Warrior Spirit, A Fun Trick For The Pathfinder Fighter's Advanced Weapon Training

Fighters are one of my favorite classes because there are so many different ways to play them. Are you a tactician, using placement and teamwork to enhance your battle plan? Are you a brute, swinging the biggest weapon you can and leaving a trail of bodies? A nimble fencer who relies on pinpoint precision over power? An archer? A one-man barricade behind your tower shield?

The list goes on.

And let's not forget the prize fighters!

I thought I'd seen most of the tricks you could pull off with fighters. However, there's always a combination out there that surprises me. That's why I thought I'd share this one with all the other folks who enjoy this class as much as I do.

Unlocking Your Warrior Spirit!

Weapon training is something of a fighter's bread and butter. The ability to be extra dangerous with a particular group of weapons is a lot of where both your flavor and functionality come from. Normally when you hit level 9 you can opt to choose an additional group of weapons you're skilled with... but you also have the option to take an advanced weapon training special ability. This ability typically applies to any weapon in the group(s) you already wield, and they allow you to bend (and sometimes break) the rules for what a warrior should be capable of.

That's where the advanced weapon training option Warrior Spirit comes into the picture.

You ready to do this?

Warrior Spirit allows a fighter to pick any weapon from one of his weapon training groups, and unlock its true potential via a spiritual bond. Every day he can select one such weapon, and bond with it. The fighter gains a number of points equal to his weapon training bonus +1. While wielding that weapon the fighter may choose to spend one of those points to add an enhancement to his weapon equal to his weapon training bonus. These enhancement bonuses stack up to a +5 with any bonuses the weapon already has, and the fighter may choose instead to add one magic ability to his weapon in exchange for an appropriate amount of his bonus. The weapon must already have an enhancement bonus of at least +1 for that to work. This ability lasts for 1 minute.

What does that mean in common speech? Well, say that your fighter is 9th level, and picks up a regular old longsword, a weapon that is in their weapon training group. So in addition to their normal attack and damage bonuses they get with that weapon, they also have 3 points per day to activate this ability. So they can choose to spend one of their points to make that regular longsword a +2 longsword, or they could make it a +1 flaming longsword spending one enhancement bonus point to add a +1 magic ability to a weapon.

But what if the fighter already had a magic longsword? Well, then he could, say, make it a keen longsword by cashing in his enhancement bonus for that +2 magic ability. Or he could make it a holy longsword. Or add a +1 to the enhancement, and pick a +1 magic ability like shock, keen, flaming, etc.

In short, it allows the fighter to enhance their weapon the same way a paladin's holy bond or a magus's arcane pool would. However, unlike those classes, the fighter can add any weapon property they want, instead of picking off a specific list. Which is handy... but that isn't where this particular trick ends.

A Little Extra

This trick works best if you're going to focus on a single weapon group. Or, if you want to pick only a single weapon by taking the Weapon Master archetype, that works too.

So what you do is, as soon as you gain weapon training (5th level for standard fighters), you also take the feat Advanced Weapon Training. This allows you to add Warrior Spirit to your character at 5th level instead of 9th level, where you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck. If you're a Weapon Master, you can take this feat at 4th level.

If you want to add a little extra damage to your swings, you should also invest a few of your skill points into Use Magic Device (and if you're going to sling wands and scrolls, consider taking the background trait Dangerously Curious, too, to make it a class skill and to get a +1 trait bonus on your checks). Then at your next opportunity, take Weapon Evoker Mastery. This item mastery feat allows you to supercharge any elemental damage a weapon you wield deals. You spend a swift action to activate the feat, and then for the next round you add 1d4 of elemental damage to every successful strike (the element in question corresponding to whether your weapon deals acid, cold, fire, electricity, or sonic damage). The sheer number of attacks you can make as a fighter (and the number of types of elemental damage you can have on your weapon) can quickly add up... even if an enemy isn't weak against a particular element.

A Handy Trick

As with a lot of the mechanical tricks I have here in the Crunch section, this isn't something that will completely re-invent the fighter. And, at least by itself, it won't destroy an encounter. However, the ability to spontaneously alter your weapon to have the abilities you really need it to have when the chips are down is something that can pull your bacon out of the fire. Especially if you combine this trick with an already-solid build geared toward a particular fighting style.

Just a little food for thought!

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Just How Old Is Your Loot? Tips For DMs Trying To Spice Up Treasure Hoards

Your heroes have traversed the burning desert, evaded the traps in the bloody labyrinth, and fought their way to the throne room of the Ralthus, the vampire warlord. The undead warrior has been reduced to little more than dust and sand, and the party turns to his collections of treasures... which is around the time you start rolling on the charts, and tossing out whatever loot they find.

And you find *dice rattle* a +2 dagger, and 25 gold pieces.

If this part of the game always feels like a kink in your story's flow, you might want to take a moment to try and make your treasure feel authentic to where your party found it, and how long it's been there, instead of just rattling off a spreadsheet of valuables.

How Treasure Hoards Are Formed

Lots of creatures in fantasy RPGs have treasure hoards. Dragons are perhaps the most infamous for the practice, but trolls, ogres, goblins, kobolds, and even undead lords all have treasures in their lairs. The reasons why should be obvious, but we rarely think about it. You see, treasure accumulates either because the creatures seek out (or occasionally create) powerful items, or because adventurers have been killed by the creatures, and their enchanted items stayed where they fell.

This is the reason you find an ancient sword in a troll's lair, just laying on the floor. It's also why you find talismans of great power in the strongholds of necromancers. These items don't just magically appear when you win a fight; they represent the wealth (either purposeful or accidental) of the creatures you've defeated.

Which, as a DM, is a great storytelling hook that often gets overlooked.

Just How Long Has This Stuff Been Here?

I'm not suggesting that you lay out a hoard with the meticulous care that you do the dungeon the party has to go through to reach it. Down that road lies madness, However, by scattering a few details here and there when it comes time to reward your party, you can turn something that often devolves into a bunch of bookkeeping into a great roleplaying experience.

 

I found a WHAT now?

What sort of details could you throw around though? After all, treasure is treasure... right?

Well, if that treasure is only a few years old, then sure, it's going to be recognizable. But what about treasure that's been sitting in a hoard for decades? Or centuries? What about treasure that made its way to this hoard from a far away land, or which is from empires that don't exist anymore?

For example, let's say your mid-level party has descended into the corrupt necropolis, and smashed skulls until the dead went back to sleep, and the malevolent influence hanging over the tombs departed. What was left behind? Sure, there's probably gold and silver, but who minted those coins? The metal they're made of is good, but a coin with a face you don't recognize is an intriguing detail that will catch some players' imaginations. Especially if you can link those coins back to your world's history, or to your future plot, in some way. Perhaps there are weapons, but if those weapons were buried with the dead in ages past, what do they look like now? Are they pristine, their magic pushing back the forces of decay, or are they waiting beneath the ashes and dust to be discovered? And do these weapons look or feel different from the enchantments of today? For particularly potent weapons, especially named weapons, is the magic laced within them beyond what even the most powerful wizards could create in this day and age?

There are dozens of minor details you can add to your party's loot to make it unique, and to really bring across that the threat they defeated has not been challenged in many years. A shield whose crest belongs to a nation a thousand years in the dust, or armor whose protective enchantments are written in a dead language known only to a few scholars. A breastplate distinctive of a knightly order who is only known today in children's stories of long ago valor. Distinctive patterns of forging or creation thought lost to time (similar to the patterns of Toledo or Damascus steel) would make weapons even more unique, and give players a sense that they aren't just holding a pile of interchangeable numbers. They're holding a piece of the game world's history in their hands.

Don't Roll For The Important Stuff

Every DM has his or her own style, and not everyone is good at off-the-cuff description. Some DMs need to think things through, and write it down long before the party ever gets there. Which is fine. However, take my advice on this one; if you want to create unique descriptions for the treasure your party finds, come up with it in advance. That way you know what's in the room, and you have your descriptions primed and ready for when someone asks what they find.

Do you draw the serpent blade when you find it?

Also, if you're looking for more advice on this particular subject, check out my previous posts Alternatives to Traditional Magic Weapons and Armor, as well as How To Keep Your Magic Items From Getting Mundane.

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Alternatives To Traditional Magic Weapons and Armor

There's nothing quite like that moment where your characters get their first magic weapons. Whether it's a longsword crackling with lightning, a glowing bow that fires with a choral thrum, or a shotgun that booms with a thunderclap, chances are it was your character's most treasured possession for months. You went on adventures with it, saved the day with it, and it became part of your character's signature look.

At least until you found something more powerful.

You fought well old friend, but you're just not a +2 weapon.

It happens in every game; your first magic item is a life-changing experience, but pretty soon even the most wondrous weapons and amazing armors become nothing more than a collection of numbers and abilities. Worse though, you usually have to end up exchanging huge piles of gold for them. It's the only way to keep the game balanced though; if players didn't have to pay a wizard to enchant their weapons and armor then the whole game would be unbalanced.

Wouldn't it?

Not really.

You see the mechanic of treating a magic weapon or suit of armor like any other good, with a value that can be measured in gold pieces, is functional. If it wasn't then so many roleplaying games wouldn't use it. However, for storytellers who are sick to death of how these awe-inspiring items become no more impressive than buying rations or a bedroll, here are some alternative suggestions for getting magic items into the hands of the party.

If you'd like suggestions for making your magic items just seem more special, then read How To Keep Your Magic Items From Getting Mundane.

Don't Let Players Buy Magic Weapons or Armor

Now I know what you're thinking, but hold up a moment. I'm not advocating that you force your players to partake in a world with no magic; that would completely eliminate the point. What I'm saying is that you need to take away your players' abilities to just exchange hard currency for whatever they want out of the back of the book.

I bought this at a hock shop for $500.

Magic items are supposed to be fairly rare in the first place; it's what makes them so special. Lots of players just walk into every town like there's an epic weapon emporium right next to the inn though, and if you want to keep your players on their toes you need to curb that behavior right away.

If you want to be a kind storyteller then you can put magic items in your shops, but make players really look for them. Perhaps what a merchant thinks is simply a monstrously fine sword is actually a weapon engraved with dwarven runes of power to make it burn brightly when drawn in battle. Maybe the local smith has a weapon he keeps only for special customers, locked away in the back for those willing to pay for its true value. Or it might be possible for characters to wheedle a favor from a wizard's college or a learned spellsmith, if the character is willing to pay the price demanded.

That's if you want to be nice.

What if I'm all out of nice?

If you don't want to be nice to your players then make them work extra hard for their magic items. Make them fight creatures for them, or give them specific magic items as quest rewards. Make them win a tourney of champions, or seek out a mythical smith in the haunted forest. Have the party defeat the Lord of the Dread Marsh in order to take up his enchanted helm and flail. If you do that it becomes clear that enchanted tools represent things money simply cannot buy.

Alternatively if a party member wants a flaming sword, then make him perform a ritual where he plunges a masterwork blade deep into the flames of a sacred volcano while chanting an ancient incantation. If someone wants a lighting lance then make her charge the top of a mountain and survive being struck by bolts from the heavens. These solutions allow players who want more story to still get magic items without taking craft feats or chiding the party wizard to please, pretty please, make something shiny for them. It also means that you can't stop in at local farming village #356 and walk out with celestial armor and a holy avenger.

Ancestral Weapons

Despite the name, an ancestral weapon doesn't have to be handed down within a family or a clan; the name refers to weapons that have acquired a legend of their own through long use. As an example, many vorpal weapons were never enchanted as such (at least in older editions of Dungeons and Dragons), but they gained this quality due to the sheer number of heads they'd taken from both the wicked and the wrongly convicted. Everything from Wyatt Earp's 6-gun to the Sword of Charlemagne grows larger when wielded by someone whose legend has grown long.

I'm sure there are other examples... somewhere...

This mechanic means a storyteller avoids the whole "go to a special shop and commission an enchanted weapon" mechanic entirely, and it allows weapons and armor to get special histories of their own. The holy sword found in a treasure trove might have been handed down a certain line of priest kings, whose piety made it more than just sharpened steel. A bow might have been carried by a series of famous outlaws whose chaotic lives imprinted in the grain of the wood over long use. Even a spiked gauntlet worn as a symbol of rank by ancient generals might begin to buzz with the energies and wisdom of a hundred great commanders, taking on effects for those who wear it today.

Old Fashioned Magic

Both high and low fantasy have some pretty epic examples of enchanted weapons, and they always come with intricate rituals and rare components. These weapons or suits of armor come with names and looks, and a complete pedigree of how they were made and where they came from. Like the greatsword Starbreaker, forged from the last gasp of a dying star fallen from the heavens, and hammered on the altar of Gorum for seven days and seven nights. Quenched in sacrificial oils the sword burned white hot, and then the blade turned as black as the Lord of Iron himself. The sword's edge never dulls, and it cleaves through shields and flesh as if they were no more than morning mist.

What I just described is an adamantine greatsword +1. But how much cooler did it sound?

It bears a passing resemblance to another famous sword.

Some magic items are made with certain components, while others are created by certain events. If you want to power up your party then use that to get players deeper into the game.

Let's say you have a barbarian who is particularly devout. There's no mechanical bonus for it, but the player is going to the hilt with her character's devotions to Sarenrae. The character arises every morning, prays, sharpens her sword, and dances to welcome the burning light of another day. Say that the party is later fighting undead in an underground tomb, and the barbarian dedicates each slain foe to Sarenrae; it's possible she'd begin to notice, and that the sword would glow brighter on each death. Once a cinematic moment is reached the sword bursts into flames as bright as the dawn itself, and the character attacks with all the ferocity of a desert whirlwind.

That's a lot cooler than just paying 4k gold for a +1 flaming sword. It also comes with the potential for the character to lose the goddess's favor if she strays too far from the fervor that granted her the weapon in the first place.

For characters who are less devout then it's possible for pure circumstance to leave weapons changed. A weapon that's killed a hundred lycanthropes might become a bane weapon, for instance. A blade that deals the death blow to a dragon might absorb some of the wyrm's power in the form of an enchantment appropriate to the creature's breath weapon. A weapon which always seems to deliver critical blows might become keen-edged, or perhaps actively try to suck the life force out of those it kills, depending on the wielder and the situations it's been used in.

For players who want the experience of making a magical weapon there's always the use of rare components. The hunt for star metal is well known, but what else might soak magic into steel? Quenching the blade in dragon's blood and bile? Heating a forge with the bones of great warriors so the steel absorbs their power (this was something some ancient peoples actually frigging did!)? Perhaps having a sword forged by a blind man, or a prophet, or a virgin priestess is the secret to making it powerful?

Whatever mystical dingus you want to use for your magic items it will make players appreciate how hard they are to get. Not only that, but a player will be a lot less likely to forego the trusty Razor Tusk, the weapon that killed the last of the great orc chieftains in the Black Tooth Wars just because another sword crops up that gives him an extra +1.

And even if the new sword gets drawn, the old one will never leave its place of honor on that warrior's hip.

One More Thing...

Also, before you go, I wanted to show you this.

Willy Shakes just telling it like it is.

This is the latest example of gear you can get at my store. If you want to check out the full Shakespeare click here, and a complete list of my shirts can be found by clicking the link for Literary Mercenary gear on the right hand side of the page. There's stuff for literary types as well as gamers, and the list keeps getting bigger so check back regularly if you don't want to miss anything.

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How to Keep Your Magic Items From Getting Mundane

You know how in video games like Diablo or World of Warcraft magic items tend to have names along with stats? More often than not though the names don't mean anything; they aren't plot relevant, they don't reference anything in the game you've encountered thus far, and they don't alter the appearance of your avatar's gear. After half a dozen levels you stop noticing the names at all, or really paying attention to anything other than the bonuses the items in question provide you.

Don't let that happen to your tabletop game.

The Problem

It happens in every game, from Pathfinder to Changeling; magic eventually becomes so commonplace and accepted that players aren't impressed by it. Whatever guise it takes, be it mutant powers, super science, holy light or incantations, the point is that things which would once have wowed your players are now expected and relegated the background information. It goes something like this:

"You find a magic sword."

"What's the bonus?"

"It's a +1 bonus."

"Pfft, I've got a +2. Toss it on the pile, we'll sell it."

Doesn't it seem like only a few levels ago a magic sword would have had the party at each other's throats for who got to keep it? Yes, part of the blase attitude is that the bonus is no longer as impressive. That said, presentation makes a world of difference when we're discussing magic items.

What Does It Look Like?

Meh, put it with the other hell globes.

Telling the party they've found a +2 longsword, or a hedgespun suit of armor doesn't really do much for the imaginative mind. On the other hand the more description you as the storyteller provide, the more real the item in question will be to the player.

Try an experiment. In the same horde have players find a "+1 magic dagger" and "an exquisite dagger wrought from blackened steel. Light shimmers across the blade like a stolen rainbow, and the soft leather of the hilt seems to mold itself to your hand." Now make them the exact same weapon, mechanically. Which one do you think players are going to want?

There are all kinds of details you can apply to magic items. Is there an inscription along the hilt or the blade? What language is it in? Does the weapon have a name (one of my personal favorites)? What material is it made of? For a mace, is the steel bright or dark? If it's a wand is it carved from wood or bone? Does the weapon feel cold to the touch or warm? Does it have a sheathe? Does it respond to being touched, and does it alter in battle?

A sword that's just a sword until it's drawn with intent to kill becoming cleaner, sharper, and making a distinctive ringing sound can make things quite interesting. For more storytelling hints, check out this blog entry on showing versus telling.

Make Them Work For It

I stab the bard with it... what happens?

Like I discussed in this previous blog entry, you should always endeavor to get your players in on the act of storytelling whenever possible. This means that you as the storyteller shouldn't just hand players magic items with nothing but a numbers description. Sure the weapon we're looking at is a +2 holy greatsword, but how do they figure that out? Does the wizard correctly identify the magic bound into the weapon? Does the bard recognize the maker's mark near the hilt, or remember a story about a brilliant, flashing sword once wielded by a paladin years and years ago in this very region? Does the fighter who worships the goddess whose holy symbol is prevalent lift the weapon and feel a tingling in her skin as the weapon recognizes one of its own?

Yes you will eventually need to tell players what the weapon's stats are. By the time you get there though, those numbers should be the icing on the cake.

Make Them Harder to Get

Can you believe they just left these laying here? All 30 of them?

By the time players hit a middling amount of power they buy magic items like every town has an enchanted steel depot. How many times have you as the storyteller heard a player say "yeah, I'm just going to upgrade my weapon from a +2 to a +3 before we head out to the dungeon."

Who's doing that? If your players are the most accomplished adventurers in the land, who is powerful enough to enchant their equipment in a backwater burg? Nobody, that's who.

What I'm not suggesting is that you refuse to let your players buy magic items, upgrade their equipment, or force everyone to take craft feats in order to make the magic themselves. But if players come to accept that every hamlet and village has a learned steel smith wise enough to increase the magic in their weapons then they won't realize how special those items really are. If someone can buy a holy avenger in the corner of any old store, then why should players be awed to find it?

Don't Be Afraid to Give Your Items a Story

There's a story behind every one of these bad boys.

Spoiler alert! In the first book of Carrion Crown your party is attacked by a possessed man from town. If you kill him then you have to deal with the fallout, but if you just knock him out the possession ends and when he awakens he realizes that he's misjudged the party. To make amends he offers them his old armor, which he wore when he was a young adventurer himself. It went to my paladin (the same guy who one-shotted a dracolich later in life), and the ST told us it was +2 ghost touch chain mail.

I could have just left it at that, but I didn't. I designed a crest on the mail, and created a specialized unit our random NPC had been a part of called the Gallows Hunters who specialized in tracking down undead and slaying unquiet ghosts. I put so much work into it that the ST occasionally had people recognize it and realize my paladin was not a man to fool with if he was wearing that armor.

Not every magic item will have an epic story, but every item should be more than just a collection of numbers. A faerie-spun surcoat with cloth woven from honor and promises that protects the wearer as long as he or she remains true is a lot cooler than just filling in some armor dots on your sheet. A rune-etched battleaxe with the names of every previous wielder down through the years engraved on the blade is just a little edgier than a dwemered wood cutting tool. Giving magic items stories of their own does more than make them interesting though; it challenges players to make that story part of their own story. Does the Bloody Blade of Balthazar eventually have it named changed because of the man who wielded the sword against its infernal creators redeemed it somehow? Does a druid become famed for carrying a staff carved from the last of a great ent tribe?

These are things that can add a lot of fun to any game, and keep players coming back for more.


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