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Cold-wrought iron

Nathal

Explorer
What can anybody tell me about cold-wrought iron? I can't dig up any information on this in google, so I thought I'd come here and ask the experts.
 

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Cold-wrought iron is iron that has been worked "cold", that is without a forge. Pure iron is too soft to hold an edge, and before the advent of steel in order to make them viable weapons they needed to be hammered cold. This made them harder but also more brittle.

Generally cold-wrought iron weapons should be less effective and less durable than normal weapons.
 

Honestly CWI really should be limited to Axes, hammers, maces and blades not much larger than short blades. Past that size, if the weapon in not thick enough, it will break pretty soon. Swords need steel, iron does not have the flex needed for a long blade. Real silver has similar issues. But as far as wotc feels...

Iron, Cold: This iron, mined deep underground, known for its effectiveness against fey creatures, is forged at a lower temperature to preserve its delicate properties. Weapons made of cold iron cost twice as much to make as their normal counterparts. Also, any magical enhancements cost an additional 2,000 gp.

Items without metal parts cannot be made from cold iron. An arrow could be made of cold iron, but a quarterstaff could not.

A double weapon that has only half of it made of cold iron increases its cost by 50%.

Cold iron has 30 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 10.
 
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frankthedm said:
Honestly CWI really should be limited to Axes, hammers, maces and blades not much larger than short blades. Past that size, if the weapon in not thick enough, it will break pretty soon. Swords need steel, iron does not have the flex needed for a long blade. Real silver has similar issues. But as far as wotc feels...
Well, since cold iron weapons are entirely made up, their properties are at the whim of their designers.


glass.
 

The only difference between cold iron and iron is that 'cold iron' sounds better for some poetry.

Unless you mean the D&D version, which you can look up in the DMG, p284.

Geoff.
 



I guess D&D cold iron is just some special uberiron from way down deep.


I still think they should have made it meteoric iron. I loved the chart in the 1E DMG telling what materials weapons of certain pluses were made of.

[edit] I just looked it up. I guess it was just armor. +3 armor was made of special meteoric iron steel, +4 was made of mithral alloyed steel, and +5 was made of adamantite alloyed steel. [/edit]
 
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Aaron L said:
I guess D&D cold iron is just some special uberiron from way down deep.

Mang, I hate Uberiron. What sort of crazy setting has ninjae, pirates and dinosaurs, anyway? In my day, drow were good enough for everything. You had drow ninjae, drow pirates, and so help me god, drow dinosaurs. None of the electric railroads you get in the Uberiron Campaign Setting book. In my day, we did railroading the hard way, the MANLY way, in that platonic-life-partner sense, and LIKED it. Or something.
 

No love for Uberiron?

Eberuberirronon?

(I think thats close to Menzoberranzan)


(Its a city of Drow Dinosaurs. Drow Dinosaur Pirates.)
 
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