Weapons of Legacy

I find the Weapons of Legacy to be interesting and potentially powerful, if it were not for the steep drawbacks.  For my campaign, I have lifted some of the restrictions, in order to promote the use of these items.  Firstly, if you have the Weapons of Legacy book available to you, I would like to draw your attention to the sidebar entitled Summary: Discovering A Legacy Weapon on page 9.  The fifth line states that you gain the appropriate legacy feat as a bonus feat, upon performing and paying the ritual cost.  This frees your feat selection up for your character build, by not having to spend your every 3rd level feats on your item.  Spending feats just to use your legacy item is a common misconception.  Now to the changes.

On page 24, on the left hand column, you will find personal costs. 

Attack Penalty:  I believe that advancement with a legacy weapon should incur a personal cost, but not one that directly reduces the effectiveness of using the item.  I do however also believe that a Legacy Weapon, intelligent or not, will exhibit a certain amount of jealousy.  This penalty will only apply to the use of any other weapon, or form of attack, which does not include the Legacy Weapon.  This will hurt the Two-Weapon fighter more than anyone else, therefore in the case of paired legacy weapons, as is the case with Devious and Vicious, the attack penalty will be waived, as part of the complete twin synergy bonus.

Skill Check Penalty:  If I wanted to walk around with a constant penalty on skill checks, I would follow an enemy Hex Blade, and willingly fail all saves against his curse.  This penalty will only apply to the skills associated with the 2 least important abilities, of the class most closely associated with the weapon.  For example Bones of Li-Peng is obviously designed with a monk in mind.  In my opinion Intelligence and Charisma are the least important ability scores to a monk.  Therefore the penalty would only apply to Charisma and Intelligence based skill checks.  Alternatively one could apply the penalty to cross-class skills, of the class that the Legacy Item is most closely associated with. 

Save Penalty:  Read the above intro except replace Hex Blade's Curse with Black Guard's Aura of Despair.  With Caladbolg, and other weapons that reduce a specific save, there should be no change, but a hit on any, let alone all saving throws screams, "Please eat me alive, MR. Dragon!"  I believe that the hit on saves should be specific to the circumstances that one will encounter, in the completion of the legacy rituals, in order to increase the intensity of the experience.  For example, the Bow of the Black Archer requires that you go and kill drow and nasty worshipers of Lolth.  The penalty to saves, associated with the personal cost on the item should be saves versus poison.  The only elven race that can get around this is a drow, which would add quite a bit of irony and drama, to the retelling of the story.

Caster Level Penalty:  Hmm, lets take Shadow Weave Magic, and learn spells from the schools of Evocation, Transmutation, and Conjuration.  Oh yeah, make sure that you pick up all the spells with the light description as well.  This penalty should only apply to the spells from schools that you are NOT likely to use, as is the case with the above mentioned feat.  For items that incur a caster level penalty, this penalty will only apply to 3 schools.  For example, the Bright Evening Star would only cause a caster level penalty for spells cast from the schools of illusion, necromancy, and transmutation, along with spells with the darkness description.  The ring has the flavor of abjuration, conjuration, enchantment, and evocation.

Manifestor Level Penalty:  Similarly with caster level penalty, just attach a mind leech to your skull.  As above, apply the penalty to the 3 sciences that a manifestor associated with the item is least likely to use.

Hit Point Loss:  Though this might be the least favorite penalty to some players, I think that this one should remain the same.  If 3-4 hp is really going to erk you that much, take Toughness or Improved Toughness.  Alternatively a GM could allow the lost hp to be added to the hp of the Legacy item, in order to make it just a little harder to destroy.  With the potential for Legacy items to be abusive, a GM might actually have to resort to that 6 letter S word.

Skill Point Loss:  As with Hit Point Loss, this one will just have to fly.  Often times in Min/Max games, the assignment of skill points is the most tedious task in building high level characters.  This cost might actually simplify that part of character creation.  As with the above mentioned alternative, if you are founding a Legacy and take the Intelligent Legacy menu ability, a GM might allow this lost skill points to be added to the item itself.

Spell Slot Loss:  And again, spell slot loss is going to stay the same.  Alternatively a GM might allow the spell-like abilities on the item to be cast as though they were cast from a staff, utilizing the users own caster level, and applicable spell focus and spell penetration feats.