I know, I know. There are a thousand tables of magic swords out there. But I have a good reason for writing this one. I will explain why and if you are in the same situation, maybe you can find these useful. My big problem was finding interesting low-magic(?) weapons that don't give any combat bonuses.
Why?
I am in the middle of designing and playtesting my new ruleset based on Into the Odd and Black Hack. In the midst of writing up the character classes, I foolishly put down "Heirloom Weapon" as the starting gear for my Warrior class.
Why is this foolish? Because "Heirloom Weapon" without further explanation doesn't really mean anything — anything actionable that is. Everybody starts with a weapon of some sort, or if not, they will pick one up as soon as possible and in Black Hack fashion damage is tied to character classes instead of weapons. Could "heirloom" be just a flair for roleplaying purposes? Sure. But adding insult to injury, my other classes do get actually useful stuff. The Thief gets a Forgery Kit, the Bard gets a Musical Instrument, the Ranger gets an Animal Companion — you get it.
So what to do with the Warrior and their Heirloom Weapon? I thought it might be more interesting if these weapons had some additional bonus that allowed for some creative use. And if I had a small table of them, I could even give them out later during adventures... Right. But there are some problems.
The Warrior in Black Hack is massively overpowered already. If you are not familiar with the system, the Warrior essentially has a multi-attack that scales with their level. While most classes will do the same damage regardless of their level (e.g. a level 5 Thief will do still only d6 damage per round), the Warrior will roll handfuls of damage dice at higher levels (e.g. a level 5 Warrior can dish out 5d6 damage per round). I didn't want to increase the runaway damage, nor add extra dice to the already large dice-pool. So the rules are: No Damage Bonuses! No Combat Abilities! And let's keep it relatively low-powered to be able to hand these out to Level 1 Characters.
So without further ado...
D6 Heirloom Weapons
Sealed Sword
When these blades
are pulled from their
scabbard, they are
briefly enchanted
— bypassing all
resistances and
dealing critical
damage for 3d6
Moments/Turns.
Once their seal is
broken they act as
normal swords.
Elven Blade
These enchanted
swords were made by
elven smiths in hidden
groves at the dawn
of a long lost age. The
art to create them
has been lost to time.
Their blade shines
with a cold blue light
if there are goblins
in the immediate
Large Area.
Lantern Sword
Swords made for
members of the
Long Watch to keep
them vigilant on
starless nights.
When they are
thrusted into the
ground their pommel
lights up as a pale
lantern, keeping the
darkness at bay.
Cane Sword
These richly
decorated walking
sticks hide delicate
but deadly blades.
Favoured weapon of
wandering gentlemen
and errant scholars
— these hidden
blades are next to
impossible to detect
when frisked.
Bramble Blade
Swords made for the
members of the Order
of the Green Knights.
At the will of the
wielder these swords
can grow strong
vines — temporarily
sticking the sword
to any surface
or restraining a
creature in 1d6
Moments/Turns.
Dark Sword
This ancient bronze
sword is one of a kind
— made by a long lost
civilization.
When the sword
is pulled from its
scabbard magical
darkness bursts
out of the blade and
covers the immediate
Small Area in 2d6
Moments/Turns.
While not wholly original, I am quite pleased with this list. Only one of them grants an explicit combat bonus (immediately breaking my own rules) but does so only once for a limited time. Hopefully, players will cling to it as a true heirloom and save it for a make-or-break situation. Other swords on the list grant situational bonuses, or can have interesting uses, but are not necessarily useful in combat. For example, the Bramble Blade can be used to restrain a creature, but it takes some turns to take effect. Or the Dark Sword can cover an area in impenetrable darkness but also blind players who are sticking around.
Little Book of Swords
While originally, I only planned to write a small blog post about the swords, playing around with pixel-art animation in
Resprite — once, I finished with my list, I realised that I could actually compile these into a little booklet, that could be used as a handout for players. It can be used in fancy magic shops or better yet — as a hook for new adventures where players try to track down different magic swords.
As the animations are obviously not transferable to a paper hand-out, I laid out the booklet as spreads with the swords shown both in their scabbards and in their "activated" state.
I used a
12-page booklet template from Austin Kleon. The result is a small book, made from a single A4 sheet, with reinforced covers (3 layers of paper). It is small but perfect for fancy player handouts. If the instructions in the booklet are confusing, I can recommend watching this tutorial on how to design and fold these types of booklets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMJNUb0uJk8
No comments:
Post a Comment