Advanced Weapon Crafting

[Clay_More]

Okay, made some more work on the materials. I am still far from satisfied with the list, hoping to get something along the line of 80-100 materials in total. Still need to finish some materials that I already have ideas for, as well as adapting some of the material from Kerrick.

Indexed the materials in a table of contents so they should be more easy to read.

MATERIALS

Added the following materials since latest update.
Infernal Iron, Flarecore
Infernal Iron, Sarkhand
Infernal Iron, Zarool
Jade, Imbued
Moonsilver
Shadow
Sharkskin
Underdark Silk

Notes in the bottom mention if a material is based on input from someone else.

Looking for some feedback on these materials as well, as always, suggestions for more. I have many, many materials that I am still working on. Dragonhide, Dragonfang, various crystals that will benefit psionics, more materials that work especially well in a certain environment (like Sharkskin), imbued gemstones based on existing gemstones (looking at quartz, jasper, ebon and other stones at the moment) and alot more.

 

[Land Outcast]

I repeat: The most excelent... I'm totally yoinking this!

 

[Land Outcast]

More of my thoughts:

would it be too much to make cruel damage cost healing x2 to recover the victim?

What about an "advanced" Pata Hilt which gives also a +1 Armor Bonus to AC (of course, doesn't stack with armor), and a +1 Equipment bonus to AC when fighting defensively?

Ornamented gave me an idea...
What about a blade so shiny, so well polished, that given any degree of light gives the opponent a -1 penalty to AC?

An important modification:
A poison dispenser. Seen it in books and just love it. As a swift action you cover your weapon's blade with the stored poison.

Another one:
Hidden blade. On the pommel of One Handed or Two Handed weapons. As a swift action you deploy a dagger-sized blade from your weapon's pommel.

 

[harmyn]

This is a great thread mate. Love the ideas you are working on here.

Someone had mentioned Jade as a substance earlier. For its special ability it could Affect Insubstansial (or give a percentage chance to hit). I would also lower its HP though (making it more brittle and therefore not something you would always want to use unless you are facing ghosties).

 

[Land Outcast]

I knew someone would vouch for Jade aside from meª!

 

[Corvidae]

I love what you have done. I have always felt that masterwork was far too weak, considering how large the difference is between the best sword I have ever weilded and the worst.

I would like to see if you could do the opposite, I mean, make it easier to craft the weapon, but make it a little worse. These could be rusty, dull, bent, whatever. But I have always wanted weapons to be a much wider spectrum than they are. Great job.

You should try writing an article on these ideas for ENWORLD.

This is wonderful.

John

 

[Clay_More]

Thanks for your comments. I actually implemented jade now, as a gemstone. I went through different material about the history of jade to find some inspiration for special powers, and I found that it was often used by some cultures to make weapons or equipment used for ritual sacrifice. I came up with the idea of making it bolster the Bane weapon special quality.

Corvidae, good idea about flaws. It actually gave me an idea to implement some flaws. My idea is to divide flaws into 2 groups.

Group 1 is "wear and tear" flaws. For example, every time you find a weapon or armor in a treasure pile, there's a chance that it has a random flaw. This could be rusty, bent, dull, etc. This means that occasionally you will find a nice weapon that needs some work before it can be used.

Group 2 are "fantastic" flaws. These have a chance to occour when crafting a high DC weapon. The higher the DC of the craft check, the higher chance of the weapon getting a fantastic flaw. This would emphasize the semi-magical nature of a truely well-made weapon or armor. Weapons and armor with a certain DC (I am thinking of around 60) would gain a flaw automatically, since its impossible to craft such a magnificient weapon without it taking on a slight negative property as well. The fantastic weapon flaws could include.

- Bloodthirst: The weapon can't be sheathed if it hasn't tasted blood after it was unsheathed.
- Forge spirit: The weapon is imbued with an intelligent spirit from its forging, a spirit that has an aligment and purpose of its own that it occasionally tries to impose on its wielder.
- God cursed: A god has cursed the weapon when it was made, causing it to be far less effective against followers of that god. Will often be a god who opposes the person forging the weapon.
- Vulnerability: The weapon is for some strange reason unable to penetrate a specific metal or material. For example, the weapon is incapable of penetrating anything made of silver, bronze, etc. Could be an interesting flaw for the weapon of a great hero, a flaw he will do anything to hide from his enemies.

Anyways, I created some new materials and a single new weapon modification based on some input from various people.

New Weapon Modifications
Poison Store

New Materials
Astralite
Cloud Silver
Desecrated Bone
Orichulum
Rust Monster Scale
Steel, Diamond Doped

 

[Corvidae]

Looks awesome, I like the fantastic flaws especially. i only had normal flaws in mind, such as rusty or dented. I think that it would be awesome for random treasure to have these flaws. I mean, it would give characters a reason to choose ranks in armorer or weaponsmith, as they would have to repair the things that they have found.

I also think it would be great for weapons such as those carried by orcs, which would not be the highest quality.

Awesome stuff anyway.

John

 

[Corvidae]

Something I would reccomend would be ammunition varients. I mean, historically there were dozens of different types of arrows from those designed to fly farther than normal, to things like the frog-crotch arrow which were designed to do large bloody wounds, but were not very good against armor. The frog-crotch name comes from the arrow being shaped like a Y with the inner edges being sharpened.

Here are a few ideas

Frog crotch- +1d4 damage vs. unarmored opponents, -1d4 damage against armored opponents

bodkin- +2 on attack rolls against plate or chain armor (a bodkin is a needle thin arrowhead)

Broadhead- +2 damage -2 attack roll

Barbed arrow- -1 damage, but imposes a -1 penalty on attack rolls of the person it hits

Elven broadhead- +2 damage, -1 Attack roll

Elven bodkin- +3 on attack rolls against plate or chain armor

Bolthead arrow- causes subdual damage

Sharktooth arrow- Causes +1 damage, but -1 on attack rolls

Flare arrow- Causes normal damage for the arrow, +1d2 fire damage

Flight arrow- adds 20ft to range increment but because of the lighter weight -1 to damage rolls

These are just some ideas, you can flesh them out all you want.

I hope you enjoy

John

 

[Clay_More]

Thanks for the input Corvidae, I did think of going ahead with making ranged weapon modifications as well as arrow types, just want to finish up everything with melee weapons before I move ahead. Once I get melee weapons finished up, I will definitely use the ideas you had for arrows below.

I worked a little bit further on the idea of mundane flaws and came up with the following on mundane flaws for weapons.

Mundane Flaws

I also started working a bit on Special Abilities for melee weapons. I didn't make that many so far, but I am working on it. My first little "project" was to make some advanced versions of the old Flaming, Frost and Shock abilities that actually reflect some of the special qualities of the elements they use, instead of merely causing extra damage of X type.

Weapon Special Abilities