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These are getting up to the magical level, now, but it seems uncreative to just reuse these.
Qualities available at Weapon Mastery Elemental: Add one of the following special abilities to the weapon: Thundering, Flaming Burst, Icy Burst, or Shocking Burst.
Aligned (Your alignment must be appropriate for this): Add one of the following special abilities to the weapon: Anarchic, Axiomatic, Holy, or Unholy.
Deadly: The DC for saves versus massive damage from this weapon are increased by your strength bonus (modified for size, ie half if the weapon is light, 1.5x if the weapon is two-handed).
Weapons in this method become simpler descriptors- a sword is a slashing, one-handed weapon. A magical spear is a +2 piercing weapon.
Jackie Chan, in any number of movies where he plays himself, picks up a ladder. He has Improved Weapon Proficiency, and so can apply up to three qualities. The DM says he can use it as a blunt double weapon, but neither end is light, so he's at -4/-4 if he has TWF.
Jackie starts at 2d6/2d6 20/x3. He applies the defensive quality and the tripping quality, but drops the crit modifier, sending him to 1d8/1d8 20/x2, and proceeds to go to town on the mooks surrounding him with their silly broom handles.
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Li Mu Bai is fighting bandits near the Wudan temple. He has Greater Weapon Proficiency, and is generally badass. Green Destiny is a +3 slashing sword.
Master Li starts with 3d6 19-20/x2. There are a lot of bandits, but they're not too tough, so he uses his weapon with a parrying, penetrating grip, ending up with a 1d8 19-20/x2 weapon. The bandits' low-quality armor will not protect them from his technique, and they find themselves unable to hit him, so after he kills a few, they run off.
He tires of all the killing, and goes to give the sword away. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon happens, and Zhang Ziyi has taken the sword. She has Improved Weapon Proficiency, and attacks Master Li. She is finessing the sword, so it is a 1d8 20/x3 weapon.
Master Li is not impressed by her technique. He picks up a stick, a medium blunt weapon. He still has GWP, so he uses the stick as a disarming, finessable, fast, parrying weapon. This drops the stick to 1d6 20/x2, but he's not trying to hurt her. He bats aside her clumsy cuts, unleases a flurry of tap-tap-tap with the stick, and lands Green Destiny back in his hands where it belongs.
Jade Fox faces him down at the end. She has that wierd needle-shooting gun thing. It is obviously ranged, and she has greater weapon proficiency, so it does 3d6 20/x3 damage on a hit. She doesn't care about that though, really, because she has a wicked Con-damage poison to use, but at least we don't have to worry about statting that whacky thing out.
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William Wallace, in Braveheart, is fighting english soldiers in his village. He has Weapon Proficiency at this point, but no weapons. He grabs a stone, and uses it as a 2d6 20/x2 weapon to crush a guard and take his uniform and sword. He later uses a threshing flail, a deer antler, a sledgehammer, and various actual weapons, and is effective with all of them, because it is the man that fights, not the weapon.
In one scene, he kills a man with a sword; he spots another man running towards him, so he quick-changes his grip on the sword to get ready to throw it; it drops to 1d6 19-20/x2, but gains a range increment of 20'. He wings it at the charging soldier, who dies spectacularly; must have been a crit.
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Nameless, in Hero, is fighting Sky. He is a weapon master, and has perfected the unblockable attack (probably a whole different feat chain). His sword is slashing or piercing, and he uses it as a finessable, parrying, knockback, touch weapon. Spoiler:
He only wants to touch Sky with the blade, not kill him; he unleashes his attack, Sky voluntarily fails his save versus the knockback, and lays there pretending to be dying.
Flying Snow, when fighting, demonstrates that she is equally effective with blade or the hem of her skirt. She is a weapon master as well, and will do 4d6 damage with either if she hits.
Any chance you'll want to put all this into a Word document, complete with examples and descriptions and all that? I've been emailing bits and pieces of your ideas to some of my players (some of whom are also DMs) and they're starting to drool.
Not a bad idea. Here it is, cleaned up a bit, with the examples and my pet fixes for power attack included. I'm nothing if not egomaniacal, but ignore any part you don't like, obviously.
Edit: this version has been superceded by later discussion, see the new file attached later in this thread.
If the idea is to make a wielder's skill matter potentially more than the weapon itself, wouldn't it be easier to just add a general rule that says that for every 3 points an attack roll exceeds the target's AC, 1 point is added to the damage roll. This would, as I see it, accomplish much the same. Just a thought.
But that keeps all the special rules for all the various weapon types, and you still have to remember which weapons your character is proficient with. This system is great for the examples given (Hong Kong and Hollywood action). This would work well in a swashbuckling game of any kind, I think.
I think this is really cool. I had a question about one of the examples though:
The Word Document said:
Ragnar, now a much higher level fighter, has found his nemesis at last. He draws his trusty greatsword, in his hands typically a 6d6 19-20/x3 heavy slashing weapon. He chooses (since he has Weapon Mastery) to put two qualities on it as he draws it, penetrating and aligned (holy), since he knows this foe is vulnerable to good weapons. The aligned property takes a standard action to activate, so his whole round is spend drawing, gripping, and energizing the blade. Next round, fight!
Why is the sword typically a 19-20/x3? It's 6d6 becuase that is one step above 4d6, which is what he gets from weapon mastery, so he's not turning the damage into critical range. It might also help if you mentioned that his damage ends up at 3d6, for clarification.
Why is the sword typically a 19-20/x3? It's 6d6 becuase that is one step above 4d6, which is what he gets from weapon mastery, so he's not turning the damage into critical range. It might also help if you mentioned that his damage ends up at 3d6, for clarification.
I assure you that there is a simple, and straightforward answer to that, involving the fact that I typed that doc at the end of the day on friday. Typo, I'll fix it up monday morning. It's 6d6 because it's a heavy weapon for him, 19-20/x2. It will end up as a penetrating, aligned (holy), 3d6 19-20/x2 heavy slashing weapon. Which is a lot of descriptors, but most of them are from the user; the base stats from the weapon are "heavy slashing weapon".
