I have seen that there is a bit of a lack of magic items available in Shackled City. I have also seen here on the boards that others have noticed this as well so I thought I would post my fix for this.
I began thinking that, knowing my players, they will take what they can buy in Cauldron or pillage from their victims, er, fallen foes. It is unlikely they will take the time to travel to Sasserine to purchase more powerful or expensive items so I had to think of a logical way to get them items for higher levels of power without blowing the game balance.
The solution I came up with is to use Legacy Items. For anyone who does not own Weapons of Legacy, simply, Legacy items are super bada*s magic items that start basic and get better as the characters advance in level but they need to unlock the powers of the items through certain, often expensive, rituals. These items balance with comparable cost items and will fill the needs in my game.
I have added a side trek to the game after Zenith Trajectory that will send the party to an ancient tomb to recover the treasure of a legendary group of adventurers. I'm using the updated Tomb of Horrors for this, scaling back the adventure from level 9 to level 7 or 8, and putting some custom, tailored to the party, legacy items as the final treasure.
To tie it together I am going to say that the adventuring party fought in some ancient demon war and Adimarchus, before his fall, was part of the party. His fallen friends' spirits want to see him redeemed and will give the items to the party knowing what fate holds in store for them. So, one of the party will be wielding Adimarchus' sword. This will also allow the party to learn, in bits and pieces as they research the items, Adimarchus' story and will allow for some more foreshadowing.
I thought I'd throw this idea out there for anyone who has been trying to think of a way to correct this problem without frequent party trips to Sasserine. If there is enough interest in this idea I can post something a little more structured for the side trek.
I love the Weapon's of Legacy stuff and I think Alakast would be a great candidate for this. Has anybody written up Alakast as a WoL?
Of course, if any of your characters leave, what do you do about new characters?
I handled the magic item question by encouraging planar travel. I have one PC with a fair number of ranks in Knowledge (the Planes). So, they usually planeshift to a planar metropolis (Union from the Epic Level Handbook) to buy what they need there. Not a very sexy solution, but it gets around the acrobatics of changing treasure or adding adventures.
Here is my version of a similar weapon to what you have discribed. The functions are based on the 'Ring of Shooting Stars'.
Also I wrote up something years a go called Skies Treasury which was broken up into chapters with item description and backstories which was my method of increasing the availablity of magical items to the party. Have a look in therpgenius.com if you are interested.
Here is my weapon -
Crescentia
Sundabars Sword of Stars
Cententia, Sundabars greatest weapon, was made by the angels of heaven to combat the infernal forces of evil. It was created thousand of years a go for the greatest of heavens generals – Adimarchus, before it was gifted to the ancient founder of Cauldron – Sundabar Spellmason, to combat the demonic armies he faced from an angel known as Nidrama.
After defeating the Demonic General – Nabatharon, on the Redgorge battlements , Sundabar followed the demons mount , the great dragon …... , and the remainder of the fleeing demonic troops to the Demonskar Gorge.
Sundabar defeated the great dragon above the conflict and left the battlefield mortally wounded. Cresentia was lost during the conflict, lodged in the skull of the dying dragon as it plummeted into the Gorge.
Crestentia +4 Evil Outsider Bane Longsword
Cresentia is a slightly curved black blade blanketed in a myriad of tiny glittering stars. Cresentia’s hilt appears to be a golden hawk with the crescent shaped crossbar the hawk’s majestic raised wings. When first grasped the handle causes a tingling sensation to the hand. When Crestentia is wielded it leaves a trail of white sparks in its wake.
Special Abilities:
Spark Wave:
Activation – Descendent of Sundabar Spellmason
Function - As a standard action 5/day, the wielder can slice horizontally through the air and send an arc of sparks outwards towards opponents. This ability works the same as the burning hands spell (5’ arc 5d4 damage, Ref Save DC 20) plus it can cause temporary blindness (d4 rounds) as the sparks singe the eyes (Fort Save DC 15 to avoid).
Star Shower:
Activation – Slay an evil outsider with the blade.
Function – Sparks hail from the heavens, whistling as they descend, burning every
creature in a 15’ radius of the wielder (3/day No save, 10d4 fire damage).
Shooting Stars:
Activation - Laying the blade upon a stone table within a celestial stone circle during
a star shower.
Function – Balls of lightning shoot from the end of the blade which explode when they strike a solid object. The wielder can choose to release between 1 and 4 balls that have a diameter of roughly 3 feet and move 120 feet a round for up to 10 rounds. Each sphere explodes in a 5’ radius.
If 4 balls are released, each causes 1d6 points of damage each, 3 balls cause 2d6 each, 2 balls cause 3d6 damage and 1 ball causes 4d6 damage(Ref Save DC 20)(2/day).
Meteor Swarm:
Activation – Blessed by an elemental Weird.
Function –See Meteor Swarm Spell (Cast at 20th level) 1/day
I tried Weapons of Legacy in my last campaign. I love the concept but the mechanics of the Weapons of Legacy just don't work for me. I really dislike the whole, using this weapon makes me have less hit points, worse saves and I'm now less skilled at using all weapons (BAB loss).
Hopefully they give it another shot in 4E because I'd really like to see this concept work.
Olaf the Stout
I tried Weapons of Legacy in my last campaign. I love the concept but the mechanics of the Weapons of Legacy just don't work for me. I really dislike the whole, using this weapon makes me have less hit points, worse saves and I'm now less skilled at using all weapons (BAB loss).
Hopefully they give it another shot in 4E because I'd really like to see this concept work.
Olaf the Stout
I agree that some of the penalties for using Legacy items seems a bit punitive. I understand this was done to keep characters from becoming unbalanced, but I think there should be a better way of handling it:
Having used Legacy items a number of times in recent campaigns, I tend to think that monetary penalties are the way to go. In essence the penalties in WoL are there to offset the fact that the character is receiving, in effect, a more powerful magic item without paying for it - or at least that's the way it's perceived. There are rituals at certain levels to address the monetary issue, but I don't think they're as well-balanced as they could be. Thus, in my last (AoW) campaign I experimented with the practice of having the character perform a cheaper, easier ritual every time the item's power increased. It seemed to work out much better.
I agree that some of the penalties for using Legacy items seems a bit punitive. I understand this was done to keep characters from becoming unbalanced, but I think there should be a better way of handling it:
Having used Legacy items a number of times in recent campaigns, I tend to think that monetary penalties are the way to go. In essence the penalties in WoL are there to offset the fact that the character is receiving, in effect, a more powerful magic item without paying for it - or at least that's the way it's perceived. There are rituals at certain levels to address the monetary issue, but I don't think they're as well-balanced as they could be. Thus, in my last (AoW) campaign I experimented with the practice of having the character perform a cheaper, easier ritual every time the item's power increased. It seemed to work out much better.
In my last campaign I gave each one of the PC's a Weapon of Legacy and just ignored all of the penalties. Since it was the the same for all the PC's it didn't make it unbalanced. It did make the PC's more powerful but I just reduced the rest of the treasure and made the monsters a little stronger to compensate.
For my SCAP campaign that is about to start I decided that it was just too much to bother with and will be leaving out Weapons of Legacy entirely.
Olaf the Stout
I ignored all the penalties entirely and just made the the rituals a bit obscure and difficult, requiring additional expense and time to complete. The rituals also further the overall plot and continue to colour the campaign as a whole but I felt that the powers that were awarded from the weapon were benefical to the whole party so the balance issue wasn't as damaging.
So far the player who has the weapon has only accessed the powers of the first two functions and has not researched any other powers. In fact the player may not get around to diverting from the adventures at all if they do not make the effort which would be fine also.
I play on linking the secnd last function with a exersion to Hookfaces lair, perhaps the reason why the legendary dragon attacks Cauldron not long after during Foundations of Fire. Similiarly to access the last functio the party need to have the weapon blessed by an Earth Weird which coincidently urges them to access the Earth Pool in the Hall of Carvings and rescue the missing Weird from a group of Doa that have her imprisoned on the plane of Earth. Upon her rescue she may reveal the impending doom of Cauldron causing the players to quickly rush back...
We'll see how it all links but rules were meant to be broken in my opinion and when they get too ungainly and cumbersome I quickly adapt or dump them.
I like also like the concept of Weapons of Legacy but penalising a character rather than rewarding them for emowering a player always seems skewed to me.
Delvesdeep
In my last campaign I gave each one of the PC's a Weapon of Legacy and just ignored all of the penalties. Since it was the the same for all the PC's it didn't make it unbalanced. It did make the PC's more powerful but I just reduced the rest of the treasure and made the monsters a little stronger to compensate.
Olaf the Stout
I've also used WoL items in my campaign before and I dropped the penalties. My group tends to run slightly higher powered than others campaigns, so the small boost isn't very noticable. We also found that it didn't necessarly balance or add to our game. So progressive weapons were good, but the penalties just didn't fit for us.
There is a writeup on theRPGenius.com for Alkhast as a legacy item and that was what gave me the idea for this.
My interpretation of the legacy rules, and the way I plan on running it, is that there will be more rituals to unlock powers and the rituals will cost more so that it will end up costing the party as much as it would for comparable magic items. As well I plan on ignoring the penalties because I don't think they fit with the feel of the items otherwise. The rituals will also be for all of the items picked up so the whole party can take place in one and the rituals will give some important bit of history on Adimarchus and the game as a whole.
The Shackled City is low on treasure, but this challenges the players in a way even veterans might not have experienced. They have to get by on their tactics and class abilities.
For players who absolutely need to have a particular item, they can order it through Pike Imports from Sasserine, paying a small import tax and waiting 2 weeks for delivery.
Another option which I love is to insert treasure of the dungeon master's own invention. Legendary weapons and minor artifacts can be really fun for this. Here's what I came up with:
Surabar was a powerful wizard who wielded Alakast. Very few people also know that he was a war-wizard, an eldritch knight. He had two weapons: one gifted to him by the angels, and one he created himself using the soul of an air elemental. This sword was named Aether.
Aether: the sword of Surabar
+1 Merciful bastard sword
INT score of 10. AL: CG. understands common and draconic, but communicates using light generating ability. (one glow for yes, two glows for no)
Aether may choose to be merciful or not merciful as a free action. The wielder has no control over this.
Aether's true power is only unlocked by a Scion of Surabar. Fate will see to it that the blade and its rightful owner cross paths.
The powers of Aether are unlocked gradually as the sword grows in respect and admiration towards its wielder. No rituals, XP costs, or gold costs are necessary.
Scion reaches level 8 and defeats a powerful evil:
Propelled by mystical winds, Aether becomes supernaturally light and fast, increasing its normal damage by one full die to 2d10.
Scion reaches level 13 and defeats a powerful evil:
Aether's enhancement bonus increases to +2.
If the wielder is disarmed, Aether flies to the hand of its owner as a free action on their next initiative.
Scion reaches level 18 and defeats a powerful evil:
Aether gains both the Throwing and Returning abilities. The damage dealt is the same as a melee attack, and power attack may be used in conjunction with a throw.
Another item of my own creation:
MINOR ARTIFACT: THE ORB OF THE DRAGONFATHER
Deep within the dark and acidic confines of Dhorlot's watery lair, he hides a secret that if discovered would be his undoing. Centuries ago, red and black dragons roamed the countryside in abundance. As the leader of his new settlers, Surabar set about destroying or driving away these dangerous predators. Lord Nagasang, one of Surabar's friends, was a half-black-dragon. He wept to see the death and destruction his dragon parent was causing.
To end the black dragon threat once and for all, Surabar created a powerful magic orb for Lord Nagasang. When held, it gave him complete command over any creature that shared his bloodline. Using the orb, Lord Nagasang enslaved his own dragon relatives to wage war against the red dragons. Even without the orb's interference, the war between blacks and reds continues to this day.
In present times, Dhorlot hides the orb along with the rest of his treasure, knowing that to let it fall into the hands of any of his progeny would mean losing his free will.
(note: the usefulness of this item assumes Dhorlot will flee before being slain, and allow the PCs to loot his hoard. I recommend enlarging his lair, giving it a backdoor water exit, and placing the orb in a trapped chest underwater.)
ABILITIES:
Only usable by a PC with the Wyrm-blooded trait.
Activating the orb is a full-round action.
Gain the half-dragon (black) template while orb is held in one hand.
Gain ability to Summon Dhorlot once per day, casting time 1 full round, duration 1 round/level. Dhorlot is under the effects of Dominate Monster and will follow the verbal commands of the orb-holder, cursing them the entire time and swearing to get vengeance one day. At the end of the duration, Dhorlot is teleported back to his lair. (unless he has been slain in combat)
I'm also working on a prestige class called Lord of the Smoking Eye. =D
Another option which I love is to insert treasure of the dungeon master's own invention.
This is essentially what I'm doing but I wanted each character to have a single item that would grow and evolve with them. And it gives me an excuse to run Tomb of Horrors, which in nearly 15 years of gaming I have never had the opportunity to do.