Soul Calibur's Ivy in DnD

[Thain]

Soul Calibur's Ivy in DnD...

Well, not the woman herself (who I suck at playing, btw, but I love her character) but in fact her weapon. For those of you who haven't played, Isabella weilds rather unique weapon: a magic sword, named Valentine, which in additon to being a senteint and malign creature has the very neat ability to shift from a sword to a whip.

I am looking to emulate that ability in a balanced way in DnD. Here's what I've come up with: stat the sword up however you will, I'm thinking its a +X shortsword of wounding and lashing

That lashing property is the one I need help with. Here's my thinking:

Lashing

This enchantment can only be placed on a slashing melee weapon of Small size. Upon mental command, as a free action, a lashing weapon may transform itself into a whip-dagger. When in this form, the weapon is treated in always as a whip-dagger (thus a non-weapon profeicency penalty may apply) with the sole exception that it does slashing, and not peircing, damage. Any other enchantments from the weapons sword-form apply in its whip form.

Caster Level: 16th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, polymorph any object; Market Price: +2 bonus.

Thoughts?

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

From some miscellaneous supplement, I forget nowadays, probably Relics and Rituals II they have an enchantment called Extending, +1 bonus, gives the weapon an extra 5 ft. reach as a move equiv (?) action from the wielder.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Hmmm. Just having played Soul Caliber, I would have thought her sword turned into a spiked chain. It certainly didn't seem like an ordinary whip.

 

[Thain]

It is specifically refered to as a whip several times in her background, move lists, and other such fluff. It's not an ordinary whip, which is why I instead see it as a whip-dagger style weapon.

Although, unlike the rather silly one in S&F, I see it as being a slightly-less-silly slashing weapon. The blades are spread out along the length of the whip, and the damage comes from her slashing you with it. Very, very few of her attacks with the Valentine involve priecing her opponent with it (while in its whip form, anyway, she has slightly more thrusts with the sword).

But anyhow, thats all beside the point, does my HR Lashing property seemed balanced? If not, why? And how to fix it?

 

[JustKim]

It's too weak as written. It's scarcely worth an enhancement bonus at all, much less +2. I would suggest adding a flat cost to the weapon thus enchanted, maybe 1,500 - 2,000 GP. Transforming into multiple weapons is a minor feature of the rod of lordly might, a mid- to high-level magic item. If each transformation was worth a +2 enhancement bonus the rod would easily be a major artifact, but it's not.

The polymorph any object spell likewise hikes the requirements to levels no sane artificer would bother with. At 16th level you could be creating the most powerful weapons outside the ELH, who's going to bother with a sword that changes into a whip at that level?

The 'free action' line could use some clarification. Can the wielder change the sword to a whip in response to someone else's action, in order to make an AoO? Could the weilder change the weapon while using a feat such as cleave or whirlwind attack, or between iterative attacks? If so you could be setting up opportunities for abuse. I would suggest placing a limit of once per round, on the character's turn as a free action.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Soul Calibur's Ivy in DnD...

Well, not the woman herself (who I suck at playing, btw, but I love her character) but in fact her weapon. For those of you who haven't played, Isabella weilds rather unique weapon: a magic sword, named Valentine, which in additon to being a senteint and malign creature has the very neat ability to shift from a sword to a whip.

I hope I'm not the only one who saw Brotherhood of the Wolf and said "hey, its Ivy's sword!!!" Interestingly that one was protrayed as non magical - a multipart sword held together by a wire cord running down the center of each piece. Press a button in the pommel and the cord extends (on a self rewinding reel) to allow long slashing whip attacks.

You could just try for a REALLY expensive exotic weapon...

Kahuna Burger

 

[RangerWickett]

The whipblade is a bizarre magical weapon that is a hybrid of a whip and a longsword. Sorcery allows the whipblade to perform both as a standard longsword and as a ranged weapon like a whip with numerous bladed segments, allowing you to attack out to 15 feet with an actual cutting blade. You can change betweeen sword and whip form as a free action on your turn.

When in whip-form, the whipblade grants you a +2 bonus on your opposed attack roll when attempting to disarm an opponent (and since it counts as a medium weapon, it is even better at disarming than a normal whip, which is small).

Additionally, if you attack a medium sized or smaller creature and have the Ranged Grapple feat, you may attempt to perform a ranged grapple with the whipblade, which is handled as a normal grapple, except that it does not incur an attack of opportunity. The grappled target cannot deal damage to you as in a normal grapple, and any successful attempt to break the grapple results in 2d6 slashing damage as the blade slices on its way off. You can only grapple one target like this at a time, but once the grapple is successful you can release the blade and it will still maintain its hold.



I didn't think of a price for this item, because it was for an NPC, but it's probably not all that powerful of an item. Basically it gives the PC a weaker form of 'quickdraw,' so I'd not charge at all for the power. I mean, it's hard enough that the person has to have exotic weapon proficiency (whip) to use this thing properly, so the rest is just style. Though I did once have an NPC villainess who dual-wielded a rapier and a whip. She was cool.

Oh, and by the way, Ivy is cool in Soul Calibur. Nothing is more gratifying than killing your opponent by pulling off Summon Suffering. Lesse . . . using the numeric keypad as a representation of the buttons you have to press, it's:

376231 and then A and B. You try pressing that on your numeric keypad in less than a second.