Changing Weapons of Legacy

[Xefas]

I found the idea of Legacy Items from the Weapons of Legacy book to be very interesting. I wasn't intending to base a whole game around it, but it certainly seems like a good extra spice to the game, allowing each player to have something unique to them, that levels with them, and gives them some cool tricks to pull every now and again.

However, the penalties you get for unlocking their powers seem a little annoying to me. They don't seem like incredible powerhouse items to me; just a couple bonuses here and there or a spell that a caster could use a couple levels back anyway (I personally designed custom items for each player, so they weren't exactly "optimized"). I feel weird asking for a lump of skill points, hit points, spell slots, and attack bonus, just in exchange for some trick, doodad, or minor bonus that doesn't seem to be worth the same as what they're giving up.

So, to my actual question. Does anyone know of some alternative method of dealing with the balance of Legacy Items? Like, what if I assigned each ability a cost in gp, and just summed those to get a new Ritual cost and excluded the other penalties? or, would it really unbalance things that much to just not impose any penalties at all whatsoever?

[Fax Celestis]

The system's not done, but you could try Shiny and I's Aspect Items system.