Ancestral Weapon

About Ancestral Weapon

Through this spend, your PC comes into possession of an ancestral weapon. The weapon does not need to be tied to his or her ancestors, though it is a weapon with a history--one which your PC will unlock over time. If you aren't sure how weapons work in Pathfinder, check out our tutorial: How Magic Armor and Weapons Work in PF. Advancing in this spend also lets you enchant your weapon as though you possessed the appropriate crafting feat. That is, you're only charged half the market cost. Due to the way Ancestral Weapon works, it is one of the exclusive spends which if you change your mind down the road, it may absolutely not be swapped to a different spend, refunded, or otherwise, due to the inherit complications and investment in the Ancestral spend.

Before proceeding with this spend, please read How Magic Armor and Weapons Work in PF
and Magic Item Crafting. The PRD wording is slightly murky in both areas.

Ancestral Weapon Spends

Ancestral Weapon
Tier	Benefit	Cost
T1	You unlock a weapon's potential for greatness. Choose a weapon you own. So long as the weapon is capable of receiving enchantments, this weapon becomes your ancestral weapon, bound to you. You will unlock its abilities through pursuit of this spend. Purchase of this tier applies the masterwork quality to an existing weapon.	15 RPP
T2	You begin to forge a deeper, more personal bond with your weapon, and may enchant it to a limited degree. However, you do not need to have caster levels to create this enhancement. You pay only half the market cost in gold, just as a crafter would. In addition, your begin to feel the inklings of your weapon's personality. At this time, you should begin to think about your weapon's purpose, though this will have time to develop. Assign an alignment to your weapon within one axis of yours. You may enchant your weapon as though you were a 3rd level caster. (Please see how enchanting weapons and armor works).	15 RPP
T3	Your weapon's personality begins to exert itself. At this time, you will need to select a purpose for your weapon. Your weapon's attacks are considered to be of a type along one axis of its alignment for DR purposes. For example, if you possess a LG weapon (its alignment must be within one step of yours), you may choose for its damage to be treated either as lawful, or good. Once chosen, this may not be changed. Alignment for Ancestrals must otherwise adhere to community guidelines. You may enchant your weapon as though you were a 6th level caster. (How enchanting weapons and armor works).	10 RPP
T4	Your weapon begins to show the first signs of sentience. Your weapon gains basic intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of 10. Your weapon gains the ability to communicate emotionally with you so long as the two of you are touching. For example, you might feel its anger, sorrow, or elation, just as it might feel the reverse. Your item also gains a purpose, as per the Special Purpose rules under intelligent items. You'll contact staff to work this out in a way that works with your character's story. Your item gains a basic ego score based on its total worth (see PRD). This number will increase over time based on abilities you add to it, so be sure and track it. Your item also gains the speech ability for free, even if you wish it wouldn't. Your item becomes associated, roughly, with an energy source. Select a full spellcasting class, such as cleric, wizard, or druid. Any spell-like abilities the item earns must be selected from this class list. Once selected, this may not be changed. Finally, should you choose to spend 500g, it gains the ability to cast one 0 level spell at will, an unlimited number of times per day. Be aware that spells with a range of Personal, the item will have to cast on itself.	10 RPP
T5	Your bond strengthens you both. So long as you continue to develop your bond, you may unlock a limited number of abilities. One of your weapon's ability scores increases by 2. You may purchase an ability from the Intelligent Item Powers list of up to 1,200g. However, doing so will only cost you half of this. Note also that these spends may increase your item's ego. All abilities are subject to approval. You may enchant your weapon as though you were a 9th level caster.	10 RPP
T6	So long as you continue to develop your bond, you may also unlock a limited number of abilities. One of your weapon's ability scores increases by 2. You may enchant your weapon as though you were a 12th level caster.	10 RPP
T7	So long as you continue to develop your bond, you may also unlock a limited number of abilities. You may purchase one ability from the Intelligent Item Powers of up to 10,000g. However, you pay half price. Note also that these spends may increase your item's ego. You may enchant your weapon as though you were a 15th level caster.	10 RPP
T8	So long as you continue to develop your bond, you may unlock a limited number of abilities. One of your weapon's ability scores increases by 2. You may purchase one ability from the Intelligent Item Powers of up to 15,000g. However, you only pay half price. Note also that these spends may increase your item's ego.	10 RPP

Descriptions

Ancestral Weapon

Through this spend, your PC comes into possession of an ancestral weapon. The weapon does not need to be tied to his or her ancestors, though it is a weapon with a history--one which your PC will unlock over time. When the table below refers to enchantment or costs, it is referring to your ancestral item.

Ancestral is an exclusive spend. That is, these spends require time and involvement on behalf of your character. That means, a character may only have one exclusive spend active at a time.

Ancestral weapons may be enchanted only by their owners. As your bond increases, you'll be able to add an increasingly powerful number of abilities to your weapon. To do so takes the normal amount of time as per the PF item enchantment rules. However, you'll only pay half the market cost, and are automagically assumed to succeed on all rolls, even if you have no requisite craft or spellcraft skill. For example, the market cost of adding a basic +1 to a weapon is 2,000. This means you would pay 1,000. This price does not quarter with crafting feats. Instead, it allows you to bypass the need for the feats, caster level, spells, skill checks, and similar crafting requirements.

Since you do not make a skill check, you may not increase the DC to bypass the enchantment/caster level limit. This limit is Character Level/3, as per normal crafting rules. This also sets a hard limit for the amount of enchantment you may place upon your weapon, per tier (this is intentional).

Progression in this spend unlocks both the ability to assign greater enchantments, but also to add abilities unique to intelligent items. It also grants a number of abilities for free.

Ancestral Weapon Stats

Personalities and Purpose

Ancestral weapons must possess a purpose, as per the Intelligent Item ruleset. In addition, PCs are encouraged to roll on the Quirks Table to help flesh out their weapons.

Alignment

Enchantments made to Ancestral Weapons must be in line with their actual alignment. A TN weapon could not receive Holy, for example, and a LG weapon could not receive a chaos-based enchantment.

Special Ancestral Weapons

Ancestral Staves

Instead of a weapon, a spellcaster may choose to gain the services of an ancestral staff. Such a staff is often a hallmark of his or her work, and among a number of wizards, is considered something of a badge of pride. If he or she chooses this option, then the following changes occur.

First, he or she does not gain the ability to enchant the staff as a weapon, though it is still a masterwork object. He or she receives all other abilities the Tiers grant, such as the ability to apply the unique, Intelligent Item abilities at-cost. In addition, at Tier 5, he or she effectively gains the Craft Staff feat as regards the staff. He or she is assumed to automagically succeed at all rolls involving enchanting the staff.

If the caster personally possesses the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat, he or she may choose to enchant it as a weapon as well, though must abide by the Tier enchantment limits. In addition, normal enchantment stacking costs must apply. For example, if a wizard owns an ancestral staff that's enchanted as a Fire Staff, then adding weapon enchantments later would incur a 50% cost increase, as per PF rules.

For balance purposes, though the staff is intelligent, it is unable to expend charges on its own...though it is certainly willing to express to the caster when it's low. Probably in colorful language.

Ancestral Double Weapons

For the most part, a double weapon functions similarly to normal one would. That is, each end is limited to enchantment based on tier, and it possesses a singular personality.

• You gain the crafter's price for each end, but each end must be paid for in gold separately. That is, if you possess Tier 3, you would still be limited to enchanting each end as though you were a 6th level caster, and still must spend the time and gold to do so. Enchanting each end to a +2, for example, would cost you 4,000g for one end, then 4,000g for the other.

• Intelligent Item ability limits are just that. For example, if you are able to purchase 2 abilities of up to 4,000g, you still may only purchase that number (not double).

• After some discussion, the alignment benefit extends automagically to one end. This isn't an inherit property of intelligent weapons, and the spend is fairly strong as-is. We may re-examine this down the line, but for now, that is how it will work.

• The item's ego increases given the total value of the weapon, so enchanting both ends would raise your value (and the item's Ego) more quickly.

As an aside, we now encourage rolling on the Intelligent Item Quirks table, for both fun and madness: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateEquipment/artifactsAndOthers/intelligentItems.html :D