Weapons of Legacy

[MerricB]

What I hate with magic items - and this is something that hurts WoL, but applies to every item - is how some of them just don't scale at all. A wand of fireballs (5th level) is near worthless at 15th level.

Cheers!

 

[ColonelHardisson]

What I hate with magic items - and this is something that hurts WoL, but applies to every item - is how some of them just don't scale at all. A wand of fireballs (5th level) is near worthless at 15th level.

Cheers!

I don't really have a problem with that. I don't see any reason why items like a wand of fireballs should scale. But neither would I object if they did.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Aha, good eye. You pulled out the one canned WoL with the least amount of bloat. Other than the unseen servant ability, all it does is get more potent bonuses and enhancements.

Yet it got a lot of slack with regards to penalties. It doesn't even inflict a caster level hit.

Heh, honestly I picked it because it looked easy to price. The penalty set isnt particularly brutal, I'm agreeing with Merric that they probably severely underpriced save penalties.

Looking over a few others, I recalled another irritating feature - that intelligent items are somehow considered a bonus in their own right. Maybe its just me, but I find the idea of a sentient breastplate a bit more unnerving than a sentient sword.

 

[MerricB]

Heh, honestly I picked it because it looked easy to price. The penalty set isnt particularly brutal, I'm agreeing with Merric that they probably severely underpriced save penalties.

Looking over a few others, I recalled another irritating feature - that intelligent items are somehow considered a bonus in their own right. Maybe its just me, but I find the idea of a sentient breastplate a bit more unnerving than a sentient sword.

Intelligence is a bonus (costs more in the regular rules as well). You just need to set up the item right.

For instance, in my Ulek campaign, one of the PCs has an intelligent ring with the ability to cure light wounds (and other powers). Intelligent items get their own actions, so the ring can cure him whilst he does other things in the round.

Any activated-power item with intelligence can get very good, very quickly. Take a pair of goggles with scorching ray at will... wow!

Cheers!

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Intelligence is a bonus (costs more in the regular rules as well). You just need to set up the item right.

For instance, in my Ulek campaign, one of the PCs has an intelligent ring with the ability to cure light wounds (and other powers). Intelligent items get their own actions, so the ring can cure him whilst he does other things in the round.

Any activated-power item with intelligence can get very good, very quickly. Take a pair of goggles with scorching ray at will... wow!

Cheers!

Yeah, that actually is useful. From how I was reading Wargird's Armor, the armor cant use the haste, stoneskin, etc. UR's intelligence comes in handy, since it can use the cure wounds abilities, etc.

 

[Jhaelen]

Yeah, that actually is useful. From how I was reading Wargird's Armor, the armor cant use the haste, stoneskin, etc. UR's intelligence comes in handy, since it can use the cure wounds abilities, etc.

Ur is definitely fun.
Like most WoL I've used in my game I tweaked it a bit. Each of the spirits now grants access to one stance and one maneuver from ToB in addition to the normal benefits:

Deer: Absolute Steel Stance, Steel Wind
Wolf: Punishing Stance, Lightning Recovery
Bear: Dancing Blade Form, Mithril Tornado

In my version the old spirits aren't superseded when a new one becomes available, they're added and the increased Ego score also applies to the older ones. So in the end you've got three distinctive personalities fighting for dominance
If the wielder is on good terms with Ur, he gets to choose which one is dominant and thus which stance is currently active.

To balance the additional benefits the keen property had to go. I've also split and shuffled the rest of the abilities around a bit, so you'll get some benefit on almost all levels (only level 8 doesn't grant anything new).
As always, when redesigning a WoL, I started by calculating the market value (it was about 155k and thus about 59k lower than what I consider average according to the guidelines and the presented ability menus).

 

[calimedic911]

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.

in reading through WOL, it looks like WOTC just tried to copy the Covenant item rules from Midnight.
I played in a long campaign where our GM used the Covenant item rules brilliantly. for example, a rogue had a rapier cov item. it had some neat abilities that got activated over time. however it was set up that if the rogue fumbled, the sword basicly acted as a "back biter" for that round. mind you this is a simplification of what actually happened but you get the gist.
We also had a monk who had a ring of jumping but at random times she would "soul shift" with the owner of the rings twin. we did not know this at the time and the bad guy learned some of our carefully hidden plans through this penalty. But if played well by the GM it can work great.
it seems like a lot of the issues people have with the WOL book can be bypassed by some good gm'ing.

just my humble opinion

Sean

 

[Jhaelen]

in reading through WOL, it looks like WOTC just tried to copy the Covenant item rules from Midnight.

I never heard of Midnight, but I always assumed it was an attempt to transfer Earthdawn's Legendary Treasures to D&D:

In Earthdawn a character has to bind magical 'threads' to a magic item to benefit from its powers. Each item has several ranks which provide additional and/or improved benefits if they are activated (which requires the expenditure of experience points and a stronger thread to be bound to it).

Certain ranks require a certain key knowledge before they can be activated (e.g. find out the item's name or the name of the item's creator, etc.).
Other ranks are associated with certain deeds that have to be performed before additional ranks can be activated but grant experience points that can be used to improve the thread rank.

 

[timbannock]

I use Legacy Items extensively...i hate vanilla magic items in D&D.

I took out most penalties, and create my own items, so balance is easy: I know what my campaigns got in it, so it's easy to figure out what's balanced and what's not.

I also try to make most of the Legacy Rituals deed related...gives good sidequests and such, and requires a lot of work and initiative from the players to get things moving, which is a balancing factor.

Frankly, the penalties are pretty ridiculous to me, but at the same time, you do need to keep an eye out for balance.

 

[Thomas Percy]

We are using one sword designed according to the rules of WoL already, but I will introduce 1-2 items of legacy per PC.

i hate vanilla magic items in D&D..

I like them and use them, but as we all I like more sophisticated and customised magic items. Lack of time is the only reason there are so few of WoLs in our campaigns.