Good morrow Paizo community.
I have a player interested in playing (which has piqued my own curiosity) a character with an intelligent sword.
I have very little experience with such things, and have actually avoided intelligent items, even in published material, because of my own insecurities about running such things.
I've reached a stage in my GMing "career" where I feel like I'm ready to dip into this part of the game.
So! I need your stories! I need to hear from players and GMs alike on how playing in a dedicated campaign with an intelligent item works! Does it work? Is it more hassle than it's worth? Do you have some great stories from your table that wouldn't have happened without an intelligent item? Do you have a horror story from your table that wouldn't have happened without an intelligent item? To the GMs, tell me about the energy and time required to run a game with a dedicated intelligent item. Is it too time consuming? Is it just like running an NPC, but less fun? More fun? How about intelligent item abilities? Are they difficult to track and remember?
I know that's a lot of questions, but I really want to get some thoroughly fleshed out details as I work towards making this decision. I am absolutely going to base my decision to include or not include this intelligent item on the feedback I get here. So don't hold back!
Thanks!
MendedWall12
Intelligent items are basically a GMNPC, so any pros or cons come with that territory.
That said, they can be a lot of fun guiding or misguiding your PCs depending on the items alignment &/or agenda.
I gave one of my players a crystal hand (ala The Outer Limits, Demon with the Glass Hand). He was a wizard, and the Hand contained the consciousness of his mentor. It was a know-it-all, superior pain in the ass, but it also was a source of knowledge and a means for him to do spell research while on the go.
I enjoy making these things powerful, but with a cost. Is it worth it to put up with the item's attitude? Can the item be trusted? These give you some dynamics that can be fun to explore!
I had someone use them as the driving villains behind a homemade campaign. There was a syndicate of 7 high-ego magic swords that kept overwhelming their wielders and starting up criminal empires.
I think they're cool. Besides, having friendly, constant npcs is a good thing, it really keeps the campaign together.
The bad thing about it is that it can lead to the bad GMPC syndrome, and talking swords neatly avoid that.
This pbp campaign has a magic sword done extremely well. Note how it adds exposition without revealing much actual knowledge, or solving problems the players couldn't.
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An intelligent magic item is also a great way to give the characters background information on demand. I support this idea.
I've owned a pair of intelligent magical glasses, which were great fun, and had a few bonus skills along with an intelligence of their own.
I've DM'd an intelligent magic sword, Lord Neon, who was a powerful wind-Duke who polymorphed himself into a sword, and couldn't cast the reverse spell without hands or a voice (he had reasons).
I played him as a bold, headstrong noble, unafraid to enter melee against ANYONE, but protective of his dignity. Hijinks ensued on two occassions when players wanted to use him to chop down a door (what am I, a lumber axe?) and to fight a metal-destroying ooze (absolutely not, it's filthy).
Bump for people in other time zones. :)
This can't be the entirety of intelligent item stories amongst the entire community?! Anyone? Anyone? Something E G O economics.
Oh let's see, (never a fan of formulaic weapons and WBL table slavery, these weapons power usually exceeded what is recommended)
There was Kestilon the elderly befuddled wizard and his intelligent staff of power that would constantly argue back and forth. He was an NPC the party would seek help from now and then and accompany them if he could remember where he left his boots...
The there was an intelligent Katana: Kirioto-san that insisted it's wielder have ranks in perform ceremonial tea and calligraphy (I made the skill have useful effects so the pc didn't feel they were wasting skill points) and maintain a fancy tea set worth 100gp per level of the wielder. In exchange he granted the use of certain samurai class powers and increased in power along with the pc.
There was a fancy cutlass that refused to come out of it's scabbard unless it was paid, no one was quiet sure where the gems went...
There was the noble longsword whose name I forget, Verily we must sally forth and slay the wretched beasties! He would gain bonuses the more beatup his wielder became and contest the wielder if they wanted to retreat. Nah, we shall have none of this retreating knavery! Strike him again, very roughly!
A sword that contained a small fragment of each previous wielder' soul, giving it sentience through these small shards of life. It abhorred the Undead, and had small runes that would -seemingly at random- change what they said. Sometimes they would warn of present dangers, sometimes they would hint at a moment in the future, but usually they just showed a phrase from the PC's holy book that called out his deity's hatred of the undead and those who raised such foul creatures.
The blade rarely conflicted with the character, but when it did it was to combat a potent undead creaure or a powerful necromancer. In these instances, the wielder would suddenly change his demeanor and become focused and cold - as if an emotionless shell of his former self- until the creature was slain or the blade lost control.
Most of its drawbacks came from the stipulations it forced onto the character in exchange for its powers, including the permanent loss of 2 points of Constitution which couldn't be healed in any way (this was the loss of a small portion of his soul).
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I had a player get a Bardiche called "Nagia Mafre" or "Frozen Death" with the soul of an Elven traitor, the soul was trapped in the weapon and forced to serve the elven lords.
Had a fun tim when the wielder was dominated by a vampire by rolling a 1, I told him to roll another will save and he proudly exclaimed he got a 20, the second save was the weapon trying to take control to and contest the vampire dominate. The player just dropped his face to the table after that,
Otherwise I played a Mystic Theurge of Wee-Jas (God of magic, death, knowledge, and hates undead) in a 3.5 game, my Scythe had one the only fragments of Wee-Jas herself so I kept that weapon safe but the close connection to my god drove my character a little fanatical, he would call out "PRAISE BE WEE-JAS!" when entering a fight or would just claim that Wee-Jas demands souls when we needed to decide if were were going to kill something or risk fighting a creature.
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In a game I ran I tried to make the weakest ego item that was still recognizable as an intelligent item. A pair of boots that had klepto animal instinct for theft, no complex motivation just an obsession for petty theft. Only empathy, no speech or telepathy. No special senses. Mage hand at will and 5 ranks in sleight of hand. It wasn't even good at minor larceny; mostly just grabbed unattended coins tips on the tavern table and such.
This was my trainer intelligent item, to see how it was to manage to see how much spotlight it took away from the players.
It was a success: I was really happy with not giving it a communication option, that made it much easier to manage and it didn't feel like a GM-PC/NPC. The simple motivations via empathy was easy to communicate, and the week ego made it's attempts at dominance near laughable; the player felt like the item was more like a pet than a person. And the use of the cantrip was enjoyed and useful to the rogue who wore the boots.
In future games I will continue to include the occasional intelligent item that can only communicate via empathy. And when do include an item with speech or telepathy, I will try to have it as a temporary inclusion instead of a permanent piece of loot.
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In theory I'm a real fan of intelligent items, but in practice they tend to be fairly subdued in our games.
The most memorable was possibly an adamantine fullblade (imported from 3.5, a slightly larger greatsword that was an exotic weapon) named "The Father of All Swords," which had the power to unmake its descendants by sundering them and could only be claimed by slaying its wielder. It only spoke directly to its wielder and so the player mostly just roleplayed as its translator with little GM direction - except for the one time that it succeeded at an ego check to make him stand up to a dragon in single combat. We had a super-optimized merciful healer cleric for that session so he survived, but I think he ate something like three times his HP in total damage.
The second place goes to a joke - a sword named "Purity" that has the special purpose of exterminating human half-breeds. The party consisted of a half-elf, an aasimar, a tiefling, and a gnome with a bit of dwarf in her. The sword didn't have the ego to actually inconvenience anyone but kept telepathically asking if we didn't just want to fall upon its blade and make things easier for everyone.
The rest are either fairly innocuous by design (eg a magical lighter that can cast spark at will, has the mind of a tobacconist, and makes cigar recommendations for its owner) or ended up being overlooked because the person responsible for roleplaying them (IIRC generally the GM) forgot to do so.
I am currently playing a Summoner with an Intelligent, Cursed Katana, w/ Bane of undead, and impact; her name is Katrina, and she has the spell "Alter-Self", at will.
I don't know if it's PFS legal (probably not), but it's quite fun. She can use Alter-self to take on the form of a six-year-old Human, Half-Celestial (her wielder is also Half-Celestial). We made it so the Alter Self ability is only for role-play reasons, so she doesn't have any other spells in her child form. My character basically sees her as a daughter, one who has an overly cheerful personality and enjoys riding on my PC's shoulders (until she sees a zombie or a Vampire, "Mahonri, is that a Vampire?" "Yup" "May we please commence the slaughter?" "Sure, why not?" She also provides motivation for my PC; her curse can be lifted with the condition that we slay a particular vampire lord (In the meantime, my PC has a permanent loss of 2 CON, and has to make a Fort save each day or loose 1 CON for the day).
Her backstory is also interesting; we still don't know how she was created, but her previous owner threw her off a cliff after she was cursed, then she went through a period of mental instability until she came in contact with the PC. She still has some of that instability, but as time progresses she becomes more and more stable. The only problem we've had with her is that one of our party is a necromancer, another is a Damphir... who is also Half-Celestial... (The necromancer has more issues than the Damphir, "KATRINA! QUIT CHOPPING MY SKELETONS! ARRGH; MY ZOMBIE HORSE!") It doesn't help that my PC has a low tolerance to undead, and he's known the necromancer since before the campaign, so if Katrina gets bored, he kinda just rolls w/ it.
Comedy wise, I had quite a bit of fun with an Intelligent "Instant Fortress" cube. "Knock, Knock!" "Who's there?" *SLAM*-"THE DOOR! GET IN HERE YOU BLOODY FOOLS!"
I also know that the Leadership Feat can allow you to make Intelligent items into cohorts, and it gives them some extra perks as the PC levels up over time. I did that with Mahonri and Katrina.
Come on; is that it? Any other stories people? WE MUST HAVE MORE!!!
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PC defeated/destroyed the Body of a SoulBound doll and stuck the gemstone into his EarthShaker (Large Hammer) The Dolls Alignment is NE.
Not sure if I'll evolve the Soul Stone for making the weapon Intelligent or making it a 'animated object' of sorts with the new persona
So far :3 It seems like a comical angle for the Mummy Mask game with the ancient Osirian speaking spirit of the Stone babbling to the Duegar PC that has no idea what it's saying.
I remember a good story about an intelligent weapon, and there's even a song about it...
Back in a 3.5 Shackled City game the DM gave every PC free ranks in a "background skill". My Int 8 Barbarian put his in Craft (Club) and started out with a masterwork club. In an early but reasonably successful attempt at modding I sculpted the head of the mini's greatclub to look like it had the face of a bearded man carved into it. Much later on when the PCs were flush with gold the greatclub got enchanted as an item more intelligent than the wielder and sometimes referred to him as Dummy.
The fact that the club could detect invisible creatures and cast Glitterdust was kind of a big deal sometimes. It didn't add much to the complexity of the game though since the DM more or less let me run the club like an NPC cohort or familiar. Back to the subject of black blades for a moment, Shiroi previously mentioned a Magus archetype called Bladebound. It basically gives the character a familiar in the form of a magic weapon. The mechanics differ, but it could easily be handled in a similar fashion with little more work for the DM than if the PC had a familiar.
Long-standing intelligent swords are "The Don" and "Mugsy", modeled on the Bugs Bunny skit Bugsy and Mugsy. I've not had them resurface in quite some time.
The last time they were in play they they were short swords, but this was before the advent of nifty weapons such as gladii or wakizashi.
The Don is the high-Ego item of the pair, vocalized as per 'Boss' from the aforementioned cartoon. Its goal is to acquire personal wealth (exotic woods, endangered/dangerous species leathers, star-metals, incredibly valuable gemstones incorporated into its hilt, pommel, sheath and baldric/belt) and sociopolitical power as the 'power behind the throne'. It's not picky about how it acquires such power and tends to view its wielders as meatbags. Ideally, a wielder is an eager partner-in-crime, but a dominated meatbag works just fine from its perspective. A dragon's hoard is just as acceptable a source of the wealth required to build an empire of one sort or another as running rackets and smuggling.
The Don lacks in originality, so he and Mugsy embrace adventurous 'get rich quick' schemes regardless of piddling issues such as alignment, odds of success or the survival of the meatbag wielding them.
Mugsy is The Don's twin, far weaker Ego and a permanent minion of The Don. Mugsy is utterly loyal to The Don, whom it always calls 'Boss'. Not exactly endowed with great intellect, Mugsy mostly serves as The Don's yes-man, foil and comedy relief.
I like adding these occasionally into the a campaign. They can be much better than a normal PC, and helps add flavor / history / background into the campaign without the PCs bringing along another body. My current homebrew, has a bone great club that contains the spirit of an ancient champion. He is a spirit of good, guiding the PC when he can with history and religion knowledge. The player liked it so much he started taking levels in paladin to follow the path of the ancient spirit.