Better Magic Swords in D&D 

In my current OD&D campaign, a chaotic fighter PC discovered a powerful intelligent lawful sword. it did "zap" him when he picked it up, but he now wields it. The sword empathically communicated to him that he must change his ways in order to unlock the sword's full power. Since then he has made it his mission to become lawful. A great "test" is coming that will allow the PC to truly change his alignment and bring the sword's great power to bear.

Orcrist and Glamdring, known colloquially as Biter and Beater; forged in Gondolin in the First Age. Thorin kept Orcrist, and it was buried with him after the Battle of Five Armies. Gandalf carried Glamdring throughout his later adventures. Both were found in the hoard of the three trolls - Bert, Tom and William - in The Hobbit.

In my campaign world, which is relatively low-magic, weapons and armor are not even magical until they have a +3 or higher bonus. +1 and +2 weapons and armor do exist, but they are very high quality items, and very valuable, yet not enchanted with any magic. When it comes to magic weapons and armor, they always have a special purpose in their creation, and thus always have one or more special powers, and they often scale in power with the wielder, gaining additional powers as their owners level up. The party, which is now at 15h level, each have one signature magic weapon, but they have yet to discover any magic armor. They do all have either +1 or +2 armor, and again these items are master-work quality constructed of a variety of special materials (adamantine, mithral, cold iron, etc.), but they are non-magical.

Similarly, my magic swords reveal their powers to the wielder as they gain certain levels of experience. Essentially their powers lay dorment until the wielder is worthy of its power and aligns with the swords goals. The fighter might understand that it is of magical nature, but will not be made aware of its capabilities . That said, since my magic swords have a "backstory", the fighter might invest in hiring a sage to determine the weapons history and its potential powers. Its also fun to have a flame tongues abilities for instance, lay dorment until it encounters a creature that is affected by its secondary powers and see how the player reacts when their sword suddenly bursts into flame when they encounter that deadly troll they feared would be the downfall of the party...

You know, I looked up Magic Swords online while listening. I can confirm, the Bishops of old did use maces and bludgeoning weapons for some reason, Ordo being a famous example I believe from what I have heard. The bludgeoning to avoid bloodshed...I have read from La Phillipa and the Battle of Beauvois, misspelled likely, that a Bishop wielding a mace would go about, bash people on the head, take prisoners concussed and stunned, and hand off the prisoner to another knight to claim. Reason being the Church was not supposed to partake in war, and I believe I have read they cannot see the sight of blood, rather than shed or spill blood. But that extreme of not seeing blood would imply not spilling it. And maces can really shatter a helmet, but then leave the man underneath intact. Capture weapon as well then. I do like how you believed Swords of Magic made Fighting Man unique. Yeah, that is interesting, and there is a lot that can be done with the Magic Sword and Intelligent Swords. Imagine how the Sword is intelligent and speaks a rare ancient language unknown in the world later on, and the sword is first needed to read the ancient language throughout the ruins and the tombs. Bravo! A wonderful item for a quest. The idea of Swords taking possession of people and giving power causes me to imagine a Class that is like the Aasimar, where the Sword and Warrior are One, in terms of modern classes of later editions really I guess.

Fire and wind come from the sky, from the gods of the sky. But Crom is your god, Crom and he lives in the earth. Once, giants lived in the Earth, Conan. And in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Crom, and they took from him the enigma of steel. Crom was angered. And the Earth shook. Fire and wind struck down these giants, and they threw their bodies into the waters, but in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield. We who found it are just men. Not gods. Not giants. Just men. The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts. This you can trust. Conan the Barbarian (1982).

In Arelith there is a sword called Sword of Benwick which grew from a dagger into a short sword then a longsword, and finally into a two hander as it slew more and more evil beings. I love these interesting swords. They are role playing gold.

Excellent Enjoyed that Daniel I Dm'd a one shot with one player who ran a Paladin with an intelligent Holy sword plus intelligent armour and shield these had the souls of previous companions of his order and it was based on an idea of Rogue Trooper from 2000ad Also for a 'war story' checkout Seth Skorkowsky's 'Bonesaw' Episode In Dark Ages Britain there where seven kingdoms Wessex ,Mercia etc and it was rumoured in myth all kings had companion swords and it was titled 'seven swords of the Heptarchy'

Can’t wait to listen!

When I first started playing AD&D way back 30+ years ago, my Thief character was afraid to pick up any magical sword because of the stories I heard of swords being intelligent and taking over.

Great video. I've never used intelligent swords. My main reservation is thematic. I usually present magic arms and armor as products of long forgotten elder craftsmanship, but otherwise keep the game's focus on the pcs and npcs rather than the gear. However, there is a lot of value in having swords with magical powers given that fighters are otherwise somewhat plain.

This is awesome! I'm definitely going to use this in my games for sure! Imagine Carousing with a crazy egotistical sword the Mishaps and Mischief that would involve comedy gold😆

Three rings for elven kings under the sky Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone Nine for mortal men doomed to die One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne in the lands of Mordor where the shadows lie.

Didn’t pass out this time ;) Great ideas - particularly about the fighter being captured by orcs and then being helped out by the orc lord taken over by heir sword! I need to bring back intelligent swords.

Great stuff Daniel. Always hated 'generic magic sword'. Like your idea of having them all have some Int. Just rolled up one on a Friday night with my Xpert rules. It has been years since we used an intelligent sword. Running my grandson thru B11, B12. Then homebrew stuff.

Love the content! I've always been reluctant / judicious in handing out swords with ego and communication. In the course of a long running campaign, there is usually at least one, but my issue is, firstly, in games with a lot of NPCs its one more character I have to remember and perform. Secondly, I'm reluctant to take away player agency in a game where player agency is already threatened by spells and effects like charm, geas, quest, and fear, to name a few. All that said, they still show up. Its a core experience to the game, its exciting for players to find and interact with and makes great stories and memories. I just don't like making them so frequent that they seem common. I have other magic items intelligent as well. One player has a bag of holding with the spirit of a merchant from a bygone age who makes quips now and then, who says his name is Holden. (A bag of Holden).Consider also The One Ring that seemed to have a mind of its own. I like the swords made for dwarves, elves, and Men idea, but I imagine such a blade would accept any wielder who advanced its cause.

In James Spahn's 'Hero's Journey" game, points accumulated by player during leveling can be used to buy 'aspects' for weapons. I think the earlier edition of the game also allowed swords to gain 'bane' status by slaying multiple foes of the same type.

I just got it -alignment language is learned at home and church as a child. A language of virtue signals, home-speech and learned norms. A language of unwritten rules similar to thieves cant being a street dialect that crooks are familiar with.

Daniel, the poem goes: Ash Nazg Durbatuluk, Ash Nazg Gimbatul, Ash Nazg Thrakatuluk, Agh Burzum-Ishi Krimpatul.

Great video Daniel. This is a great way to make magic swords more interesting and dynamic. It gives the game another dimension and depth. Looking forward to trying this out.

Great video Daniel. Chuck full of insight and great ideas as usual!

I do have an idea for a legendary sword for the very end of the homebrew campaign I'm running: it would have to be the conclusion of several quests meant to retrieve the pieces of the sword, and to find the experts who could mend it. It is a longsword made of bronze, with the blade having a blueish colour. When used, the blade becomes searing hot, able to cut through metal like a hot knife through butter, yet it will still not transmit heat unless directly touched. The sword can glimpse into the immediate future, and thus allows the user to pretty much fight with clairvoyance, evading strikes and preparing their own attacks even as they have yet to happen. I'm not sure for stats, since we're still far away from the end game, but I definitely was thinking of making the sword have fire damage and an AC bonus. Of course, it would be an incredibly powerful weapon: in the setting I created this sword is essentially a superweapon. It is said that a single warrior wielding it could fight entire armies alone, only eventually losing due to their mortal stamina.

Glamdring, Orcist, Sting, even Excalibur.. all great magic swords. But Stormbringer, c’mon! THAT was a magic sword with an attitude, a personality, and it definitely had an agenda. 😁 Great video Daniel.. top 3!

Navin R. Johnson finally learned his special purpose in The Jerk movie! He wasn't talking about a sword though.

I need to get Blackrazor in my game sometime... Also this is all great. Every magic weapon I have made has a backstory. I have 5e 7th level players using +1 weapons because they have neat powers and stories beyond just the +1. I fumbled around with intelligence and ego, but my implementation just wasn't working (I was still pretty new and my implementation was a bit heavy-handed). This is quite helpful!

Fantastic video and content

Thanks for your videos, man. You are great!

I would like to add more when I have time but this maybe your best video ever

Hell yeah. Just recently started getting into DCC. Great video

Yes!

Great video! I've never used intelligent swords in any game I've run, but now I want to.

Thanks for the video.

I like these ideas!

Very interesting ideas. I love the push/pull of magic items that confer power to the user but need to be appeased.

A fun principle in Stormbringer/Elric! is that every magic item is inhabited by a demon. Not necessarily a big one with extravagant demands, but they have some more or less strange and silly need that appeases them. Smearing them in perfume, sacrificing a little pig blood on them etc.

Damn so good Dan!

This video completely changed my mind about intelligent swords. So much of the culture around fantasy gaming is about sifting through the dregs of a greater age; what better way to illustrate that then include a magic item who is smart enough to have an •opinion• about the lost ancient world?

I like 3.5/Pathfinder's magic weapon system, but I do miss some of the old abilities and features of magic items. I've never really been fond of having to roll against a magic item's ego and what-not, but it does make for great roleplay. I love how Palladium Fantasy and Rifts handled magic weapons. In Palladium Fantasy, magic weapons enjoy various bonuses and can have special properties (including a rare few that allow the weilder limited use of spells), but are never intelligent. They are also generally only craftable by Alchemist NPCs, as their creation requires several different sets of expertise that a PC probably isn't going to live long enough to acquire (Palladium/Rifts' multiclassing also kind of blows). Nonetheless, such items are available on the market. Rune weapons, on the other hand, are almost always intelligent, enjoy several bonuses and are indestructible, and all have a certain number of special powers unique to rune items. The catch is that nobody (outside of a few gods and dark entities) makes them anymore because the knowledge of their creation has been forbidden, as a result of each rune weapon requiring the soul(s) of a powerful living creature (dragons, demons, demigods etc). To purchase one would require a king's ransom, millions of gold coins. They can only be used by creatures of similar alignment, and only gods can use more than one rune item at a time. Each has a personality and its own motivations. In Rifts, magic items are much less common as a result of the setting having supertech weaponry, but Rune items are still being made on Earth and in other dimensions. The GM is encouraged to give each rune item its own personality and treat it like an NPC under their control until the player is ready to take over (though I usually leave it up to my players right away).

I've loved intelligent swords the moment I first heard about how they works in OD&D. In my games all magic weapons, not just swords, are intelligent, with an alignment, a d6 of intelligence for each + (so the full human range, 3-18 for +3 weapons) and ego. Powerful weapons, especially those with special purposes, become more plot points or even threats, rather than just gear upgrades for the party, like this ancient elven bow, crafted during a legendary war between the elves and dwarves, that would constantly try to force its wielder to shoot their dwarven comrade, or a chaotic life stealing dagger that nearly corrupted a PC, convincing the rest of the party to throw it overboard while at sea to be rid of it.

Something to remember in BX is that only about a third of scrolls are spell scrolls, most are things like protection scrolls or treasure maps.

I’m making this a system for magic items in my campaign. This is how magic should function.

Dungeon Crawl Classics has really cool rules for Magic Swords, just another reason I love that system so much.

The table for determining the Intelligence Score and powers for a Magic Sword [p59 BECMI (1983) Expert Rules], is set up to allow all swords to have an intelligence score and powers.

Not a sword, but an intelligent item story. My very first character, Caddik (halfelf, Thief, AD&D) acquired a magical ring. It had several great powers (luck, detect traps, healing, The Last Wish, NOT invisibility, etc,) but its mission was to destroy itself. It needed the wearer to find out how (the ring didn't know how,) and had abandoned former wearers when it became clear that they had no intention of destroying such a keen find. Caddik, being both sympathetic and Chaotic, did his best to find out how to destroy the ring, but we never got to finish the campaign. The ring, who never got a name, had a personality reminiscent of Marvin the Paranoid Android.

A sword should be able to have an Alignment without needing Intelligence. A class of magic swords forged with elemental Chaos? That sounds like old-school fantasy to me. Even if it doesn't have any other powers or abilities, the Law or Chaos aura should have mechanical and social consequences. Your videos provoke alot of thought. Very good stuff, sir.

I really appreciate this idea. I'm just going to write it into the fighter class. What would be an appropriate level? 3rd, 4th, 5th? The magic weapon invades the dreams of the fighter. It has chosen them as their bearer, it urges the fighter to seek it out. To prove their worthiness and ascend to the pinnacle of warriorhood. Perhaps even compel the bearer into combat with other bearers to prove the weapon's superiority. There can be only one...wait a minute...

Interesting you talk about a sword vs Undead. I had a player who had found a sword vs Undead, the group later fought some level undead , supposed minions of a Vampire Lord. The sword wanted to seek the Vampire out. The Fighter reasoned with the sword- the group was not powerful enough YET. If a confrontation was forced, the Fighter would die, the sword would lay in a dusty tomb for a century, or worse. If the Vampire found out the swords purpose, the blade would be destroyed. The sword agreed to wait....for now.

Well if you look back in time to say Chainmail 2nd Ed. (Or was it man on man?) with respect to who can enter fantastic combat and how, I think we can see how OD&D arrives at the conventions it does around swords, scroll and say bows/magic arrows and such. All that said, I love adding ego swords just from the standpoint of it being one of the funnest types of ncps to play. Thanks for the video! Oh, I almost forgot to point out the non-Vancian magic added to a (non-magician) PC by virtue of a sword.

It was in the Hobbit, they found Glamdring the foe hammer & Orcrist the goblin cleaver! Make 9 swords for mortal men, 4 for the Dwarf lords, And 3 for the Elves.

You can judge that the bonus (+/- 1, 2, 3) on the attack, may be related to the construction. How much easier is it to manipulate the weapon, is its center of gravity right? Regarding the damage, it will be related to the distribution of force or the ability to cause damage to the target. If it is a blade, is it sharp? Is it free of weaknesses like rust? There are several variables to be defined by the master, since another aspect would be the narrative question versus the defensive capacity. Even this can encourage more interaction from the players to the master, who should be fair and show where the bonus is coming from, whether it is narrative or explicit. Leave here the youtube video recommendation of Tod's Workshop: - Does a greased shaft penetrate deeper? - Do sharp arrow heads really matter?

I like this idea of all magic swords being extremely special, even the lowly +1 blade.

WotC 3e system had an easier magic item creation system, instead of being a 13th-level able to cast Enchant An Item, it can be done by a 3rd-level spellcaster with the feat Craft Wonderous Item. We just bend the rules to throw a bunch of laying effects. Stone spear of hunting, spells were True Strike granting a +20 insight bonus on attack roll, Magic Weapon granting a +1 to hit/dmg along with durability, and Mend to repair any dmg to the weapon. So a stone age 3rd-level shaman/druid or sorcerer as a strait single class character or multiclass PC. Basic any spell under 3rd-level, playing around with 2nd-level spells. It is fun to run one mini campaign and then have those low power items show up as Easter eggs in a later campaign.

The +1, +3 vs particular creature property exists in the 3rd edition context as the Bane weapon property. Not sure if or how it was translated in 4th and beyond.

I could be wrong, but I think it is, "3 rings were given to the Elves, wisest, and fairest of Middle-Earth's inhabitants. 7 to the Dwarf Lords, whose grand kingdoms spread under mountains. 9 to the Kings of men, whose hearts could be swayed by greed. And finally one ring was made to rule them all." Or something like that...

DMs such as yourself who are careful to track the passage of time with a date book could create swords that behave differently depending on what day or time it is. For example, you could have a lawful sword that only "awakens" during the day, or a chaotic sword that can only be unsheathed during certain phases of the moon. Tracking the moon could be fun for casters as well - maybe a certain spell works better when the moon is full, something like that.

I like these ideas. But I'll be adding in all martial weapons

Great videos all around, been a fan for several months. However, audio volume is fairly low on your vids vs rest of RU-vid. I have audio recording experience if you need any help. Anyway, keep up the great content!

I usually move away from magic swords. Instead of constantly giving away swords, the players find a magical crossbow, a magical mace, magical spears etc. There are magical swords, but it's just as likely going to be a magical whip. Their last find in Esoteric Enterprises was a magical glock. The rules, like in a few other OSR games, doesn't limit weapons by class or even limit armour. A wizard can swagger around with kevlar and a shotgun just fine. But a proper fighter is the only one with an attack bonus, and the hp to stand up front and endure a firefight. Wizards who grab the coolest magical baton they can find get second thoughts about that.

you should look at intelligent swords in the expert set of BECMI page 59.

Wow lots of quest ideas here with even the 'simple' magic swords. Imagine a 'treasure hunter' sword and who would want it

Where do you get the art for your thumbnails?

Does the name of the sword correspond to who the Elf was, in life, who now inhabits it? Similarly, if an Elf is of two spirits - does the sword contain one? Both? Was it forged by one to serve the other? Is there a matched set of soul-enchanted articles, each half of the Elf, that do something special when combined?

This all sounds good, but then what happens to Ye Olde Magickal Sworde Factorie?

I really like what you’ve done here but I might take it one step further. Accepting that all swords are intelligent, etc. what if there were no repeat swords? Sword +1; only one, sword +1,+3 vs. insects; only one. Thus each sword becomes unique, almost an artifact. Could even be done with other magic items (I would exclude scrolls and potions from that restriction).

Gygax created alignments as languages, items are crafted in such languages. Players can only use items that match the alignment language they know.

I understand that magic swords are only useable by fighters- but consider that Sting was a magic sword that was used by a hobbit/halfling. Would you allow the demi races to gain access to magic swords in keeping with this trope? Curious. Thanks

I really like the thumbnail. Where is it from?

As worried as some would he fighting against that Chaos Special Purpose Sword ...causing stoning.... Well in the Original Rules....that would be DISINTEGRATE.

Scrolls are the highest percentage. I have never seen (except when I play) a PC caster write a scroll. Come on guys!

15 or better on a d20 is 30%. 😉

Everything you said about magic swords makes me remember why I love the barbarian class from UA, desire to destroy magic swords haha, in my experience intelligent magic items are bad...for the character

Magic Swords can get very jealous. Why did you finish the monster off with the dagger? I'm not good enough? You don't love me anymore?

The magic sword. This is why clerics don’t get blades.

15 or greater on a d20 is 30%

Why not apply the same rules to weapons besides swords. Spears, battle axes etc.

What about Paladins? Can they use magic swords? Elf souls in a sword used by a Paladin? Sounds Anti-Paladin 🤣 (Shadowknight; Blackguard; Dark Knight; etc).

It's too much.