Using Saberhagen's Twelve Swords in D&D 3.5

[Birstel]

Hello,
I'm running a D&D 3.5 game based in the forgotten realms and am introducing the twelve swords from Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Swords_of_Power


I'm still working on adapting most of them but here is what I've come up with so far:

Townsaver- +25 to hit and damage when defending innocents, +1 longsword otherwise
Opponents must make will save (DC 35) to do anything other than attack you.
While sword abilities active, lose Dex to AC, cannot fight defensively or use combat expertise, cannot do anything
but attack.
Cannot die due to hit point damage while abilities are active, once fight is over immediately die if -10 or below.

Soulcutter- When drawn wielder must immediatly make DC 35 will save every round or be unable to act, anyone within 5 feet must make DC 34 will save.
If saved, still effected as by Crushing Despair Spell
Sword does 1 point of Wisdom damage each round to everyone in area of effect. When it hits 0, subject loses the will to live
and dies.
Area of effect increases by 20 feet each round, save against affect is DC 35, -1 for every five feet you are away from the sword.
No immunities can protect subject from ability damage, damage can only be restored by making a DC 25 caster level check when casting appropriate spell.
Wielder ages 1% of their lifespan per round, minimum 1 year, if immune to ageing subject loses 2 points of Wisdom instead of 1 per round.

I'm trying to make them extremely powerful without being instant death artifacts. Does anyone know of any other 3.5 adaptations out there I might be able to work with?

Thanks!

[Lapak]

There should be an upper limit on Soulcutter's expansion; perhaps you intended it to be at DC 0 but a 1 still fails any save, so you might want to make that explicit.

Some of the more straightforward Swords should be simply enough. Dragonslicer, for example; it's probably enough to treat it as a Bane weapon any attacks against made against a creature with the Dragon type would be treated as touch attacks that also ignore miss chance or something similar. Or Farslayer, which is a no-save-just-die effect (it can infallibly kill a god; that would seem to rule out a dice roll to attack or a saving throw.)

Speaking of which, don't forget that all of them except Woundhealer are potential godslayers.

[Birstel]

Yeah I was going to limit Soulcutter to a 1000ft radius, I think that should be big enough.

Yeah Dragonslicer and Stonecutter were easier to workout, the ones giving me a headache right now are Sightblinder and Doomgiver.

[Sudain]

Yea I loved the series as well; I just wish I got to see what each of the swords did. I think finished it; though I don't feel I ever got a full conclusion. I may need to go back and re-read them.

The sword of Vengence should be a death effect though. :)

[Frank N. Stein]

While I haven't quite finished the Omnibus just yet, I've seen what a few of the swords can do, and I think you are handling most of them quite nicely. However, you have to remember that the Twelve Swords were set in a "campaign" that had relatively low magic content. The highest level spell I've seen cast so far was Greater Invisibility. That saying, you may have to buff or nerf some of the swords to fit with the generally high-magic 3.5.

I'm thinking that while Soulcutter may have been used to affect an entire battlefield in the book, a max range of 1000 ft is incredibly overpowered in D&D, and not necessarily practical. If the wave expands by 20 feet per round, it will take 50 rounds to reach maximum range. After round 5, the radius expansion will become obsolete, for most combat areas rarely stretch past a 100 foot radius. People who are 1000 feet away from each other can't usually cause much harm (unless they have high-power seige cannons, and immaculate aim). While it would stray from the swords' powers in the books, I would limit Soulcutter's range to a 100 foot radius, and have the wave increase by 10 feet per round. It also seems extreme for the sword to require a DC 35 Will save from the wielder to act. Most of the classes who would want to wield the sword (Fighters, Barbarians, even Rogues) have very poor Will saves, making a DC 35 near impossible, even at 20th level. Perhaps you should tone down the DCs a bit. You also mention "losing" 1 point of Wisdom... Is that Wisdom damage, or drain? Either way, dancing just out of reach of the Terrasque for 14 rounds would kill it. Perhaps a Will or Fort save is in order?

You did pretty well on Townsaver, with a minor exception: You might want to give the character protecting innocent people a decent damage bonus. Otherwise, he makes himself a walking target, with almost no damage output... At some point, you're just too chopped up to keep going :smallwink:

Shieldbreaker should give a bonus to sundering and disarming, Woundhealer might cast a random healing spell as a touch attack (or inflict, if used against Undead). I wouldn't advise making Farslayer a death effect, because there are easy ways to circumvent them (Death Ward, 4th level Cleric Spell). Sightblinder could cast Veil from the Bard spell list based on who is in the immediate vacinity, and have different settings to conjure different images based on if the wielder wants to blend in or stick out of a crowd. There's really an infinite number of ways to do these swords, so if you don't like something I wrote, feel free to ignore it. Hope this helps.

[dysprosium]

You might want to get out how the Swords are statted out in this homebrew thread:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=264580

He did a really nice job overall and got the flavor of the Swords rather well