Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!
Today is Part 46 (Part B) of my series of looks at OD&D starting with Monsters & Treasure Volume 2.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Now we will continue on with Explanations of Magic Items - specifically looking at Magic Swords & Egoism:
As I noted in my previous post I used a minimum of a 7 Intelligence for my Magic Swords so they all have an Egoism rating. I did the same thing with Egoism, instead of rolling a d12 I used 1d6+6 for a range of 7-12. My players were make aware that with all great and powerful magic items come risks as well as rewards. Sometimes it is best to pass up an item rather than try to possess it.
IMO these five things that a Magic Swords might do adds a lot to a campaign and it does encourage the use of other weapons as well. That is part of the reason I realigned treasure to decrease the percentage of swords as part of the total and increase the miscellaneous weapons percentage.
Of course what every character wants is to be in a true rapport or attunded to a Sword, which allows the full use of the weapon. I tell players that a Magic Sword will know your true character and motivations better than anyone else in the adventuring party. If you and the Sword are not on the same page it can get ugly.
Let us look at how that plays out.
Looking at how this is done with the Strength and Intelligence of the character, think about how you would tweak this if you use Greyhawk and have Extraordinary Strength. When we get to the Greyhawk Supplement, I will show you what I did.
Next up is Egoism in Continuing Relationship with the User. This puts an interesting twist on things.
Yes, that does put a new light on it, does it not. So if the Magic Sword is Egoism of 12 and the Fighting-Man is 4th level, then the Magic Sword will prevail in all General and in all Key Situations. So for instance it could compel you to fight that Troll by yourself, or charge into battle while scouting instead of reporting back to the rest of the group, etc. Also that Fighting-Man only achieves a 25% chance in General situations, but does gain a check in Key Situations at levels 7-10. At levels 11, 12, and 13 the Fighting-Man would have a 50/50 chance and doing any stress situation check both ways. At levels 13-17 it would go 75% to way of the character and check the Key Situations. At 18th level and up then the character prevails in most cases, except IMO when the character is badly wounded and under severe mental strain from magic.
On the plus side, I allow these Magic Swords, where they and the character are in true rapport, to aid the character against mental attacks such as Charm Person, Illusions and many others.
Now we come to the Origin and Purpose of Swords. Those Magic Swords that have a Purpose are very powerful indeed and go beyond other Swords, so much so that I consider them to be Artifacts and back in those days I devised some very powerful Swords.
I changed it to a score of 86 or higher. Note that Intelligence and Egoism are automatically moved to the maximum score as well as gaining an additional ability. These Swords are not to be messed with.
What makes the paralyzation and the disintegration so powerful? As saving throws are defined back in Volume 1, Men and Magic, these effects do not get a saving throw because they are from a Magic Sword, which is not identified as in that section as something you get saving throw from. That is the way that I interpret it and I am comfortable with that. And yes, monsters use magic weapons too!
There are only six purposes listed above and I added some detail to that list. A Lawful Sword would seek to Slay the Chaotic version of those in the first two columns listed and a Chaotic Sword would seek to Slay the Lawful version of those in the first two columns listed. Defeat Law and Defeat Chaos would apply to any Lawful or Chaotic creature respectively. I also added Slay Undead, Slay Giant, Slay Troll, Slay Lycanthropes, Slay *Stoners and Slay Dragon.
*Slay monsters that can turn you to stone. 🤣
Note especially that Special Purpose Magic Swords will always pursue their agenda and any, any attempt to go counter to them will cause a Key Situation Check. So be careful what you wish for, you might not like it when you get it.
This was previously noted, but is well worth reminding you of. In later years I deviated form this and gave more swords and some other weapons damage bonuses as well.
Tomorrow we will look at Armor, Miscellaneous Weapons and perhaps even Potions.
Today is Part 46 (Part B) of my series of looks at OD&D starting with Monsters & Treasure Volume 2.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Now we will continue on with Explanations of Magic Items - specifically looking at Magic Swords & Egoism:
As I noted in my previous post I used a minimum of a 7 Intelligence for my Magic Swords so they all have an Egoism rating. I did the same thing with Egoism, instead of rolling a d12 I used 1d6+6 for a range of 7-12. My players were make aware that with all great and powerful magic items come risks as well as rewards. Sometimes it is best to pass up an item rather than try to possess it.
IMO these five things that a Magic Swords might do adds a lot to a campaign and it does encourage the use of other weapons as well. That is part of the reason I realigned treasure to decrease the percentage of swords as part of the total and increase the miscellaneous weapons percentage.
Of course what every character wants is to be in a true rapport or attunded to a Sword, which allows the full use of the weapon. I tell players that a Magic Sword will know your true character and motivations better than anyone else in the adventuring party. If you and the Sword are not on the same page it can get ugly.
Let us look at how that plays out.
Looking at how this is done with the Strength and Intelligence of the character, think about how you would tweak this if you use Greyhawk and have Extraordinary Strength. When we get to the Greyhawk Supplement, I will show you what I did.
Next up is Egoism in Continuing Relationship with the User. This puts an interesting twist on things.
Yes, that does put a new light on it, does it not. So if the Magic Sword is Egoism of 12 and the Fighting-Man is 4th level, then the Magic Sword will prevail in all General and in all Key Situations. So for instance it could compel you to fight that Troll by yourself, or charge into battle while scouting instead of reporting back to the rest of the group, etc. Also that Fighting-Man only achieves a 25% chance in General situations, but does gain a check in Key Situations at levels 7-10. At levels 11, 12, and 13 the Fighting-Man would have a 50/50 chance and doing any stress situation check both ways. At levels 13-17 it would go 75% to way of the character and check the Key Situations. At 18th level and up then the character prevails in most cases, except IMO when the character is badly wounded and under severe mental strain from magic.
On the plus side, I allow these Magic Swords, where they and the character are in true rapport, to aid the character against mental attacks such as Charm Person, Illusions and many others.
Now we come to the Origin and Purpose of Swords. Those Magic Swords that have a Purpose are very powerful indeed and go beyond other Swords, so much so that I consider them to be Artifacts and back in those days I devised some very powerful Swords.
I changed it to a score of 86 or higher. Note that Intelligence and Egoism are automatically moved to the maximum score as well as gaining an additional ability. These Swords are not to be messed with.
What makes the paralyzation and the disintegration so powerful? As saving throws are defined back in Volume 1, Men and Magic, these effects do not get a saving throw because they are from a Magic Sword, which is not identified as in that section as something you get saving throw from. That is the way that I interpret it and I am comfortable with that. And yes, monsters use magic weapons too!
There are only six purposes listed above and I added some detail to that list. A Lawful Sword would seek to Slay the Chaotic version of those in the first two columns listed and a Chaotic Sword would seek to Slay the Lawful version of those in the first two columns listed. Defeat Law and Defeat Chaos would apply to any Lawful or Chaotic creature respectively. I also added Slay Undead, Slay Giant, Slay Troll, Slay Lycanthropes, Slay *Stoners and Slay Dragon.
*Slay monsters that can turn you to stone. 🤣
Note especially that Special Purpose Magic Swords will always pursue their agenda and any, any attempt to go counter to them will cause a Key Situation Check. So be careful what you wish for, you might not like it when you get it.
Tomorrow we will look at Armor, Miscellaneous Weapons and perhaps even Potions.
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