Sentient Weapon Player Race

There are a couple of series Sacred Blacksmith and Soul Eater
Both feature sentient weapons able to assume human forms for everyday interaction.
Up to a point I can see reflavoring a Pixie Warlord. The ability to shrink things would become the ability to absorb them since as a weapon you are your wielders weapon you could likely absorb at least 2 primary hand weapons. Speak with Beasts might be swapped out for short range mind speech capacity.

There might be a few devils in the details but you too can be Stormbringer.

Pixie Dust can be translated as a Thor's Hammer - Mjolnir like ability perhaps called "Mobility of the Blade" - where the weapon can pull its wielder across the battle in short flight surge once per encounter.

Sentient weapons generally make there nature known in a fight in eerie ways they generally find it difficult not to do so, for instance like Stormbringer they scream psychically or sing vibrantly with this becoming harried if they parry too solid of hit and bleed streamers of energy and can be "attacked directly" They often glow with power or throb with a heart beat. In fact they are often frightening enough some will distract attackers from there ally, many sentient weapons have friendly and not so friendly rivalries with one another. They may remain dormant out of petulance for instance when in disagreement with there bearer a Dormant SW while not immune to being attacked are in effect taking full defense a form of dodging instead of attacking.

Sentient weapons may be any class but favor leader rolls such as Warlords, Clerics or Bards (aka Singing Swords) but also Warlocks and Paladins or similar for this allows them to have bolstering effect on there bearer who is always adjacent and in touch range.

Pixies with there tiny size have advantages in hiding.. a Sentient sword generally hides in plain sight though some are better at this than others.

The ability to absorb the magic from magic items is not limited to other weapons (but there is a limit to how much)...  There forms often manifests trappings like sheaths and belts. And the more power they have absorbed the more awesome or extreme there appearance may become.

Perhaps instead of it being a class feature it could just be designed as maybe a Theme. Sentient Weapon could even be the name. Making it a Theme similar to those in Dragon 399 would make it very easy to take this interesting concept and make it a reality without the need to twist already in place rules.

It could be done pretty easily.

For it's starting feature it could have a at-will (or encounter) ability similar to the druids wild shape that allows it to change in to one weapon of it's choice and give them a +2 bonus to History and Arcana rolls for their mystical and possibly weird history. Perhaps even allow them to fight by themselves in their weapon form like a dancing sword.

just my 2cp

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Perhaps instead of it being a class feature it could just be designed as maybe a Theme. Sentient Weapon could even be the name. Making it a Theme similar to those in Dragon 399 would make it very easy to take this interesting concept and make it a reality without the need to twist already in place rules.

It could be done pretty easily.

For it's starting feature it could have a at-will (or encounter) ability similar to the druids wild shape that allows it to change in to one weapon of it's choice and give them a +2 bonus to History and Arcana rolls for their mystical and possibly weird history. Perhaps even allow them to fight by themselves in their weapon form like a dancing sword.

just my 2cp

Actually thinking it works pretty well as a race with very little restrictions on class.. and yes Dancing sword is one of the manifestations I want to include ability which explicitly encourages acting sword like so what is needed is a way to encourage staying in touch range and in effect being your allies weapon any ideas down that path?

The form change is almost not a significant deal ... excepting the deception advantage which is an analog to having your weapons and armor hidden (I am not thinking most would manifest most absorbed equipment in human form... ie while its primarily cosmetic especially for the very ego oriented race a roguish persona could make some definite use of it.

One who was indeed a lazy lord type would only absorb a single magic weapon slot and would not do the dancing trick. So it might seem the most like a normal magic weapon.

The other element from a perceptual stand point one might worry about is enemies not realizing they ought to attack the weapon.. unless it was in dancing mode. I tried to address that with flavor text and visibility which may all which is needed technically.

The wielder of the sentient weapon would be theoretically seem like a berserk launching more attacks and bursting across the battlefield and similar things.