Building a weapon of legacy, for dummies. - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 lostpassworddoesnotwork May 13, 2008 18:07:06	At first glance, WoL sucks. This is because R&D created extremely lame items, and pasted in their sticky notes on how to build them. Which can pretty confusing. Lucky for you, someone who has no clue proceeded to drink a few cans of mountain dew before trying to make sense of the drunken ramblings found within that book to make your life easier. Step 1 Nonlegacy game statistics. Take your favorite item, and empower it to deity-like levels. You can pick almost any item to can find or craft that is not already a legacy item, or some type of artifact, or false-living (like golems), or trying to kill you. The latter being more of an advice instead of rules. The limits on picking are simple. If it is a weapon, shield, or armor, its current effective enchantment bonus cannot be higher than +1. For anything else, it cannot exceed the sale price of 4,000gp. +1 clean durable restful soulforged acid/fire/cold/electricity resistance shadow silent moves glamered adamantine feelerplate is prefectly legal if you are immune to a-book-to-the-head. Also, never pick an item you can sunder, who wants to invest any thing that can be broken? Create a legacy armor, or better yet. A legacy graft. I highly recommend them if you can find one you like that is cheap enough. Step 2 Requirements. When you get to it, this is stuff to ignore. You're making the item for your character as soon as you hit level 5. So you should pick requirements like BAB 5 & Fort +5 for fighters, or caster level 5th & concentration 8 ranks for mages etc. that you would have already met. Step 3 Penalties. R&D's attempt to balance these things. They failed... Information For pure worthless-outside-of-battle combat based classes, like barbarians, hexblades, fighters and paladins. 4-1: -2 att, -3 saves, -16 HP, 40,500gp. 4-2: -3 att, -4 save, -10 HP, 40,000gp. For skill monkeys and combat classes that you can't get away playing with -16 int or simply don't offer full BAB. Like bards, monks, rogues, rangers, swordsages, and yes, even warblades. 4-3: -3 skills, -20 HP, 38,000gp. 4-4: -2 att, -3 skills, 8 HP, -16 sp, 40,000gp. 4-5: -3 skills, -2 saves, -4 HP, -18 sp, 40,500gp. For pure spellcasting classes, aka CoDzilla, God/Batman, and sorcerers. 4-6: -2 skills, -1 saves, -2CL, -1 spell slot (1~8), 43,000gp. For CodZilla and favored souls. 4-7: -1 att, -12 HP, -1 spell slot (1~8), 39,000gp. For Bards and spelltheives, that is pretty much it. 4-8: -3 skills, -3 cl, -14 sp, -1 spell slot (1~5), 41,000gp. 4-9 is simply the best table in the book. Full-manifester only. 4-9: -2 ml, -16 pp, 40,000gp. For those other psionic classes. 4-10: -1 att, -2 ml, -14 HP, -12 pp, 39,000gp.
#2 lostpassworddoesnotwork May 13, 2008 18:07:38	WoL threads Weapons of Legacy: They don't (all) suck My muse for this thread. Kouk's Weapons of Legacy Fix A great thread for learning to balance creating your own abilities. Weapons of Legacy Ability List (who knew there were so many?) An ability list done with a different outlook than mine. Weapons of Legacy Abuse Lists most if not all the flat cost enchantments on weapons & armor. WoL items Unsorted The Hand of CoDzilla The Helping Hand Legacy Ring Ring of Mental Might Grafts X-buster Weapons God's Finger Sword of Johan BlindSmart Soul Reaper Zangetsu Shortstack Tetsusaiga Dark Courage Breaking Storm Fang of the Hellstorm Deathforge Armor Browniron Arms Bracers of the Paranoid Misc Legacy figurine of wondrous power Deck of stuff MiC Set Items The Heavens’ Fall
#3 lostpassworddoesnotwork May 13, 2008 18:07:58	Walkthough of building a legacy item We will start with a +1 mithral buckler (lets call it the defender) and design it around the idea of providing protection to rogues. Nonlegacy Game Statistics: +1 mithral buckler, 2,015gp Requirements: Trapfinding, evasion, uncanny dodge. Penalties: The Defender uses table 4-3 for penalties. Next, we will design our omen & rituals, which would be based on the concept and flavor more than anything else. Omen: When strapped to a forearm, for a moment, they feel as if they were at home and covered in their old security blanket. Hmm, lets see, lets use Pledge for the least ritual. Least Ritual: You must take a vow not to act rash, hasty, or take risks without a good reason to. For example, you cannot simply climb a cliff with a DC of 25 without having a modifier of +20 or higher unless not climbing it would pose a greater threat. Mean, but we are talking about a rogue in a game where you can balance on a marble covered inch wide beam by level 10 if you wanted to. For lesser, lets combine Knowledge & Meditation. Lesser Ritual: You must spend two weeks reseaching past wars, military formations, and gorilla warfare. You are also required to have 8 ranks in Knowledge(history) as proof you retained the knowledge. A much easyer to do ritual than the first one, but this one changes your long term build and won't be forgotten 5 minutes form now. For greater, because I'm not very creative, lets just kill something. Greater Ritual: You fight and kill two outsiders in combat, the EL must be two higher than your ECL. You are required to alert your foe before your attack. Not just humanoids, outsiders, and at the 16th level too. They all have spell-like abilities at this point. Not to mention its two on one. You'll have to use every combat trick your character has learned so far to make it though this one. But why alert? The idea is to beable to maintain or use a strong defense and tactics rather than sneak attacking them as they come out of a gate or whatever. On to the part that makes it awesome, legacy abilities! 5: Protection From Alignment You are under the protection from none neutral alignment as protection form X chain of spells. You must choose which alignment apon gaining this ability and it cannot be changed after. 6: Shield Enhancement (+2) Increase the AC protection this thing offers. 7: Telekinetic Great for opening trapped chests. 8: Crux of Balance +4 on stuff that can help kill you. 9: - 10: Obscuring Mist Abuse it while shooting at people. 11: Cunning This ability should always be in your 11th level slot. 13: - 14: Shield Enhancement (+3) You could own a +5 buckler by now, but could you have all the super awesome stuff from above? 15: Slippery Barrier Lets you SA foes, makes it easyer to hit them, and free tripping. 16: Freedom of Movement Grapple protection among other things. 17: Shield Enhancement (+5 Vengful) More AC, +1 moral on saves, not too bad. 18: Everlife Shield (see Unity of Balance) Protection form death effects. 19: Plan A (see Contingency) By using UMD & scrolls, plan A triggers before you start inventing plan B. 20: Mantle of Sacred Protection Combine with the DMGII's vest for a capstone ability of SR 30. And there we have are new legacy buckler called "The Defender".
#4 tshern May 13, 2008 18:43:40	One marriage proposal here! Thanks, I've been intending to get myself known with these! I'll give you some more constructive feedback later.
#5 Endarire May 13, 2008 21:03:21	Should Wish, Two and Wish, Three each grant one wish?
#6 ChristopherGroves May 13, 2008 21:14:52	Cunning is under-rated. You are never flat-footed. Ever. Regardless. It isn't uncanny dodge, it's better. Also, consider ranking one of the intelligent legacy ones higher. Intelligent items function in an AMF, right?
#7 umarovi May 13, 2008 21:26:29	Giving an intelligent legacy item at will slas is another source of fun.
#8 lostpassworddoesnotwork May 13, 2008 21:56:25	Yes Endarire, each one grants a single wish. Check your books. The stuff listed is for a quick reference, if you want details or how each ability works exactly, you have to buy or borrow the book. *** If having an intelligent item is great, which slot one would be the best to use? Take greater for example, on the defender I posted. DC 31 will save daily & every fight just to maintain control over it. 8 (mental) + 8 (legacy) + 3 (lesser abilities) + 4 (greater abilities) + 1 (telepathy) + 7 (effective enchantment bonus)
#9 umarovi May 14, 2008 2:00:26	Eh, if you're designing it, hopefully you can give it a decent personality/motivation/alignment. Actually, its ability to take you over can be helpful; it might prevent you from doing something bad while charmed, dominated, or confused. Some ideas include a family heirloom imbued with the spirit of a famous ancestor, a fragment of the wielder's personality (a la psicrystals), a celestial (or other appropriate outsider) helping out on the material plane by occupying a legacy item, etc. If your DM wants to be a dick with intelligent legacy items, though, then yeah, they aren't worth it, since no matter how low the save DC is, if you have to roll it constantly it sucks. On a related note, never take the medium intelligence, always go for the minimal one (it's only a 1-slotter, making it quite cheap for the value if your DM lets you choose its personality and alignment) or the maximum one. The main difference is the highest intelligent legacy gets Blindsense 120, which is quite nice, since it can point out invisible critters, illusions, etc. Also combos nicely with Glitterdust.
#10 phaedrusxy May 14, 2008 17:51:26	Nice thread. I like the idea of WoL, and they have alot of potential for optimization, but they sure are a pain to design. Cunning is under-rated. You are never flat-footed. Ever. Regardless. It isn't uncanny dodge, it's better. Yep. I used this in both the ones I designed. This is incredible, especially if you combine it with ways to do great stuff with Immediate actions, as I suggested in my Bracers of the Paranoid write-up. Intelligent items function in an AMF, right? Well... it is ambiguous. They're still intelligent, but can they use any of their magical abilities? Golems function in AMFs too, but that doesn't mean a Shield Guardian can use its SLAs in one, IMO.
#11 Endarire Jun 16, 2008 16:25:21	Wishes, Two and Wishes, Three grant the respective number of wishes.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

lostpassworddoesnotwork

May 13, 2008 18:07:06

At first glance, WoL sucks. This is because R&D created extremely lame items, and pasted in their sticky notes on how to build them. Which can pretty confusing. Lucky for you, someone who has no clue proceeded to drink a few cans of mountain dew before trying to make sense of the drunken ramblings found within that book to make your life easier.

Step 1
Nonlegacy game statistics. Take your favorite item, and empower it to deity-like levels.

You can pick almost any item to can find or craft that is not already a legacy item, or some type of artifact, or false-living (like golems), or trying to kill you. The latter being more of an advice instead of rules. The limits on picking are simple. If it is a weapon, shield, or armor, its current effective enchantment bonus cannot be higher than +1. For anything else, it cannot exceed the sale price of 4,000gp. +1 clean durable restful soulforged acid/fire/cold/electricity resistance shadow silent moves glamered adamantine feelerplate is prefectly legal if you are immune to a-book-to-the-head.

Also, never pick an item you can sunder, who wants to invest any thing that can be broken? Create a legacy armor, or better yet. A legacy graft. I highly recommend them if you can find one you like that is cheap enough.

Step 2
Requirements. When you get to it, this is stuff to ignore.

You're making the item for your character as soon as you hit level 5. So you should pick requirements like BAB 5 & Fort +5 for fighters, or caster level 5th & concentration 8 ranks for mages etc. that you would have already met.

Step 3
Penalties. R&D's attempt to balance these things. They failed...

Information

For pure worthless-outside-of-battle combat based classes, like barbarians, hexblades, fighters and paladins.
4-1: -2 att, -3 saves, -16 HP, 40,500gp.
4-2: -3 att, -4 save, -10 HP, 40,000gp.

For skill monkeys and combat classes that you can't get away playing with -16 int or simply don't offer full BAB.
Like bards, monks, rogues, rangers, swordsages, and yes, even warblades.
4-3: -3 skills, -20 HP, 38,000gp.
4-4: -2 att, -3 skills, 8 HP, -16 sp, 40,000gp.
4-5: -3 skills, -2 saves, -4 HP, -18 sp, 40,500gp.

For pure spellcasting classes, aka CoDzilla, God/Batman, and sorcerers.
4-6: -2 skills, -1 saves, -2CL, -1 spell slot (1~8), 43,000gp.

For CodZilla and favored souls.
4-7: -1 att, -12 HP, -1 spell slot (1~8), 39,000gp.

For Bards and spelltheives, that is pretty much it.
4-8: -3 skills, -3 cl, -14 sp, -1 spell slot (1~5), 41,000gp.

4-9 is simply the best table in the book. Full-manifester only.
4-9: -2 ml, -16 pp, 40,000gp.

For those other psionic classes.
4-10: -1 att, -2 ml, -14 HP, -12 pp, 39,000gp.

lostpassworddoesnotwork

May 13, 2008 18:07:38

WoL threads
Weapons of Legacy: They don't (all) suck
My muse for this thread.

Kouk's Weapons of Legacy Fix
A great thread for learning to balance creating your own abilities.

Weapons of Legacy Ability List (who knew there were so many?)
An ability list done with a different outlook than mine.

Weapons of Legacy Abuse
Lists most if not all the flat cost enchantments on weapons & armor.

WoL items

Unsorted
The Hand of CoDzilla
The Helping Hand
Legacy Ring
Ring of Mental Might

Grafts
X-buster

Weapons
God's Finger
Sword of Johan
BlindSmart
Soul Reaper Zangetsu
Shortstack
Tetsusaiga
Dark Courage
Breaking Storm
Fang of the Hellstorm
Deathforge

Armor
Browniron

Arms
Bracers of the Paranoid

Misc
Legacy figurine of wondrous power
Deck of stuff

MiC Set Items
The Heavens’ Fall

lostpassworddoesnotwork

May 13, 2008 18:07:58

Walkthough of building a legacy item

We will start with a +1 mithral buckler (lets call it the defender) and design it around the idea of providing protection to rogues.

Nonlegacy Game Statistics: +1 mithral buckler, 2,015gp
Requirements: Trapfinding, evasion, uncanny dodge.
Penalties: The Defender uses table 4-3 for penalties.

Next, we will design our omen & rituals, which would be based on the concept and flavor more than anything else.
Omen: When strapped to a forearm, for a moment, they feel as if they were at home and covered in their old security blanket.

Hmm, lets see, lets use Pledge for the least ritual.
Least Ritual: You must take a vow not to act rash, hasty, or take risks without a good reason to.
For example, you cannot simply climb a cliff with a DC of 25 without having a modifier of +20 or higher unless not climbing it would pose a greater threat.
Mean, but we are talking about a rogue in a game where you can balance on a marble covered inch wide beam by level 10 if you wanted to.

For lesser, lets combine Knowledge & Meditation.
Lesser Ritual: You must spend two weeks reseaching past wars, military formations, and gorilla warfare.
You are also required to have 8 ranks in Knowledge(history) as proof you retained the knowledge.
A much easyer to do ritual than the first one, but this one changes your long term build and won't be forgotten 5 minutes form now.

For greater, because I'm not very creative, lets just kill something.
Greater Ritual: You fight and kill two outsiders in combat, the EL must be two higher than your ECL. You are required to alert your foe before your attack.
Not just humanoids, outsiders, and at the 16th level too. They all have spell-like abilities at this point. Not to mention its two on one. You'll have to use every combat trick your character has learned so far to make it though this one. But why alert? The idea is to beable to maintain or use a strong defense and tactics rather than sneak attacking them as they come out of a gate or whatever.

On to the part that makes it awesome, legacy abilities!
5: Protection From Alignment
You are under the protection from none neutral alignment as protection form X chain of spells. You must choose which alignment apon gaining this ability and it cannot be changed after.

6: Shield Enhancement (+2)
Increase the AC protection this thing offers.

7: Telekinetic
Great for opening trapped chests.

8: Crux of Balance
+4 on stuff that can help kill you.

9: -
10: Obscuring Mist
Abuse it while shooting at people.

11: Cunning
This ability should always be in your 11th level slot.

13: -
14: Shield Enhancement (+3)
You could own a +5 buckler by now, but could you have all the super awesome stuff from above?

15: Slippery Barrier
Lets you SA foes, makes it easyer to hit them, and free tripping.

16: Freedom of Movement
Grapple protection among other things.

17: Shield Enhancement (+5 Vengful)
More AC, +1 moral on saves, not too bad.

18: Everlife Shield (see Unity of Balance)
Protection form death effects.

19: Plan A (see Contingency)
By using UMD & scrolls, plan A triggers before you start inventing plan B.

20: Mantle of Sacred Protection
Combine with the DMGII's vest for a capstone ability of SR 30.

And there we have are new legacy buckler called "The Defender".

tshern

May 13, 2008 18:43:40

One marriage proposal here!

Thanks, I've been intending to get myself known with these! I'll give you some more constructive feedback later.

Endarire

May 13, 2008 21:03:21

Should Wish, Two and Wish, Three each grant one wish?

ChristopherGroves

May 13, 2008 21:14:52

Cunning is under-rated. You are never flat-footed. Ever. Regardless. It isn't uncanny dodge, it's better.

Also, consider ranking one of the intelligent legacy ones higher. Intelligent items function in an AMF, right?

umarovi

May 13, 2008 21:26:29

Giving an intelligent legacy item at will slas is another source of fun.

lostpassworddoesnotwork

May 13, 2008 21:56:25

Yes Endarire, each one grants a single wish. Check your books. The stuff listed is for a quick reference, if you want details or how each ability works exactly, you have to buy or borrow the book.

***

If having an intelligent item is great, which slot one would be the best to use?
Take greater for example, on the defender I posted. DC 31 will save daily & every fight just to maintain control over it.
8 (mental) + 8 (legacy) + 3 (lesser abilities) + 4 (greater abilities) + 1 (telepathy) + 7 (effective enchantment bonus)

umarovi

May 14, 2008 2:00:26

Eh, if you're designing it, hopefully you can give it a decent personality/motivation/alignment. Actually, its ability to take you over can be helpful; it might prevent you from doing something bad while charmed, dominated, or confused.

Some ideas include a family heirloom imbued with the spirit of a famous ancestor, a fragment of the wielder's personality (a la psicrystals), a celestial (or other appropriate outsider) helping out on the material plane by occupying a legacy item, etc.

If your DM wants to be a dick with intelligent legacy items, though, then yeah, they aren't worth it, since no matter how low the save DC is, if you have to roll it constantly it sucks.

On a related note, never take the medium intelligence, always go for the minimal one (it's only a 1-slotter, making it quite cheap for the value if your DM lets you choose its personality and alignment) or the maximum one. The main difference is the highest intelligent legacy gets Blindsense 120, which is quite nice, since it can point out invisible critters, illusions, etc. Also combos nicely with Glitterdust.

#10

phaedrusxy

May 14, 2008 17:51:26

Nice thread. I like the idea of WoL, and they have alot of potential for optimization, but they sure are a pain to design.

Cunning is under-rated. You are never flat-footed. Ever. Regardless. It isn't uncanny dodge, it's better.

Yep. I used this in both the ones I designed. This is incredible, especially if you combine it with ways to do great stuff with Immediate actions, as I suggested in my Bracers of the Paranoid write-up.

Intelligent items function in an AMF, right?

Well... it is ambiguous. They're still intelligent, but can they use any of their magical abilities? Golems function in AMFs too, but that doesn't mean a Shield Guardian can use its SLAs in one, IMO.

#11

Endarire

Jun 16, 2008 16:25:21

Wishes, Two and Wishes, Three grant the respective number of wishes.