Helmed Horror's Elemental Greatsword: stats are?

[Conster]

It's the third session of the D&D 4e campaign I'm in, run by one of the players from our previous 3.5e campaign, and we're still trying to get the hang of it - especially the DM, who was upset about my Passive Perception being "so high you find everything" (except for traps), which led to my brother telling him he should let me roll if I want to find something, and only use Passive Perception for things like ambushes.
In particular, our level 5 party ended up fighting a group consisting of 3 Ghouls, 2 Mad Wraiths and 1 Helmed Horror, with 1 of the 5 party members staying behind to put on his armor, and another storming into battle without his chainmail. Due to a bunch of bad rolls on the DM's part and using almost all of our daily powers, we were able to win, after which the DM complained that we were supposed to have waited for a group of NPCs to arrive (oddly enough, deciding to rush into battle without your armor because you're Dragonborn isn't worth any roleplaying experience, while lucking your way through a bunch of Bluff rolls with a +1 skill modifier when you're BSing a king is).

Here's the part I have a question about, though: when looting the bodies afterwards, all we got was Helmed Horror's sword, and since my character is the only one who uses greatswords, I'm its new owner. The stats confuse me, though: apparently it's "+20 vs AC; 1d10 + 7 damage plus 1d10 cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage (helmed horror's choice)." There's a few things which confuse me:

• First there's the attack and damage rolls: the Helmed Horror gets +13 attack from his Strength+level, there's +3 from Greatsword proficiency, but that still leaves +4 that I don't know the origin of, especially since 1d10 + 7 damage is the base damage plus his raw Strength modifier, so the weapon doesn't seem to be +1, let alone +4.
• Then there's the "1d10 cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage (helmed horror's choice)" bit. The DM thought this meant he had to roll randomly to see what type the damage is, so he thinks I now have a Cold Greatsword, but it seems more like the helmed horror gets to determine the element as he attacks - and if it's that, would I even be able to use that power?

All in all, I'm not sure about what the sword's stats are, or even if I, as a level 5 who started with a simply +2 Dynamic Greatsword, can wield it without it making my character overpowered for its level (if it's +0 and does 1d10 + 1d10 Cold damage, I suppose it's not that overpowered compared to my current +2, 1d10+2 damage sword). Should I just tell the DM it might be a better idea if he retconned out us looting the sword?

 

[abyssaldeath]

Generally, weapons held by monsters are only usable by that monster. In other words the greatsword you found is a regular greatsword. Elemental Greatsword is just the name of the power the Helmed Horror is using.


Edit: Monsters don't follow the same creation rules that PC'c do. That is why your numbers don't add up.

 

[Piratecat]

Right. This is a change from 3e: that monster's sword isn't even necessarily magical. Most likely it's a normal sword that became more powerful while he was holding it. Your DM can certainly say it's a magical sword by deciding what it is and awarding it as treasure, but this is different than in 3e, when monsters needed actual magic weapons to get magical effects.

On a separate note, assuming that a group of heroes is going to wait for NPCs they don't even know exists is probably a bad idea.

Hey, welcome to the boards!

 

[Obryn]

You've run into one of the biggest, most fundamental love-it-or-hate-it differences between 3.5 and 4e - asynchronous rules. Monsters and NPCs are built using completely different rules from PCs.

He gets a +20 to attack because he's a mid-level Soldier, not specifically because he's using a greatsword or because the greatsword is enchanted. You can't reverse-engineer weapon properties for 4e monsters like you could for 3.5 monsters.

In general, unless an enchanted item is listed in the monster's stats, any special effects are assumed to be from the monster's abilities, not from inherent properties of the weapon. So the extra 1d10 elemental damage was because the Helmed Horror was holding it - not because the greatsword itself was enchanted to do 1d10 extra elemental damage.

I hope that clears things up a bit! For your DM, I'd advise checking the monster creation section of the DMG, which goes over all this. (Also, Helmed Horrors are insanely beefy against a party of your level! Its AC probably made it almost impossible to hit, and it probably hit you on every swing. How'd you guys do?)

-O

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

If you look at the stat block for the Helmed Horror he carries nothing other than a Greatsword. Not a magical one just a mundane one. That is what you looted.

 

[Conster]

Thanks for the response, everyone! I'll be sure to let our DM know about the sword and the monster rules.
As for how we did in the fight: I stormed in with my Avenger before we realized these weren't the pushovers we'd been facing, but the Helmed Horror and Mad Wraiths ended up rolling pretty badly (only the Helmed Horror hit me), and when my turn came around again (it may have taken another turn for me to find out how high its AC was - I forget - but even so, I got 22 damage, tops), I got lucky with Abjure Undead and moved out of its range, making it lose a turn. The turn after that, one Mad Wraith stormed forward, I used Sequestering Strike to bring the other one near the party, and a bunch of dailies from the Goliath (Warden, I think) and the Wizard ended up finishing off the Ghouls (who had been tag-teaming the Goliath rather successfully). We got rid of the Mad Wraiths shortly after, but not after I'd gotten hit with a Touch of Chaos - fortunately, a base attack bonus of +7 and roll of 4 missed even the armorless Warlord. By this time, the Goliath had almost died and been healed a few times already, but fortunately, this was the point where the Helmed Horror got a few attack rolls of 22 (with a bonus of 20, yes) when trying to hit the Goliath's AC of 23, while we got a few rolls of 27 and 28 which turned into 29 and 30 by flanking. By the time the Helmed Horror went down, we were almost completely out of dailies, and the Warlord was out of healing powers, but the NPCs who showed up a few minutes later were very impressed with us.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the DM deciding the sword is magical, he'll just have to cook up exactly what it is. It could easily be something like a +2 bastard sword with a daily power that lets you do +1d10 damage of an elemental type of your choice for instance. That's more powerful than a Flaming Sword would be but its not way out of line or anything. Maybe the origin of the sword will become some sort of plot hook too. It could easily turn into a fun item.

The trick with 4e is to run with things. The book does spell out things fairly precisely but that is more for the benefit of the DM and gives him a lot of freedom to work things and not be overly constrained by details of the rules. He could consider the sword mundane, or magical to whatever degree works for the story. 3.x got a little TOO precise in the way it spelled out how everything worked sometimes. It tended to make things seem consistent but that was a two-edged sword that often worked against the DM and tended to reduce things a bit too much to specific rules. 4e can hold more surprises since you really cannot ever know what monsters are capable of for instance until you run into them and find out.

It can take a bit of getting used to.

 

[Mort_Q]

The DM can go all sorts of ways with it. It is magical, or the the local Artificer can make it magical for 75% of the normal cost due to its special nature, or.... you get the idea.

 

[Benlo]

The DM can go all sorts of ways with it. It is magical, or the the local Artificer can make it magical for 75% of the normal cost due to its special nature, or.... you get the idea.

Indeed. If I was the DM, and I retroactively made it magical, I would simply say that the sword needed a little time to learn to respect you, and until that happened, it wasn't inclined to allow you access to its power.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Another option for the DM is to simply make it whatever type of weapon the last damage was that the Helmed Horror chose to inflict. So, if it last did cold damage, the DM could make it a frost blade, etc. This could be described fluffwise as you being able to access some, but not all of the sword's power. The DM would then need to give it the appropriate enhancement bonus as well - for your group +2 would seem most appropriate.

Or, as noted, he could make it simply it normal greatsword, but that choice isn't nearly as interesting.