Customer Reviews

Weapons of Legacy (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In many fantasy stories, there are powerful items of magic. The One Ring, Excalibur or Stormbringer. One of the dangers of D&D is giving a player a magic item that is too powerful and upseting the balance of the game.

Weapons of Legacy introduces new rules that allows a magic item to grow with the PC, allowing them to unlock new powers as they adventure. This way a simple +1 longsword can become your own personal Excalibur in time.

There are many sample items, a section of creating new items, on how to create creatures of legacy (a far too small section here) and how to convert some existing magic items into legacy items.

The one complaint would be that the focus is primarily on just weapons and only a few examples of armor, rings and no examples of a wizard's wand or staff of legacy.

Overall, this book does introduce some very good new rules to the game and open the door for some good role playing.

The concept of unlocking dormant powers within weapons of deep history is fresh and new for a D&D supplement. I love the concept of singular weapons that can advance in power alongside a character. The material is a great springboard for Dungeon Masters to develop inspired weapon concepts and histories on their own. There are also useable adventure hooks to tie each weapon into an ongoing campaign.

The actual game mechanics presented for weapon legacies are rather weak. I would recommend any DM to take this book, read it over, and then tailor the rules to fit his own gaming style.

This book is alive with flavor and great ideas to help revive any flat and routine campaign.

One of the things that I liked most about Earthdawn was the way items were treated. Apparently someone at Wizards felt the same and decided to steal a similar system. I believe Monte Cook put out a similar idea in one of his Books of Eldritch Might. I actually like this one better than Monte's version. I think Weapons of Legacy is a great tool for any DnD campaign and adds a lot to the story. This system certainly allows a character to do a little more with that magic weapon he found. What I don't like about this book is that its mostly examples. Certainly, a few examples are fine, but this book's a little thin on content. Give me rules and cool stuff, not fluff. I can figure out how to make an item of legacy with a little instruction. Give me organizations who deal with such items. Maybe a few more prestige classes who work with legacy things, not just item after item. But again, I'm glad I have the book.

Reading though the Weapons of Legacy book is a pleasure. It has good but short background tales of the exploits of each item. The weapons described might seem underpowered to certain types of gamers, but if anyone has ever played a game in which they had to truly work, think and fight their way to earn a weapon of power then those players will understand the reason for this book. Weapons of Legacy does not give power gamers a source of weapons to rip opponents to shreds. Instead it sets up scenarios to allow a player to become worthy of a legedary tool of incredible abilities. Any DM who has ever made their players struggle for a mere +1 weapon will apreciate the complexity of having to discover the various rituals that unlock ever increasing powers of amazing weapons. I would recomend this book to any DM looking for side quests, minor adventures or a way to expose an advanced player to a new way of earning a legendary status.

First off I do not consider myself a powergamer, min maxer or monty haul type player/DM. That said...

Some very neat ideas, I had very high hopes for this book after reading the first chapter or so. I very much liked the idea of an item growing in power with the character as he leveled, also the idea of performing small side quests to further unlock the items potential which usually involve slaying a certain monster or performing a certain feat etc was pretty neat. Somewhat less liked is the idea that the character must give up or take a universal penalty in exchange for such a presumably powerful item. A -1 to saves or to hit etc for example. What really killed this book for me however is the meat of it, the items themselves...I found nothing in this book even remotely close to justifying the players expense in terms of power. Much of the flavor/backstory of the items was at times interesting but once you got to the statistics and what the player must do to unlock suck meager abilities...

Save your money, the items that can be crafted from the rules presented in the DMG will get you much more than what is presented in this book. Better yet, if you are looking for a new 'magic item' type book mongoose has a number of very useful and much better done references in their encyclopedia arcane series, green ronin and malhavoc also are great publishers of D20 materials that I am sure most would enjoy much more than this.

In summary: weapons of legacy has some neat ideas but the geist of the book (the 'weapons of legacy') are massively UNDERpowered and after a truckload of questing and penalties to hit, saves etc taken by the player frequently dont even reach a +5 enhancement by level 20! While the epic handbook resulted in an exponential increase in player power the authors of this work have taken the opposite approach and in some cases I would say have actually resulted in a decrease to character power level... shiny new plus 3 bastard sword from <insert back story here> , you just need to kill a few wyrms and take a minus 2 penaly to all fort and reflex saves, oh and you also have to give up some skill points and or spell slots, then as long as you are level 20 the sword will finally bestow upon your magnificience a might earthshattering plus 3 to not only hit but also to damage...

This book offers DMs and players the rules to incorporate legacy items into the game. Legacy items are powerful magical items that grow stronger as the wielder gains levels, but the item requires certain sacrifices from the wielder.

If you have ever played Earthdawn, you will find some ideas used in the book familiar, which is - I think - more than just a mere coincidence.

Using legacy weapons in your game is absolutely not necessary, but they are a great way to reward good role-playing, or to force power-gamers to better role-play their characters.

The book contains everything you may need to incorporate weapons of legacy info your game, including special feats, spells, psionic powers, and the rules to build you own magical items of legacy.

I had expected a book filled with more magical weapons and perhaps some more artifacts. However instead Weapons of Legacy instructs the reader on how to build a weapon that will level as your character levels. In addition there are several premade weapons that also level up. This all being good the featured weapons aren't as powerful as one you might build yourself, assuming you have the gold.
So eventhough this was not what I was expecting it is a good book to add to your collection if you aren't a fan of having to buy new weapons as levels go by.

Weapons of Legacy

Good: The idea of weapons that "power up" or that you keep through an entire campaign is a great idea. Now the fighter doesn't need to dump his weapon every few levels; he can hang onto it and it gets better as he does. The items have some great history and background, with plenty of plot hooks to use in a game.

Bad: The system sucks. It forces you to shoot yourself in the foot for these items - BIG TIME. I'd never choose one for a starting character; you could buy better items with starting gold and you wouldn't have the minuses these items incur nor find yourself dumping levels, XP and gold to improve the items. They just aren't worth it. I've seen plenty of 3rd party publishers do these types of items hundreds of times better.

This book provides some excellent rules to implement and develop weapons and items of legendary proportion. I have seen many different rule sets from various sources that create "leveled" items that a PC can use throughout their career. Most of them end up creating unbalanced situations. These rules seem to be thoroughly thought out and well balanced. We have already implemented this book into our current campaigns.

This book gives the player and DM alike options to place great items in the game that have a standard format in which to build. Also it gives the DM options ot make a trademark item that a key villian or hero might have. I would recommend using the items in this book in moderation because they are pretty powerful.

Also do not let the title fool you, it does not only give you options on weapons but a variety of items from rings to armor.