First, please refer back to the main preview thread.

Sentient Weapons Overview

DDO has a new system coming up; Sentient Weapons.

The system allows players to find a sentient weapon with a specific personality, customize its powers, and even move the sentient personality from weapon to weapon.

Every sentient weapon drops with a Sentient Jewel that holds the personality of the weapon, and the power of the weapon is contained in that Sentient Jewel. This Sentient Jewel can be pried out of an existing weapon, and the Jewel can be attached to a new weapon of sufficient magical power. This transfers the sentience and its power level to the new magical weapon.

Once a weapon is sentient and has a Sentient Jewel, the weapon can also slot Sentient Filigree to enhance the weapon’s magical properties. A Sentient Weapon starts with only being able to slot one Filigree, but as the weapon grows in power it can slot more, up to a maximum of 7.

Most named weapons that are not crafted and have a minimum level of 21 or higher can accept a Sentient Jewel and become sentient. This will be applied retroactively to existing named weapons; appropriate weapons players have already earned can accept Sentient Jewels if the weapon is capable of becoming Sentient.

(Designer’s Note: Because Dungeons and Dragons has such a variety of weapon types and magical weapons, it is necessary to allow players to move the sentience to a weapon appropriate for their class, race, and feats. This means that players need to be able to use this system with a variety of weapons and weapon types.)

Once a weapon has a Sentient Jewel, the player can build the power of that Jewel by feeding the jewel named magical items. The jewel drains the power from the named item and feeds on the magic to increase its own power. The more magical items fed, the more powerful it becomes.

The Sentient Jewel can be empowered with Sentient Filigree that the player obtains as loot. Each piece of Filigree increases the enchantment of the Sentient Jewel. The more power the Sentient Jewel has gained, the more pieces of Sentient Filigree can be attached to the weapon’s Jewel.

Sometimes a weapon might be found with a Sentient Jewel already attached to the weapon with a specific personality. Other times, such as during the introduction of the system, the weapon and jewel might be delivered independently.

The sentient weapon makes comments to the player as the weapon is held and the player fights, finishes quests, and finds treasure. These comments are actual game voices coupled with text sent to the chat panel. The player will have a UI option to turn off one or both of these. Weapons can make comments based on a number of criteria, including how a player is fighting, whether the player dies, when the player finds treasure, and it can even make comments when the player takes certain actions in quests.

During the tutorial for Sentient Weapons, the player will be given a weapon and their first Sentient Jewel, and they will be taught how to slot the Sentient Jewel and add a Filigree. After that, new Sentient Jewels will be found infrequently, but when they are they will be attached to a weapon. We expect new gems to come out as treasure occasionally in the coming updates.

Each piece of Sentient Filigree adds magical power on top of the weapon’s enchantments. Each filigree has a primary power and it also belongs to a set. This means each piece of Filigree not only adds effects to the weapon, but as you add more and more pieces of Filigree from a specific set, the weapon will gain more bonus powers. Each set has a bonus power for having two pieces of the set, and sets range from a total of 3 to 5 total set bonuses. Note that since a fully empowered weapon can hold up to 7 pieces of Filigree, the player will have to mix and match Filigree from multiple sets to find the best combination of set bonuses.

A weapon can only have one of each Filigree. You cannot slot two of the same Filigree in one weapon.

Filigree will have their own rarity. Some sets will be less common than others. In addition, each Filigree has a rare chance to drop as with an upgraded bonus, which has an additional effect on it.

Players can fairly easily obtain and use Sentient Destroyer Tools to destroy a Filigree or even a Sentient Jewel to open up the slot for a new piece. One would simply drag the tools onto the Filigree or Jewel slot to destroy the contents and free up the slot. Players can also obtain Sentient Unslotter Tools that drop in loot that allow them to unslot a Filigree rather than destroy it, and these tools can even unslot the Sentient Jewel itself. A player cannot destroy or unslot a Sentient Jewel unless all Filigree have been removed from the weapon first.

Progression
Players can build Sentient XP by feeding named items to their Sentient Jewel. You do this by dragging the item to the appropriate slot in the Sentient Item panel. Each named item will add a number of Sentient XP to the jewel based on the minimum level required to use it. The actual numbers are as follows:

Minimum Level Requirement of 1-20: Adds a number of Sentient XP equal to Minimum Level.
Minimum Level Requirement of 21-27: Adds a number of Sentient XP equal to Minimum Level x5.
Minimum Level Requirement of 28+: Adds a number of Sentient XP equal to Minimum Level x10.

For example, a named item with a minimum level of 10 would add 10 Sentient XP, while a named item with a minimum level of 29 would add 290 Sentient XP.

Costs to open slots are as follows:

Sentient Filigree Slot 1: Free
Sentient Filigree Slot 2: 2000 total Sentient XP
Sentient Filigree Slot 3: 6000 total Sentient XP
Sentient Filigree Slot 4: 12000 total Sentient XP
Sentient Filigree Slot 5: 20000 total Sentient XP
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Sentient Filigree Slot 6: 40000 total Sentient XP
Sentient Filigree Slot 7: 60000 total Sentient XP

This means that a character will need almost 70 named items at top level to reach 5 Filigree slots, and it gets expensive for slots 6 and 7.