|
Author
|
Comment
|
Surfal2001
A song from the sixties
(5/29/03 8:32 am)
Reply
|
The Elemental Swords
How have people been handling the swords? I'm in limbo about them; they're awfully powerful when first found, but the PCs are likely to destroy at least one by smashing an altar. After that one, they're likely to leave the altar to keep the sword. I don't see there being so much treasure lying about, though there is a fair amount of equipment to be salvaged.
Anyway, I'm considering decreasing the power of the swords, but not causing them to lose all magic. Maybe just remove the special ability, but possibly reduce to a +1 as well.
Prior experience and comments are more than welcome.
|
benhamtroll
A guitar
(5/29/03 8:54 am)
Reply
|
Re: The Elemental Swords
My group contains a dwarven artificer, so they get to enchant just about anything they want as they travel betwixt the mines and verbobonc, so I have no qualms about destroying the swords.
Ah, I remember those evenings, lingering over brandy at "Eat" . . . |
Zarrock
A song from the sixties
(5/29/03 9:22 am)
Reply
|
I think they're just fine
So I can't really comment to much. I can't see the swords being particularly overpowering and with the opposition lying in wait for the group later on, they really need those +2 swords.
And - the group's Evoker has so much firepower that the special attacks of the swords look feeble in comparison.
-Zarrock
|
Surfal2001
A song from the sixties
(5/29/03 9:37 am)
Reply
|
What I meant was...
That I'm considering *not* destroying the swords with the altar collapse, because the group needs them. But then we miss out on the cool factor of having the swords tied to the temples.
I'm babbling I guess. My group just finished the earth temple but Uskathoth and Snearak both escaped, so they got little in the way of magic. Running for home after nearly dying, they only have about 10K in loot plus the sword. So they *need* the sword to be ok on the economic food chain.
|
Taxman66
A trophy
(5/29/03 10:13 am)
Reply
|
Compromise
My personal feelings are to keep the swords and dump the elemental powers as the associated alter gets wrecked. In addition, you can get nice and descriptive about it thus keeping the 'coolness' factor of the swords' association without the 'We've been ripped off' feeling the players get when the swords are destroyed.
As a suggestion you could add some additional evil-elemental descriptiveness to how the swords looked (Frex: The hand guard is styled as a cruification victim on fire; or The base of the blade depicts a sumberged dunking chair and out of the water reaches a hand that seems to quiver; or The pommel is shaped like a thin tornadeo and the crossbar evokes of a the devistation of a town it left in its wake; or the base of the blade is etched to show a rockslide while the crossbar and handle are covered with the appearance of cracks and falling buildings). If/when checked for (carefully) these descriptions radiate as magical (illusion and evocation and abjuration perhaps) independent of the sword itself. You could even have them radiate as evil.
When the associate alter is destroyed the sceenes would go away (Frex: Puff away in flash of purple fire; slush/ooze off in purple slime; vibrate and shake off in purple pebbles; or fade off in a purple mist). The elemental powers would no longer exist, and what is left is a sword that doesn't look anything at all like it originally did.
Taxman
"It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things, Hobbes." - Calvin
|
Surfal2001
A song from the sixties
(5/29/03 10:37 am)
Reply
|
Thanks
Thanks for the ideas guys. I admit I'm tempted to go with the "losing the special power" concept, that sounds real cool, but I've decided to destroy the swords' magical abilities with the altars.
The group found the cursed amulet in Uskathoth's chambers, and think that its an Amulet of Proof against Location and Detection, which is worth a cool 35K. I think they'll sell it for about half that, which should give them plenty of cash for item enhancements. Plus, I get the cool future plot hook of them having sold a cursed item, and the buyer being none too happy about it....
|
msherman
A song from the sixties
(5/30/03 4:41 am)
Reply
|
Re: Thanks
This came up once before, and one suggestion was that after the alters are destroyed, you let the players use the rules for repairing broken magic items (ie: half the original cost to create the item in gp and xp) to reconsecrate the swords; that would restore their powers and break the connection with the evil elemental princes. If the players aren't interested in doing that themselves, someone else might be, and might offer something close to half the usual resale value for the "broken" weapons.
|
Okay -- Your Turn
Email This To a Friend
Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies 
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies