Hello everyone,
I got a question on which i'd like your collective wisdom and advice.
I want to create an "upgradable" weapon: basic form is safe and not very strong but you can "power it up" by spending something or exposing yourself to some drawbacks or nasty effect.
For example: basic form is a +1 keen falchion, you can spend 5 hp/round to make it +3 keen vicious or 10hp/round to make it +5 keen vicious flaming burst
Or something like that, i'm open to advices (it's for a barbarian, but except for being a falchion keen anything is possible).
The weapon is indeed powerful (a +5 keen vicious adamantine falchion i think) and no harm came to him, but it's forcing increasingly difficult will save on anyone except the barbarian to develop an obsession with it. When a paladin came all the way from the Worldwound cause she started dreaming about the sword they decide to do something about the sword and find out that it is sapping energy life from all people around, but it can be "tuned down" so not to be dangerous. Once "tuned down" it's safe, but you can reawaken the power by sacrificing your blood to it.
I'd like to know how would you balance it, which drawbacks or resources would you use it and, in general, how would you do it.
If this work i may do some other weapon like that (the idea being a series of weapon used by some powerful evil outsiders to tempt mortals) but with different concepts (a longsword powered by LoH, a dagger that damage yourself too when you sneak attack or anything i can imagine, really)
Looking forward to your ideas, and thank you for taking the time to read this!
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Ouch. Spending 5 HP to add Vicious (so that each attack makes it damage you) is double-dipping on your own self-inflicted damage. Sounds painful; I hope you have a very good healbot who loves being your own personal Florence Nightingale.
Limiting the unlockable stuff to a certain number of daily uses is the traditional way.
Another thought is to make the item class-specific, such as calling it "Barbarian's" or "Paladin's", etc. For an example, using your +1 Keen falchion, make it a +1 Keen Barbarian's falchion that works like a +1 Keen falchion for any user but a barbarian can "spend" 1 daily round of Rage (reduce the amount of Rage he can use today by 1 round without gaining the benefits of actually using Rage, though he can do this while he is raging or not raging as he so chooses) to add +2 enhancement bonus and can "spend" 1 daily round of Rage to gain the Vicious quality, or can spend 2 rounds of Rage to get them both.
That way the unlocked ability is tied to the class feature instead of the HP.
You could do this with just about any class that has limited daily uses of class features.
Balancing it could be tricky. Giving up 1 round of Rage is easier than giving up 1 daily Channel Energy (because at any given level the barbarian has several times more daily rounds of Rage than the healer has uses of Channel Energy).
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As for tempting mortals, it is not a temptation to simply hurt myself when I want to slay an enemy. I might do it, I might not, depending on how dire the situation is, but in the end, no matter how often I do it I'm not selling my soul or otherwise damning myself to a future afterlife of torment by evil outsiders.
To successfully "tempt mortals" in the sense that evil outsiders mean it, you need to get them to do something evil that they might not otherwise do. Get them to do it repeatedly enough and they become evil. Achieve that, and you've gained their damnation in their afterlife.
Self injury to defeat a foe is not an evil act so there is no damnation so there is no temptation.
If you want to go down this path, how about an artifact that gives them something really good (better than just a +2) but it will only work for 666 hours (almost 28 days) after being used to slay an innocent. After using it this way a couple times, it becomes more picky about which innocents need to be slain, and how many...
I did this once with a dagger that be used to fully Heal anyone (you stabbed them but it did no damage and healed them instead), but would only heal for 666 total HP before it stopped working and required a sacrificed innocent to "recharge" it for another 666 HP of healing. The player who had this was originally CN and he only used it to heal himself and when in town would always make sure to sneak off and "recharge" his dagger on some bum or hobo or sickly/elderly person - using notes and not telling the other players. Then when that character died and they couldn't resurrect him because Orcus claimed his soul and didn't release it, everyone but that player was surprised.
(that player never rolled another CN character in my games again)
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I did this once with a dagger that be used to fully Heal anyone (you stabbed them but it did no damage and healed them instead), but would only heal for 666 total HP before it stopped working and required a sacrificed innocent to "recharge" it for another 666 HP of healing. The player who had this was originally CN and he only used it to heal himself and when in town would always make sure to sneak off and "recharge" his dagger on some bum or hobo or sickly/elderly person - using notes and not telling the other players. Then when that character died and they couldn't resurrect him because Orcus claimed his soul and didn't release it, everyone but that player was surprised.
(that player never rolled another CN character in my games again)
Eh, I don't think he was playing CN there either. Killing an innocent just to recharge an item? That drops you into the deep end of the alignment pool.
Eh, I don't think he was playing CN there either. Killing an innocent just to recharge an item? That drops you into the deep end of the alignment pool.
I did this once with a dagger that be used to fully Heal anyone (you stabbed them but it did no damage and healed them instead), but would only heal for 666 total HP before it stopped working and required a sacrificed innocent to "recharge" it for another 666 HP of healing. The player who had this was originally CN and he only used it to heal himself and when in town would always make sure to sneak off and "recharge" his dagger on some bum or hobo or sickly/elderly person - using notes and not telling the other players. Then when that character died and they couldn't resurrect him because Orcus claimed his soul and didn't release it, everyone but that player was surprised.
(that player never rolled another CN character in my games again)
That's what he was referring to with the whole "temptation bringing you into damnation" thing. Alignment is a measure of your characters actions not a strict code and if it isn't changeable based on roleplay, you are doing it wrong.
How about a weapon that has a death effect that requires a command word, but anyone slain that way also gets a create undead spell causing them to rise a few hours later.
How about a weapon that has a death effect that requires a command word, but anyone slain that way also gets a create undead spell causing them to rise a few hours later.
If the intent of "a few hours later" is so that the PC doesn't know his actions caused it, then he's not morally responsible for the unknown result - as far as his soul and his alignment are concerned, all he did was a Death spell which is not any more evil than killing an enemy with an axe (which might or might not be evil depending on circumstances, same with the Death spell).
However, if the PC KNOWS that his Death spell is animating undead (which is a spell with the [evil] descriptor) and willingly uses it with this knowledge, then the PC is willingly and knowingly committing an evil act and his soul and alignment are in danger - but if so, then it need not be "a few hours later".
Even better! The next round after they die they rise as if affected by a create undead spell. I mean the creature killed by the weapon ability, but how cool would it be if it also turns it's owner into an undead if they die any day they used the weapon power?
I was originally thinking all the undead they create would be following the guy seeking revenge.
Thank you all for the advices!
My idea of "tempting morals" was selling your soul to get the uber-powerful sword, not that actually using the sword tempts you (which is cooler btw, probably going to use it for another game)
I just found out that Unchained as a section about scaling magic items that i could use to have some guidelines about power level, but you get all the bonuses without any of the drawback and it's not very thematic for the barely-contained-demonic-power sword
A drawback, like creating undead and tainting alignment, would give you a power level discount. A full fledged curse might make it free.
I'm thinking of creating a scythe that slays living and then turns them into worm riddled corpses. I would send it to mortals I want to mess with.
Worm infested corpses
Maggots with the mutant ability to animate dead would use the same stats as my worm infested corpses. It's a zombie with an extra hit dice. It can infest anything in an adjacent square. Reflex save DC16 if alive(a corpse is automatically infested). The target of infestation has it's con. bonus in rounds before the maggot reaches the brain or heart before they die and get animated.
Unfortunately for my little worms, they can be killed during the first round of trying to infest by burning oil, cure disease, or possibly other methods.
(I've made some changes. If you are playing 4th or 5th ed. you can use the original material Orig Son of..
Other gods could gift weapons that power up when you feed starving bums or heal lepers. Whatever that deity is into.