Intelligent Weapon Advancement

[sdavies2720]

One of the other threads triggered a thought for me (they come so infrequently that I have to capture them when I can). Does anyone have a good system or houserule for handling advancement, or increasing skill, for intelligent weapons?

I'm thinking something like any time it makes a crtical hit, there is a chance for advancement, say roll under it's to-hit bonus to add +1%.

But it might be interesting to have the wielding character 'donate' an advancement check to the weapon. This gives the weapon an incentive to be wielded by someone competent, for whom the skill checks mean less.

Anyone played with this?

Steve

[threedeesix]

One of the other threads triggered a thought for me (they come so infrequently that I have to capture them when I can). Does anyone have a good system or houserule for handling advancement, or increasing skill, for intelligent weapons?

I'm thinking something like any time it makes a crtical hit, there is a chance for advancement, say roll under it's to-hit bonus to add +1%.

But it might be interesting to have the wielding character 'donate' an advancement check to the weapon. This gives the weapon an incentive to be wielded by someone competent, for whom the skill checks mean less.

Anyone played with this?

Steve

I supose one way to handle it is to say becouse it's intelligent it advances like any other character. But in this case it should't give a bonus, instead, it should allow the character possessing the weapon to substitute its skill for his or her own.

So you could have an intelligent broadsword with a skill of 95%. If you only had a skill of 75% you could use its skill instead. Maybe if you had a skill over its skill of 95% you could get some type of bonus.

I'm at work right now so I cant give it more thought than this, but as Sword & Spell is going to have intelligent weapons, and I have yet to start that chapter, I will be paying close attention to this thread.

Edit: I suppose that if your using the weapons skill instead of your own, you shouldnt get a skill check with a successful roll if the weapon is doing all the work.

Rod

[Solardog]

SMART GUN

[Harshax]

If I were to rule on this, I would suggest that a) the character wielding the weapon would use either their own skill, or the skill of the weapon. Using a weapon's skill precludes the character from improving their own. c) skills advance as normal.

[Dalmuti]

I'd go so far as to say that if the character is relying on the weapon's skill all the time they actually loose skill. Just mark the skill normally and when experience rolls are made and they succeed then they loose 1% of skill. To balance this the GM should automatically return, not give, one lost skill point for each full battle the character does not rely on the weapon's skill.

Another way of dealing with it is to have a familiarity type skill that the player rolls to give up control to the weapon. The base being the characters will or POWx5: a success and the character "lets the Force flow..." (use the weapons skill), a failure and the character interferes with the weapon somehow and their skill is used instead.

Regardless, if the weapon is calling the shots, then the character should not increase in skill.

~Dalmuti

Edited February 20, 2009 by Dalmuti

[threedeesix]

I'd go so far as to say that if the character is relying on the weapon's skill all the time they actually loose skill. Just mark the skill normally and when experience rolls are made and they succeed then they loose 1% of skill. To balance this the GM should automatically return one lost skill point for each full battle the character does not rely on the weapon's skill.

I don't know about this. That seems harsh. BRP has rules for skill atrophy (or whatever its called) and I know you have to not use a skill for some time before it kicks in.

Another way of dealing with it is to have a familiarity type skill that the player rolls to give up control to the weapon. The base being the characters will or POWx5: a success and the character "lets the Force flow..." (use the weapons skill), a failure and the character interferes with the weapon somehow and their skill is used instead.

~Dalmuti

This could be cool, especially for willful weapons that don't want to be manipulated.

Rod

[rleduc]

Alternatively, the weapon could have a skill “Aid Wielder” that gave a +1% bonus for each 5%/10%/25% (depending on the GM) skill. This skill gets a check either each time the player does (this is what I would do – I tend to be more generous and less interested in bookkeeping) or each time the weapon made the difference in hitting. An example of the second option would be: PC 50% with weapon, Weapon 50% with Aid Wielder (and GM gives +1% per 10%). If the roll is between 51-55% the attack hits but the weapon gets the skill check.

[threedeesix]

I'd go so far as to say that if the character is relying on the weapon's skill all the time they actually loose skill. Just mark the skill normally and when experience rolls are made and they succeed then they loose 1% of skill. To balance this the GM should automatically return, not give, one lost skill point for each full battle the character does not rely on the weapon's skill.

~Dalmuti

On second thought this would make a cool cursed weapon. Rely on it to much and your natural skill suffers.

[Simlasa]

On second thought this would make a cool cursed weapon. Rely on it to much and your natural skill suffers.

Which would lead to a sort of 'dependency' on the cursed weapon... 'precioussssssss'

[Mechashef]

A character in a RQ3 campaign I used to play in had an intelligent sword.

It was essentially just another form of character.

It had INT and POW, and at the start of each combat the sword would attampt to overcome the wielder's MP on the resistance table. If it succeeded then it fought the battle, using its attack and parry skills.

Just like a normal character it would get experience rolls for combat success, thus increasing its combat ability.

It could communicate via a form of mindspeech, knew (and could learn more) magic. It could also gain knowledge skills, and as it had been around for a long time was pretty good at history and general world lore.

If the character won the resistance roll, he had control and his combat skills were used, but the sword still gave some benefits (such as he could direct it to cast spells).

It outlasted a few wielders, and was last seen impaled in the heart of an otherwise powerfully regenerating demon - the player has going overseas and it was a good way for him to finish - as long as the sword is in the demon it is effectively dead.

[Chaot]

I believe one of the RQ Simons had a rule for weapons that develop along with the given PC. I'm thinking it was the Krynn adaptation but the little poking around I did hasn't given me an answer. I'll poke around a bit more to see if I can find it again.

I was toying around with a 'high fantasy' version of this. I'll post it when I dig up my notes.

[sdavies2720]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. Next Friday, I'm converting long-standing RQ characters to BRP, and we have one intelligent sword in the bunch that I've never been happy how I handled -- this is a good chance to do something different.

I've used an EGO/POW contest in the past to determine who wins when choosing direction to go (Sword loves fighting trolls). So I like the concept of using that to determine who controls the combat (and gets the experience check).

I need to think through the longer implication. A good intelligent sword when the characters are new potentially becomes a liability later.

But, I still want the player to stay center of attention. Perhaps I'll stay with the weapon adding a fraction of its skill to its wielder's ability, and the player gets to decide who gets the skill check at the end of the battle.

Steve

[Dredj]

On second thought this would make a cool cursed weapon. Rely on it to much and your natural skill suffers.

It could also be a blessed weapon allowing the PC to gain in skill, somatically.

[Al.]

I'd advise going along the complentary skills route used in AiG.

i.e. if you have another skill which might be of use then you get to add 1/5 of it

example Mad Adhmed is haggling over a suit of Armour he has Bargain 60% and Craft (Armourer) 60% then he gets to add 1/5 of his Craft skill and so has an effective skill of 72%

HeroQuest really ran with this idea (possibly going to far in my opinion) and I insist that the complentary skill must be higher than the one to be boosted (and that you only get one complentary skill for any given test so if Ahmed also has Knowledge (Commerce and Trade) at 60% he doesn't get to add another 12% for that as well.

In this situation Stormbringer with Sword 200% can either add +40% or the wielder can use Stormbringer's skill in place of his own. In either case Stormbringer's Sword skill increases separately.

Al

[RosenMcStern]

Ahem, the complementary skill rule is already present in Basic Roleplaying. A good idea borrowed from HeroQuest augmentations. I think it should be used often.

[frogspawner]

I believe one of the RQ Simons had a rule for weapons that develop along with the given PC.

This sounds interesting. An antidote to the D&D-ish 'characters-are-only-as-good-as-their-items' problem, perhaps.

(Any luck finding your notes on it? Is the relevant 'RQ Simon' listening?)

[Byron Alexander]

On second thought this would make a cool cursed weapon. Rely on it to much and your natural skill suffers.

Yes, I could see that as being very cool. Especially as the crux of a story. I.e. - a character takes it from someone who used to have no skill in swordsmanship at all but picked up that sword and became formidable. Then they realise that the sword fights for them and they lose their natural skill; it won't let them use any other sword, though, so how will they be rid of it?

[Al.]

Ahem, the complementary skill rule is already present in Basic Roleplaying.

Cool.

Another one off my list of 'is it really in BRP or am I remebering it from a previous iteration of d100 rules' sorted then

A good idea borrowed from HeroQuest augmentations.

Which itself borrowed it from RQ4:AiG as said above (and I am sure that some wise soul will point out that it appeared elsewhere even earlier)

I think it should be used often.

Hell yeah

Al

[Chaot]

This sounds interesting.

I'll look around some more. If I can't find the original document I'll paraphrase what I remember.

Edit: Found it. It's not quite what you're looking for but it is an interesting system.

As previously inferred, I have some stuff that I've sketched out but haven't playtested. I'll post them here later.

Edited February 26, 2009 by Chaot

[frogspawner]

Edit: Found it. It's not quite what you're looking for but it is an interesting system.

Thanks. That is the sort of thing: items being "imprinted" with special properties, perhaps over generations; and the magic fading away if not known. I'd say faster-gained powers should be associated with particlarly heroic acts during a character's career ("With this sword Mighty Evan severed all three heads of Trigak the Chimera", "In these boots, Bouquetta the Nimble outran the Wild Cats of Pwene", etc) - though a bit more subtly than just powering-up whenever any such deed was done. Guidelines for how many/strong such powers should be would be great.

Edited February 26, 2009 by frogspawner
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