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.
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.