legacy was in nineteen different forms: Yes, okay, I get it. Weapons of legacy improve as I gain levels. I read the back-cover blurb. Can we get to the meat of the matter, please?

Then I got to the part of the system where, in order to unlock the higher level powers of a weapon, you had to perform rituals which would give you feats which... weren't actually feats? Well, that's pretty lame. It would have been interesting to have a mechanic where you could spend either (a) spend gold and XP to unlock the powers or (b) spend a feat to unlock the item's power, but to have a system where you get something we call a feat but which doesn't actually work according to any of the rules which govern how feats work? Stupid. Pick a different name. Or, better yet, don't pick any name: Instead of having rituals which give you feats which unlock powers, just have rituals which unlock powers.

Then I got to the part of the system where, in order to unlock these powers, you have to accept penalties to attack bonuses, class abilities, saving throws, and the like. What the hell? The awesome artifact of arcane power from the elder days of the universe is... causing me to suck? And not only that, but the penalties frequently go after the very stats that the weapon is boosting. So you'll have a +4 weapon, but it will only effectively be +2 because it comes with a -2 penalty to attacks... and not only attacks with the weapon, but with ALL weapons.

(I understand that if you run the numbers, this makes a sort of pseudo sense for at least SOME items: The penalty to the item's core competency ends up making it about as effective as the item you could buy for the same price. But upon closer inspection, this doesn't hold up: You're spending as much money for an item which is making you suck whenever you're not using the item. Stupid, stupid, stupid.)

I can see the temptation behind this mechanic, "Well, if you're willing to accept a penalty for using an item, the item should cost less." But, first of all, it doesn't fit with the concept behind weapons of legacy. And, secondly, it's impossible to balance such a mechanic: Either you have the penalties target the same abilities as what the item is pumping up, which defeats the purpose. Or they target other stats, in which case you're just opening the system up for min-max abuse.)

But then my patience was finally exhausted when I got to the rules for actually creating legacy items. From their own Example, this is the process: Create a basic magic item. Choose an option from Menu A. Choose an option from Menu B, since the Menu A choice can't be taken again. Menu B selections take up two slots for every one slot that a Menu A ability would have taken. For your next selection you can select form Menu A again, but instead we'll select from Menu C. This takes up three slots for every slot that an ability from Menu A would have taken. Now, select the penalties for using the item from tables 4-1 through 4-10...

Are you kidding me? Are you frickin' kidding me?

-- At this point I opened a discussion of the basic rules behind magic item creation. In the core rules a magic item is given a value based on the abilities it possesses and there are basically two ways to get a magic item:

(1) Pay the full price in gold pieces. (Either by buying the item outright or by finding it in accordance with the wealth-by-level guidelines.)
(2) Pay half the price in gold and convert the other half of the cost into XP at a conversion rate of roughly 1 XP to 12.5 GP. (You need a feat in order to do this.)

The general consensus of the ensuing discussion was that, if you wanted to achieve something like WoL, you were better off going in one of two directions:

Weapon of Destiny Feat: An item creation feat that could be used by non-spellcasters. The spellcasting requirements would be dropped, but the character's level would need to be equal to the minimum caster level necessary to create the item. To keep this balanced, the feat would be limited to a single item "tied to the character's soul/destiny/whatever" (this is the fluff text).

Weapons of Legend: These items would have fluff text similar to Weapons of Legacy, but to unlock their abilities you perform a ritual with the same XP and gold cost as if you possessed the appropriate item creation feat.

These ideas need some final tweaking, but the discussion kinda died out in the other forum. Interesting questions:

(1) Is it balanced to completely convert the GP cost into an XP cost (at the same conversion rate)? So instead of paying 1/2 gold and 1/25 XP, you'd pay 2/25 XP.

(2) Would it be reasonable to offer an XP and/or GP discount to the rituals for a Weapon of Legend? Obviously such an item is more limited than normal item creation, since the abilities are already hard-wired when you get the item. On the other hand, you don't need the item creation feat. Does this actually make it worthwhile for the PC? Or will they simply be tossing WoLs out the door so that they can get a customized item just the way they want it? If a discount is warranted, how much? 10%? 20%?

(3) As an alternative line of thought, what if you just ditched the GP cost of the Weapon of Legend rituals entirely (leaving the full XP penalty)?

I, personally, would like to be able to get away (when I want to) from the idea of "rituals" and have items which just naturally improve with the PCs.

The easiest way to handle these weapons is for the DM to simply craft the item any way he wants, calculate whatever the current value of the item is (based on its currently unlocked abilities), and make sure the party's total wealth (including the current value of the item) stays in the proper range. But it would be nice to have a system for items which keep things balanced even when you use standard encounters and treasures.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Right, but making it yourself requires feats, time and XP. Powers that are automatically available at their respective levels.

Like I said, they kind of stink compared to what a crafter can do. If the party has one feat, they basically break WoL as a system. Furthermore, you pony up the cash for the ritual, whose powers are granted over several levels. If you'd just given your party's crafter the cash, you'd get everything at once.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

After reading through this, I get the feeling the book should have been called "Weapons of LUNACY"...

 

[Kristian Serrano]

Like I said, they kind of stink compared to what a crafter can do. If the party has one feat, they basically break WoL as a system. Furthermore, you pony up the cash for the ritual, whose powers are granted over several levels. If you'd just given your party's crafter the cash, you'd get everything at once.

I don't see the weapons of legacy system being so bad that I would expect another player to be a designated crafter for the rest of the party. Additionally, if I'm playing a solo campaign, legacy items and the legacy PrC would be fine with me.