[3.5] Legacy Champion

[Person_Man]

Weapons of Legacy is one of the worst written WotC products ever. And that’s saying a lot. The premise of the book is a good one – lots of powerful magic items that improve with the PC as they gain levels. Unfortunately, the execution of the book was horrible. Worse then Truenamer horrible.

Here’s why:

Spoiler

Show

1) The vast majority of the Weapons (which includes some armor and wondrous items) of Legacy re mediocre, and some are worse then named magic items you can find in various splat books. In particular, they tend to grant mediocre once per day spell-like abilities with non-scaling Save DCs.
2) You must invest in 3 feats (Least Legacy, Lesser Legacy, Greater Legacy) in order to unlock a Legacy item’s powers. I was wrong about this. You get them as a bonus when you pay the "ritual cost."
3) The feats have a minimum character level (5th, 11th, and 17th). So even if you do unlock a cool power, it’s usually so late in your progression that it’s not useful.
4) You must also pay a “ritual cost” in gp in order to unlock a Legacy item’s powers. These costs vary, but are generally quite high.
5) Weapons also have roleplaying requirements. Most are just annoying, such as having to defeat a particular foe under certain conditions. But some are pretty ridiculous, rendering the Legacy item unusable for any character that doesn’t fit the Legacy item’s pre-conceived notion of who “should” be using it.
6) You must pay a “personal cost” in hit points, spell slot loss, penalties to your Saving Throws, To-Hit, Skills, etc. Again, these vary, but are generally not worth it.
7) You can’t enchant a Weapon via any “normal process” such as magic or psionic item creation feats. So it’s not like you can pick up an interesting +1 Mace with a few extra tricks and an interesting back story and then just improve it on your own. You are limited to the Weapon’s legacy abilities. (Though it is worth noting that Greater Magic Weapon and other spells that have a temporary effect work on it).

Given all that, you would think that the book is entirely worthless. Well, you are almost right.

The book includes an odd prestige class, the Legacy Champion. It requires character level 10, Least Legacy feat, 5 ranks in Knowledge History, and possession of a Legacy item. The Champion has 7/10BAB, d8 hit die, Strong Will Save, 4 + Int Skill points per level, a great Skill list (Concentration, Deciper Script, Gather Info, Knowledge History, UMD, plus all of your existing class Skills from all of your other classes), and some really interesting class abilities.

In particular, you can swap out your Legacy item’s abilities for other abilities, gain extra per day uses of those abilities, gain 2 Legacy bonus feats at the appropriate levels to unlock the Legacy item’s full powers, you don’t have to pay the “ritual cost” to unlock your Lecacy item’s full powers, and you gain 8/10 progression of all class features from any one previous class. This includes everything the class would have given you, not just your standard spell/psionics/whatever progression. You get everything except for BAB, hit dice, base Saves, and Skill points.

So is there any class or prestige class out there with horrible base statistics, but great class abilities, where giving up 2 levels of progression wouldn’t be a big deal? Off the top of my head, I’m thinking Incarnate. But I know that there must be others. And given that the Champion doesn't have to pay most of the ritual costs or feats (but will still have to pay the personal costs in terms of penalties), is there any Legacy item worth having?

[Tavar]

Well, There's hellfire Warlock. Always a popular choice,

[sofawall]

If you make a legacy item from the tables at the back of the book, it can be very powerful.

The printed ones? Not so much.

[Douglas]

2) You must invest in 3 feats (Least Legacy, Lesser Legacy, Greater Legacy) in order to unlock a Legacy item’s powers.

Not quite true. If you complete the ritual and cost requirements to unlock a Legacy item's abilities, you get the corresponding feat free as a bonus feat. I'd have to check to be sure, but I think either you can't actually take those feats normally or if you do spend normal feat slots on them you don't have to spend the money or do the ritual. They're intended more as a mechanism to track which tier of abilities you have unlocked than as actual feats.

[Thalnawr]

Not quite true. If you complete the ritual and cost requirements to unlock a Legacy item's abilities, you get the corresponding feat free as a bonus feat. I'd have to check to be sure, but I think either you can't actually take those feats normally or if you do spend normal feat slots on them you don't have to spend the money or do the ritual. They're intended more as a mechanism to track which tier of abilities you have unlocked than as actual feats.

That's what I remembered as well, for those feats.

[Starbuck_II]

2) You must invest in 3 feats (Least Legacy, Lesser Legacy, Greater Legacy) in order to unlock a Legacy item’s powers.
4) You must also pay a “ritual cost” in gp in order to unlock a Legacy item’s powers. These costs vary, but are generally quite high.

These are the same thing.

You either buy the ritual (gp cost) or take the ritual (feat). You don't do both (then you'd have two least legacy feats without two Legacy items).

[Person_Man]

Not quite true. If you complete the ritual and cost requirements to unlock a Legacy item's abilities, you get the corresponding feat free as a bonus feat. I'd have to check to be sure, but I think either you can't actually take those feats normally or if you do spend normal feat slots on them you don't have to spend the money or do the ritual. They're intended more as a mechanism to track which tier of abilities you have unlocked than as actual feats.

Rereads section. Whoops, right you are. That seems needlessly complicated. So the Legacy Champion is actually slightly stronger then I thought. Since he gets the ritual cost for free, he can then take some other Legacy feat, such as Quicken Legacy or Empower Legacy.

[Optimystik]

Well, There's hellfire Warlock. Always a popular choice,

Also, completing any Theurge progression.

Uncanny Trickster is similar, but a bit more balanced.

[Draxar]

I believe the general trick people use it for is taking a prestige class beyond 10 levels before epic.

[Thurbane]

Oh, OK...like Wizard 3/Archivist 3/Mystic Theurge 4/Legacy Champion 10 for 9th level Arcane and 9th level Divine casting?

[sonofzeal]

Oh, OK...like Wizard 3/Archivist 3/Mystic Theurge 4/Legacy Champion 10 for 9th level Arcane and 9th level Divine casting?

Not quite; you get 8th level of both. Still, if you run out of MT it can be worth considering.

[Thurbane]

Not quite; you get 8th level of both. Still, if you run out of MT it can be worth considering.

Oops, did my sums wrong.

[Tokiko Mima]

Weapons of Legacy is one of the worst written WotC products ever. And that’s saying a lot. The premise of the book is a good one – lots of powerful magic items that improve with the PC as they gain levels. Unfortunately, the execution of the book was horrible. Worse then Truenamer horrible.

Here’s why:

Spoiler

Show

1) The vast majority of the Weapons (which includes some armor and wondrous items) of Legacy re mediocre, and some are worse then named magic items you can find in various splat books. In particular, they tend to grant mediocre once per day spell-like abilities with non-scaling Save DCs.
2) You must invest in 3 feats (Least Legacy, Lesser Legacy, Greater Legacy) in order to unlock a Legacy item’s powers. I was wrong about this. You get them as a bonus when you pay the "ritual cost."
3) The feats have a minimum character level (5th, 11th, and 17th). So even if you do unlock a cool power, it’s usually so late in your progression that it’s not useful.
4) You must also pay a “ritual cost” in gp in order to unlock a Legacy item’s powers. These costs vary, but are generally quite high.
5) Weapons also have roleplaying requirements. Most are just annoying, such as having to defeat a particular foe under certain conditions. But some are pretty ridiculous, rendering the Legacy item unusable for any character that doesn’t fit the Legacy item’s pre-conceived notion of who “should” be using it.
6) You must pay a “personal cost” in hit points, spell slot loss, penalties to your Saving Throws, To-Hit, Skills, etc. Again, these vary, but are generally not worth it.
7) You can’t enchant a Weapon via any “normal process” such as magic or psionic item creation feats. So it’s not like you can pick up an interesting +1 Mace with a few extra tricks and an interesting back story and then just improve it on your own. You are limited to the Weapon’s legacy abilities. (Though it is worth noting that Greater Magic Weapon and other spells that have a temporary effect work on it).

Given all that, you would think that the book is entirely worthless. Well, you are almost right.

Wait, don't forget that the book lists a spell that destroys your legacy connection and removes your feats costing you thousands of gold for an item you can't use until you pay that same amount again! Yes, even if you have Legacy Champion PrC levels you still have to redo the ritual (though at a reduced cost.)

The book includes an odd prestige class, the Legacy Champion. It requires character level 10, Least Legacy feat, 5 ranks in Knowledge History, and possession of a Legacy item. The Champion has 7/10BAB, d8 hit die, Strong Will Save, 4 + Int Skill points per level, a great Skill list (Concentration, Deciper Script, Gather Info, Knowledge History, UMD, plus all of your existing class Skills from all of your other classes), and some really interesting class abilities.

In particular, you can swap out your Legacy item’s abilities for other abilities, gain extra per day uses of those abilities, gain 2 Legacy bonus feats at the appropriate levels to unlock the Legacy item’s full powers, you don’t have to pay the “ritual cost” to unlock your Lecacy item’s full powers, and you gain 8/10 progression of all class features from any one previous class. This includes everything the class would have given you, not just your standard spell/psionics/whatever progression. You get everything except for BAB, hit dice, base Saves, and Skill points.

So is there any class or prestige class out there with horrible base statistics, but great class abilities, where giving up 2 levels of progression wouldn’t be a big deal? Off the top of my head, I’m thinking Incarnate. But I know that there must be others. And given that the Champion doesn't have to pay most of the ritual costs or feats (but will still have to pay the personal costs in terms of penalties), is there any Legacy item worth having?

Well, when I think about it, the way the weapons work is just awful. The Legacy system just doesn't scale with weapon/armor system so any weapon or armor Legacy piece you pick is going to be stinky bad. However, I find that the Legacy items that aren't weapons or armor, and ones that are made for casters tend to be better, like the Scarab of Aradros.

It takes the place of lesser/normal Metamagic extend rod, gives free temporary hit points, a cumulative +3 to concentration checks, one of the more interesting ways to persist shield all day, and the best ability: at will as an immediate action grant yourself resistance 30 to any one type of elemental energy damage for 1 minute. The downside is a -2 penalty to skill checks, the loss of a few lower level spell slots, and a -2 caster level penalty.

I recommend the Scarab for an Abjurant Champion whose DM noticed that mage armor is a conjuration spell. You could use Legacy Champion to advance Adjurant Armor and Swift Abjuration class features as well.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The primary use of this class, as others have said, is to advance class features not normally able to be advanced.

War Weaver, for example, can be used to combine with this to be able to put 9th level spells in the Weave

Abjurant Champion... auto-quicken on 9th level Abjuration spells? Yes please.

Hellfire Warlock... uses obvious

Any of the theurge-ish classes... to continue dual-progression

Swiftblade... because it actually looses FEWER caster levels, so can be a way to get all the fun goodness out of the class and loose only two caster levels rather than four.

[VirOath]

Well, I'd just like to say that there is another gem in that book. Though most, if not all of the premade weapons of legacy are utter crap, the rules for making custom ones as a DM are pretty sound from my understanding of them. For some reason, all the the printed WoL are just massively understatted.

And as stated, making a Weapon a Legacy Item from scratch is a poor choice. Weapons are kinda a dime a dozen, and very exacting on what they do and what is desired from the player. Armor is a bit better, but magic items that fit other slots make wonderful Custom Legacies.

[JasonP]

The primary use of this class, as others have said, is to advance class features not normally able to be advanced.

....

Swiftblade... because it actually looses FEWER caster levels, so can be a way to get all the fun goodness out of the class and loose only two caster levels rather than four.

How do you lose fewer caster levels using Legacy Champion to advance Swiftblade?

[Tavar]

Swift blade looses 4 levels over it's progression, Legacy champion looses 2.

[Draz74]

But if you're using Legacy Champion to advance Swiftblade class features, then you'll only advance spellcasting on levels where LC advances class features and Swiftblade advances spellcasting ...

... so you'll end up losing 6 levels of spellcasting, actually ...

[Douglas]

Swift blade looses 4 levels over it's progression, Legacy champion looses 2.

So by using Legacy Champion to advance Swiftblade you end up losing 6 levels instead. You lose one every time LC doesn't advance, and you lose one every time LC does advance but the level of Swiftblade it gets you to doesn't advance casting. You end up dealing with the lost advancement levels from both classes put together.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

See the PrC Tier thread on BG. I'm the one who rated this class. It's +0

Weapons of Legacy is one of the worst written WotC products ever. And that’s saying a lot. The premise of the book is a good one – lots of powerful magic items that improve with the PC as they gain levels. Unfortunately, the execution of the book was horrible. Worse then Truenamer horrible.
...is there any Legacy item worth having?

Yes but only 1 or 2. Your indexes are good person man. Did you just discover this book?

Whenever I use WOL people point the figure and scream cheese. So I guess if we average the two opinions (bah screw the fallacy) this comes out to what most other DnD suppliments are right?

Uncanny Trickster is similar, but a bit more balanced.

Its rate is a little worse but the abilities are slightly better. They are about the same (some people who really like class features like it more though).

War Weaver, for example, can be used to combine with this to be able to put 9th level spells in the Weave

Abjurant Champion... auto-quicken on 9th level Abjuration spells? Yes please.

Hellfire Warlock... uses obvious

Any of the theurge-ish classes... to continue dual-progression

That's all anyone uses this class for. Which is pretty darn specific considering how flexible most other classes are.