Clone Project: Magic Sword Ego

Next up in the clone project is the issue of magic swords and the way Ego works. This is an area where I might have to make a lot of changes in order to properly differentiate the clone from the original. Because of this, I'm tempted to change the Intelligence and Ego rating scales to the standard 3d6 scale for attributes, but for now I'll stick to the 1-12 scale.

First, make a d20+1 roll: on a 20 or more, the sword has a special purpose (Int 12, Level 12;) otherwise, it's an "ordinary" magic sword. I'll deal with special purpose swords in a separate post on magic sword powers.

Half of all "ordinary" magic swords are intelligent and can communicate. For this, rather than rolling a d12, I'll go with a d6 50-50 roll to determine if it's intelligent or not, followed by a d6+6 roll to set the actual intelligence. It's easy to change back for those who want a strict match to the original rules, but it helps to emphasize that swords below Int 7 are effectively unintelligent. Also, the d6 roll without the +6 adjustments equals the number of detection abilities the sword has (maximum of 3.) This, also, will be dealt with the the sword powers post.

Intelligent swords do need a d12 ego rating, which I think I will rename to either "Willfulness" or "Sword Level", the latter because fighters have to have a higher level than their sword in order to get their way. Add the number of Exceptional Powers the sword has. (You guessed it, I'm saving Exceptional Powers for later.)

Roll a d6 for the weaker party to Avoid Accidental domination; add half the difference between levels, round down. to the die roll. If the sword dominates, it will communicate demands of special treatment and manipulate its owner, either through lies or threatens of withholding power. In critical situations (middle of fights, encounters with powerful enemies,) dominant swords may attempt to betray their owners: make the same d6 Avoid Accident roll, but modify instead by half the difference between the sword's combined Int and Level on one hand and the owner's Int and Strength on the other.

Alignment also affects the sword's behavior. Roll a d20: 12 to 17 is Neutral, low rolls are Law, high rolls are Chaos. Swap Law/Chaos for life-draining swords. Picking up a sword of a different alignment does damage to the sword wielder the first time, double damage if it's the extreme Law/Chaos opposition; this only happens once, unless the owner loses control of the sword for a lengthy time (stealing back the sword, for example.) A sword that is the same alignment as the fighter who wields it is still just as likely to struggle for dominance, but is more likely to treat its owner favorably when it dominates.

Edit: Actually, I'm thinking of changing the alignment roll to a d6, altering the proportions to 50% Law, 33% Neutral, 17% Chaos, and moving this to the NPC section as a general-use roll. Thus, the magic sword section will simply state that all magic swords are aligned and that this should be determined randomly, as for NPCs.