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guileus
2017-07-18, 12:53 PM
How have you guys used intelligent weapons in your campaigns? What kind of player do you think makes the most out of them?

Some context: I'm running a heavily modified version of Kingmaker on D&D (Iron Heroes actually). It's set on a customized world (not Golarion) with a low/weird fantasy mix. Magical weapons are very rare and they all have a story. So I'm planning to drop the first and for now only magic item, a magical weapon that is going to be inhabited by the twisted soul of a Derean general (Derus being my setting's "Roman Empire", expansionistic, used to rule these lands, brutal and efficient but hey, they killed evil cultists).

The PC's are going to explore a temple dedicated to older pagan gods (in my setting there is only one "civilized" god, and other gods are seen with suspicion when not with hostility, as they are associated with Chaos and evil). If you are familiar with the Kingmaker adventure path, the temple is going to be under the Stag Lord's (basically, a bandit lord) fort. So once the PC's go underground they find this ancient temple where the Stag Lord's dad lives. That explains him being a druid in the module (he found the temple a long tie ago and devoted himself to their gods, eventually becoming crazy and being part locked there by the Stag Lord, part deciding to live there with his "creatures").

The temple is also home to a weapon that the Stag Lord prices, as it is a magical weapon (in my version of the module, magical weapons are VERY rare, and all have a history). This weapon was actually carried by a Derusan general who held those lands with his men and found the temple to the pagan gods. After pillaging it, killing the priests and basically thrasing the whole place because it was devoted to dark gods, he fell victim to a curse by those same gods and his twisted soul inhabits the weapon. So yes, it's an intelligent weapon which I intend to play as an anti-hero: he was brutal and efficient, but at the same time he confronted evil cultists. He now is going to inhabit the weapon of a PC, asking him for weird stuff (sacrificing enemies etc.) but will do so because he is cursed to do so.

I want the intelligent weapon to have powers but also drawbacks. Like the Derusan general's soul now needs to drink other souls, for example, so he might ask for sacrifices, or killing people who have commited crimes that weren't that bad (imagine asking to execute a thief who stole some money but then repented etc.). I want it to push the player to roleplay, to face moral dilemmas and to let some of the world's history come onto them (with the soul belonging to a guy from centuries ago etc.).

So I have four players. One of them is a bit of a power-gamer and I'm a bit leery of giving him the magical weapon. It's not going to be that powerful (+2, plus undisclosed powers that will be revealed), but still, not sure if he will abuse them. He is a warrior and carries a broadsword. Another is a barbarian with a great axe and I don't know if it fits with that sort of character to carry an intelligent weapon, although he is a decent roleplayer. There's an assassin who is also a decent roleplayer, but he usually fights with two daggers or a rapier, and it wouldn't fit an ancient weapon being a modern one like a rapier. Perhaps a dagger? Then there's the guy who I see more into roleplaying (he is that kind of guy who takes the 9 CON score because he thought it "fit" the character, so now he has a penalty on his HP! He fights with a spear.

Now, I don't want to mess it up. I want it to be a cool addition to the game. So I'm wondering, will this be best used on a heavy role player? Or it could actually motivate a less roleplaying player like the barbarian or the warrior to go with it? What do you guys think? What are your experiences with intelligent weapons? Never used one before.

Haldir
2017-07-18, 01:23 PM
Have the magic weapon refuse to serve certain people, obviously. Functions just as a normal sword.

Knaight
2017-07-18, 01:26 PM
I've used exactly one, and even then it was a marginal case - it was more an intelligent being mostly trapped in a weapon than an intelligent weapon, and the being could break out for short periods. It worked well with the campaign, mostly because it was a fun comic relief character, and it helped get the player playing the swordsman with the phoenix sword to roleplay more.

As for the specifics, I wouldn't worry too much about which player gets it and instead make it something that fits the NPC who currently has it and fits the history. A dagger is basically always a safe bet there, with the other option being whatever weapon would be expected of a Derean General.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-18, 02:32 PM
I did a campaign where they PCs found a weapon which was intelligent can could change shape. However, it was a Vicious weapon and it would try to possess its wearer after a few rounds per user going into bloodlust, making it better to share around. (It was actually the soul of Dracula as the PCs were up against the REAL first vampire - a creepy little girl - who had used Dracula as a puppet centuries before and trapped him in a sword when he got uppity.)

Unfortunately, one of the PCs thought that it was super cool and refused to share. After using it to win a boss battle, she was possessed and went off on another PC, causing my first PC death as a DM ever. :smallfrown:

Amusingly - it was actually sort of my own character as a buddy and I were sharing DM duties and trading off playing a character with multiple personalities.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-18, 06:30 PM
I use them often as they are a great role playing tool. I also use ghosts, lost souls, intelligent animals, people trapped in object or animals, shades from the past or future and all sorts of other things.

I find it useful to have a NPC voice when the characters talk a lot.

Most players will role play along with a weapon...even more so to get use of it's special powers...even more so non standard ones.

Of course it only works when you have the DM Agency to say ''sorry player you know nothing about the weapon or it's powers and can not use it's powers, only the weapon can'' or something like that. And not the bad Player Agency way of ''Great player here is all the details of the weapon your character has, please use it in any way you wish in your game, as I your humble servant player called DM sits back and watches''.

RazorChain
2017-07-18, 09:15 PM
The one in my game now is Nina. She belonged to Leneas, a PC whose mind had been broken during torture and he named his blade Nina and talked to her all the time and she of course talked back to him. The player retired Leneas and now he's sleeping in the faerie world. Another PC picked up Nina but she never spoke to him until she broke in a fight and was reforged by the smith Culhain in the faerie world, after that she has been chattering constantly and now possesses magical qualities.

Anxe
2017-07-18, 10:20 PM
I've used two major intelligent weapons in my campaign.

One of them was from a module. I'll spoiler the rest to avoid ruining that module for those that might play it.
The module is put out by Kenzer & Co and is called the Tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali.
The sword is an intelligent artifact level sword that is additionally possessed by the soul of an ancient, Hobgoblin, Genghis Khan-like ghost. I used the weapon in a rather high level campaign so when it showed up everyone in the party was for the most part already protected against possession due to mind blank or protection from evil. The sword possessed one of the party members,
but they just knocked him out and then someone with mind blank grabbed it. They still couldn't really use the sword. It got into the hands of the main villains of my campaign soon afterwards.
The sword came back at a later time possessing a powerful Sahuagin. The party killed the monster, took the sword back, and destroyed it by giving it to the god of death (high level campaign). While it showed up occasionally the sword was not a major focus of the campaign. As it could move around on its own it played out much more like a standard villain. Possessing someone was like a hostage situation, but due to the quirks of my campaign the hostage he took was almost worthless (The hostage has levels in a 3rd party prestige class with free resurrections.).

Advice for you from this experience. The sword in this case had many of its powers locked away and the PCs simply couldn't access them if the sword doesn't want them to. Typical intelligent items have to give their powers to someone who defeats their Ego with a Will save. Not the case for this one. If you do what the sword wants its a +5 Vorpal, Keen Longsword (or whatever). If you don't then you just have a +2 piece of garbage that requires a Will save every day and at the start of every combat. I feel like the module went too far on which powers were locked away. As it stood, the sword simply couldn't be used by the PCs. The module authors made it clear that the sword wasn't going to compromise and since its an immortal artifact, the party couldn't really threaten it in any substantial way.

I feel the locked powers idea was good, but the execution was bad. I'd suggest that you make the weapon that can either A) be reasoned with or B) only has its most powerful ability locked away.

The second magic weapon I use in my campaign is one of my one design, Korm the Vorpal Dagger (https://gocorral.com/cimmeria/characters-of-cimmeria/primary-npcs/korm/)! Korm is a CE dagger that likes to cut off heads because Korm grows stronger with each head it cuts off. It harvests a little bit of soul energy as the spirit leaves the victim's body and travels to the Underworld. This maps out as it gaining an Ego "point" to spend on new abilities for each new square number of heads cut off by Korm (First point at 1 head, next point at 4 total heads cut off, next point at 9 total heads, etc.). This is a great mechanic that encourages corruption in the players. They think, "What an easy way to get stronger! I'll finish off all my foes with Korm." But soon the weapon has grown beyond their control. The more heads they cut off the more they are doing what Korm wants and he literally has greater influence over the actions of that PC by having a larger Ego.

Korm's mechanic for increasing in power has been amazing. My players were legitimately scared that Korm was influencing the actions of whoever was wielding him because I was always passing notes to that person whether Korm was in control or not. Did they cut off that person's head because they wanted to or because Korm wanted to?

Korm's other abilities were fairly weak. Hold person and locate object which are both practically useless to a high level party. His use in the campaign was due to a lust for power by the players and a fondness for his personality.

For personality, Korm is a wise-cracking *******. There was one time where an NPC died due to a disintegrate leaving nothing left. The PCs delivered the news to the widow who started bawling. Korm said, "At least the coffin will be cheap." Great way to inject humor into the game if your players are into it. Korm doesn't care about anyone or anything. All it wants to do is cut off heads and enjoy the suffering of others.

All together my advice to you is:
- Absolutely have a concrete and easy way for the party to increase the Derusan general's power by feeding it souls. They will struggle with the idea of using it and great drama comes from those kinds of struggles.
- Make it so a key part of the Derusan general's power is locked away unless they feed him souls. This is separate from the Ego score struggle that can also lock away powers. The general simply can never be compelled to use his maximum strength, but most of his abilities are just a Will save away from functional (as long as the party knows what those abilities are!).
- Give the general a personality that attracts some of the PCs, but repulses some of the other ones. A conflict on whether it should be used is tons of fun. The soul-seething is one thing, but the PCs may want to avoid using the weapon simply because the general is kind of a jerk. He's evil after all!
- For choosing a weapon I would avoid choosing ANY of the weapons the party uses. Something like a mace or a flail. This plays into the desired narrative conflict as well. For example, Barbarian Guy uses an axe. That's part of who that PC is. An axe-wielder. When Barbarian Guy chooses to use the Derusan General's Flail he is making a choice to do something that his character would not. The lust for the General's power draws him in. You roll a die for his Will save and pass him a note. The players wonder, "Did he go for the flail because we need the general's strength in this fight or has the general taken over his mind?" And you've got yourself a game.

Potato_Priest
2017-07-19, 01:46 PM
In a lighthearted Norse-mythology/skyrim/how to train your dragon/Celtic mythology inspired game, I gave the players an "Intelligent" weapon named Jodelhing. The weapon had a childlike personality and no particular control over its own powers (it was an axe of giant slaying that also triggered on dragons), but it enjoyed making inane banter with its wielder, as well as singing and yodeling.