What do the rest of you think of this magic item?

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Halaster Blackcloak
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What do the rest of you think of this magic item?

Post by Halaster Blackcloak »

Ok, don't want to give away all the details, but there is a magic sword (+3) in RoUIII that has a chance of destroying magical barriers. In the original writing, it has a percentage chance equal to its damage (rolled plus bonus) to destroy a magical barrier. Here's an example:

User rolls a 7 on 1d8, the sword has a +3 bonus, so that's a 10% chance (7+3) to destroy the wall of force the user was trying to bring down.

I'm not sure if I should double that. The average roll on d8 is 4 or 5, plus the +3 bonus (it's a +3 sword), so the average percentage chance is around 7% to 8% - not that great. Even rolling max damage gives it a mere 11% chance. Doubling that would result in an average of 14% to 18% and a max possibility of 22%.

Who here thinks the latter is better (ie doubling the percentage chance)?
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slade88green
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Post by slade88green »

I would say it depends on how effective and what types of magical barriers you want it to work on. Does it only work on "wall" spells such as wall of force, wall of stone or wal of fire? or does it go so far as prismatic wall, prismatic sphere? Perhaps there should be a limit on the level of magic it can effect. If its effecting say level 4 and under spells, double the chance, level 5-7 have the normal chance and above level 7 it does not efect. I would say that would still be a very powerful magical item to have.
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Tawnos76
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Post by Tawnos76 »

Or possibly it can be a sentient weapon and the level of barriers it can efect are equal to the wielder. If the wielder would be at a level equal to what it would take to create that level of barrier then they have a chance of removing it.
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Mira
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Post by Mira »

Having used a similar sword in the past, the way we worked it didn't have percentages, but the sword would slice the barriers. Not destroy them. So you had to cut a hole big enough for your purposes. (minimum 3 rounds to get through a barrier if you used a triangular cut)

The sword we had was +5, so it could make a 5' straight line slice in one round. There wasn't any others, but the idea was that a +3 version would cut 3' slices. (multiple attacks don't help for this)

We didn't have anything in place for higher level spells or casters, but I could see something that would reduce the amount you could cut.

An alternative might be to give the barriers a certain amount of hit points and have the wielder do that amount of damage. I think that was how the vorpal sword vs rock worked in 1E. (it wasn't JUST for lopping off heads then)

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Halaster Blackcloak
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Post by Halaster Blackcloak »

Good ideas all around! I'm trying to make it pretty simple, and its main power is to simply destroy magical barriers (all kinds, even prismatic spheres). Gave our wizard in our old FR campaign a hell of a headache! :twisted:
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