levaling an Intelligent Item

[Jgosse]

So I plan on giving one of my characters an intelligent weapon. I would like said weapon to get stronger as he gets stronger. I will give him this weapon at level 4 or 5 and the Idea is that with every new wielder the weapon creates a bond and as it drinks in more human souls it will grow stronger. the base weapon is as follows.

+1 human bane Rapier CN Intelligent rapier

int 12
wis 10
cha 12

Empathy
Death watch.

Ego I think is 7


in the campaign I am running humans are the main enemy. There is an army of humans across the sea killing any non humans , as well as any humans who don't convert to the worship of their god Kalandor (god of my own creation.)


so how should I handle the leveling this Item, How fast should I level it ect ect...

[Flickerdart]

Take a look at the book Weapons of Legacy for inspiration. It's basically exactly what you want - items that gain powers as their wielder gets stronger. Consider also the feat Ancestral Relic, which lets a character sacrifice wealth to improve one of their items.

[Jormengand]

Level it up enough that the character always can have a better weapon, but is never likely to spend enough money to do so. So, say, it's worth about half to three quarters of their WBL.

This does have the problem that, well, it's worth half to three quarters of their WBL, massively increasing their wealth, but there's not much you can do about that, and anyone seriously using a sword could do with a little helping hand anyway.

[Jgosse]

Take a look at the book Weapons of Legacy for inspiration. It's basically exactly what you want - items that gain powers as their wielder gets stronger. Consider also the feat Ancestral Relic, which lets a character sacrifice wealth to improve one of their items.

I will take a look at weapons of legacy but this is something I am giving the party member but may use against him later so I won't get him to burn a feat or sacrifice anything else.

[Necroticplague]

If something is intelligent, it can take class levels (I remember reading a lantern where the intelligent version has levels of rogue by default). Just give it XP like any other party member. That swords lack of movement makes most classes problematic, but it could do psionics (at limited effectiveness given its mediocre stats), or spellcasting with carefully chosen spells. Warmage seems good stat-wise (int and cha based)and thematically.

[Jgosse]

If something is intelligent, it can take class levels (I remember reading a lantern where the intelligent version has levels of rogue by default). Just give it XP like any other party member. That swords lack of movement makes most classes problematic, but it could do psionics (at limited effectiveness given its mediocre stats), or spellcasting with carefully chosen spells. Warmage seems good stat-wise (int and cha based)and thematically.

not really what I am thinking. I was planing on having the weapon both grow as an intelligent weapon and with its magical item bonus.

[unseenmage]

If something is intelligent, it can take class levels (I remember reading a lantern where the intelligent version has levels of rogue by default). Just give it XP like any other party member. That swords lack of movement makes most classes problematic, but it could do psionics (at limited effectiveness given its mediocre stats), or spellcasting with carefully chosen spells. Warmage seems good stat-wise (int and cha based)and thematically.

You can give an Intelligent Magic Item a body by either a) making it a melee weapon and giving it the Flying weapon enhancement from Magic of Faerun. This makes it into an Animated Object, and if it's an Intelligent weapon then it's an Intelligent Animated Object.

Or b) Hand it to a mindless minion, it's Ego will easily overpower a creature without a mind thereby allowing the Intelligent Magic Item to have a body by proxy.


I will take a look at weapons of legacy but this is something I am giving the party member but may use against him later so I won't get him to burn a feat or sacrifice anything else.

In the Arms and Equipment Guide there's a sidebar about putting feats in Magic Items.
Using that you could just put the requisite feats into the Intelligent Item.
Costs 10,000 gp per feat plus 5,000gp per the feat's prerequisites.

[Jgosse]

Thinking about it there are 8 levels of intelligent Item and a total of 10 levels of magic item.for a total of 18 levels. the item would be level 3 at the moment.