Weapon Attunement: Scaling Weapons with PC Power

[Gaiwecoor]

People often complain about D&D being a system in which characters don't form any sort of emotional attachment to their gear. If a character is running around with a +2 longsword and finds a +2 flaming longsword in some treasure trove, he'll just sell the first one and use the new one. Sure he could re-enchant his old weapon, but why? There's a perfectly good one sitting right there!

I know of two solutions to this: First, the system outlined in Weapons of Legacy. Second, the Ancestral Relic feat (BoED).

I've heard people say Weapons of Legacy should be avoided. Why? What's wrong with the system?

Is Ancestral Relic worthwhile? I would think not, as it still costs the same amount as re-enchanting the weapon plus a day of prayer/meditation per 1000 gold spent

What other systems have people seen to deal with this situation?

[Chronicled]

Ancestral Relic can be worthwhile, but is usually seen in builds that try to get a brokenly good weapon for the level.

Weapons of Legacy penalizes the character to use the weapons (which are rather lackluster), taking away BAB, HP, and more. It was a poorly executed idea.

A rather brilliant idea for scaling weapons can be found in two posts at the end of this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75223).

[Falrin]

Intelligent magic weapons is a good way to get them attached.

Scale this weapon up using the general WBL, drop some treasure to compensate.

Have the inteligent part evolve. A 1st LvL sorceror Greatsword starts out with a trues strike or featherfalling / day. It gets you haste, greater magic weapon and armour, a fireball and a daylight/day at CL 7.

[Pyroconstruct]

The premade legacy weapons blow huge chunks. Custom-made Legacy weapons don't. Let your players custom-make Legacy weapons and it should be fine.

[Craig1f]

People often complain about D&D being a system in which characters don't form any sort of emotional attachment to their gear. If a character is running around with a +2 longsword and finds a +2 flaming longsword in some treasure trove, he'll just sell the first one and use the new one. Sure he could re-enchant his old weapon, but why? There's a perfectly good one sitting right there!

I know of two solutions to this: First, the system outlined in Weapons of Legacy. Second, the Ancestral Relic feat (BoED).

I've heard people say Weapons of Legacy should be avoided. Why? What's wrong with the system?

Is Ancestral Relic worthwhile? I would think not, as it still costs the same amount as re-enchanting the weapon plus a day of prayer/meditation per 1000 gold spent

What other systems have people seen to deal with this situation?


Ancestral Relic is worthwhile, I believe, because the items end up costing effectively less.

If you loot an item worth, say, 4000gp, you have to sell it for 2000gp and then use that money to get your ancestral relic enchanted.
On the other hand, if you sacrifice the 4000gp item, it counts as 4000gp towards your ancestral relic.

So you end up saving the money that you would lose selling items you don't want, if you use them towards an ancestral relic. You would break even if you used gold that you'd looted, since gold doesn't have to be sold at half value.

[Burley]

I really like the Augment Crystals from Magic Item Compendium.
If you want your players to be attached to their weapons, insist that they have a description for their starting weapon (I allow starting weapons to be masterworked for free, since my game is a bit more difficult in combat). You'll know then that they'll have an attachment to their weapon if they make a good paragraph or more as a description. Then, when they'd normally start finding +1 weapons, have them get hit with a wave of energy that enchants their weapons (or armor) as treasure instead of something they can sell. Then, throw Augment Crystals around randomly. Cheaper than actual weapons, and the party won't sell them 'cause they'll hopefully realize that selling that lesser fire crystal when they got a greater cold crystal was a bad idea. They'll need to keep the items around for different enemies.

[Keld Denar]

Another option is to have a friendly artificer NPC hanging around where-ever the PCs travel. Bonus kudos if he's a dwarf named Watts. What they can do is turn in pillaged loot of unusable weapon types which Watts can then deconstruct to gain crafting experience, and then use that to upgrade the PCs gear. Put some restrictions on it (such as no vorpal) or make it scale with the party's level. (+1 eqivs at level 1-4, +2 equivs at 5-8, etc). This is also very nice for Mr Iputallmyfeatsintobeingamasterofaspecificuncommonw eapon, and allow you as the DM to throw NPCs who use wierd weapons at your PCs without worry that their loot will be reletively worthless to the PCs.

Bonus kudos to anyone who gets the Watts reference....

[TheThan]

I really like the Augment Crystals from Magic Item Compendium.
If you want your players to be attached to their weapons, insist that they have a description for their starting weapon (I allow starting weapons to be masterworked for free, since my game is a bit more difficult in combat). You'll know then that they'll have an attachment to their weapon if they make a good paragraph or more as a description. Then, when they'd normally start finding +1 weapons, have them get hit with a wave of energy that enchants their weapons (or armor) as treasure instead of something they can sell. Then, throw Augment Crystals around randomly. Cheaper than actual weapons, and the party won't sell them 'cause they'll hopefully realize that selling that lesser fire crystal when they got a greater cold crystal was a bad idea. They'll need to keep the items around for different enemies.

reminds me of materia from the Final fantasy series.

[Gaiwecoor]

Intelligent magic weapons is a good way to get them attached.

Scale this weapon up using the general WBL, drop some treasure to compensate.

Have the inteligent part evolve. A 1st LvL sorceror Greatsword starts out with a trues strike or featherfalling / day. It gets you haste, greater magic weapon and armour, a fireball and a daylight/day at CL 7.

Hmm... I like this. Well, this along with the link posted by Chronicled. Perhaps I ought to try to figure out a good progression for items (by level). I'll come back later.

[Animefunkmaster]

I am afmb, but in dmg2 there is a chosen weapon (Which is similar to OA's Samurai Diasho), and a ceremony feat that goes with it. Might be a worthwhile thing to show your group.

[tyckspoon]

Another option is to have a friendly artificer NPC hanging around where-ever the PCs travel. Bonus kudos if he's a dwarf named Watts. What they can do is turn in pillaged loot of unusable weapon types which Watts can then deconstruct to gain crafting experience, and then use that to upgrade the PCs gear. Put some restrictions on it (such as no vorpal) or make it scale with the party's level. (+1 eqivs at level 1-4, +2 equivs at 5-8, etc).

But won't they have to kill like a zillion dragons in order to get their +10 enchantments?

[Chronicled]

But won't they have to kill like a zillion dragons in order to get their +10 enchantments?

This artificer doesn't have to get the normal amount of xp from loot.

[Person_Man]

Ancestral Relic is definitely worth it for any build that starts at low levels and progresses to high levels. It saves you a huge amount of money that otherwise goes to merchants. And/or you can also take Mercantile Background (I think its in Player's Guide to Faerun). Of course, they only works if your DM sticks to standard wealth by level guidelines.

Theoretically, a Whatever 5/Kensai X with Ancestral Relic could get a +10 weapon around ECL 12ish (+7 from Kensai levels, the last +3 or so from a gp investment). But that's not really worth it.

[MorkaisChosen]

This is particularly good for all those "I carry my ancestral sword" characters. In core-only, the best way to do that from 1st is to say it's been nicked, allowing the weapon to be at least Masterwork (and therefore upgradable). I like the Watts idea (don't get the reference, though...).

[Keld Denar]

What I ment with the artificer and the level limits is the +equivalant, rather than the net. So a level 1-4 character who wanted to sink ALL his gold into upgrading his sword to a +1 with keen, viscous, merciful, etc, could because they are all +1 equivalant. At levels 5+, they unlock the more powerful +2 equivalants like holy, wounding, etc. That way, they wouldn't even have access to brilliant energy (+4) until level 16, or vorpal(+5) until level 20. They could still have a +10 equivilant weapon if they wanted at any level they could afford one, but it would come out of their WBL which means they couldn't have other nice toys.


I like the Watts idea (don't get the reference, though...).

ok, I'll give it up. The refrence was to the old SNES game Secret of Mana which had a traveling dwarf weaponsmith who used "weapon orbs" you got from chests and bosses to upgrade the 8 weapon types in the game. Nice concept, and can work in a D&D game too...

[Tokiko Mima]

I think I should also mention that the Giant has his own solution for this scenario, in the form of a PrC called "Bearer of the Ancestral Weapon." (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/xJ1VzXrzTxbe9Z8rXIV.html) :smallwink:

[MorkaisChosen]

Great for Paladins and casters who qualify; not so good for everyone else.

[Prometheus]

Item Familiar is an interesting thing to have, even if it is a little convoluted

Item Sets from Magic Item Compendium tend to give people incentives to keeping their belongings around.

I think the larger point is not having a ancestral weapon that a player uses, but weapons that have a purpose. I have a campaign that periodically drop specific weapons that can't be enchanted or sold. They are usually useful in the beginning or in certain situations, and therefore the player use them for a while before going to another one.

Finally, the point about Intelligent Items is definitely true. Players like them.