Claw of the Revenancer?

[danielxcutter]

The Claw of the Revenancer is a minor artifact from FR, and it's always seemed interesting.

For starters, the claw "counts as one ring, one glove or gauntlet, and one bracer. Thus, the wearer can still wear another ring, a single glove (such as a glove of storing), and a single bracelet (such as a bracelet of friends)." The ring slot's fairly obvious, I guess. I suppose this means that if it doesn't function in pairs(like gloves of dexterity), it's fair game to use with the claw? What items are there like that besides the example? I think a wand bracelet would work, at least?

It also provides AC bonuses as Bracers of Armor +5 and a Necklace of Natural Armor +5. Obviously that's not bad, but wouldn't you be able to get better AC at higher levels with normal armor and Magic Vestment? I guess you wouldn't have to rely on custom magic items or a Belt of Magnificence to get a Wisdom bonus and a natural armor at the same time, and it is kind of a drow item.

It can also be used as a "+1 weapon that deals 1d6 points of slashing damage (critical 19-20/x2) plus 1d6 points of negative energy damage" that you're automatically proficient with - I wonder what classification? There's no suggestion whether it acts as a natural weapon claw or if you can make iterative attacks with it, or whether you can apply Power Attack or Weapon Finesse with it. Anyone know about that? If you do plan on using it in melee combat you'd probably use GMW on it, though unfortunately it's not going to be great as a weapon either way.

Of course, the greatest purpose is the ability to create strong undead. The claw can be used to make Revenants that explicitly serve you instead of going off to find their killers(and Revenants keep their class levels and abilities!) three times per day. Once per ten days(and you can't use it on the same day you make a Revenant), you can make a Silveraith instead from a spellcaster's corpse. It does use the spell trigger method so you need Greater Create Undead or a high UMD check for those, but I think there really isn't a limit to making them? How good is that, and do the Silveraiths get controlled by the wearer as well?



In general, how good is this artifact(assuming the user worships Kiaransalee or a similar deity with the serial numbers filed off)? Personally, it seems really strong considering it's a MINOR artifact - I've seen worse major ones!

[Gruftzwerg]

It gives you proficiency in it and later calls it a "claw". As such I would interpret it as single "claw" attack (best used as secondary attack, so that you don't waste any possible iterative attacks with your mainhand). Imho not so good.

If you really wanna build around it, imho Beast Strike is the way to go. Adds the claws damage on your unarmed attacks. Now push your US with items/enhancements. You get the beneficial stuff from the claw and can make iterative attacks with it.

[danielxcutter]

It gives you proficiency in it and later calls it a "claw". As such I would interpret it as single "claw" attack (best used as secondary attack, so that you don't waste any possible iterative attacks with your mainhand). Imho not so good.

If you really wanna build around it, imho Beast Strike is the way to go. Adds the claws damage on your unarmed attacks. Now push your US with items/enhancements. You get the beneficial stuff from the claw and can make iterative attacks with it.

It's more a cleric item and the ability to use it as a weapon is more like an afterthought. I mean, the minionmancy abilities alone are pretty crazy.

[Gruftzwerg]

It's more a cleric item and the ability to use it as a weapon is more like an afterthought. I mean, the minionmancy abilities alone are pretty crazy.

Yeah sure, but for that you don't need to wear it all the time. At least I don't see any reasons why you should?
The minionmancy doesn't get affected by taking the items off.
And the weapon (damage) abilities are meh, if you ask me. Extra dmg dice that doesn't profit from any kind of multiplier.

So why limit yourself to use it as main weapon?

[danielxcutter]

Yeah sure, but for that you don't need to wear it all the time. At least I don't see any reasons why you should?
The minionmancy doesn't get affected by taking the items off.
And the weapon (damage) abilities are meh, if you ask me. Extra dmg dice that doesn't profit from any kind of multiplier.

So why limit yourself to use it as main weapon?

As it explicitly says that the revenants obey the wearer I'd say it does matter whether you take it off. Plus, the AC boost is nice.

[Fizban]

I mean, it's kindof the whole thing behind a major FR adventure, because it gives you a limitless undead army. How strong does limitless undead army sound?

[Gruftzwerg]

As it explicitly says that the revenants obey the wearer I'd say it does matter whether you take it off. Plus, the AC boost is nice.

K, seem to have missed that part of the text..^^ Sry, still early in the morning here for me.

edit: In that chase, give it to your (improved) familiar (e.g. an Imp).

[danielxcutter]

I mean, it's kindof the whole thing behind a major FR adventure, because it gives you a limitless undead army. How strong does limitless undead army sound?

You do need corpses fairly powerful characters to get really good minions, but otherwise very.

Honestly the weirder thing is that this is only a minor artifact, not a major one. Even if it kinda-sorta eats three slots, that's one of the strongest items in the game from the minionmancy alone.

Edit:

K, seem to have missed that part of the text..^^ Sry, still early in the morning here for me.

edit: In that chase, give it to your (improved) familiar (e.g. an Imp).

You seem to have missed the pretty big AC boost from it.

The question about that part is whether the AC holds up at higher levels(like close or even past level 20); if it's on I dunno a mid-level character or something it'd be pretty bonkers.

[Gruftzwerg]

You do need corpses fairly powerful characters to get really good minions, but otherwise very.

Honestly the weirder thing is that this is only a minor artifact, not a major one. Even if it kinda-sorta eats three slots, that's one of the strongest items in the game from the minionmancy alone.

Edit:



You seem to have missed the pretty big AC boost from it.

The question about that part is whether the AC holds up at higher levels(like close or even past level 20); if it's on I dunno a mid-level character or something it'd be pretty bonkers.

at higher levels bracers of armor can have up to +8
a necklace of natural armor can have up to +5

I don't see why your character should bother to wear em if you familiar can wear em too? Imho it makes magic item slot management to bothersome to do it on the main character. And since it is an artifact it shouldn't come into play until ~20 imho. At that point you should have invested into better armor options if that was your goal.

[Darg]

It gives you proficiency in it and later calls it a "claw". As such I would interpret it as single "claw" attack (best used as secondary attack, so that you don't waste any possible iterative attacks with your mainhand). Imho not so good.

If you really wanna build around it, imho Beast Strike is the way to go. Adds the claws damage on your unarmed attacks. Now push your US with items/enhancements. You get the beneficial stuff from the claw and can make iterative attacks with it.

The first sentence of the description tells you it is a gauntlet. The gauntlet gives you proficiency with this specific gauntlet that has "claw" in the name.

[Gruftzwerg]

The first sentence of the description tells you it is a gauntlet. The gauntlet gives you proficiency with this specific gauntlet that has "claw" in the name.

Point for you. Missed that. I only saw the parts where it is referred as claw..^^

[danielxcutter]

And in City of the Spider Queen, the module where it appears, the user makes iterative attacks with it in the statblock. Granted, 3.X editing is hardly the best, but still.

[Fizban]

You do need corpses fairly powerful characters to get really good minions, but otherwise very.

Honestly the weirder thing is that this is only a minor artifact, not a major one. Even if it kinda-sorta eats three slots, that's one of the strongest items in the game from the minionmancy alone.

When 99% of the population is 1st level commoners, you don't need "good" minions. Animate Dead's HD cap is what prevents it from being an actual take-over-the-world spell, but this artifact gets to ignore that. Being able to add every powerful character you manage to kill to your army is huge, but unlimited undead was already a game-changer.

Though I would also note that I'm pretty sure the module is 3.0, and back then you could use Create Greater Undead to create Vampires and Ghosts. So being able to collect all the high level characters you could kill was already a caster level 18+ bad guy ability (not automatically under your control, but again, they're automatically twisted to evil and as two powerful evil NPCs the DM could simply say they joined up). Those were removed in 3.5, probably because of the cheap res and free abilities granted to PCs when, shockingly, players decided they should be able to leverage all the [Evil] spells in the PHB without consequence.

Though the fact that you basically stop leveling due to LA and once destroyed cannot be re-undeaded (with PHB spells) could have been considered a sufficient tradeoff, and enemies that can kill you at that level should be able to fight you if you're a vampire or ghost. Though an unlimited army of vampire spawn could be considered a problem.

[danielxcutter]

The problem is that you need strong enough undead for the remaining 1%, not that’d be impossible unless you’re a random guy who picked it up.

[Thurbane]

Honestly the weirder thing is that this is only a minor artifact, not a major one.

To be fair, if you go through FR splats, artifacts seem to be almost as common as Happy Meal toys.

[danielxcutter]

To be fair, if you go through FR splats, artifacts seem to be almost as common as Happy Meal toys.

Oh sure, that's probably part of it. But even some pretty nice major artifacts that really are worth the title are still kinda weaker; the Savage Tide version of the Iron Flask of Tuerny the Merciless and the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus are both quite strong but have difficulty raising an entire army like the Claw of the Revenancer can.

[Fizban]

The primary defining features of artifacts are power, and durability. If something is too powerful for the DM to want to give it a price and make it craftable, then it must be an artifact. And if an artifact is not nigh-indestructible, with only a special plot method to get rid of it, then it must be only a minor artifact.

The actual power of written artifacts will vary just as much as any other content from disparate writers, so I do not find the fact that they do particularly odd. The only difference between the two tiers is that an adventure with a major artifact will almost certainly expect the PCs to do the special destruction quest, because that's the most unique thing about them, while an adventure with a minor artifact will more likely be about dealing with a particular NPC or organization that happens to be in possession of an overpowered item, rather than a special quest themed around the artifact. If the PCs are meant to wield it, the distinction barely matters at all.

[danielxcutter]

The primary defining features of artifacts are power, and durability. If something is too powerful for the DM to want to give it a price and make it craftable, then it must be an artifact. And if an artifact is not nigh-indestructible, with only a special plot method to get rid of it, then it must be only a minor artifact.

The actual power of written artifacts will vary just as much as any other content from disparate writers, so I do not find the fact that they do particularly odd. The only difference between the two tiers is that an adventure with a major artifact will almost certainly expect the PCs to do the special destruction quest, because that's the most unique thing about them, while an adventure with a minor artifact will more likely be about dealing with a particular NPC or organization that happens to be in possession of an overpowered item, rather than a special quest themed around the artifact. If the PCs are meant to wield it, the distinction barely matters at all.

There's also another potential distinction - minor artifacts are not always unique items, and they just cannot be made by common mortal means any more. This probably includes "was entirely possible but nobody knows how anymore".

Major artifacts are described, on the other hand, as "capable of altering the balance of a campaign".

I suppose the Claw doesn't have that much impact on the campaign as a whole compared to some major artifacts, but it's still a pretty big thing though.

[Fizban]

I would read that more as. . . what the DMG intended. The minor artifacts in the DMG are indeed constrained enough that it's fair to say they don't inherently alter the balance of a campaign, and from those entries the intent seems pretty clear. They've got limited uses and/or chaotic or ursurp-able effects. Even the well-known major Hand and Eye of Vecna just give a fistful of high level spells per day, but the total is easily enough to push them into epic, and are usable by anyone.

But the only hard rule given for the difference is about durability, and the writers who came after don't seem to have all got the memo. If anything, I'd expect there are a number of "minor" artifacts that are only minor because their writers couldn't be bothered to write up a fancy destruction method.

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, Exemplars of Evil has a minor artifact called the Planar Trestle that only has three notable points; that it's created out of "esoteric objects that are unique to the plane on which the artifact was created", that when it touches an inactive or sealed portal it forces it open permanently(and is destroyed in the process, but consumable artifacts have always been a thing), and that otherwise it's virtually indestrucible.

Granted, it's more a macguffin("do not let this touch the portal" and that's about it) and doesn't actually have much influence otherwise in and of itself, but it sounds like it was assigned the position less for its durability and more for the lack of shaping the campaign around it in and of itself.

Personally I kind of like it for being very good as a macguffin, and in general I like that chapter in general. Could have optimized the encounters a bit better(for starters, I'd totally make the Urdine

Conversely, though, there are major artifacts that don't really influence the plot that much in and of itself. Example: the Angelwing Razor from the BoVD - while a +5 vorpal longsword that ignores DR and hardness to the point where it can even cut through a Wall of Force(!) would certainly be expensive enough to be pushed up to epic prices otherwise, it's just a powerful sword. It's not even an intelligent item like the Sword of Kas.

There are a bunch of major artifacts that ultimately boil down to "powerful combat item" rather than the campaign-shaping magical items that they were often intended to. Heck, the only real reason the Claw's undead-making powers aren't more relevant because she's mostly focusing on researching a spell that does that en masse.

[Darg]

I just like the idea of the claw user building this vast revenant army getting their arm chopped off and the revenants instantly turn to devour them. In the chaos the protagonist picks up the claw and is tempted to take over the revenant army for themselves falling to the dark side of the force. Wait, what?

Well, the army won't be that big. Assuming 30 days a month, the maximum size would be around 540. On top of that, only 36 silveraiths a year. If they had a really long time to create a whole bunch of silveraiths you could create a vast permanent army. The only problem with this is that you need to use control undead a whole bunch to keep control of all the silveraiths.

[danielxcutter]

I just like the idea of the claw user building this vast revenant army getting their arm chopped off and the revenants instantly turn to devour them. In the chaos the protagonist picks up the claw and is tempted to take over the revenant army for themselves falling to the dark side of the force. Wait, what?

Well, the army won't be that big. Assuming 30 days a month, the maximum size would be around 540. On top of that, only 36 silveraiths a year. If they had a really long time to create a whole bunch of silveraiths you could create a vast permanent army.

There are four minor drawbacks to that, though; called shots aren't part of the rules by default, you get a negative level if you don't worship Kiaransalee, the revenants and silveraiths are only about as strong as the characters used to make them, and the undead creation uses the spell trigger method so you need to either have Create Greater Undead on your spell list or make a UMD check.

Far from insurmountable, of course. I'm not 100% sure if the silveraiths created actually obey the wearer, but it's probably just a variation of the same ability.

[Zanos]

I think your assessment is correct. There are other ways to get large armies of sentient undead that retain class levels, but as far as artifacts go, this is definitely one of the best ones. Many artifacts are surprisingly wimpy, they're just +5 weapons with pretty underwhelming secondary effects that you wouldn't even prefer to a well made weapon at the level you can get your hands on a major artifact. And then many of them just replicate spells poorly, using the minimum ability score or with more limitations than the actual spells. Sure the Orbs of Dragonkind are neat but casting a minimum DC dominate monster against one particularly category of dragon is not particularly useful, especially considering that most dragons you would want to use an artifact to take out are not going to be threatened by a DC 25 will save. More useful are it's secondary powers of using the AC and Saves of whatever ancient dragon is in their orb, which are going to be some decent numbers, and knowledge of nearby dragons. And of course it comes with the very fun downside of one of the most powerful and long lived categories of creatures in the system loathing you for eternity unconditionally. What a deal!

Might be interesting to actually go through the printed artifacts at some point. I had a DM with a special rule that if you defeated a dragon of a certain age category or higher you could choose any artifact to appear in its horde. So they do see use occasionally. We actually earned the enmity of all of dragon-kind in that campaign.

To be fair, if you go through FR splats, artifacts seem to be almost as common as Happy Meal toys.

I believe one of the chapters of the Nether Scrolls actually gives you the ability to make artifacts. There are several (un)living characters who canonically know how to make Artifacts as well, I believe Larloch made at least two or three himself? Good luck trying to get him to tell you how to do it, though.

[danielxcutter]

I think your assessment is correct. There are other ways to get large armies of sentient undead that retain class levels, but as far as artifacts go, this is definitely one of the best ones.

And how many of those rely on spawn chaining? This is probably one of the easiest ways to get the ball rolling, assuming you can use it of course.

Oh, and the Claw of the Revenancer also has some decent protection abilities, but you could afford those with WBL I guess. I think in 3.0e the designers didn't know how important AC was.

Many artifacts are surprisingly wimpy, they're just +5 weapons with pretty underwhelming secondary effects that you wouldn't even prefer to a well made weapon at the level you can get your hands on a major artifact. And then many of them just replicate spells poorly, using the minimum ability score or with more limitations than the actual spells. Sure the Orbs of Dragonkind are neat but casting a minimum DC dominate monster against one particularly category of dragon is not particularly useful, especially considering that most dragons you would want to use an artifact to take out are not going to be threatened by a DC 25 will save. More useful are it's secondary powers of using the AC and Saves of whatever ancient dragon is in their orb, which are going to be some decent numbers, and knowledge of nearby dragons. And of course it comes with the very fun downside of one of the most powerful and long lived categories of creatures in the system loathing you for eternity unconditionally. What a deal!

Oh, I concur. And the Orbs are some of the better artifacts I believe.

Might be interesting to actually go through the printed artifacts at some point. I had a DM with a special rule that if you defeated a dragon of a certain age category or higher you could choose any artifact to appear in its horde. So they do see use occasionally. We actually earned the enmity of all of dragon-kind in that campaign.

I've been going through a (very incomplete) list, and I am very much underwhelmed(especially by some of the minor ones). Still, not all are crap, though right now the only real strong ones I can think of are all Evil - the Claw of the Revenancer, the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus, and the Wand of Orcus.

I believe one of the chapters of the Nether Scrolls actually gives you the ability to make artifacts. There are several (un)living characters who canonically know how to make Artifacts as well, I believe Larloch made at least two or three himself? Good luck trying to get him to tell you how to do it, though.

Ah, you mean the Ars Factum. The description of the Nether Scrolls explicitly says there's an unknown additional key of some kind needed to unlock it, and the spellcasters of Windsong Tower(the only ones with a full set) have never discovered it. It's either going to be just a lore thing, or an active plot point depending on the campaign.

[Zanos]

And how many of those rely on spawn chaining? This is probably one of the easiest ways to get the ball rolling, assuming you can use it of course.

There's a few that don't. The big ones are animate dread warrior for humanoids and no control cap, although it costs XP to cast and they take mental penalties. There is no control limit, however. If juju zombies are inherently controlled(debatable), create undead can do it in Faerun, although that template also has some penalties. If Dark Sun material is on the table, Unliving Identity allows you to fill your animate dead pool with Dark Sun's thinking zombies, which have no penalties. Command Undead and some charisma cursing can do it for long durations with any undead, but then your sentient class leveled minions will rebel if someone with a high enough caster level dispels them. Not ideal. That's a better option for mindless or stupid minions.

I think only vampires can spawn chain for class level minions? Might be another spawning undead that does it but most replace with a new creature rather than template.

Oh, and the Claw of the Revenancer also has some decent protection abilities, but you could afford those with WBL I guess. I think in 3.0e the designers didn't know how important AC was.

They're both nice, but yeah nothing you couldn't replace with items or spells. The +5 bracers are kinda lame since greater mage armor or just a +1 chain shirt with some ASF reduction is as good or better.

Oh, I concur. And the Orbs are some of the better artifacts I believe.

I've been going through a (very incomplete) list, and I am very much underwhelmed(especially by some of the minor ones). Still, not all are crap, though right now the only real strong ones I can think of are all Evil - the Claw of the Revenancer, the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus, and the Wand of Orcus.

I think the Ruby Rod has some caveat that it just doesn't work if Asmodeus doesn't want it to? It is pretty damn nice, though. Someone posted an artifact on here from one of the magazines awhile ago that just hatched Red Dragons that were permanently under your control and slowly made you Evil, but the penalties for using it weren't that bad and it gave you a growing army of red dragons. So that was pretty good, but another point for Evil artifacts being the good ones.

Ah, you mean the Ars Factum. The description of the Nether Scrolls explicitly says there's an unknown additional key of some kind needed to unlock it, and the spellcasters of Windsong Tower(the only ones with a full set) have never discovered it. It's either going to be just a lore thing, or an active plot point depending on the campaign.

Yeah, definitely something that's going to require some plot. Again, you could try asking the folks who originally studied the scrolls. Don't send an elf to do a Nethese Arcanists job.

The scrolls are a very goofy and extremely powerful artifact though, since a single scroll grants a full level of any arcane spellcasting class. Each chapter has 10 scrolls, so to gain any of the set bonuses you need to have gotten 10 free levels from studying the scrolls, and someone who found all of them would have a minimum level of 51. Arguably the windsong elves could use the scrolls they can read to print level 40+ wizards.

[icefractal]

Since I was curious, I took a look through some of the Pathfinder major artifacts (only up to "C" so far). While most of them were at least a good item, very few were the kind of thing nations would fight over, and none so far have been world-shaping.

Spoiler: Artifact Review

Show

Ratings:
S - World Shaping
A - Nation Shaping
B - Major Personal Power / Locale Shaping
C - Useful
F - Meh

Anathema Archive (C)
Cast one spell/day for free, with minor downsides

Apocalypse Box (B-)
Either 50k gp or several week-long monsters (that you don't control) each day

Apollyon Ring (B)
Spread disease that lets you spy on people

Aqualinth (A)
Create lots of water, bless a lot of people, powerful defensive use, control people

Armor of Skulls (C)
It's pretty good armor with some useful powers

Avernus Claw (C)
A pretty good weapon with some niche but good powers

Axe of Dread (B)
A pretty good weapon with a rather strong fear ability, and prevents resurrection

Axe of the Dwarvish Lords (C+)
It's a good axe and doubles darkvision range, but nothing game-changing

Barding of Pleated Light (C-)
It's not impressive as armor, but the tele-charge is neat

Blackaxe (C/A)
It's a decent axe, and tree-healing is nice, but without the demon lord that's it.
If the demon lord is acting through it though, that's pretty significant.

Bloodstones of the Valiant (C-)
I mean it's useful, but not very impressive

Book of the Damned (B+)
It's a unique source of power and location-affecting; solid.

Bottle of the Bound (B-)
Long duration summoning, but only one at a time. Could release some daemons.

Bound Blade (C+)
Just a good sword, but it can destroy souls in a limited way.

Brazen Egg (C-)
I'm not sure this is really doing anything above what a non-artifact construct could.

Briar (C)
It's a good sword with some useful powers.

Burning Glaive (F)
Not a very impressive weapon, and the powers are quite low DC.

Calabash of Last Draughts (F/C)
Depends if the memory modification can do more than 25 minutes / day.

Chalice of Enchantment (C)
It's quite a good item for the right caster, but that's all it is.

Chronicle of the Righteous (C-)
Some SLAs, and accurate plane shifting to the upper planes.

Cicatrix (B)
Only personal scale, but a good weapon with some very potent abilities.

[Fizban]

The real way to make a Major Artifact is just to mess with the underlying rules of the system. Make any spell permanent, make any magical effect end, remove something's magic entirely, cast any spell at any range, or any number of targets, recover spells multiple times per day, ignore gp costs, ignore xp costs, kill something by hitting it irrespective of hit points, hit and damage something irrespective of AC and other defenses, remove entities, game elements, or concepts from existence, or make them exist. Etc.

People are always wanting to hack together some bogus set of feats and PrCs to achieve ultimate power through poorly written game mechanics- the proper purview of that should be people seeking out (or ritually creating, etc) lost artifacts and places of power, which grant those hax, which they want to use to etc.