Foiling Soulshatter


Wrath of the Righteous

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WARNING: I am a player. Please don't spoil this for me.

So we're just about at the end of the Sword of Valor and we've recovered this +2 transformative glaive called Soulshatter. Now, I'm the party 2H guy and I've been using the ranseur of the gargoyle up until this point, so the party tossed the weapon my way. I was able to identify that the weapon cast summon monster on my own, so I know this thing is magic. When the party diviner identified it, though, he couldn't detect anything evil about Soulshatter.

When I tried to store the weapon in my efficient quiver (I had given my ranseur demon bane, which was more useful thus far than a simple +2), it exerted its ego upon me and forced me to wield it for the day. On top of that, I'm pretty concerned that this weapon didn't radiate any sort of alignment aura at all when we tried to identify it with detect magic. I'm pretty sure that its supposed to do that if its intelligent. Then there's the fact that it willingly aided a Chaotic Evil antipaladin in combat and that we know that there's a Corruption Forge under Drezen Keep (we captured the traitor's cousin alive and interrogated him before going down into the depths of the keep). All of the notes we got from the dwarf's cache indicated that he's been using this forge to create evil magic items, such as his armor.

As a result, my character and I are both convinced that this weapon is evil. The obvious answer based on the results we've been getting are that this weapon is somehow casting nondetection or something similar on itself, but there's just one problem: I'm the most magic-savvy character in our party and every other player thinks that I'm being irrationally paranoid! Because the mere concept that the intelligent weapon that was formerly wielded by a Chaotic Evil antipaladin could POSSIBLY be Chaotic Evil is apparently baffling to them. It's almost like they expect it to be a weapon that we can use!

I could use some help coming up with tactics to thwart this nondetection effect to prove to my allies that I'm not insane. Remember, please don't tell me if this weapon actually has nondetection or not; I don't want to know!


You could try dispel magic rendering the item temporarily none magical, then detect evil looking for the evil or lingering evil you suspect as hopefully the detect magic will prevent anything it could be doing to block you.
You could also dump it because it mind controlled you but that would not prove it evil.

Or hit an angel with it and see if it overcomes the DR


Hmm, would a Magic Circle against Evil work if it was cast around you, and then tried to walk out while holding it in one hand? I mean, would Soulshear get stuck in the circle and you get out, since it has an ego of its own?

Edit to add: I always thought Nondetection was to prevent scrying and such, and not to disguise alignments. If it has an intelligence, it has an alignment; your buddies (especially the diviner) should know that as well, and know that something's not kosher if an intelligent weapon is showing up as without alignment. That's like, Divination 101 or something...


There are a lot of magical ways to fool detect alignment, it could theoretically be using any of them. The problem with no alignment is that the party probably only has detect evil , unless it also has no alignment for detect good, chaos and Law you have not ruled out it having an alignment and even then it could be true neutral


JohnHawkins wrote:
There are a lot of magical ways to fool detect alignment, it could theoretically be using any of them. The problem with no alignment is that the party probably only has detect evil , unless it also has no alignment for detect good, chaos and Law you have not ruled out it having an alignment and even then it could be true neutral

Well, he mentioned in the OP that it didn't detect as having any alignment at all when using detect magic. That should somewhat indicate that something weird is going on. But what about a paladin or someone using detect evil on everyone and everything in the vicinity? If something that you know shouldn't be evil is suddenly showing up as being evil, it could explain other magics at work.

Of course, you could always try redeeming the dwarf, or at least getting him cooperative via diplomacy, and see what he knows about Soulshear.


If the weapon is under the effect of a nondetection, shouldn't this be visible as an illusion aura under detect magic, which someone must have cast to identify the magic weapon? It won't thwart the spell, but it may help your character convince his or her companions that there's something fishy going on.


Olwen wrote:
If the weapon is under the effect of a nondetection, shouldn't this be visible as an illusion aura under detect magic, which someone must have cast to identify the magic weapon? It won't thwart the spell, but it may help your character convince his or her companions that there's something fishy going on.

Nondetection is an abjuration, not an illusion, but yeah- something had to have been detected in order to identify the weapon in the first place.

Edit: follow-up thought. If a nondetection were indeed in play, then it should logically have had just as much effect on detect magic and identify as it would on detect evil. Which should (usually) be a strong enough argument that something's rotten in Denmark.


I would use a divination spell to know in it's safe to use alignment-wise. Dispel Magic also works, followed by quick detect evil

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Krinn wrote:
I would use a divination spell to know in it's safe to use alignment-wise. Dispel Magic also works, followed by quick detect evil

Our Oradin tried that. It registered as magical under his detect magic effect, but not evil. I'm Chaotic Good, so I suppose I'll know if this weapon is Evil if I suddenly have a negative level next week. >_>


Oradin = Oracle/Paladin?

in any case, have this person do a detect evil sweep, and see if anything at all turns up. If something is evil that shouldn't be, maybe that thing is messing stuff up. Or maybe something else is afoot.

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Changing Man wrote:
Oradin = Oracle/Paladin?

Yes.


maybe I wasn't clear, I meant the actual divination spell.


Short of divination, even an augury to ask 'will it be weal or woe to keep this weapon?' type question may give you a better handle on what to do.

The other spell that may work is commune, but I forget if that is lower or higher level than divination.

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