Weapons of Legacy

[JoeGKushner]

The ultimate guide to magic items -- especially weapons -- of rich heritage.

Weapons of Legacy provides a wealth of information on magical weapons with rich histories. The book includes many pre-defined weapons, outlining their names, history, powers, stats, necessary rituals for unlocking their powers, and adventure hooks. How the weapons can gain power is discussed, as well as the feats with which they might be used. Also included are discussions of other magic items such as magic armor, rings, and staves.

 

[JoeGKushner]

To level up items or not to level up items is the question.

Weapons of Legacy
Written by Bruce R. Cordell, Kolja Raven Liquette, Travis Stout
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
ISBN: 0-7869-3688-6
224 full color pages
Hardcover
$34.95

Weapons of Legacy is the latest sourcebook for Dungeons and Dragons by Wizards of the Coast. A full color hardcover, it certainly beats off WoTC's 160 page books as it’s only $5 more but has extra 64 pages. Art is handled by several of the industries finest illustrators who do a fantastic job brining the weapons and characters involved here to life. Artists include Wayne Reynolds, Wayne England, Doug Kovacs, and Fred Hooper among others.

Layout is standard two-column format. Tabs are used at the outer edge towards the top of the page to indicate chapter. For example, flipping to page 15, I see I’m in chapter two, heroes of legacy.

A weapon of legacy, which need not be a weapon, is an item that has undergone some type of transformation through heroic actions. The user unleashes its power as he learns more about it. I’ve heard others compare this to Earthdawn, but my experience with Earthdawn is limited. However, my experience with augmenting magical items as the character advances in levels is not. This book includes almost sixty items for the GM to insert into his campaign.

To use an item of legacy, the user must meet some basic requirements. For example, Merikel, a silvery greatsword, requires the user to be able to cast 1st level divine spells and have a bab +3. To unlock the rituals, the user must have the knowledge of the ritual (DC checks from 15-31), and spend gold. For example, to unlock the least legacy of the Morningstar Mindsplinter, you have to steal an item worth at least 1,000 gold pieces from a close friend and the total cost of the ritual is 4,500 gold pieces, including the value of the stolen item.

These feats are least legacy, for 5th level characters, lesser legacy, for 11th level characters, and greater legacy, for 17th level characters. Not every item has a greater legacy, allowing a lesser investment in the item. The bad new though, is that there are side effects from using such items. Some reduce your hit points. Some reduce your saving throws or attack bonus. These penalties are fairly harsh and as you advance and the weapon gains more and more power, they become worse.

The penalties don’t use a standard format. For example, the penalty to saving throws and attack bonus is a cumulative total. Whatever the number in the row is, based on your level and what you’ve unlocked, is the total penalty you have. For others, like hit points, it’s a non-running total, so the user has to do that math. It’s not a big deal as the numbers are small, but some standard formatting would’ve been the way to go with it.

Let’s take a sample. Full Moon’s Trick is standard +1 small-silvered short sword so it does only 1d4 due to size. As the user gains levels and performs the rituals, he gains abilities such as the following. For one, the bonus of the blade eventually increases to +4. For another, the user gains darkvision, bonuses to Hide and Move Silently, bonuses again transmutation magic, bane weapon against shapechangers, greater invisibility twice a day, rage, as the spell, three times per day, and wolfsbane, the ability to send shapechangers back to their true form.

In exchange, you’ll eventually suffer a –2 reflex save, -3 skill check penalty, 4 hit point loss, and 18-skill point loss.

Let’s compare some drawbacks. In Artifacts of the Ages, Swords and Staves, a battle scion, a fighter-based scion, over the course of ten levels, gains a total of four bonus feats with an extra feat (either two-weapon fighting or weapon specialization), upon entering the class. A standard fighter would gain six feats, so in essence, a sacrifice of one feat, or two, not counting the bonus feat upon entering the class. For other classes, like clerics that use the faith scion, there are no drawbacks, as the cleric gains no other special abilities save spellcasting. The true drawback though, is that you have to take a PrC. This can limit character growth in exchange for a near unfettered magic item.

In the Complete Book of Eldritch Might, you have intelligent items that you can donate experience points to and they gain levels which they use to purchase feats and abilities. There is sacrifice, but it’s not as bad as making you take a PrC. Experience points aren’t too hard to recover due to the way experience points are gained in 3.5. However, every item is intelligent and it requires some degree of customization.

There are other varieties. Unearthed Arcana has Item Familiar where you spend gold and experience points. Oriental Adventurers has the Samurai character class that can spend gold to augment their swords, but only up to a certain amount per level.

This doesn’t count Bonded Items, introduced in the DMG II, or Leveled Treasures from Dragon 289, or items that gain power as the user gains levels in general, such as the artifact swords from Fiery Dragon publications. In short, there are many ways of augmenting your item.

One of the benefits Weapons of Legacy has though is that it’s fleshed out. Unlike say the Artifacts of the Ages series, where they have an appendix to cover creation of your own items; Weapons of Legacy has a detailed section with numerous powers to select from and different options to include for drawbacks.

That completeness goes further though, as it even has rules for incorporating epic Legendary Weapons with an example and more tables for your own campaign construction. Few other resources bother to provide this level of coverage.

In addition, what if you want a unique monster, one that has survived against the odds. There are monsters of legacy you can add to the game. They gain abilities from the various charts that strengthen them considerably.

Another interesting section provides guidelines to convert standard magic items into legacy items and provides two sample conversions, a staff of power and a holy avenger. Why would you want to make these items legacy with all the penalties associated with that? It allows you to insert the item into the game at lower levels and allows the player to grow with the item as opposed to just getting such an item at 10th-15th level.

Perhaps one of the most useful features of the book though, is how it’s ready to be inserted into play. Each item comes with its own encounter and has ideas on how to get the material immediately into the game. Each encounter has its own monster and map. That’s almost sixty encounters and maps right off the bat. Even if you don’t use the items of legacy, that’s a good deal.

Lastly, one of the things I enjoyed about the book is that it provides ways to improve weapons of legacy through feats, spells, and a single PrC. Feats work around focusing an ability of the item. For example, Channel Legacy allows you to expand an item’s available legacy ability in exchange for a bonus to attack, saves, and ability checks. Legacy Focus gives the item a +1 to the DC for all saving throws against the item’s abilities. These feats allow the character to do more with the item than it’s base functions, and goes beyond most other similar treatments where the initial sacrifice is all that can be done to activate the item.

The spells focus on either providing extra uses of the legacy abilities, or canceling those abilities. Interestingly enough, they’ve included the Hexblade, Shugenja, and Wu Jen in the spell lists.

The PrC, the Legacy Champion, is a strange bird. The character has to be at least 10th level with five ranks of history and have the least legacy feat. In exchange, every level, except 1st and 7th, the character continues to gain class features as if he were still in his core class. The character does not have the pay the ritual gold piece cost. The character can replace the abilities of the item, customizing it as he grows in level. The character gains bonus legacy feats, and extra legacy abilities.

The breakdown is in terms of saving throws, attack bonus, and hit dice. The class gains d8 hit dice, good will save, and 4 skill points per level. That is awesome for a wizard or sorcerer. Double the hit dice, plus near standard advancement, plus more skill points than they gain, plus a better base attack bonus, plus the PrC benefits. On the other hand, a fighter who relies on his base attack bonus, is almost getting hosed, with poor Fort saving throws and a medium bab with reduced hit dice. I can see some classes, like say a Soul Knife, Rogue or Mage taking it, but doubt any class with full bab and higher hit dice would be interested enough to do so.

Weapons of Legacy provides a framework that the GM can build on. While I don’t think that the full levels of penalties are appropriate, I’ve yet to extensively play test it. In addition, since my own games are different than other peoples, for example, in my campaigns, hit dice work as a function of class and are not randomly rolled, the penalties may not be as severe.

If you’re looking for magic items that include history and methods of instantly getting them into the game, Weapons of Legacy provides all that and more.

 

[Khairn]

Are the descriptions and histories of the items generic enough to be placed into most fantasy settings without too much effort?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yes. Most of them look to have the 'Greyhawk' default setting in place but unless I'm misremembering, there are even some conversion notes for Eberron and FR in place for some of 'em. I'll double check on that though.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

My biggest problem with the book is that the items dont really appear "worth it" in many instances. The two kukri's in particular struck me as horrible, since they take money to upgrade each one, you end up with a -2 to hit, and they end up being +2 weapons. So... I spent money to break even on two weapons, and suffer with every other weapon? Not to mention lose a couple hp or skill points? The bonuses appear kind of random too. You might get a +2 to saves one level, then the next level you take a -3. What, was the thing buttering you up? I loved the concept, but found the execution to be very flawed.

 

[MerricB]

One thing that has been made abundantly clear to me over the past few months, as I've discussed Weapons of Legacy with many people on the 'net, is that having penalties in important areas for increased power in other isn't something that is universally admired.

Weapons of Legacy is a book about magical items that grow with the character. Items of significance, if you will. The controversial nature of the book comes from the inflicting of penalties on the wielder's abilities. If you can get a +3 sword for only 4,000 gp, then is a -1 to hit with all weapons make it worth the cheaper gold cost of the sword?

The answer to that question will probably tell you more about whether you'll like Weapons of Legacy than my review will, but the book is interesting enough to describe in more detail.

Weapons of Legacy is a standard 224 page book from Wizards of the Coast: good production values, artwork, attractive layout and a us$35 price tag. The book is divided into five chapters:

Chapter 1: The Legacy (8 pages) describes what a legacy item is. They don't have to all be weapons, which is an important point! Advice is given on integrating the rules into an ongoing campaign, on designing adventures that feature them, on the player's role with the item, and on some of the issues that might arise from the attempted destruction of a legacy item. (It's not easy, and most of them can be reforged: see Anduril).

Chapter 2: Heroes of Legacy (10 pages) gives feats, spells and a prestige class (the Legacy Champion) that relate to Items of Legacy.

Chapter 3: Items of Legacy (156 pages) presents 49 items of legacy. Each item takes up about three pages. This includes the item's abilities, its history, the rituals needed to unlock its abilities, and an adventure seed/encounter that normally involves finding the item in the hands of an enemy.

Chapter 4: Founding Legacies (23 pages) describes the process of PCs creating new items of legacy, and the rules for both PCs and DMs creating balanced Items of Legacy. (It's a menu system).

Chapter 5: Optional Rules (17 pages) provides variant rules for items of legacy.

In the main, the rules are clearly presented, as is standard for Wizards of the Coast products. There is one staggering exception to this: the item ability levels that the Least, Lesser and Greater Legacy rituals unlock are never clearly stated. You have to infer this from the text. The book would have benefited greatly from this having been clearly set out in the first chapter.

Here are what the rules actually are:

An Item of Legacy appears as a standard magical item, such as a +1 scimitar, although it may have a small magical effect about it (the Omen) that alerts its owner to the fact that it is potentially more than it might appear.

Research into the history of the item (performed by Knowledge (History) checks) will reveal its true nature, and the existence of rituals to bind the wielder to the object and unlock its greater powers.

To perform any of the rituals, the wielder must have some fairly easy prerequisites (base attack, spell-use or skills). These do mean that the items are somewhat themed - a magical staff will only be of use to a spell-user.

At 5th level, the first of these rituals (Least) may be performed. This ritual is different for each weapon, and requires both a GP cost and some task that must be performed. This allows the wielder to use the item's 5th to 9th level powers. (A 7th level character with an item of legacy will be able to use the 5th, 6th and 7th level powers). For book-keeping purposes, the wielder gains the Least Legacy feat specific to that weapon to indicate that the ritual has been successfully performed. There is no other way to gain this feat.

At 10th level, the second of these rituals (Lesser) may be performed. It grants access to the 10th through 16th level powers.

Finally, at 17th level, the third ritual (Greater) may be performed, and the user gains access to the 17th through 20th level powers.

The optional rules give epic legacy abilities and progressions.

What is interesting about all of this is that the basic item (without any rituals) costs as much as a standard item of its type. The first ritual normally costs about 2,000 gp to perform, the second ritual about 12,000 gp, and the third ritual about 40,000 gp

By the end of it all, you've spent about 55,000 gp. Meanwhile, the item has gained abilities equivalent to somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000 gp value! The balancing factor, as mentioned before, are penalties.

For fighters, these penalties are likely to be attack bonus, save penalty and hit point loss.
For rogues, saves, skill points and hit points, as well as a lesser penalty to attack.
For wizards and clerics, they lose spell slots, caster level, hit points and possibly attack bonus.

These penalties vary by each item. They're meant to be significant to the PC without being crippling.

They're often not quite as severe as it might first appear. An attack penalty only affects your bonus to hit, not your Base Attack Bonus (so you'll still have your extra iterative attacks). The spell slot loss isn't cumulative, and only affects one slot. (At 20th level, you lose one 8th level slot). Caster Level doesn't affect spells known or the slots you can prepare, but only the caster-level dependent effects, so a 10th level caster with a -1 penalty will only deal 9d6 damage with a fireball instead of 10d6.

Many of the penalties are compensated for by the item's abilities. The Bow of the Black Archer gives a -2 attack penalty, but is a +4 drow bane longbow, so could be considered a +2 drow bane longbow with an extra +2 damage bonus.

(If you do the sums, it seems that the penalties balance the lesser cost pretty well. The one possible exception might be saving throws, for a -3 to saves is very dangerous at high levels).

Items of Legacy are more than just +5 longswords, though. They have other suites of abilities, ranging from minor skill bonuses to major spell-like abilities. Once this is added to the histories and rituals of the items, you have items of great distinction and interest.

What happens if you don't like all the abilities of a given item? This is where the Legacy Champion prestige class comes in. This is a real oddity of a prestige class: d8 hit dice, 4 skill points, and 8/10 previous class progression. That latter ability means that for 8 of the 10 levels of this class, you gain any special abilities (such as bonus feats, spells, turning, etc.) that your previous class would have given you.

The Legacy Champion also gives you a reduced ritual cost for your item of legacy, the ability to use its powers more often each day, and to replace some with powers more suited to your needs. It's an interesting class, although almost impossible for me to examine from a balance point of view.

As far as the actual items of legacy go that are described in the book, they're a mixed bag. Some are really great: good powers and inspiring histories. Others don't interest me at all. There's a good selection, though, so you're likely to find something of use.

(There's even a legacy item for a soulknife, which acts as a soulblade!)

I found the rules on creating your own items of legacy far more interesting. Indeed, within a week of me buying this book, I had an original item of legacy in my ongoing Greyhawk game. I feel that this section of the book is far more interesting than any of the premade items; however, those items do give many examples that will help you to understand the system better.

The two most interesting items of legacy in the book aren't in the main section, however. They're in the optional rules: the legacy staff of power and the legacy holy avenger. These adaptations of standard magic items will both soon see use in my campaigns. I find the legacy staff to get the real essence of the original staff of power, but to be far more effective at portraying it.

Where does the book fall down? Well, apart from the real blunder in not properly explaining what least, lesser and greater legacy powers are, it doesn't explain how to add new abilities to the lists of legacy powers in the "create your own item" section. From what I can gather, each menu is about a certain gold value, but it'd be nice if this was explicitly explained.

There is also no way of buying off the penalties. At 20th level, an item of legacy may look like a +5 holy avenger, but won't be quite that effective. A system of additional rituals (and costs) to reduce the penalties would have been greatly welcomed. Certainly, your 20th level PC with a legacy holy avenger will have more gold to spend (quite a lot more gold, in fact), but some times you may just want to have a +5 holy avenger without any more penalties.

There is a complexity issue to buying off the penalties, of course, so I understand why it wasn't included, but its lack may prove to be problematic for some.

What Weapons of Legacy gives you are magical items that are significant in their own right, and that can be used throughout the lifetime of a PC without being abandoned for the next just a bit better item that comes along. I really like the concept of the book, and, for the most part, its execution, as do my players.

The true test of Weapons of Legacy isn't in just a short one-off adventure, however, but in an extended campaign. The book will get that chance over the next year or two in my campaigns, and I trust that it will be as useful as it promises to be.

 

[DragonTurtle]

Merric, I like your reviews because they always make me want to take another look at a product I may have already shelved.

Good review.

 

[amethal]

Good review, as usual, but I still can't make up my mind about this product!

Saving throw penalties are potentially really, really nasty. I'd hate to have my character die because of his legacy item. Also, the skill point penalties look like a bit of a bookkeeping nightmare - expecially if you later give up the item, and presumably get some skill points back.

I'd probably be more interested in creating my own legacy items rather than using those from the book. Would I be right in thinking that example legacy items make up a very big chunk of this book? (So if I wasn't going to use them it would be a very short book ....)

 

[JoeGKushner]

The legacy items make up a good chunk of the book. One of the nice things about them though is that they come with encounters. I just used one of the encounters so that the soul knife in my group could playtest one of the weapons for me.

It'd be easy to remove the weapon of legacy and put something else in it's place though and still get use out of the maps and encounters.