How do I try and fix Weapons of Legacy?

[yeetusmcgeetus]

Weapons of Legacy suck. I know this. But the concept and abilities are cool enough that I do want to use the WoL rules at my table, probably allowing players to build their own legacy weapons. How can I fix these rules?

I do know about the thread on here that "fixes" it but it's really more of a total system overhaul with a new skill and a feat cost and a whole bunch of nonsense that I just don't want to add. I don't want to totally remove the penalties because my high-powergaming table will find a way to cause me immense suffering.

Also, note that by the original rules there isn't a feat cost - for some reason the creators just decided to use free feats to mark how much progress the legacy weapon had.

[ngilop]

I can only speak as to what I did.

Lore wise, i understand why you get these penalties for the published Weapons of Legacy... they are another's legacy that you are benefitting from. So, you should have some sort of 'payment' to be able to gain that benefit.


If it is the player's own Weapon of Legacy (say... a ranseur) Then I just ignored the penalties the books say for a scaling and personalized weapon that grows more powerful along with the bonded owner.



In my experience, this is a great fix. the powers do not come as soon as if you just threw down gold and bought an item tailored.

But, its free and a way to gain very unique abilities.. like the above ranseur making things vulnerable to cold damage for 2 rounds after a successful strike, that one wouldn't get at ye olde magic emporium.

[RandomPeasant]

Yeah, I think the best fix is to cap them at 1 per person and ignore the penalties (maybe give an extra one if someone's character ends up underpowered and you think you can use it as a corrective without being obvious about it).

[Forrestfire]

Personally, I think the item bond rules from the DMG2 do the job way better and much more flexibly. I did a short writeup summarizing them here (https://hexdrake.support/ranger_handbook/#c8-top).

[Railak]

Yeah, for the most part, I just remove the costs other than gold and the rituals. They end up as rather powerful magic items, so I wouldn't give them out like candy or anything.
Also I've let my players design their own, so they feel more connected to it. And I work with them to figure out good rituals that aren't too easy, but definitely something that either is already part of the campaign or can be worked in.

[atemu1234]

Well, the first thing you want to decide is do you want to keep the gold cost or the various skills/spell slots/attack roll costs? Because it definitely should be one or the other in a lot of cases.

In the latter case, get rid of the attack roll penalties for martial characters. All in all they get the short end of the pointy stick, and that's just piling it on.

[Alabenson]

The issue with Weapons of Legacy is that, while the concept itself is cool, the execution is flawed on nearly every level. In practice, a legacy weapon gives you a weapon that has bonuses that may or may not be useful, along with a handful of spells per day, except that spells cast from items are typically near-useless due to how DC's are calculated. In exchange for these, you take penalties that will be at least a moderate impediment to your character, along with a not insignificant amount of gold.

At absolute minimum, I would eliminate the penalties inflicted on the character by the item while allowing any special abilities to scale with the character's ability scores.

[aglondier]

We did this with "Signature" items in one campaign. Each player nominated one item that their character would never part with. We then added the base enchantment, giving it the ability to improve over time. The template was basically 2 traits, 2 minor abilities, 1 moderate ability and one greater ability. For our campaign, magical abilities could be moved from random loot to the signature items via a ritual, allowing the players to get some use from randomly generated loot and letting them choose what abilities their Item kept.

Example...Sten's Hat of Wizardry.
Trait 1. +2 bonus to spellcraft
Trait 2. Hat cannot simply fall or be blown off, must be specifically removed
Minor 1. Bag of holding
Minor 2. Bag of Tricks (lesser)
Moderate. Ring of wizardry (3rd)
Greater. Staff of Fire

Each ability was added over the length of the campaign, so never had a chance to unbalance, and likewise was able to keep pace with found items so never needed to be swapped for something better. Our paladin had a bastard sword that grew to resemble a Holy Avenger by the end, while our rogue had a cloak that was equally impressive...

[Pugwampy]

What is a weapon of legacy ?

[Tzardok]

Weapons of Legacy were introduced in the book of the same name. A weapon of legacy is an item (usually a weapon) that has a fabled backstory and wondrous abilities gained over that story's course. To actually gain access to those abilities, you need to undergo rituals that essentially reenact the backstory, with each ritual unlocking more abilities and requiring a higher level. You also need to make sacrifices, like lowering your maximum hp or gaining a permanent penalty to certain rolls.

[Morphic tide]

Here's an archive link of a thread on the now-defunct official forums (https://web.archive.org/web/20080611071141/http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=966877), doesn't show much of the work but gives notional GP value equivalence for every pre-existing Menu ability to be paying for them, as well as suggested "averages", complete with example conversions of the freely-available samples (minus the Mind's Eye one (https://web.archive.org/web/20111114163306/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20050930a) for some reason)

[Ramza00]

What is a weapon of legacy ?

points to Roy in the OOTS comic

[Morphic tide]

points to Roy in the OOTS comic
No, that's doing heirloom equipment the hard way, with actual reforging based on old lore of special materials and paying out the nose for the plusses.

[Pugwampy]

Thank you kindly