Hey,
So I'm about to GM Rise of the Runelord's next week and my girlfriend has opted to play a Bladebound Magus (Race Elf, appearance of a 14 or 15 year old boy, aged 115).
The idea is that her characters parents were killed, he wants revenge and has been given a Bastard Sword as a gift. At level 3, this sword will awaken and through telepathy (when that's acquired), will hopefully understand the characters motives and feel the need to help him.
So, I've been looking around the forums and it seems as though you can make intelligent items do specific things.
My questions are:
1. How do you make a Bladebound Magus' sword cast spells, know when to and which spell lists it has access to? Does it have access to any spell list or the character classes spell list only?
If the main character is in trouble, how would it know to cast dimensional door for the character to escape etc?
2. What does it cost to do such things, because the intelligent sword goes up in level with the Magus.
3. When determining what level of spells the intelligent item can cast at will, do you have to pay for the spell level and can it cast spells of that level indefinitely as much as it likes throughout the day?
Thanks very much!
As LazarX said, a normal Blackblade cannot cast spells. I only get the abilities described in Blackblade archetype.
For additional abilities (and especially pricing them), you should look at the Intelligent Item section.
In generel you should be cautious when allowing intelligent items that can cast spells. In terms of action economy, it can get very good.
Not really, but I'd like it to cast a spell now and again and get its wielder out of tight situations if possible, because by RAW, that's what an Intelligent Item can do.
I've seen people get theirs to cast Gravity Bow and Lead Blades on here before, so just wondered what I could really do with it. It's all in the rules.
I'd probably have to control her sword, so I won't be doing it too much as I won't want it to get in the way of DM'ing, but if it has a mind of its own, it'll be doing its own thing.
If it can do all of these things, how come rules haven't been implemented for it?
As the GM, I'd probably rule that if the wielder is Arcane, it can only cast Arcane Spells, but that means it has access to Sorcerer, Wizard and Magus spells, so I think that's pretty cool.
I could roll a d6 to see if it'll act in certain situations. 1-3 will be a yes, it'll act and 4-6 would be a no, it does nothing by its own accord.
I dunno though, the Intelligent Items section confused me so much that I had to come here to ask about it.
It has Ego costs for abilities and the Black Blade starts with an ego of 5, so surely that means anything that costs 1 ego, 2 ego, 3 ego, 4 ego or 5 ego can be added to it during the blades first level?
I've seen people get theirs to cast Gravity Bow and Lead Blades on here before, so just wondered what I could really do with it. It's all in the rules.
Those people are making a mistake. An intelligent item casting a personal spell will never affect the wielder of the item. As such gravity bow, lead blades, or true strike, will only affect attacks the weapon makes with other weapons.
If it can do all of these things, how come rules haven't been implemented for it?
The Blackblade cannot do these things. It can only do the things expressly described in the archetype.
As above, additional abilities might be added following the intelligent item rules, but that need GM adjudication.
The prices for spellcasting abilities should be used as a benchmark to value the additional abilities you bestowe her by adding extra abilities to the sword.
It has Ego costs for abilities and the Black Blade starts with an ego of 5, so surely that means anything that costs 1 ego, 2 ego, 3 ego, 4 ego or 5 ego can be added to it during the blades first level?
Actually the Ego score doesn't affect the abilities. It goes the otherway around. Thus the Ego score of the Black Blade is a result of the abilities it already has.
Adding additional abilities, should raise the ego score further.Again, I can only repeat that you need to take caution when adding spellcasting powers to the intelligent. Especially due to the fact that the player is your girlfriend, if the boost to her sword doesn't require a gp expenditure, it might seem to the other players that your favor her.
Spellcasting intelligent items can be crazy good. It can also be nice and flavorful, while only circumstantially useful. It might even be trying to hold the pc back at times, in the interest of its own goals. The most important thing for you as a GM is to ensure that it doesn't steal the limelight or grants her abilities which are out of reach of the rest of the players.
Hmm, so if the weapon is a Bow and casts Gravity Bow on itself, it wouldn't gain the effects for its own use?
Alright, well, what I will say to the players before playing is that they can invest in Intelligent Items if they want to, but they can only add up to three abilities to the weapon, as well as having to pay the amounts suggested in the Intelligent Item rules.
So, if someone wants a weapon that allows the wielder to teleport, go invisible and fly, they can do, but have to pay the price.
I think more abilities than this would be going overboard and it might even be an idea to rule that if they choose to have an Intelligent Item cast any 4th level spell at will (or whatever level spell they choose), that's the only ability they can have.
A Bladebound Magus is ok in regard to controlling his or her weapon though, because unless they do anything outside of their alignment, the weapon won't disobey them or try to take over, from what I've read.
Two of the players might already get annoyed with what I've ruled, but they're all friends, so it should be fine.
I've allowed the guy playing a Witch to have the Armour of Bones ability from the Oracle Bones Mystery as a Hex spell that levels up with him and due to my gf's characters back story of being taken in by the Sheriff, he'll be protective of her character, give him a masterwork Bastard Sword when he leaves town to join the adventurers and while in town, will have bonuses for being in with the sheriff, such as a get out of jail free card depending on the circumstance and a bonus in diplomacy/intimidate as per the trait description for Rise of the Runelord's.
The other two players haven't asked for anything and haven't bothered to give me their back stories after 2 weeks of asking, so as far as I know, they are just drifters who don't know anybody in town, so won't gain additional benefits.
Though, the guy wanting to play the Barbarian did want his character to wear sunglasses.....which I said no to because it just made no sense in the setting. I mean yea you have Sniper Goggles, but the only way I can see it working is if you're wearing stained glass on your face in the shape of Sunglasses.....
Anyway, I didn't want to be too lenient but I know how hard this campaign is meant to be, so just did minor things for people. I've made it so in the festival games anyone can win a Masterwork weapon, but there's only one on offer so they'd have to compete.
You'd think that, but no, she knows nothing of the game and this will be her first ever time playing. I made her character because she said what she wanted to have, wanted a character just as good at sword fighting and magic using and liked the idea of the a blade bound Magus, once I said Magus was her best bet for what she wanted. Though, she wanted to be stealthy too, so levels of rogue are in there and I made it as strong as I could for A multiclassed character.
She's intelligent so will just need a little guiding. It'll be fine, I'm sure. :-)
Ah, well I might allow her to swap a power out if she wants to, but yea, I guess I can give her advice through the swords telepathy. Might help as there's no Cleric.
Thanks for letting me know. I didn't realise you were limited to what the bladebound has only.
Ah, well I might allow her to swap a power out if she wants to, but yea, I guess I can give her advice through the swords telepathy. Might help as there's no Cleric.
Thanks for letting me know. I didn't realise you were limited to what the bladebound has only.
One of the largest annoyances with the bladebound archtype (IMO) is the lack of being able to enchant it "normally." You have a weapon that is "free" in some respects BUT you can't add all the nifty abilities to customize it exactly as you want as you level up. You are pretty much stuck to it being enhancement X from levels A-B, Y from C-D, Z from E-F, etc. And only being able to grant it some of the other abilities with Arcane Pool points being expended. It might not be a horrible thing, but it is a limit in some ways.
The Bladebound blade is exactly what it is on the table/description and can't be anything more or less (short of class abilities or feats that alter it) by the rules.