Tuesday Magic Item – Guardian’s Broach
20 November, 2013
“Take the princess to safety, I will hold them off,” said the Tutor, loosening her cloak and draping it around the young woman. “Flee, my dear student, and do not stop until you are safe.”
“But tutor,” whimpers the Princess, “they will hurt you.”
“I have been hurt before,” the Tutor said as the broach in her hand glowed and expanded into a sword and shield. “I was a soldier before I was a tutor. Now go. I will hold them as long as I can.”
Guardian’s Broach
These come in all styles and fashions, though a sword and implied shield motif is common. They are always made of the harder metals, nothing softer than copper but alloys and magical metals are more common.
The Broach is design to help the wearer protect others and it provides the wearer with a +3 competence bonus to perception checks and a +2 competence on Aid Another checks to improve armor class.
Once a day, as a move action, the wearer may transform the broach into a sword and shield, the sword is whatever martial sword the wielder is most comfortable with and the shield is as heavy as the wielder can comfortably use, both are masterwork and last for five rounds plus one round per level then they return to broach form.
Once, and to do so exhausts the magic of the broach, when the broach is transformed into a sword and shield, the wielder can distribute a number of enhancement bonuses equal to their Charisma modifier (minimum one) between the sword and shield, they gain the effect of a heroism spell and a +4 enhancement bonus to Constitution and they can choose one person within 30′ to also gain the effect of a heroism spell. When this effect is used, the sword and shield (and all associated magical effects) last for a minute per level of the wielder and when the effect ends, the magic of the broach is exhausted as is the wielder.
Aura moderate abjuration and transformation; CL 10th
Slot this item does not use a magic item slot; Price 7,000; Weight –
Construction Requirements
Create Magic Arms and Armor, Create Wondrous Items, bear’s endurance, greater magic weapon, heroism, owl’s wisdom, shield, shrink item; Cost 3,500
Notes: A fun defensive item with a good last ditch ability. I am quite pleased with how it came out.
Photo by dad1_ and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Sea of Stars RPG Design Journal 
Great item and nice Game-of-Thronesy little vignette (what’s that swordmaster’s name?). On another note it occurred to me reading that that Pathfinder:Latin:.AD&D:: English. All of those terms (“exhausted,” “move action,” “competence bonus,” “aid another,” “enhancement bonus”) are so clearly defined and circumscribed, with clear relationships to one another…whereas AD&D is a hodgepodge of rules and terms developed heuristically as the need arose, with no particular rhyme or reason…
The 3rd (3.5/PF) ruleset is very clear, having gone back to first principles. While A/D&D was a set of subsystems bolted on to each other to make a functional, if not entirely coherent, end system. I think this makes PF easier to work with as you have clearly labeled tools but it does lack a certain spontaneity which permeates the earlier rules.