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I'm looking through the SRD's artifact list, and I'm profoundly unimpressed by most of them. They just seem so weak and not really worth the effort. Freaking wars are supposed to be fought over these things. Entire campaigns are supposed to be based around them. Yet they have very little campaign or story altering power.

Anyone got an explanation or better ideas for artifacts?

It depends on the level that you are playing.

If you are playing Skyrim, then exploding undead and dealing fire damage, while looking cool, is perfectly acceptable.

If you are stopping time, then the artifact probably needs to be an intelligent weapon containing the soul of a dead god.

Artifacts are meant to be power with a cost. A codified way for the MC to fuck you over. Taking your own example of the Staff of the Magi - it has a built-in "fuck you" ability if sundered. Every artifact is supposed to be the One Ring.

I've never actually worked with an artifact in any game, nor have I ever looked at the list.

If I were to write them, they would have to be some sort of unique enchantment on them that normally wouldn't be on that type of equipment, like armour that increases melee dmg or a sword of flying. (Those are just bare things) and ontop of that be powerful weapons that scale to your level +2.

Or something like a sword that has the soul of a god in it, and you can commune with that deity, and get cleric spells from it. This gives you answers to questions, possible prophecy powers, and the potential of some game changing spells in a weapon. I'd be willing to fight a war for my kingdom to have one of those.

Artifacts could be a class feature you can Elothar your way into. A Level 1 Tony Stark should, by rolling a Level 1 Tony Stark, possess power armor, which scales up to have more (Su)s and better munitions as he puts ranks in Profession (Tony Stark).

I would guess as well that a lot of the official artifacts are just a shadow of what power they had in their original context- then when Gygax or whoever was pressed to give them stats, they translated down from "Limitless Burning" to "Burning Hands 3/day".

While that is probably what happened (and I seem to recall that there's a huge discrepancy between OD&D Vorpal and 3.5 Vorpal), it's also readily evident that Gygax and Co. weren't terribly imaginative*, and a lot of the artifacts were probably booster seats for underpowered fighters and such.


*Ok, ok, we're not really any more imaginative, in general, we just have more giants' shoulders to stand on when we write our games

This seems particular to D&D. Earthdawn and Runequest had some neat artifacts back in the day. Though those always felt more on the epical side to me. Dont know if it would fit a more utilitarian role as the latter D&D editions seem to adopt.

I hear ya. It's like some artifacts were based on Frodo's Sting and ring. Super boring.

What are some examples of really cool artifacts that aren't boring and underpowered?

Simple.
Because thinking up interesting stuff is hard work.
And then you have to make sure that that interesting stuff you thought out will be neither over nor under powered in the world where you plan on using it . . A sword that deals firedamage will probably be very nifty and usefull in the plane of plant beings or ice beings, but be mostly useless in the plane of water for example.

Daemonic / Possessed Weapons. For some really cool ones go to Warhammer/WH40k.
The Anathame(spelling?)
Otherwise perdectly normal and weak Weapons that have become tainted because they have been used to do something horrible . .
See the edda. Loki tricked Hod into killing Baldr with a weapon made of / with a twig of mistletoe . .
The Lance of Longinus would be another such example.

The Sword Excalibur.
The Hammer Mjolnir.
The Sword Tyrfing. Cursed to kill at least one man every time it was drawn.
Odins Spear Gungnir, strikes true always without the wielder needing any skill at all.
Gae Bolga, the Spear of Cú Chulainn.

Weapons made from special materials.
Again, the Mistletoe weapon.
Conans Sword made from Meteoric/Star-Metal.
Metals that react to certain things, like the Sting or whatever sword glows when near Orcs.

Wiseman wrote:I'm looking through the SRD's artifact list, and I'm profoundly unimpressed by most of them. They just seem so weak and not really worth the effort. Freaking wars are supposed to be fought over these things. Entire campaigns are supposed to be based around them. Yet they have very little campaign or story altering power.

Anyone got an explanation or better ideas for artifacts?

Artifacts are interesting because they have history. History, in fact, is what makes them artifacts. The Mace of Saint Cuthbert is a magic mace that was wielded by Saint Cuthbert. Being wielded by Saint Cuthbert is what makes different from all the other magic maces.

But the SRD rips out all the history. That's "product identity." You have to pay money for that shit.


The Saint's Mace wasn't wielded by Saint Cuthbert. As far as we know, it wasn't wielded by anyone at all. And that means it isn't any different from any other magical mace your cleric could pick up.


So really, SRD artifacts aren't interesting because they aren't artifacts. They're just generic magic items with no history at all.

I would say the artifacts are important because they allow a low-mid level NPC to suddenly make a great difference.

A Talisman of pure good/evil could be used to no-save instakill a very important camaign figure. Take out the pope/god-queen even if they're the highest level dude around.

A book of endless spells may allow some bandit to start spamming 9th level magic.

A Talisman of Reluctant Wishes goes around, well, granting Wishes willy-nilly to everybody at random. It's the kind of thing you don't want to let run free, even if it isn't that good of a deal for the characters.


Just because an artifact isn't super useful for a PC doesn't mean it can't be used to build a campaign around.

8d8 wrote:What are some examples of really cool artifacts that aren't boring and underpowered?

On some level, the Erfworld Arkentools. All of them are game changers, and owning one is the basis for being a great power all by yourself.

Moorcock had some interesting ones: the Mirror of Memory and the Horn of Fate are the ones that stuck with me.

hyzmarca wrote:Artifacts are interesting because they have history.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Shadowrun 4th Edition's War! "dungeon crawl" in which you steal into Auschwitz, fight Jewish ghosts, all to claim a scalpel that is a Rating 4 weapon focus that is magic because it was used to experiment on imprisoned people of the Jewish faith.

Having a backstory does not automatically make an artifact good or even interesting.

The Boots of hermes or your respective god of delivery to make you faster or to allow you to traverse terrain you otherwise could not. like over water (jesus sandals!) or up sheer surfaces (spider shoe, spider shoe, does whatever a spider shoe does . .).
The Eye of Odin / Cyclopes. Seeing Power for Insight.
The Well of eternal youth could be considered an artifact.
You could look here for some ideas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... _mythology

And one i just remembered:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_Flag

If i remember correctly, in the Earthdawn OSSR Ancient History and/or Frank Trollman mentioned a kind of system where you power up artifacts by finding out about/giving them a history of their own. That is a really neat mechanic.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

8d8 wrote:What are some examples of really cool artifacts that aren't boring and underpowered?

On some level, the Erfworld Arkentools. All of them are game changers, and owning one is the basis for being a great power all by yourself.

They however have the addendum that their true power is only unlocked in the hands of the chosen one. The arkenpliers are a glorified anti-undead weapon most of the time, only in the hands of Wanda do they allow turning armies of corpses into super zombies.

RelentlessImp wrote:Artifacts are meant to be power with a cost. A codified way for the MC to fuck you over.

So you're basically saying "artifacts" are meant to be weaksauce loot that are objectively worse than making your own magical items. Ok.

Dogbert wrote:

RelentlessImp wrote:Artifacts are meant to be power with a cost. A codified way for the MC to fuck you over.

So you're basically saying "artifacts" are meant to be weaksauce loot that are objectively worse than making your own magical items. Ok.

That's the design goal for D&D Artifacts, yes, especially in earlier editions where you couldn't craft your own magical items. Occasionally they churn out something objectively good, so of course it never sees the light of day in any game.

RelentlessImp wrote:

hyzmarca wrote:Artifacts are interesting because they have history.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Shadowrun 4th Edition's War! "dungeon crawl" in which you steal into Auschwitz, fight Jewish ghosts, all to claim a scalpel that is a Rating 4 weapon focus that is magic because it was used to experiment on imprisoned people of the Jewish faith.

Having a backstory does not automatically make an artifact good or even interesting.

Well, that was just a shitty plot all around.

The fact remains, artifacts have history. That's what defines them as artifacts. If they don't have history, then they aren't artifacts.

For this reason, there are no artifacts in the SRD.

I thought the defining feature of an Artifact was that they're uncraftable.

Artifacts tend to fall under a few categories, each with their own problems:

Don't Touch It, It's Evil!: The artifact is a ball of evil spreading evil everywhere not already contaminated with evil, and must be destroyed in the Fires of Mount Plotanium, across the Hills of Level Appropriate Encounters. This is boring because it's been done a million times, and it raises the question of why Archons don't leave shit that turns you good laying around.

Trident of Trolling: Best example I've seen of this in a while is from the 5e DMG. "Wave" is a pretty decent weapon that will do half the enemy's max hp in necrotic damage if you roll a nat 20. However, the weapon is intelligent and it demands that you proselytize for Poseidon (or insert god of water here) continuously. Basically, these items suck because they make you stop playing your character and dance for the amusement of the DM.

Sword of the Really Cool NPC: These items got their powers just by being held by someone massively cooler than you. Let's say you have the Relics of St. George the Dragonslayer. St. George's Sword insta-kills dragons. St. George's Cuirass makes you immune to breath weapons. St. George's Boots let you Air Walk really fast to catch up to the flying bastards. St. George's Helm let's you see dragon con trails that allow you to track them back to their lairs. So, you load up the party fighter with this gear, and he's a dragon slaying badass. Unfortunately, he is constantly reminded that St. George could do all of these things by virtue of being a total stud, and his relics only have power because of the Adonis DNA and Tiger Blood St. George leaked onto his armor while suplexing dragons with his bare hands. These items suck because they exist to tell PCs that they are intrinsically inferior to the stories you are telling yourself in your head, and if your players were ever truly awesome they would leak magic into their own gear.

Lord Mistborn wrote:I thought the defining feature of an Artifact was that they're uncraftable.

Well, the dictionary defines as artifact as

Dictionary wrote:an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest

They can't be uncraftable, obviously, because someone crafted them. They may break the crafting rules, but that's another issue.

Rather, the thing that is focused on is that last clause, an item of cultural or historical interest.

When people think about artifacts, they think of it in the archeological sense.

Hypothetically, a random 500-year-old clay bowl that someone dug up is an artifact by that measure. But we're talking about pop culture archeological here. So basically Indiana Jones shit.

Stinktopus wrote: Sword of the Really Cool NPC: These items got their powers just by being held by someone massively cooler than you. Let's say you have the Relics of St. George the Dragonslayer. St. George's Sword insta-kills dragons. St. George's Cuirass makes you immune to breath weapons. St. George's Boots let you Air Walk really fast to catch up to the flying bastards. St. George's Helm let's you see dragon con trails that allow you to track them back to their lairs. So, you load up the party fighter with this gear, and he's a dragon slaying badass. Unfortunately, he is constantly reminded that St. George could do all of these things by virtue of being a total stud, and his relics only have power because of the Adonis DNA and Tiger Blood St. George leaked onto his armor while suplexing dragons with his bare hands. These items suck because they exist to tell PCs that they are intrinsically inferior to the stories you are telling yourself in your head, and if your players were ever truly awesome they would leak magic into their own gear.

Excalibur isn't powerful because Arthur is awesome. Excalibur is powerful because it was made but fuckoff powerful faeries, and Arthur got it by going down on the Lady of the Lake.

If you gave head to powerful faeries, you too could get a sword as awesome as Excalibur.

Saint George's equipment likely has a similar origin. What is a saint, if not someone who sucks God's cock really well?

hyzmarca wrote:
Excalibur isn't powerful because Arthur is awesome. Excalibur is powerful because it was made but fuckoff powerful faeries, and Arthur got it by going down on the Lady of the Lake.

If you gave head to powerful faeries, you too could get a sword as awesome as Excalibur.

Saint George's equipment likely has a similar origin. What is a saint, if not someone who sucks God's cock really well?

Artifact that is awesome because someone awesome used it to do awesome things is 1. an existing trope and 2. basically the thing that actually comes to mind when you start going on about artifacts needing to have "history."

If you find the donkey jawbone that Samson killed a thousand Philistines with, and it has magic powers, that's because Samson was awesome, not because Samson stumbled on the one Vorpal Jawbone of Cleaving that some mad wizard left laying around.

The Hand and Eye of Vecna are magic because Vecna was fucking metal, which is how he was able to craft the uncraftable Sword of Kas for his lieutenant.

If the item was uber-magical before it was used in the Epic Tale of Sir Badass McTestosterone, then the whole legend of the actual hero is pointless. It's just "guy picks up nuke and hits button, expected results follow."

Excalibur is a shitty artifact because it doesn't seem to do anything a normal sword doesn't outside of sticking in rocks really well, then ID locking.

Well, there's stories where Excalibur cuts right through other swords, and even stories where Excalibur moves your hand for you to block attacks you didn't see coming.

Bringer of Justice [Artifact]: The bearer of this Suncryst weapon gains a +5 sacred bonus to sense motive checks. They may subject any creature of their choosing within line of sight to a Zone of Truth effect (targets are not initially aware of it). An evil creature struck by the weapon must make a fort save (DC35) or become engulfed in holy flames. Alternately, the wielder can make a melee touch attack to activate only this effect. Such creatures take 5d6 damage per round that results directly from divine power, and is not subject to resistances, immunities or vulnerabilities. Evil undead and evil outsiders instead take 10d6 damage. This repeats for 10 rounds. Evil outsiders are also dealt 1d4 negative levels in the first round, and then 1 more every round thereafter until the effect ends. Striking a creature under already under this effect merely resets the duration (save for the negative levels, which remain at 1/round). The save need only be made once in a round and is Cha based. The only things that can end this effect prematurely are dispel magic or break enchantment effect (against CL20) or greater restoration. They also gain the spells and granted power of the War domain. If they cast spells, they gain an extra domain slot in which to prepare or spontaneously cast them. If they don't cast spells, they gain the domain as if it were a sphere with basic access (any save DCs are determined by 10+1/2HD+highest mental ability modifier). Once per day they may cast Summon Horde as a 9th level spell-like ability at CL20.
History: This weapon was forged by Alrenma and used to slay the Elder Darkness upon her ascension to godhood. After bathing in the Elder Darknesses blood and subsequently purified, this weapon became a great holy artifact which the goddess bestows onto worthy mortals.


So yeah, overpowered? Probably, but I feel that that's what an artifact should be. They're already entirely DM fiat as to whether they appear at all so they should be aware of the implications of letting this thing loose into the world.