advice on a powerful artifact, for a low power pc

[commander panda]

ok, so i'v just started a new game with my school's D&D club. the plot places the PC's in a massive gameshow-esk event called simply The Race, which is kind of a fusion of the amazing race and the hunger games.
one of the obstacles of the race is that equipment is hard to come by, so most of my PCs will be stuck with subpar weapons and armour for a while.

now, one of my players is determined to play the knight in shining armour (fighter), and i thought it would be cool if, after ages of using a club or something, he managed to get his hands on his ideal weapon (big shiny sword). this luckily gives an excellent opportunity to deal with my other potential problem.

not counting him, the party is made up of a cleric, a wizard, and two druids. he will be useless in no time :smalleek:.

so, basically, i decided to make his new weapon even the odds, and i need to know if this is too much or too little. i'm not sure what level they will be when he gets this, but it will be at least level 10.

the sword is obviously designed for paladins, this is intentional, as it aligns with the players backstory.

the sword of St. Bannon [relic]
-it normally functions as a +3 holy starmetal longsword (might make it +5. don't know yet)

if you satisfy the blades requirements, you unlock the following attributes. (don't know the requirements, yet, but i will make sure he meets them. the sword chooses its wielder.)

-wounds of wrathful justice: smite attacks do an additional 1d10 holy damage. 2d10 if the target is lawful evil. (the sword belonged to a paladin of freedom.)
-tower of the divine bastion: all allies within 30 feet of the designated wielder benifit from protection against evil (as the spell.) this remains in effect as long as the sword is drawn and held in plain view by its designated wielder.
-wielding the sun: the sword always glows when held by its designated wielder. this effect creates full illumination out to 60 ft, which penitrates magical darkness. the wielder and his allies can see through deciet using this holy light. any time a spell or spell like effect that would normlay be effected by trueseeing enters the area of the swords light, the wielder and his allies are considerd to have trueseeing against it. the light is considered natural sunlight, for all mechanical purposes.
-looking into the sun: a wielder may force an enemy to look directly into the blades light to attack. any time the wielder would make use of the combat reflexes feat, the AC bonus is doubled. this is only possible if the wielder is using the sword two handed, or if he is using it one handed without a shield.
-essence of the divines: the designated wielder gains the half-celestial template. the wielder will always have metallic gold wings, which gove off light within a 20 ft radius.
-spell shatter: the sword of St. Bannon has a unique ability to "cut" through magic. 5 times per day, the wielder may choose to attack a spell, or spell effect. the spell must be perceivable to the wielder, and it must be something (or cast on something) the sword could actually touch. for example, the wielder could destroy a wizard's mage armour or silent image, but could do nothing to prevent someone scrying on him. the spells "AC" is equal to 11+CL+the casting stat, the wielder attacks using 1d20+BAB+STR. if the wielder hits, the spell is immediately dismissed.
in the event that a caster uses a targeted spell, the wielder may make a normal opposed attack action to intercept it. if successful, they may move to de-spell as normal. (i made it 3 times a day to prevent disappointment, if i have to nerf it. i may increase it if it doesn't prove to problematic.)

ok, thats what i've got. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

also, be aware that all my players are new, so no one should be assumed to be high op. of course, the fact that the others are playing the 3 most powerful classes in core help them a bit :smallamused:.

[Crake]

Perhaps make it similar to a holy avenger? If there are other magic users in the running, greater dispel magic, even if it's only the area version, at will will give him a decent foot to stand on in later fights. The SR 5+ level doesnt hurt either.

[Flickerdart]

You may be well served to make the weapon an intelligent item (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/intelligentItems.htm) that grows with its wielder. The epic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/intelligentItems.htm) ones have more powerful abilities that are more appropriate for an artifact at higher levels.

Incidentally, the reason that the Half-Celestial template is better than Celestial Creature is because the latter are just animals and stuff that happen to live on the Upper Planes, while the former is the offspring of a human doing the nasty with a full-fledged angel.

[commander panda]

i'm liking the holy avenger for this, might include some of its attributes. the half celestial template already handles spell resistance.


You may be well served to make the weapon an intelligent item that grows with its wielder. The epic ones have more powerful abilities that are more appropriate for an artifact at higher levels.
not a bad idea, i'll look into it.


Incidentally, the reason that the Half-Celestial template is better than Celestial Creature is because the latter are just animals and stuff that happen to live on the Upper Planes, while the former is the offspring of a human doing the nasty with a full-fledged angel.
that explains it, then :smallbiggrin:. i will definitely need to refluff that.


just to be clear though. can i get an opinion on what i already have?

[Anachronity]

In a party of otherwise full casters it's gonna have to be pretty strong (unless all of the casters are content to just use damage spells). However, keep in mind that if it's too strong he's going to be bummed if you nerf it later. It's better to start off relatively weak and make it grow stronger later with plot magic if it isn't strong enough to start with.

As it is right now it looks fine, though it should have some anti-magic stuff to help him cope with caster baddies. Again, depending on how the party casters play you might not need to make this all that strong. However, if there's any chance of PvP (you mentioned the Hunger Games) you'll need to give him as many different options as possible.

One more thing: if he's playing a fighter, does he have smite attacks to augment?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Another agreement for the Intelligent weapon; that way, you can make it organically grow.

[commander panda]

the anti-magic is a good idea, and i'm trying to consider how to implement it. perhaps it can "sunder" tangible magic effects that it otherwise would be unable to?

i'm a bit leery of making the sword intelligent, to be honest. like i said, he's a new player. i don't want to overwhelm him.

no, he doesn't have smite, but the half celestial template grants it once a day. i was also considering making him take a level of paladin, to qualify as the wielder.

[Flickerdart]

i'm a bit leery of making the sword intelligent, to be honest. like i said, he's a new player. i don't want to overwhelm him.
The sword doesn't have to be a hostile intelligence - if its alignment matches the wielder and its purpose is something like "slay enemies" then they'll get along great. It also gives you an option to steer him away from horrible mistakes with vague empathic commands.

[commander panda]

lol, i mean i don't want to overwhelm the player himself, not his character. the rules for intelligent items seem fairly complex.

on another note, i made the sword into starmetal and implemented a de-spell mechanic. i'm a bit leery on the new mechanic though, because it functions by making a normal attack against an AC=to the target spell's save DC, which is scaled for comparatively lower modifiers. any other suggestions?

[Flickerdart]

lol, i mean i don't want to overwhelm the player himself, not his character. the rules for intelligent items seem fairly complex.
The player wouldn't have control over how the item grows and develops any more than he would have control over the powers of any other artifact. Pick things that you think the player will find useful - if the fighter can't reach enemies in time and has trouble keeping up with damage, give the item haste, for example.



on another note, i made the sword into starmetal and implemented a de-spell mechanic. i'm a bit leery on the new mechanic though, because it functions by making a normal attack against an AC=to the target spell's save DC, which is scaled for comparatively lower modifiers. any other suggestions?
If you want to create a custom dispel mechanic, I would advise you to take a page from the existing dispel magic spell. Perhaps require a roll of 1d20+BAB+STR, opposed by 11+CL+casting stat of the effect to determine what happens.

[commander panda]

If you want to create a custom dispel mechanic, I would advise you to take a page from the existing dispel magic spell. Perhaps require a roll of 1d20+BAB+STR, opposed by 11+CL+casting stat of the effect to determine what happens.

ok that looks pretty good, so the player wouldn't add and of his other attack modifiers?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Heh, I plan to do a similar thing for the martial in my party. Except in my case, it's a weapon the adventure path already provides and I'm just significantly beefing it up w/ new abilities. I really liked it, because the weapon (even as written, before I mucked w/ it) scales in power with the wielder's level, something pretty uncommon in D&D (there's the legacy weapons in Tome of Battle, but they require pretty big sacrifices for questionable benefit).

He'll be getting it just before hitting level 5, and it will just improve from there. I'd suggest you do the same, level 10 sounds really late unless you're starting at higher levels. And scale / add-on benefits over time, rather than as a one-time lump sum. You could even tie unlocking a new power to the plot and such.

[Flickerdart]

Adding other mods would make it trivial to reave through even epic magic. Think of it less like an attack and more like a maneuver such as Trip.

[Incorrect]

It's a great idea to have the sword grow in power as he himself becomes more powerful. It does not need to be intelligent to do this, it just magically gains a new cool ability every time you feel its appropriate.
That way it doesn't start out as overpowered and ends up useless later.

You could look at weapons of legacy, from the aptly named book: Weapons of Legacy. The example weapons are far from optimized, but the book includes the option of designing your own.
If you try to design one yourself I believe there is an online guide floating around somewhere.

[Red Fel]

It's a great idea to have the sword grow in power as he himself becomes more powerful. It does not need to be intelligent to do this, it just magically gains a new cool ability every time you feel its appropriate.
That way it doesn't start out as overpowered and ends up useless later.

You could look at weapons of legacy, from the aptly named book: Weapons of Legacy. The example weapons are far from optimized, but the book includes the option of designing your own.
If you try to design one yourself I believe there is an online guide floating around somewhere.

Seconding Weapons of Legacy. WoLs have a built-in mechanic for upgrading the weapon over the course of an adventure. So, instead of it simply being a "really good" sword that suddenly becomes "incredibly good," it can be done in steps.

That said, the WoL system is somewhat broken, and not in a good way; I recommend looking into various homebrew fixes for WoLs.

I do think that melees (particularly pallies, particularly in caster-heavy parties) need some love, and I think an awesome weapon can be a pretty fun way to do it, so long as it doesn't overshadow the party. Since they're casters, and the weapon's capstone has a per-day use cap, I don't think there's any risk of the weapon making them look bad. I think you've done quite well with this.

[Drachasor]

While a powerful weapon can be helpful, you run the risk of the character being mostly defined by his weapon. Have you considered letting him Gestalt with another class? If you tweak the Warlock a bit it could easily serve as a good basis for a gestalt class that's not overwhelming.

[commander panda]

i'm still a bit resistant to giving the sword intelligence, but the weapon of legacy option is intriguing. i might take the spirit of the mechanic, and allow it to grow more powerful as he completes certain symbolic tasks, like defy a near undefeatable oppressor, kill said oppressor, etc. (the sword has a consistent freedom theme.)

any advice on how to progress this? i'd like the light, template, and spell shatter to come in early, but they could start off weaker. everything else can come in gradually, if necessary.


He'll be getting it just before hitting level 5, and it will just improve from there. I'd suggest you do the same, level 10 sounds really late unless you're starting at higher levels. And scale / add-on benefits over time, rather than as a one-time lump sum. You could even tie unlocking a new power to the plot and such.

unfortunately, they're already at level 5, and i have a plot specific time when i want to introduce the sword, which they wont reach till level 10. thats why i made it powerful, it wont come in till he's already far below the power of the rest of the party.