Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Gadren 05-19-07, 08:16 PM	Ok, so here's this feat I was thinking off adding in my next campaign: Reduced Personal Cost Prerequisite: Least Legacy Choose one legacy item you are bonded with. You are able to maintain your bond with that legacy item, but may lessen the personal cost that its power extracts from you. Benefit: By paying experience, you can reduce or negate the personal costs of your legacy item, as follows: . Attack Penalty: For every 600 experience you pay, you permanently reduce the attack penalty of your legacy item by 1. . Skill Check Penalty: For every 1000 experience you pay, you permanently reduce the penalty to all skill checks caused by your legacy item by 1. . Saving Throw Penalty: For every 200 experience you pay, you permanently reduce the legacy penalty to one of your saving throws (reflex, fort., or will) by 1. If you are reducing a penalty to all saving throws, this cost is 600. . Caster/Manifester Level Penalty: For every 2500 experience you pay, you permanently reduce the legacy penalty to your caster or manifester level by 1. . Hit Point Loss: For every 200 experience you pay, you permanently reduce the hit point loss caused by your legacy item by 1. . Power Point Loss: For every 400 experience you pay, you permanently reduce the power point loss caused by your legacy item by 1. . Lost Spell Slots: You may regain lost spell slots by paying experience appropriate to the lost slot: 1st level: 100 xp; 2nd level: 300 xp; 3rd level: 700 xp; 4th level: 1200 xp; 5th level: 1800 xp; 6th level: 2600 xp; 7th level: 3800 xp; 8th level: 4800 xp; 9th level: 6200 xp This experience sacrifice is in all other ways identical to the way experience is spent for item creation. ... Why do I want this?: Well, I've never bought Weapons of Legacy because even though the concept is really cool, I can't imagine anyone wanting to use any of them items considering the ridiculous personal costs, (seriously, on top of the cost of the bonding rituals, I have to take a -3 to all attacks, -10 hp, and -4 on reflex saves to use this bow? Yeah, I think I'll just buy a "normal" magic weapon and upgrade it the old fashioned way.) But now alot of other books are incorporating the damn things (ToB, Expedition to _), so I feel like I should include an option to make them less craptastic for my next campaign I run, especially since I plan on using Expedition to Demonweb pits, and a Legacy Item is central to the plot in it.
forsaken1111 05-20-07, 12:09 AM	The feat looks like it would work fine, but why bother? The entire point of a legacy weapon is to get a decent magic item which increases in power with you without the exorbitant cost most magic items take. If you don't want a personal cost, just design the weapons with the same abilities but appropriate goldpiece costs and remove the personal cost altogether.
Gadren 05-20-07, 05:20 AM	The feat looks like it would work fine, but why bother? The entire point of a legacy weapon is to get a decent magic item which increases in power with you without the exorbitant cost most magic items take. If you don't want a personal cost, just design the weapons with the same abilities but appropriate goldpiece costs and remove the personal cost altogether. Thats the point, but they don't do that. They legacy rituals still add up to an exorbitant cost plus you still have the personal costs for abilities that don't measure up to everything you pay. The point of these feats is to lessen the hit of the personal cost.
SkyCAM 05-25-07, 08:47 PM	I think the feat is really balanced and the XP penalties the character takes is a good way to even things out. The question is if the penalties on XP and therefore the slower LVL advancement isnt worse then the actual penalties you'd get from the legacy weapon. A whole level behind the rest of the party can mean a lot plus you get the additional benefits of the legacy weapon at a slower pace. I included a legacy weapon in the campaign and remodded a artifact into one so that the player who wiels the amulet would be too powerful at a low level compared to the other players (jealousy). Spending a feat and XP is definately a good way though to circumvent the "loss" of the personal costs. I also used this to encourage my player's to look into some prestige classes that grants them certain influence in the campaign and thus support in the rituals to unlock further powers of the legacy item. This can greatly feed the roleplaying element and might even compensate for the sometimes ridiculously high GP costs for the rituals.
forsaken1111 05-25-07, 08:51 PM	Thats the point, but they don't do that. They legacy rituals still add up to an exorbitant cost plus you still have the personal costs for abilities that don't measure up to everything you pay. The point of these feats is to lessen the hit of the personal cost. The costs are hardly "exorbitant".
Sleepwalker13666 05-25-07, 08:56 PM	I try to avoid expierance cost in my game, because I don't veiw it as a penalty, if you lose exp that gives you more time to kill and loot before leveling meaning you will be better equiped than you should be. What I would do instead, is by buying the feat you mentioned, you ignore your least legacy penalties, a feat is already a pretty big cost, and most legacy weapon penalties are minor, so a feat should negate the least ones, you can also make a feat for the lesser and greater ones, though I probably would'nt allow a feat for the greater ones in my campaign.
Terronus 05-27-07, 04:47 PM	I agree with Sleepwalker. In the end, experience costs usually don't amount to much. The route I've taken when using legacy weapons is to just increase their powers. After all, if you are investing abilities, you should end up with a better weapon than you could otherwise find... including *gasp* a lot, but not all, artifacts.