A "Rare Magic" Idea

[Abe.ebA]

I did something like this in my last campaign. I had a variety of materials from which weapons and armor could be made. Most granted bonuses to damage or AC or just upped the hardness of the item. Then I had a list of 'upgrades' that a smith could select from when making the item. Different levels of sharpness that would increase the crit range or give bonuses to hit or damage at the cost of hardness (if it's really sharp it's also really easy to screw up the edge), special balances that would make the weapon hit harder, serrated blades to do wounding damage, etc. Each upgrade (and material type) increased the cost and the craft DC. For the equivalent of a +3 Keen longsword (in this case a Greensteel sword with clever balance and a honed edge) the DC might have been up around 45 (I don't really remember the numbers). The challenge then was to find a smith who could actually produce such a weapon, not to mention the money it would cost and a quantity of Greensteel, a metal found only in Gehenna and the Abyss.

I also had all non-standard weapons (including straight Mastework, +1 to hit) and armor bear a maker's mark somewhere. I don't think the players ever picked up on it but I used specific marks for items they found in various places (eg: all the weapons wielded by undead guards in an ancient crypt were made by the same smith... the former smith of the order that built the place).

Another idea to try out for size is having certain smiths be of such great skill that their artistry imbues properties into their craft whether they mean to do it or not. I imagine it would take a feat requiring a dozen or so ranks in Craft from a PC to do it, but such a smith might simply make +2 items every time he made anything. If he really focused and made his equivalent of a masterwork item it might come out as a Sunblade or something. Then if the PCs wanted to buy a Flaming Burst Greatsword they'd have to seek the legendary dwarven swordmaker Haupt Egrerin Dirrek of the Great Hall of the Western Range who works metal in a forge of elemental flame, imbuing them with such properties and the only living smith who can do it.

I really like the idea of items becoming magical spontaneously. I think I'm going to yoink that for the next game I run.

 

[Sir Brennen]

(Kid C - this is a dupe post from Crystalmarch, so you don't have to re-read it )

Why not take the fashioning of magical weapons and armor out of the hands of magic users entirely? Let them focus on wands, staves and the One Ring.

This is harkening back to the older editions with suggestions of special, rare components which were pretty much up to the DM's whim, but a slightly more systematic approach could be applied for 3E.

To get a magical property added, you need material which has been exposed to a particular environment or circumstance. The DM should be fairly flexible about the type of properties that can be added, focusing on the flavor over the mechanic. It doesn't always have to be the base metal either, but could be other substances which serve as coking or fluxes during the creation process of the alloy the weapon or armor will be made from. Some examples:

• A cave which has been used as a lair by a line of red dragons for generations, literally thousands of years. Legend holds that there is a vein of mithril running through the caves which, when forged into a weapon, properties like Flaming, Wounding or Elf Bane (the favorite snack of these dragons) can be coaxed from it. Also, weapons found in the depths of the cave, appearing to be in the style of the empire some three hundred years ago, have been reforged into other items with these properties. Some even developed them spontaneously.
• The axe which once belonged to a knight who fought in the wars against the Black-Foot goblins, killing hundreds, was crafted into a Bane weapon against all goblin races. The breastplate of a ranger who dedicated his life to battling the frost giants in the mountain passes of his homeland armor used in campaigns against specific races or creatures, or just used by a dedicated for of such creatures over a lifetime, could be reused for Bane properties.
• Infernal limestone has been used as a flux to impart a whole host of abilities - Flaming, Unholy, Vicious, even Axiomatic.
• Armoury using the waters from the well at the god of storms' temple during heavy gales are often made into shocking, thundering or lightning-proof.
• A celestial emissary of the god of winter once granted the king its mace, which was melted down and reshaped into a cold demon-bane sword to battle against firey infernals that had invaded his kingdom.

I'm thinking that properties aren't just added like they are in the current system - it actually has to be re-forged. However, as the more magical materials are introduced, the item's metal acquires a "memory", and to a large extent, re-shapes itself to its original form. So if you are trying to add Frost to your mithril sword, when you melt it down, it still wants to be a sword, and it would actually be difficult to reshape it into an axe, for instance. (This tendency is flavor to explain why, when adding new properties, you don't pay the time and cost of the original properties over again.)

I'm also thinking that existing magic armory could be melted down and their properties added to a target item that's being reforged. This isn't always terribly efficient, especially if there are properties which the character can't afford to add, or can't use (like Unholy), which get changed into worthless slag during the process.

The thing about this is, you can make the materials be as much or as little of the item creation process as you want. You can assume the craftsman has the materials from somewhere (though in some cases it's probably wise not to ask), and the PCs just pay the guy like you would a magic user in the standard rules.

Or, the craftsman tells the PCs that he's out of any material to create Angel Bane at the moment, but he has a wizard friend mounting an expedition to the 4th Layer of Hell, if the PCs want to accompany him and pick up a bearded devil's glaive while they're there...

A couple of other thoughts on this sort of setup:

Normal weapons and armor might pick up the energy to impart some of the magical properties, even though they'll never manifest them. For instance, while on an arctic adventure, the PCs come across the frozen corpse of a white dragon with a sword thrust in its heart. While masterwork, it is only normal steel, and can't be enchanted. However, having been the object of such a heroic act and remaining in the dragon for who knows how long, if a PC were to have a craftsman melt it down, they could add cold based or even dragon bane properties to their own +3 adamantium sword. The ordinary metal would become slag in the process, with the magical essence retained.

Such items wouldn't be too uncommon in ancient ruins, tombs and caves - at least not to the sort who typically risk life and limb to find them. Craft checks, Knowledge (History), Bardic Lore, etc. could all be used to determine if such an item might possess any such latent power - or detect magic could also find such objects radiate magic of an untyped school and power level "latent".

Another nice fit for this is the "growing item" idea. A meteoric iron sword might have an interesting history giving it some of these latent abilities, which the PC can unlock as he gains levels. The concept of an item's history is a core concept from Weapons of Legacy, which could be used for inspiration. Or, the additional rules in the DMG II regarding bound weapons, where adding properties requires performing a certain action, could work too, especially if the PC performs the action without realizing the potential result. "Defeating the last of the dozen bugbears single handedly, you realize your sword could let you Cleave, all on it's own!"

So, there's lots of flavor and ideas... I do also have more mechanical stuff related to all this brewing in my head.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

You'll never be able to recapture the magic of magic items in the D&D system, just because of the way it's all set up. So long as magic bonuses are an integral part of every character (which they are), we will all continue to think of magic items as just another number. Creating a bunch of different materials from which magic items must be made from, or required feats to make them, will only add complication to the game without dealing with the true problem. A powerful item having a history is great, but in the end a wizard is going to love his Staff of the Ancient One because it has empowered/maximized fireballs for 1 charge and a ranger is going to love his Bow of the Primordial Woodlands because it's a +5 keen shocking burst speed composite longbow.

I don't like to be a downer, but that's the way it is.

 

[Land Outcast]

@ Tequila: You mean my elven ranger chose a +1 longsword over his +1 scimitar just because it dealt 1d8 instead of 1d6?

Nope, it was because the scimitar was a "Codenumber 346 +1 Scimitar", and the Longsword had a silvery blade, and its guard and pommel were designed as if they were a vine clinging to the blade shaped in the form of a guard and pommel.

But maybe that's just me...

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I like some of the ideas that have been presented, here... There are, however, a couple of issues that I could see getting in the way of them...

Feats: I'd be wary of making too many separate feats for the creation of magic items... It's already a suboptimal choice for players to take magic item creation feats, especially when they gain so few out of the already very large number of feat choices.

Craft Skills: I'd also be wary about using the current craft skill rules to create magic item, due to the ridiculous amount of time it'd take for a character to complete something like that.

Special Components: Some DMs (not all) dislike the critter harvesting mania that this sort of system can cause. Even for those DMs who do not dislike it, it does cause a change in the overall treasure value of any given encounter, and would likely require some additional finangling of the numbers to keep to the wealth by level guidelines.

Other than those few issues (and some others that may exist that I haven't thought of) these ideas are all pretty good ones, and give me an immediate sense of how such things might make the game cooler.

Later
silver

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I like some of the ideas that have been presented, here... There are, however, a couple of issues that I could see getting in the way of them...

I've already been giving some of your issues some thought, as they concern me, too.

Feats: I'd be wary of making too many separate feats for the creation of magic items... It's already a suboptimal choice for players to take magic item creation feats, especially when they gain so few out of the already very large number of feat choices.

I already simplify the Item Creation feats down to just a few (four, IIRC). In this instance, with the lesser magic items being "replaced" by special, non-magical items, I might even reduce it further. I wouldn't object overly much to just "Craft Magic Item," and leave it at that.

Craft Skills: I'd also be wary about using the current craft skill rules to create magic item, due to the ridiculous amount of time it'd take for a character to complete something like that.

I use the Craft Points rules from Unearthed Arcana in my current game - I think the current base craft rules are too silly. They're based on cost of the item, not the difficulty of actually crafting an item. I'd love to see a better system, but I don't know what that system is. The UA Craft points are much better than the standard system, IMO, but may still not work for this idea. It's something I'm keeping in the back of my head, however.

Special Components: Some DMs (not all) dislike the critter harvesting mania that this sort of system can cause. Even for those DMs who do not dislike it, it does cause a change in the overall treasure value of any given encounter, and would likely require some additional finangling of the numbers to keep to the wealth by level guidelines.

I'm not sure I'd do a huge amount of critter harvesting - not that that's a big deal to me. One of the DM's I play under (eris404 on these boards) has a magical Artificer's Guild in her alternate Victorian England D&D game that pays a certain amount for monster bits - basically X gp per CR, IIRC. It's not a lot compared to the other treasure we've gotten in that game.