I'm looking for an alternative reward to give to the player who's character has become the moldspeaker instead of the manifesting Tempest from mold dust ability.
The moldspeaker in my game is a 3rd level fighter who uses a bladed scarf (from the campaign book), the character is essentially a fighting belly dancer. I had Vardishal's spirit pour magic into her bladed scarf to become the new tempest (since it didn't make any sense that Vardishal had used a bladed scarf in the past).
I like the upgrades that Tempest receives at the end of the campaign, but manifesting the weapon seems pretty weak (since I don't recall any particular parts in the campaign of the character being captured and their weapons being taken away). The later upgrade is very powerful and so I don't want something overpowering, just something that could be useful.
I was also thinking of somehow making the first bonus something to do with improving Vardishal's possession, since the second part is all about tempest (which is powerful enough).
The player plans on taking one level of sorcerer to reflect her connection with Vardishal.
Any ideas on what I could replace the manifesting power with instead? Thanks.
Tempest itself is pretty powerful, it doesn't really need more boosts. It's a FREE +4 weapon in total with plethora of other abilities (+1 on int checks, cure moderate wounds, bless, fire resitance 30, knockdown) and, like Ryzoken said, it's practically indestructible.
Btw, just because it doesn't say anywhere that party gets captured, doesn't mean it can't happen.
If your character is taking a level of sorc, then look at the bonuses given to Elemental (ice) Sorcerers, or even the Weather Cleric domain, and snatch one of those as a Supernatural ability. And say it comes from Vardishal's possession (not the blade itself).
This also lets you upgrade the power in a mechanically predefined manner later in the game, if you so choose.
Make it an intelligent magical item.
Give it a 3/day or 1/day 1st-level spell, like Cure Light Wounds, Shield or, my personal favorite since it's the most genie-flavored, Enlarge Person.
Give it some wants and needs (the item's alignment is the PC's alignment, the item wants the PC to continue working to stop the villain, the item wants to protect good-aligned creatures, the item will try to take control of the PC if they try to go against these goals) accessed by the player's meditations with the item.
Works well, I think.
EDIT: Remember that you, the GM, run the magical item, so any powers you put into it are as powerful as you make them. The scarf might only make the fighter enlarged if she's fighting something bigger than her or foes that outnumber the party 2:1. The scarf might only heal the PC if it feels she's close to death or overwhelmed. It might have a very draconian feeling of respect, and so it feels that the PC must earn its magical powers every day and rewards the PC for being as good as possible. In that way, no magical item with spell-like abilities is overpowering unless you let it be.