I've been poking around trying to find out if anyone has already posted about this, but my google-fu is failing. I was hoping to find something that talked about how to use some of the 4th edition artifact ideas in Pathfinder. I especially like the scalable nature of the concordance idea.
Essentially, I am looking to design some unique magic items/artifacts that will play a pivotal role in the game I am running. I'm not exactly sure how to design something that comes across as powerful without being overpowering.
Anyway, advice of any kind would be immensely helpful. :)
The 3.5 Weapons of Legacy book had a whole system of weapons that would gain power as the player gained levels.
For example, there would be the "Slashing Fire", a legacy longsword. At character level 3 it may be a +1 longsword with a neat rippling fire appearance. At level 10 it is a +2 flaming longsword that had the ability to cast searing arrow 3/day with CL = character level. At 15 it is +4 flaming longsword with searing arrow 5/day, fire resistance 20, etc.
Another interesting item was a sling that could throw larger and larger stones as the player got into higher levels. Actually, it would just throw sling shot as usual, but it would make the shot hit as if much larger. It could eventually do something akin to meteor strike.
There were about 20-30 specific weapons in the first part and a full description of the rules for making your own in the second part. It was based on points and tiers and wasn't too bad.
Word of advice - the system isn't balanced especially well and you could make some stupidly powerful items with it.
In my opinion, Weapons of Legacy had a really cool idea, but the execution was terrible. You see, every legacy item was meant to be balanced with non-legacy items of the same power level- meaning that the player who saves up their money and buys a (custom) +4 flaming Longsword that can cast searing arrow 5/day and fire resistance 20 is exactly at the exact same power level as the character that received a +1 legacy longsword that eventually grows into the exact same thing. The way they achieve this is by applying tons and tons of costs onto the item's growth- usually in large amounts of gold, but often in other things that can't easily be quantified (like permanently giving up HP or skill points). This is often "disguised" as roleplaying requirements, but those roleplaying requirements often have an arbitrary gold piece cost along with it.
Let me explain. (I don't have my books handy, so bear with me.) When you get a legacy item, it starts off as a minor magic item (like a +1 sword) with some minor cosmetic effect. That's all it does at first, until you undergo some roleplaying event (and spend the appropriate amount of money) to bring it to the next tier, whereupon it begins levelling with the player up to a certain point. At that point, you have to undergo another RP event (and spend a much larger sum of money) to bring it to the next tier, and then it levels up and the process begins again. There's a trident (if I'm not mistaken) in Weapons of Legacy that, in order to bring it to one of the higher tiers, requires you to spend 24 hours underwater (through whatever means necessary). That's a cool idea, with lots of roleplay potential, except that it ALSO costs like 16,000 gp. I think the idea is that the 16,000 gp is supposed to represent the research required to find out the item's history, learning how to level it up, buying the potions/magic items/spellcasting required to spend 24 hours underwater, whatever. Except it's presented as a hard-and-fast rule, not something that can be subsidized somehow.
I understand the reasoning behind this, but I disagree with it. The reasoning is that they don't want a player who gets a legacy item to suddenly become more powerful than the rest of the group without paying for it- they want everyone to be on the same level, and the only way (read: easiest way) to do this is by requiring the player to spend money, but in my opinion, this defeats the entire purpose- I feel like the purpose of giving a player a legacy item is giving them something that CAN'T be bought with money. If it's no more advantageous than simply buying an item yourself, then what's the point?
Anyway, if you plan on implementing legacy items as free gifts to your players, I recommend getting rid of (or at least toning down) the costs for leveling them. Or, if nothing else, replace the costs with pure roleplay opportunities. The "stay underwater for 24 hours" requirement, for example, would be so much cooler and so much more memorable if rather than costing 16,000 gp, it was instead something that was extremely difficult and taxing on the player's resources and roleplaying ability than simply "pay 16,000 gp". But your mileage may vary.
I think the first thing you have to do is take a long hard look at the wealth system, and how you use it in your game. Do you always give out standard treasure? Do you try to keep near wealth by level? Does your group evenly distribute treasure or is it according to need or some other criteria? Are there magic marts? Do players craft magic items?
The answers to these questions will give you a starting point, because magic items and wealth in the standard rules go hand in hand.
Next you have to ask yourself some questions about the new items. Will all of the players in the party have a unique scalable magic item? Will some have more then one? Will they be near the same 'value'? If there is an imbalance, how will you deal with additional treasure/magic items? How will they be distributed? Will the pc with the ancient sword of awesome get the same share of the treasure as the guy with the sad little flute of uselessness?
Basically what I am trying to say is you need to figure out how these items will fit into your game first, THEN start designing rules to go along with them. If everyone is going to get one that is roughly of equal value and use to the character, then just scale down the treasure a bit and move forward with whatever you want. If there isnt going to be an even distribution of these items then you need to look at their advancement having a 'cost' like weapons of legacy did.
Something I've heard of used rather than just X gold was a magical sacrifice.
Before the intelligent sword would agree to give you more power, you had to sacrifice a powerful magic item to it. Basically you used the sword to destroy some magic item that was about the peak of what a character of your level could expect to find. Usually the sword would insist on something that at least one of the players really wanted. Otherwise no real sacrifice was involved. It could also be talked into destroying shields (it didn't like things that could block it) or the competition (another weapon that someone might think was more powerful). We had PC's trying to keep the sword from finding out about some magic items. Or playing up the reputation of some other items so it would resent them. It was kinda amusing.
Also for Legacy Weapons, you needed to burn feats to gain access the next "tier" of power of that item if you couldn't do the rituals or pay the money. So if you ended up going to lvl 20, you had to burn three feats to get all of the power from the item. Thier is also the problem of taking massive penalties for awakening the item in question. Penalties in any combination of attack, skills, hp, saves, caster level, spell slots and more.
Wasnt scalable items a big thing in the Midnight RPG?
I think the first thing you have to do is take a long hard look at the wealth system, and how you use it in your game. Do you always give out standard treasure? Do you try to keep near wealth by level? Does your group evenly distribute treasure or is it according to need or some other criteria? Are there magic marts? Do players craft magic items?
I'll fully admit that I am a pretty new GM, so some of this is all still very new to me. The characters started out at 5th level and had the full amount of starting cash they should have for that level. Since then, they haven't really paid too much attention to treasure. They'll ask, but they don't seem too concerned about it. I think with this group, as long as they have the ability to upgrade when necessary, they'll be fairly easy-going about such things.
The setting is actually Eberron, so it's a magic/gear heavy setting, but I also don't want to lose the slightly gritty feel the lower-mid levels can have.
Next you have to ask yourself some questions about the new items. Will all of the players in the party have a unique scalable magic item? Will some have more then one? Will they be near the same 'value'? If there is an imbalance, how will you deal with additional treasure/magic items? How will they be distributed? Will the pc with the ancient sword of awesome get the same share of the treasure as the guy with the sad little flute of uselessness?
The items I'm looking to design would actually be very plot centric. They'd be linked to a specific character and definitely only one per character. The only major issue would be that, being plot centric, they may find one fairly early on, but not find the last one until much later, letting some players have access to the cool item early on, while others have to wait.
Basically what I am trying to say is you need to figure out how these items will fit into your game first, THEN start designing rules to go along with them. If everyone is going to get one that is roughly of equal value and use to the character, then just scale down the treasure a bit and move forward with whatever you want.
That seems pretty reasonable. I've got time to figure out what the items are going to be since they're just getting to the point where they'll discover they need to go looking for the items, but since I've got to set some of the specifics now (like where they are), I got to thinking about how to actually make them work.