What is the General Consensus on Weapons of Legacy?

[Greysect]

To elaborate: Are weapons of legacy worth handing out to player(s) using tier 3 or 4 classes? The idea of a Tome of battle character having a signature weapon (not necessarily one of the nine swords) is alluring.

I had read this very small thread when searching on google: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194977

The general consensus in that thread is that they are not worthwhile, or that the penalties to attacks, saves, and hp should be reduced. If you all are against legacy weapons, could you perhaps steer me in the direction of homebrew systems?

[Sophistemon]

I bought Weapons of Legacy at a convention a few years back, and while I enjoyed the histories of the weapons themselves, I felt that the actual mechanics were lacking. It's a good idea, having weapons and armor that increase in power with their users, but I feel as though it was implemented poorly. If you're planning to hand them out to characters to raise the effective tier of certain classes, then I would encourage you to diminish the penalties somewhat, if not do away with them altogether.

[Elitarismo]

The easiest fix would be to remove the penalties entirely, let the player custom make it, and leave the rest alone.

[The Glyphstone]

Great concepts, awful execution.

[Glimbur]

The simplest way to do things is to give everyone (or a select group, based on tier or who gave you the most pizza or whatever) the Ancestral Daisho ability from the OA Samurai, or Ancestral Relic from BoED. Either way, the character gains the ability to enchant their weapon independent of a spellcaster and can spend magic items and loot at 1:1 instead of selling items for half and then paying to enchant things. This encourages them to hang on to one item and lets them customize it.

[Godskook]

The benefits of Legacy weapons are decent. The penalties usually negate the bonus.

Stripping the penalties and give them to all your PCs means that the PCs will balanced among themselves.

Otherwise, is there something in particular you'd like them to be balanced against?

[Geigan]

I thought this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5907.0) was helpful in explaining how it worked.

I much prefer when the weapon is designed with the player in mind, as most of the ones in the book are fairly lame. I'd say they're more like cool toys than defining aspects of a character's power. I don't have nearly as much experience with them as I would like though.

[Firechanter]

The easiest fix would be to remove the penalties entirely, let the player custom make it, and leave the rest alone.
^
This.

The custom-making by players may be debatable, but either way if you use WoL, the penalties have to go.

[ThiefInTheNight]

Plus one for "the execution of Weapons of Legacy was awful." I'll add that they cause similar problems for the DM as do Item Familiars: in theory, they are a trade-off where you gain extra power at the risk of being hurt if you lose the item. This puts the DM, if he follows the rules as written (and if the weapons lived up to the theory, which they don't), in a no-win situation: if he takes away the item, the player's character is permanently penalized with no official method of healing it, but if the weapon instead becomes off-limits, the player is getting the extra power at no cost (because the risk isn't real).

WoL doesn't actually play out that way (since the weapons aren't especially good), but it is a serious flaw in the conceptual design of the items, as well.

The penalties really, really have to go. Book of Exalted Deeds's Ancestral Relic feat is a much better method of describing a similar concept.

[Ravens_cry]

Great concepts, awful execution.
Pretty much.
The fluff, I love it. Especially Ur, the first magic weapon.
Using the rules to make your own could work, but the example items are horrid.

[pilvento]

In our table we all love that book so we just ignore the penalties and the DM designed for each of us a especific weapon disigned to enhance our features.

All this tanks to the plot of course. :smallcool:

[DeAnno]

I'll add that they cause similar problems for the DM as do Item Familiars: in theory, they are a trade-off where you gain extra power at the risk of being hurt if you lose the item.

Except that here's there's no trade, because the item and its penalties are usually more of a liability than anything else. With Item familiars it bounces between Strong or Crippled, with WoL it's Lousy or Crippled.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Except that here's there's no trade, because the item and its penalties are usually more of a liability than anything else. With Item familiars it bounces between Strong or Crippled, with WoL it's Lousy or Crippled.

I dunno... I'd take a 10 hp hit for free metamagic feats. Seriously, take a second look at some of the things they can do for you.

[Zaq]

On the rare occasions I GM, it's the only book I ban outright (I ban plenty of things, but I at least look at them first and ban them piecemeal). The book just gives me a headache, and I'm on record as having MoI as one of my favorite books, so complexity and poor layout alone aren't enough to scare me off (to be fair, I don't find MoI to be complex, but a lot of people seem to). In addition, the balance is just all over the map, and fixing it is more work than I'm willing to put in.

So yeah, as pretty much everyone has said, nifty concept, bad execution.

[Drelua]

I remember looking at that book and thinking, "This is so cool!" Then I read a bunch of it, and I loved everything I saw. Until I noticed the penalties they have. I read a bunch of items without seeing them. I was crushed... :smalltongue:

So yeah, I'd say drop the penalties altogether and you're set, though I've also seen a bunch of different ways to do the same idea, some homebrew, the rest already mentioned. My other problem is that the complex rituals make for a major distraction from the plot, and if I'm remembering correctly, the feat tax hurt. The price of the rituals was a good balance, but they were too specific and the knowledge check could hurt if you couldn't make it for some reason. All good reasons to go with Ancestral Relic. Well, except for the feat tax bit.

[Kenneth]

I LOVE weapons of legacy. its something that was pretty popular in teh 2nd ed cirlces we ran with weapons that grow in power along with the owner.


I am 100% for the pentalty for the published weapons of legacies myself and here is why.,

they are not YOUR legacy, you are taking up somebody else's legacy and using it. so IMO you deserve some penalties becuase well.. you are basically trying to be a copycat.


though in making legacy items for you OWN character, completely brand new ones. there is no need for such penalties becuase they are YOUR legacy and hence there is noneed for rituals and feats and other dumb crap that you need for the published Weapons of legacy.

TL:DR below

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

★ ☆ ★ ☆ Other peoples legacy weapons need to have penalties★ ☆ ★ ☆
★ ☆ ★ ☆ Legacy weapons for your own charcaters do not ★ ☆ ★ ☆

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

[Godskook]

@Kenneth, the problem with that idea is that some weapons of legacy aren't possible until after the person in question dies. Namely, I'm thinking about Bones of Li-Peng, which are literally made from his own bones(I'm assuming its not the only one with this quirk).

[marcielle]

Build them yourself. Allow players to choose the penalties that hurt the least/negate all penalties but rituals. NEVER use the ones in the books.

[Incorrect]

I love the idea. An epic warrior type should have one epic weapon, not changing after every battle because he found something slightly better.

The ones in the book are just not that good..

But create one yourself, and draw from all the abilities from WOLs in other books and it will be very powerfull.
Its important to realize that they dont have to be weapons. It can be gloves, an ioun stone or a even coin, now you can both use the best weapon you find, and still get all the benefits.

An ioun stone granting you something like True Seeing, Deathward and Spell resistance plus a bunch of other abilities, costing some HP, skills and just 50.000 over 15 levels. It even gives you three miniquests and roleplaying opportunities.

[Feytalist]

I love the idea. An epic warrior type should have one epic weapon, not changing after every battle because he found something slightly better.

Well... contrast with someone like Conan, who pretty much just carried whichever weapon he happened to pick up off the battlefield previously.

Weapons don't need to grow in power along with their wielders, but it can make for a nice experience.

[Eldariel]

The Menus create very strong Weapons of Legacy but the whole "penalty + ability" system and the fact that the weapon enhancements are never worth taking kinda eats into the system.

If I use Weapons of Legacy I use them to shore up a non-caster; you get stuff like Heal, Mirror Image, Contingency, "Foresight" (Cunning), Moment of Prescience and so on; spells of great power and utility to you, that you couldn't normally access without high level casting.


Basically, useful and powerful system and great idea but poor for the intended purpose.

[Eldan]

Well... contrast with someone like Conan, who pretty much just carried whichever weapon he happened to pick up off the battlefield previously.

Weapons don't need to grow in power along with their wielders, but it can make for a nice experience.

Or Ffahrd and Mouser: the book even mentions that they changed weapons all the time, just named them the same, for convenience.

[Partysan]

I'm not even against WoLs having some kind of cost, but the types of penalties you incur don't make sense and pretty much destroy the concept, especially for warrior types. What's this about having an attack penalty for using a better weapon? Shouldn't you get, y'know, better at fighting? And the penalty persists even when using other weapons. So congrats, your supersword has made you a worse fighter.
Does not make sense and also weakens the whole thing heavily.

[panaikhan]

Running with the 'Conan' kind-of idea (battlefield scrounging), I let my player design a Legacy item that was like a Weapon Totem - a decorative item that could be attached to the hilt / grip of a weapon and, after a small length of time, confer it's abilities.
The penalties can hit hard. The costs of the rituals can be crippling in low-loot campaigns. And, some of the bonuses / abilities work better than others.

[stainboy]

Even without the penalties I can't think of a WoL that's better than a halfway optimized Magic Mart weapon. I wouldn't worry for a second about throwing out the penalties.

[Elitarismo]

^
This.

The custom-making by players may be debatable, but either way if you use WoL, the penalties have to go.

I wouldn't consider it debatable at all. Even with the penalties outright gone, it is easy to get something inferior to a normal item if you don't optimize it, which means that it requires both ditching the penalties and allowing it to be custom made for it to be better than any old item you could get on your own.

About the only good things WoL do are:

Cunning.
The Metamagic effects, that are only noteworthy because they are metamagic rods that lack the text about not stacking with metamagic rods.
About 2 or 3 of the ToB effects.
A few of the unique effects on the published WoL, but not the published weapons themselves.

The rest just copies common items, or is just bad.

It gets a little better if the DM allows similar effects that have similar costs, but there's still few good ones.

I'd like to also add to the previous comment that if there is no Mage Mart, the casters just custom craft a better item themselves, and it's only the non casters - the already weaker classes left out in the cold.

[Eldariel]

Even without the penalties I can't think of a WoL that's better than a halfway optimized Magic Mart weapon. I wouldn't worry for a second about throwing out the penalties.

They can, just not for combat. You get them for a bunch of spells you can't access otherwise (other than being a Tier 1-2 class).

[Elitarismo]

The spell access is too overpriced to be worth it. Even cross class UMD is better than that.

[Eldariel]

The spell access is too overpriced to be worth it. Even cross class UMD is better than that.

Eh, with not-that-painful penalties it's easily worth it. Getting something like permanent Foresight and Mind Blank alone is worth all the costs associated to a full tiered Legacy item. Legacy Weapons have repeatable uses while UMD is one-shot deal with stacking costs so Legacy Weapon is more efficient in the long run though of course, the first 2-3 castings are better off UMD.

[Elitarismo]

Eh, with not-that-painful penalties it's easily worth it. Getting something like permanent Foresight and Mind Blank alone is worth all the costs associated to a full tiered Legacy item. Legacy Weapons have repeatable uses while UMD is one-shot deal with stacking costs so Legacy Weapon is more efficient in the long run though of course, the first 2-3 castings are better off UMD.

Mind Blank isn't until 18. Cunning is nice though. But the stuff like Heal, etc? Worthless.

[Eldariel]

Mind Blank isn't until 18. Cunning is nice though. But the stuff like Heal, etc? Worthless.

The Heal's decent if you have no access to caster at that point. Admittedly you're pretty FUBAR'd by then but in various challenges (that obviously restrict class and spell access) I've found it quite useful to have an easy, repeatable access to something that restores more than 1/10th of my HP. The Contingency access isn't terrible either and Moment of Prescience, while late, is still Moment of Prescience. There's also Time Stop, of course, though it's a tad expensive to pick up.

Of course, the biggest problem with the spells you want is that they mostly fall in the Greater category which generally comes too late to help. But even just a cheap access to True Seeing is nice for a non-caster. Most items granting it are pretty damn expensive.

[Elitarismo]

The Heal's decent if you have no access to caster at that point. Admittedly you're pretty FUBAR'd by then but in various challenges (that obviously restrict class and spell access) I've found it quite useful to have an easy, repeatable access to something that restores more than 1/10th of my HP. The Contingency access isn't terrible either and Moment of Prescience, while late, is still Moment of Prescience. There's also Time Stop, of course, though it's a tad expensive to pick up.

Of course, the biggest problem with the spells you want is that they mostly fall in the Greater category which generally comes too late to help. But even just a cheap access to True Seeing is nice for a non-caster. Most items granting it are pretty damn expensive.

I forget if MoP is H or I. If it's H, you're not getting it until 20. If I you aren't getting it at all, because that means no Mind Blank. If you don't have a caster you're dead long before 17, even if enemies don't have spells either so it's a moot point and UMD Heal will cover any in combat needs whereas a simple Lesser Vigor handles out of combat. I forget if Contingency is E or F. I think F... so minimum level 14, and you still have to put something in the Contingency. It's ok, but not great. Getting Time Stop as a non caster is entirely pointless. You can't do anything with the Time Stopped rounds. True Seeing wise, the best ways are to either be a Psychic Warrior for Steadfast Perception or buy the components yourself as it's extremely expensive no matter what.

Though I remembered two other abilities I forgot about. Slippery Barrier and the Glitterdust one (if an intelligent item). Having your weapon notice enemies and highlight them for everyone else is nice, and Slippery Barrier is also useful.

[Lord Vampyre]

I love the concept of WoL, but I always ignore the penalties when I had one out. I also don't tell my players that they have actually picked one up until they figure it out. This tends to be a quest in and of itself.

Without the penalties, legacy items give the DM a way to develop an epic level magic item that grows with the characters as they unlock its secrets. Implemented correctly, it can really add to a campaign. However, using the penalties really detracts from many character concepts, namely the penalties to a character's base attack when they are playing fighters. This means that the WoL item is actually worse than a standard magic item of the same value.

[Coidzor]

I don't know where to begin making a workable system out of this and I don't really want to put the time in myself to figure it all out and get it solid, but the idea is nice.