Stats for Mythological Swords?

[BlueWitch]

Are there any Official Numbers for Mythological Swords like:

~Excalibur
~Caladbolg (Celtic Rainbow Sword)
~Fragarach (sometimes called "Answerer")
~Gram (from Norse)
~Masamune

And other weapons like Mjolnir and Gungnir? (These will pobably not be used, just curious.)

I'm asg because I might be DMing a Relic Hunting Campaign,
and Official stats for one would be epic!

If stats don't exist, what would you make them?

[Biggus]

Mjolnir is in Deities and Demigods, it's a +5 chaotic distance ghost touch holy mighty cleaving returning thundering warhammer. D&DG didn't use Epic Level Handbook material though, so if it's appearing in an epic game it probably should have an enhancement bonus higher than +5.

Crocea Mors gets written up as an epic weapon in Dragon 297 (p.42) and is described as Julius Caesar's sword and equated with Excalibur. It's in intelligent +6 vorpal keen wounding short sword of lawful power with various other special abilities.

Edit: Gungnir is in D&DG too, it's a +5 distance ghost touch holy keen returning wounding shortspear.

[Prime32]

Caladbolg is in Weapons of Legacy, and it mentions how the mythological version cut through entire hills but says that's silly.
For a lv20 character who completes all the rituals, it amounts to a +4 mighty cleaving, sundering, short sword which also has the properties of a belt of giant's strength +6 and cloak of resistance +2, lets you cast imprisonment 1/day, and grants a +4 bonus on bull rush and sunder attempts (but doesn't remove the AoO for using them).

Kind of a letdown especially when light weapons can't make full use of the boosted Strength (nor the Power Attack requirement for wielding it). Even something like a +1 adamantine greatsword is vastly more efficient at what it's trying to do.

Even another legacy weapon, Kamate from Tome of Battle, comes a bit closer by being a lightning-themed bastard sword that lets you make AoE attacks and boost your accuracy.

[BlueWitch]

Thank you guys for posting!

I had no idea some of these were actually stat'd so it's good to know the "ballpark" if were ever decide to Homebrew.

I guess they figured the cutting hilltops thing (for Caladbolg) was too op. XD
I mean, it would be like a fireball spell but for melee and no element.
Would probably waste entire armies on an Epic level chap with the exaggerated/myth on haha

[Prime32]

~Fragarach (sometimes called "Answerer")
Belonged to a sea god (aquanMIC property?), cut through barriers easily (adamantine), could force confessions from enemies (discern lies or zone of truth with range limitations) and maybe some kind of control over wind (gust of wind or a ranged bull rush power?). Plus an ability which boosts AoOs or causes it to deal more damage to foes who attacked you within the last round.


Masamune
Most of his creations are probably just +1 merciful weapons, maybe with the dwarvencraft template if you want to reflect fine craftsmanship. Individual weapons might have additional powers like defending, defensive surge and parrying.
By contrast Muramasa creates weapons with the bane, vicious and/or consumptive properties, with his greater works including cursed weapons like the backbiter spear (there's a legend of Tokugawa Ieyasu banning Muramasa weapons because one of his spears cut him when he picked it up), as well as the berserking sword and an edged version of the mace of blood.


And other weapons like Mjolnir and Gungnir? (These will pobably not be used, just curious.)
Mjolnir exists as the hammer of thunderbolts (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/artifacts.htm#hammerofThunderbolts), complete with needing a magic belt and magic gloves to use it at full power.

[Biggus]

Most of his creations are probably just +1 merciful weapons, maybe with the dwarvencraft template if you want to reflect fine craftsmanship.

Also, in Dragon 358 (p.38-43) there's the Artisan Craftsman feat which can give more varied effects of expert craftsmanship.

[Bohandas]

Fragrach definitely has official tbird edition stats. IIRC among other things it automatically scores a hit under certain circumstances.

EDIT:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T-mPFJv5P_A/XmI0qc2tCLI/AAAAAAAAYMo/HZN_wjAfpNUIg1b_SZgp1ISkabKr5YL7gCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h188/fragarach.jpg
https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2020/03/The-Temple-of-Elemental-Evil-ToEE-Best-Weapons-Fragarach-Scather-Item-Code.html
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/589356-the-temple-of-elemental-evil/faqs/25842

EDIT:
and Caladbolg is in Weapons of Legacy. Fully attuned it's a +4 mighty cleaving short sword that grants a bonus to strength score, sunder checks, and bull rush checks, and can cast imprisonment under certain circumstances

[BlueWitch]

Belonged to a sea god (aquanMIC property?), cut through barriers easily (adamantine), could force confessions from enemies (discern lies or zone of truth with range limitations) and maybe some kind of control over wind (gust of wind or a ranged bull rush power?). Plus an ability which boosts AoOs or causes it to deal more damage to foes who attacked you within the last round.


Most of his creations are probably just +1 merciful weapons, maybe with the dwarvencraft template if you want to reflect fine craftsmanship. Individual weapons might have additional powers like defending, defensive surge and parrying.
By contrast Muramasa creates weapons with the bane, vicious and/or consumptive properties, with his greater works including cursed weapons like the backbiter spear (there's a legend of Tokugawa Ieyasu banning Muramasa weapons because one of his spears cut him when he picked it up), as well as the berserking sword and an edged version of the mace of blood.


Mjolnir exists as the hammer of thunderbolts (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/artifacts.htm#hammerofThunderbolts), complete with needing a magic belt and magic gloves to use it at full power.

Your ideas for Fragarach are on point. I read about it in Myth and these fall in line with it perfectly and is not too op. (Well, as op as one could go.) Thanks for this! ^^

[Chronos]

Yeah, Masamune is out of place on this list, being the name of a swordsmith, not a sword.

A couple of notes about the mythical Excalibur: First, the sword (in at least some versions of the myth) also had the property that it would shatter if ever used unjustly. This happened a couple of times, and each time it had to be re-forged.

Second, the sword was said to be of less valuable than the scabbard: Anyone who wore the scabbard, their wounds would never bleed. In D&D terms, this certainly stops bleeding damage effects, but there aren't very many of those... but based on the myths, it would probably also mean a very significant amount of damage reduction (it's said to have saved its wearers from many wounds that should have killed them).

What makes a sword "good" in mythology generally bears very little resemblance to the things that D&D players want from their weapons. Most players generally want the things that are considered cursed, in the myths.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Looking into myths that aren't boring Arthurian crap (if you look into it, the sword was basically just above being a boring, normal sword; it was the sheath that was the powerhouse there), a lot of legendary weapons are far too powerful for D&D's power scaling, since D&D is mostly operating on a Tolkienesque level, which is pretty tiny, overall. Leveling mountains and crushing armies of godlike entities are just too much for anything but excessively high epic (or truly ridiculous optimization). You can do it, but it's not easy, and you have to squeeze everything you can out of the system to make it work.

Here's a thread I posted on a similar topic: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?634999-3-P-What-Weapon-Combos-Would-You-Consider-Truly-Legendary

[Promethean]

I guess they figured the cutting hilltops thing (for Caladbolg) was too op. XD

Honestly, it Should be.
Legendary weapons powerful enough to resound throughout history being rather OP in a high fantasy setting just makes sense.
Besides, full martial characters kinda deserve some OP stuff. They don't get enough love(especially monks...)
Definitely high level item though.



I mean, it would be like a fireball spell but for melee and no element.
Would probably waste entire armies on an Epic level chap with the exaggerated/myth on haha
The myth had Fergus 1v1000 armies with that thing, so it Should be leveling armies.


Looking into myths that aren't boring Arthurian crap

My mans hasn't looked at the Welsh telling of arthur then.
The welsh version of those stories were basically an Anime and any of the round table knights would have fit perfectly into Beowolf.
For example:
Kay (or rather Cai) in Welsh tradition could fire heat from his hands, grow to giant size, and hold his breath for nine days and nights.
The issue is later renaissance authors got sucked into obsessing over realism(specifically the french, they de-powered everyone to basically human level to wank lancelot). For the above example: Later stories by the french reduce Cai to the role of Arthur's bullying seneschal.
Another example: Gawain was both a great warrior and a skilled healer. He had a magical ability that made strength wax and wane with the Sun, tripling at noon and fading with sunset. He was the greatest knight until French tradition brought in Lancelot.

TL;DR: The anime "The Seven Deadly Sins" and the "Fate/" Franchise are actually more accurate to early aurtherian legend than you'd think(minus turning the knights into anime girls, because japan)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

My mans hasn't looked at the Welsh telling of arthur then.
The welsh version of those stories were basically an Anime and any of the round table knights would have fit perfectly into Beowolf.
For example:
Kay (or rather Cai) in Welsh tradition could fire heat from his hands, grow to giant size, and hold his breath for nine days and nights.
The issue is later renaissance authors got sucked into obsessing over realism(specifically the french, they de-powered everyone to basically human level to wank lancelot). For the above example: Later stories by the french reduce Cai to the role of Arthur's bullying seneschal.
Another example: Gawain was both a great warrior and a skilled healer. He had a magical ability that made strength wax and wane with the Sun, tripling at noon and fading with sunset. He was the greatest knight until French tradition brought in Lancelot.

TL;DR: The anime "The Seven Deadly Sins" and the "Fate/" Franchise are actually more accurate to early aurtherian legend than you'd think(minus turning the knights into anime girls, because japan)Huh. That definitely does fit in a lot better with other myths, from Gilgamesh to Sun Wukong to Cú Chulainn.

So much for "weaboo crap" being restricted to East Asia, huh? Take that, ToB haters.

[Biggus]

Yeah, Masamune is out of place on this list, being the name of a swordsmith, not a sword.


It's a sword in Final Fantasy. Also, according to Wikipedia, the swords of the smith Masamune


often are referred to with the smith's name (...) and often with a name for the individual sword as well

[loky1109]

Fragrach definitely has official tbird edition stats. IIRC among other things it automatically scores a hit under certain circumstances.

EDIT:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T-mPFJv5P_A/XmI0qc2tCLI/AAAAAAAAYMo/HZN_wjAfpNUIg1b_SZgp1ISkabKr5YL7gCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h188/fragarach.jpg
https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2020/03/The-Temple-of-Elemental-Evil-ToEE-Best-Weapons-Fragarach-Scather-Item-Code.html
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/589356-the-temple-of-elemental-evil/faqs/25842
I don't think it's "official third edition stats".

[Crichton]

Belonged to a sea god (aquanMIC property?), cut through barriers easily (adamantine), could force confessions from enemies (discern lies or zone of truth with range limitations) and maybe some kind of control over wind (gust of wind or a ranged bull rush power?). Plus an ability which boosts AoOs or causes it to deal more damage to foes who attacked you within the last round.


Fragarach didn't belong to a sea god? It was Nuada's sword, and he wasn't a sea god or related to the sea. Lugh carried it as a symbol of the king into battle once, but no mention of him actually wielding it, he had his own kickass weapons, but he wasn't a sea-related personage either.


Fragarach's whole thing was that it could cut through anything, including armor and shields, so the truest representation of that in 3.x would be to have it attack vs touch AC instead of regular AC. Maybe also an instant-sunder, which would be in line with the myths about the sword since it was said to be able to cut through anything easily, but that would be terrible game design, so I'd probably leave that out.
It was said that no one could lie when it was held to their throat, so your suggestion of discern lies or zone of truth type effects is spot on.
Also it was said to allow the user to control the wind, so your suggestion of gust of wind, or something similar, is appropriate.

There is no mention of it dealing more damage to foes who attacked you, or anything like it allowing you to counterattack (AoO) better, or anything like that, so I'd leave that out completely. I'm assuming you thought that up because the name is often translated as 'The Answerer' and so I can see where the concept would come from, but it's not a concept that comes from the source myths at all.



I'd stat it as a +X sword that targets touch AC, has a wind and a truth power of some sort you deem appropriate, and that's about it.

[Bohandas]

I don't think it's "official third edition stats".

Semi-official then. It's from a licensed third-party 3e adaptation of a first party 2e adventure. It does seem to have inexplocably been heavilt buffed though (in the original ToEE it only automatically hit enemies that had already struck the wielder)

[Prime32]

Fragarach didn't belong to a sea god? It was Nuada's sword, and he wasn't a sea god or related to the sea. Lugh carried it as a symbol of the king into battle once, but no mention of him actually wielding it, he had his own kickass weapons, but he wasn't a sea-related personage either.
Manannán was a sea god. Your description matches the current text of the Wikipedia page for Fragarach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragarach), but even their citation of it first belonging to Nuada links to a page saying it first belonged to Manannán (and doesn't mention Nuada at all). And another of the citations is from a novel!

It looks like the page originally said Manannán but someone edited it to Nuada in 2018 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fragarach&diff=875349531&oldid=872181086) while also calling Lugh's spear "Brionac" (a name invented by anime).

EDIT: The Son of the Sea's own Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manannán_mac_Lir) still has info on the sword with citations, which includes foes growing weak on seeing or opposing it.

[Crichton]

Manannán was a sea god. Your description matches the current text of the Wikipedia page for Fragarach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragarach), but even their citation of it first belonging to Nuada links to a page saying it first belonged to Manannán (and doesn't mention Nuada at all). And another of the citations is from a novel!

It looks like the page originally said Manannán but someone edited it to Nuada in 2018 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fragarach&diff=875349531&oldid=872181086) while also calling Lugh's spear "Brionac" (a name invented by anime).

EDIT: The Son of the Sea's own Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manannán_mac_Lir) still has info on the sword with citations, which includes foes growing weak on seeing or opposing it.



Yeah, you're right. It was Manannán Mac Lir's sword. I must have been conflating it with Nuada's sword but that was actually his glowing sword (Cainnel, or Claíomh Solais)from which no one could escape once it had been unsheathed. And you're right, that wiki page is all kinds of messed up and laden down with pop culture references.



Still, I stand by my statting of its described abilities, and still wouldn't give it the aquan property, since an effect of that type isn't something mentioned in its mythology that I'm aware of. I mean, if we were really going to reproduce its mythological properties, the truth effect would be no save/no resistance, it just works, on everyone, full stop. But that might be a bit much

[Promethean]

Still, I stand by my statting of its described abilities, and still wouldn't give it the aquan property, since an effect of that type isn't something mentioned in its mythology that I'm aware of. I mean, if we were really going to reproduce its mythological properties, the truth effect would be no save/no resistance, it just works, on everyone, full stop. But that might be a bit much

Don't forget that the effect has other conditions to activate. You have to first defeat or ambush your opponent so that the user has the option to perform a Coup De Gras at any time during the conversation. Suffice to say, that's a Really hard condition to fulfill considering how hard it is to subdue someone without killing them while keeping them conscious enough to answer. The existence of contingency spells only complicates this further.

At that point, the player Deserves to have the effect be non-save/SR:No. Going through all that trouble just to have the enemy roll well is just BS.

[Chronos]

The real legendary sword of Japan, much older than Masamune and not attributed to any mortal swordsmith, is Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword (originally named Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, the Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds). Its most notable ability is the ability to control the winds, which one of its legendary wielders used to turn a grass fire intended to trap him against his attacker. It's said to be in possession of the Emperor, though nobody else besides the Emperor and perhaps a few high temple officials are ever allowed to see it.

[loky1109]

Semi-official then. It's from a licensed third-party 3e adaptation of a first party 2e adventure. It does seem to have inexplocably been heavilt buffed though (in the original ToEE it only automatically hit enemies that had already struck the wielder)

There is really official RttToEE, and there Thrommel possesses +1 unholy greatsword called "Dirge".

[Eladrinblade]

Mjolnir is the most heavily enchanted weapon in all of third edition.

[Crake]

There is really official RttToEE, and there Thrommel possesses +1 unholy greatsword called "Dirge".

Thats not actually the same adventure though, iirc. Return to toee is set chronologically after the original adventure, is it not?



There is no mention of it dealing more damage to foes who attacked you, or anything like it allowing you to counterattack (AoO) better, or anything like that, so I'd leave that out completely. I'm assuming you thought that up because the name is often translated as 'The Answerer' and so I can see where the concept would come from, but it's not a concept that comes from the source myths at all.

That all comes from its original stats from the older ToEE adventure from AD&D. Might not be true to mythology, but its its own thing at that point. Fragarach is only one of the nine swords of answering, theres one for each alignment, and iirc “Answerer” is the LG variant.

[Crichton]

That all comes from its original stats from the older ToEE adventure from AD&D. Might not be true to mythology, but its its own thing at that point. Fragarach is only one of the nine swords of answering, theres one for each alignment, and iirc “Answerer” is the LG variant.

Aye, that is where the notion came from, but at that point, as you say, it's really its own thing at that point, and no longer a representation of the item from mythology at all anymore, which is what the OP asked for. The weapon from ToEE is fine and all, but it's pretty much an entirely different item