The Gaming Den

So, the term 'artifact sword' gets thrown a lot around here. There's already the infamous Dire Tiger morphing amulet.

What other examples have you guys seen or given out?

I personally gave a Paladin a Holy Avenger that was intelligent and cast a buff spell on the Paladin every round of combat mostly. It would always cast Fly on the first round of any combat, or if fly was dispelled, then Deathward, cast Freedom of Movement if his movement was ever impaired, ect.

That party had a Druid, a Sorcerer, a Rogue who used a bow and started every combat with the Sorcerer casting Greater Invis on him, and a Paladin with Monkey Grip.

Heh. Sounds like they really needed it.

If I ever come to DM "vanilla 3.5" again, I fully intend to write "Obtains a magic weapon that's a also a Sorcerer follower" as a Class Feature that Fighters get at level 3.

Said Sorcerer is always <Fighter level -2>, knows mostly defensive/mobility spells and casts them on the fighter, at his initiative.

Technically I didn't 'give' them the artifact sword but in the longest campaign I've ever run the rogue/fighter/Occult Slayer*/Invisible blade* took an evil cursed/possessed great sword from a dark paladin they'd found and defeated. After finding out that the sword would take over the mind of people attempting to wield it (and cause party members to attack each other) he was going to just sell it off. However he kept finding situations to use it. So what was just a +2 cursed greatsword became his primary weapon for when 'things got serious'. So over the course of the campaign I:

• Gave the sword a name it didn't have.
  Made it intelligent.
  Gave it a backstory.
  Then gave it power after power each time he leveled.

Before it started getting powers (read spells) at about 10th level he'd decided that, once he got the ability to be immune to its mind taking shenannigans he decided (after restraining himself with specific instructions as to what conditions to release him under) have a long chit chat with the sword in an attempt to make it 'not' an asshole. I decided I liked the idea, rolled with it, and boom. They became bros. The Sword (hence forth named Durandal) was still a prick to anyone who wasn't this particular guy. Ended up working out great. Like, really great. The whole campaign actually. The guy even gave his first son his character's name (as his middle name).

Heh, that's awesome. Congrats.

I have seen multiple artifact axes for some reason. I think that years of AD&D treasure tables that made swords and warhammers the only thing worth using for high level fighters, the fact that 3e treasure system was weapon type agnostic was freeing. The most powerful one I saw was an Earth ax type deal. I don't remember what all it could do, but it cast Earthquake. And while that's not a great 8th level spell, it's an 8th level spell and it was pretty hard core for our 10th level party.

-Username17

Neat. Yeah, Earthquake is awesome at level 10. Hmm... early access to spells that are underwhelming for their level is probably a good idea in general for artifact swords perhaps. Their wielders get to do something casters might never bother to.