Friday, January 4, 2013

Magic swords

This one's a quick idea:

Magic swords in D&D are different from other magic weapons. In order to simulate this, for enchantments in my game, these rules are in effect:

Any weapon can have Puissance and Accuracy enchantments up to +5, and Penetrating Weapon enchantment up to (2).

Swords, after the first level of Puissance and Accuracy, must put a Bane on all further levels. In addition, they can have up to Penetrating Weapon (4) with the same Bane. All Banes must be for the same category of foes.

Further, only swords can be intelligent (and most magical swords of more than +1 are), and only swords can have more powerful enchantments (such as Dancing Weapon or Flaming Weapon, or others).

2 comments:

  1. Have you considered making all swords use the Named Possession rules? It can perhaps be triggered by the first enchantment, which somehow awakens the spirit of the sword. Each character point the sword gets (where it's used for mighty deeds, etc) increases its enchanted power (the rules suggest 25 energy per cp), as well as perhaps granting cp to IQ.

    My DF character has a Named Axe (Shrivener) which follows the Bane of the wielder (Cadmus is a Warrior Saint) against the Undead. Having the Bane tied to character disads makes some real sense!

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    1. I hadn't thought of it, but that seems a neat solution. Of course, that assumes I even go this route, or it becomes relevant at all.

      I think what I might do is allow basic enchantment types on all weapons (flaming weapon, puissance, etc), and then only allow 'non-basic' enchantments (dancing weapon, loyal weapon, etc) on swords, while also giving them the Named Possession rules, which do seem like a good fit.

      That assumes this even comes up in play, of course.

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