Better Weapons of Legacy?

[SovelsAtaask]

Weapons of Legacy had a cool idea that was poorly executed. When I first found the book I got excited before getting really disappointed that it was so... meh. Found the abilities of the presented weapons lackluster, not digging the penalties, issues all around. I've seen lots of neat reworks and overhauls on this site, so surely someone's fixed legacy weapons by now. Couldn't find much by just searching, but surely there's something out there? Could someone point me in the right direction?

[Snowbluff]

-> Remove the penalties. Keep the abilities progression and flavorful side quests to unlock them. Construct your own weapons with equivalent abilities within those confines.

Well, my work is done here.

[Necroticplague]

Remove the need for a Good alignment or consencrated area from Ancestral Relic, let them pick up that. Those with a less item-based bent can do similar with Sculpt Self.

[ahenobarbi]

Champion of Legacy with custom Weapon of Leagacy is great.

[Necroticplague]

Champion of Legacy with custom Weapon of Leagacy is great.

Eh, not really. Most of the punishments are a bit too much, and a lot of the custom powers are a bit undderwhelming.

[SovelsAtaask]

-> Remove the penalties. Keep the abilities progression and flavorful side quests to unlock them. Construct your own weapons with equivalent abilities within those confines.

Well, my work is done here.

Well, yeah, I guess that does fixes a good bit of the issues I have with the system. Honestly, I haven't looked at the custom legacy weapon rules much. Are the custom abilities in the book mostly good, or will I probably have to come up with my own?


Remove the need for a Good alignment or consencrated area from Ancestral Relic, let them pick up that. Those with a less item-based bent can do similar with Sculpt Self.

That'd probably work too, but not for what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for weapons that the players can shape at will, I'm looking to create unique, powerful items with fixed abilities.

But what's Sculpt Self? Haven't heard of that one.

[Fizban]

To quantify the problem: the designers seem to have had in mind that the items get more powerful automatically, making them free loot. So they decided to limit their power to make sure the "free" loot wouldn't unbalance anything, somehow managing to completely miss how making your special items means they stop being special and become trasht. And then they chickened out even more and stacked on gp costs for the "free" items, and penalties that are worth even more than that.

Remove the "legacy ritual costs." Remove the penalties. Jack up the bonuses and abilities until they're worth say, 1/3 to 1/2 WBL, and reduce the WBL you give out accordingly. Note that since WBL is accumulated through multiple items and you've just reduced the overall pool for non-legacy items, the result is that legacy items seem even more powerful by comparison-even if the total effective WBL is the same as normal. Naturally this assumes this assumes that either all PCs will have a legacy weapon or your group is capable of handling uneven loot distribution for game balance.

[ahenobarbi]

Eh, not really. Most of the punishments are a bit too much, and a lot of the custom powers are a bit undderwhelming.

Yes, penalties stink; yes, most abilities suck for most characters. But custom legacies are still good - you can choose from those few abilities which are good for your character (my recent scout (role, not class) got a lot of utility from his legacy) (this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5907) is very helpful for choosing abilities) and you get access to Legacy Champion PrC, which can do some nice things to your build (like progressing a class beyond levels it originally had, giving you more skill points & HP)(T1 and T2 probably don't benefit so much from it but I think for T3s and below it will be a net gain).

[Telonius]

I think there was a Weapon of Legacy somewhere in Ravenloft (Expedition To Castle, maybe?) that wasn't quite as awful as most of the ones in the main book.

[Ashtagon]

For a way to have a "weapon of legacy" done right, look at the ancestral daisho class feature from the Oriental Adventures/Rokugan Campaign Setting samurai class.

[Orc]

Basically whenever I include them in my campaign I either remove or greatly reduce the penalties, depending on how useful the weapon is, and cut out all the ritual stuff. But I'm a bit lazy like that.

[Dr. Azkur]

Well, yeah, I guess that does fixes a good bit of the issues I have with the system. Honestly, I haven't looked at the custom legacy weapon rules much. Are the custom abilities in the book mostly good, or will I probably have to come up with my own?

Depends where you stand on power level yourself. Give certain Weapon of Legacy to a single-classed Fighter, such as Mjolnir, and you might turn him into Thor. But a super scepter of awesome spellpower (I tried creating my own) won't do much to an already powerful wizard.

In case I haven't answered your question: when you do get to reading the custom abilities, you'll probably be quite familiar with them already. Most of them are spell-like or supernatural abilities duplicating a spell or another magic item (Basically they're Magic Item Bundles strapped to a +1 weapon). Some are pretty useful to have but aren't specifically original, Weapons of Legacy are just a nice way of getting such resources.
Personally I dedicated my superstaff to be entirely metamagical, so I wouldn't be restricting my limited number of feats, when I needed to improve my sorcery in other ways.


I also feel like they're an excellent way to balance low-tiered melee guys. Any madman determined to go Fighter 20 is guaranteed to get a free Weapon of Legacy in my campaigns, since they're terribly flavourful and I can find great spots to color the story with them.

EDIT: Also, yes, keep the rituals but dump the nerfing restrictions.

[ngilop]

I am going to get off on a side path for a while.

I have never understood everybody but myself's disgust with the penalties for the items in weapons of legacy.

I mean to me logically OF COURSE they should have penalties, after all the weapon represents the legacy of somebody that is definitely not you.

You were not the person who originally installed the power and legend into said item, so why should you get all those goodies free and clear?

Now, creating your own legacy item. there should be no penalties nor rituals. You are not unlocking access to another's legacy but creating your own.

SO no need to 'hack' into the legacy item of another by performing crazy rituals. You are already doing what you need to create the deep connection to the item to release powers and abilities that were not there before.


SO in short. to create a legacy of your own, you should ignore the penalties and rituals. but to tap into the legacy of another I feel those penatlies are warranted.

that how I have always done weapons of legacy. But then I do not believe you should get credit for another's work without paying some kind of tribute.

[Cosi]

It doesn't matter if the penalties are flavorfully warranted, they are mechanically excessive for something that exists to power up under-performing characters (i.e. Fighters).

[Necroticplague]

I am going to get off on a side path for a while.

I have never understood everybody but myself's disgust with the penalties for the items in weapons of legacy.

I mean to me logically OF COURSE they should have penalties, after all the weapon represents the legacy of somebody that is definitely not you.

You were not the person who originally installed the power and legend into said item, so why should you get all those goodies free and clear?

Now, creating your own legacy item. there should be no penalties nor rituals. You are not unlocking access to another's legacy but creating your own.

SO no need to 'hack' into the legacy item of another by performing crazy rituals. You are already doing what you need to create the deep connection to the item to release powers and abilities that were not there before.


SO in short. to create a legacy of your own, you should ignore the penalties and rituals. but to tap into the legacy of another I feel those penatlies are warranted.

that how I have always done weapons of legacy. But then I do not believe you should get credit for another's work without paying some kind of tribute.
You're already paying a tribute. What the heck do you think the rituals are? The original legacy was unlocked via some specific action. you pay your dues by emulating such an action. And the point stands that, even if you're crating your own legacy items, you still have to deal with the penalties. And I've seen non-custom items of legacies used exactly never, because pretty much all of the default ones are garbage (and most of the ones you can make using the custom rules aren't much better).

Because you can mechanically justify anything. You can justify it having penalties, you can equally justify it not having penalties. Since you can justify any set of mechanics, you might as well go with mechanics that are most conducive to enjoyably using the content. The penalties actively get in the way of doing such, without adding anything of interest to the game. It might be one thing if the penalties were actually something interesting, but as is, they are incredibly boring.

[Ruethgar]

By the way, Sculpt Self is a feat that has no prereqs, but suggestion 11+. It grants you the ability to gain item effects at the cost of XP equal to 1/25th of the value(that is after adjustments for the items being bound to you, slotless, and unable to be removed). The ones listed are practically worthless, but custom ones can go a long way in making some concepts more viable such as VoP. I don't have the Dragon Magazine issue in front of me nor committed to memory however.

Sometimes I like to combine Stronghold Builder's Guide Wondrous Architecture, Legacy Items, Ancestral Relics, and Item Familiars on a druid. Imagine being able to call a patch of forest to your side... enchanted to murder people. Also if you get Familiar Form and a normal Familiar(such as a Wizard 1/Druid 1/Mystic Theurge 8/Legacy Champion 10) you can leave your body behind and just be a small bit of woods using your leet abilities to bring down the wrath of nature.

[Mongobear]

I did something similar to Weapons of Legacy for a group a few years ago.

I designed custom items based off of each of the players' classes, and had them in their backstories define their greatest strength and most vulnerable weakness. The custom made items were made to add to their strength, and also try to make up for a weakness, either by adding to saves, buffing immunities, or something similar.

I didn't just hand these items out either, they were rewards for proper character development, amount of effort in backstory and roleplay, and for fully finishing out story arcs that were relevant to said player. I basically did the "ignore the drawbacks, and remove the Feat tax" thing for these Legacy items, having the items being somewhere between normal powerful magic items and Artifacts by the time the players were 20th level, most of them topping out somewhere between the equivalent to a +7 to +10 weapon/armor, depending on character.

But, as it has been said earlier, Weapons of Legacy is a great book, and the items look like a great idea on paper , but in practice, the Feat tax/side quests along with the drawbacks makes them less appealing to something like a generic +5 Greatsword. Dropping the drawbacks/feats is the best thing you can do to make them relevant.

[zergling.exe]

I did something similar to Weapons of Legacy for a group a few years ago.

I designed custom items based off of each of the players' classes, and had them in their backstories define their greatest strength and most vulnerable weakness. The custom made items were made to add to their strength, and also try to make up for a weakness, either by adding to saves, buffing immunities, or something similar.

I didn't just hand these items out either, they were rewards for proper character development, amount of effort in backstory and roleplay, and for fully finishing out story arcs that were relevant to said player. I basically did the "ignore the drawbacks, and remove the Feat tax" thing for these Legacy items, having the items being somewhere between normal powerful magic items and Artifacts by the time the players were 20th level, most of them topping out somewhere between the equivalent to a +7 to +10 weapon/armor, depending on character.

But, as it has been said earlier, Weapons of Legacy is a great book, and the items look like a great idea on paper , but in practice, the Feat tax/side quests along with the drawbacks makes them less appealing to something like a generic +5 Greatsword. Dropping the drawbacks/feats is the best thing you can do to make them relevant.

There is no feat tax. Somewhere along the lines people tend to forget a rule:

A legacy item’s wielder who completes a given ritual immediately gains a bonus legacy feat: Least Legacy, Lesser Legacy, or Greater Legacy.

[Mongobear]

There is no feat tax. Somewhere along the lines people tend to forget a rule:

That's why I split feat tax/side quest with the slash, because you can do either/or to gain the next Feat. It's been awhile since i've looked at WoL, but I'm pretty sure you can just skip the rituals and take the X/Y/Z Legacy Feats at whatever level you meet requirements, and never have to wander into the wilderness and confront some weird monster and slay it in a very specific method to make their sword happy.

[zergling.exe]

That's why I split feat tax/side quest with the slash, because you can do either/or to gain the next Feat. It's been awhile since i've looked at WoL, but I'm pretty sure you can just skip the rituals and take the X/Y/Z Legacy Feats at whatever level you meet requirements, and never have to wander into the wilderness and confront some weird monster and slay it in a very specific method to make their sword happy.

Nope. You do the ritual get the feat. The ritual is a prerequisite for taking it, so you can only acquire it as a bonus feat for doing the ritual. Unless you trade it away...