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Man on Fire
2012-09-29, 06:13 AM
Warning: writing from computer without word or spellcheck.

Okay, this is something I'm gonna do from time to time, dropping more ideas for evolving items, which grew stronger as the character gains more power and learns about them. There are two goals in this project - one, to recreate the climatic feeling magic items in Earthdawn have for D&D games and second, to try give people a tool to creating items limiting Christmas Tree Effect to some degree.


Some magic object are made. Some are born. Some items, used regurally by legendary heroes, bond with them. Such object absorb part of user's essence and spirit, developing special abilities. These powers however, remain hidden from common folks. The key to unlocking them is legend of it's hero - their essence reacts to what's familiar, and knowledge of it's owner's history triggers that. The more owner knows and understands the ways of legendary hero, the stronger the it's treasure becomes. For those, who dedicate themselves to the ways of the legendary hero, deciding to follow his footsteps and carry his legacy, item may unlock it's strongest abilities.

About legendary Items

Legendary items are specific kind of items somewhere halfway between Wondrous Items and Artifacts. Each item has various levels of power, that may be unlocked by fulfilling specific requirements, which usually involves being of specific level or having specific Base Attack Bonus, gaining piece of information about the weapon and it's history, sometiems having specific abilities. Identify and similiar spell does not tell you more than their basic abilities, and that there is more to this item, than meets the eye. Items grants all abilities of it's unlocked level, as well as all abilities of previous levels. Some items may have specific additional features, in addition to it's main ones, which may be unlocked by meeting additional requirments. Those additional features, called Special Features, does not unlock with rest of Item Abilities of it's level.

legendary Items And You

Legendary Items are rarerly for sale and if so, usually the salesmen don't realize what has gotten into their hands. Therefore, if Dungeon Master decides to allow players buy one of them, it has only it's basic abilities and should be sold as weapon of appriorate price. In case of aquiring Legendary Item this way, Player Characters have no means of knowing what they bought and, unless somehow informed, may never unlock it's true potential and even discard it for, seemingly, superior weapon. That was the fate of many Legendary Items, passed from owner to onwer without any of them knowing it's true nature.

Legendary items are more fitting to be found in dungeons, treasuries, armories or collections of powerful and wealthy individuals, who may, or may not know their abilities, but usually at least realize they're worth more than it looks like. Such individuals may tell Player Characters more about the item's history, but may also be much harder to convince to give it to them.

Found in dungeons or in posession of monster who have killed previous owners, Legendary Items may lay around the clues of their true idientity. If not, Dungeon Master may hint to the players about their true nature, by using the Glimpse. Glimpse happens when object is used to something, that strongly reasonates with it's owner's essence, allowing player to temporary acess it's power of higher level without meeting the prequisites for it. When Glimpse activates, if at all is up to Dungeon Master, but usualy it's when doing something original owner was found of doing, performing such activities in exact place he was usually used to do them, fighting his killer or monster of the same kind, or being in situation similiar to which he was during one of his legendary deeds or moment of his death. Glimpse should be used very carefully, it's advised against using it more than once - it's there to hint for players what power really lies within the item, not to be additional cool feature.

Legendary Items may be used as tool in roleplaying and wolrd building, giving players a taste of history and legends of the world, as well as legacy of those, who defended it before them. Players may dedicate themselves to rediscovering the legend of their predecessors and carrying it from town to town, or sworn themselves to honor their legacy, giving the character his own story arc. Sometimes whole campaings may be build around such items.

Creating legendary Items

When creating Legendary Item, use table below:

{table] Item's Name | Basic | First Level | Second Level | Third Level | Fourth Level | Fifth Level | Special Features
Requirments | | | | | | |
Item Abilities | | | | | | |[/table]

Some things that should be keept in mind while designing Legendary Item:

* Not every item should have the same number of levels. While default setting is to give item 5 levels plus Basic level, nothing stops you from creating items with more or less levels.
* Important thing is not to go overboard and keep it climatic. Item with 20 levels that gives you every possible ability in the book may sounds cool, but it would be royal pain in the lower parts of your back to unlock them all and would make characters sick and tired of it. You should have as many abilities you think it's fitting for the legend the item is related too and no more.
* Special Features are additional bonus, not the requirment, not every item needs to have them.
* Don't make the requirments too complicated - while something storytelling- related is recommended, remember that it should be withing player's reach. Unless items does something trully outragerous, I doubt players will be happy they had to dance macarena in miniskirts on the top of tower full of zombies during the hurricane at the fulmoon night to unlock it. Similiar, on crunch side, requirments that are hard to acess, like some obscure class levels, feats or required level in certain Ability Score would make building their characters a chore, forcing them to do things they doesn't want to do with your characters and should be avoided, or, eventually, used to unlock Special Features.
* legend shouldn't be too long - you don't want to bore your players and more vague story gives you more space to maneuver, allowing flexibility in givint players a chance to rediscover the legend and meet the requirments

Legendary Items Index

* Sanger Zonvolt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13976992&postcount=2)

More items soon.

Man on Fire
2012-09-29, 07:57 AM
Okay, so here's quite generic, most basis Legendary Item for example of how it looks like. More will come at latter time.

This sword seems old, but is in a good shape, it's blade is covered in strange runes

Sanger Zonvolt is a medium sized Greatsword, with blade covered in runes. Man named Sanger Zonvolt was legendary paladin and blacksmith, who lived thousands of years ago. He participated in defending the kingdom from great invasion, as well as counter attack on invaders' homeland, and his strength and valor quickly made him dreaded on the battlefield - enemies thought of him as some fearsome giant, wielding sword much larger than himself, thus earning him nickname "Master of Colossal Blade". It was true that in his hands, sword could do more than any other weapon of it's size. He was especially found of using it against demons and other unholy creatures, ripping apart through them with ease. One of his greatest achievements was battle against Constructed Child, metalical creature defending Unbreakable Wall, made by the enemy to defend their capital city. After long and fierce battle, it seemed like Constructed Child couldn't be harmed in any way, magic or force alike bounced from it's metalic skin. Then Sanger, exhausted and badly wounded, had swung his sword one last time. And he swinged it so hard, it not only cut the enemy in half, but even made a hole in the seemingly unbreakable wall.

To honor Sanger's Legacy, after his death an Oath was made. Oath that is now known only among the members of secret Order of Sanger, elite group of Paladins specialising in using weapons larger than them, sent on most dangerous missions against forces of evil. As they must often work in secret, their identities are unknown even to one another and they recognize themselves by the oath.

I'm the Sword that Cleaves Evil.
I defend my honor
with all my hearth and soul.
When I ride into the battle
the rider and horse are one.
When I strike my opponents
the weapon and warrior are one.
In my liege's hands I am
weapon that cuts in half.
As long as my case is just
there is nothing my Colossal Weapon cannot cut

No one knows how Sanger died, records of his death and most records about him at all never survived to current times. No one knows what happened with his weapon either. But it's still somewhere there in the world and part of his essence survived inside it, waiting for warrior of great strength and pure heart to reawaken it's power.

{table] Sanger Zonvolt | Basic | First Level | Second Level | Third Level | Fourth Level | Special Features
Requirments | None | Good, BAB +5, must learn the runes on the sword means "The Sword That Cleaves Evil"| BAB +10, must learn sword's nickname, Colossal Blade| BAB +15, must learn the sword's owner's name and learn the Oath of Sanger | BAB + 20, Must Learn of Sanger's battle against Constructed Child|Capable of using of Smite Evil class feature
Item Abilities | +1 Enchancment Bonus | Sword gains Mighty Cleaving Speacial Abbility| Enchacment Bonus increase to +2, When sword deals damage it's threated as one size larger than it actually is| Enchancment Bonus increase to +3, Sword gains Holy Special Abbility| Enchancment Bonus increase to +5, weapon completely ignores Damage Reduction and Hardness | Additional daily use of Smite Evil for each unlocked level [/table]