Creating a magic sword: help?

[billd91]

He's a kid. Think JRPGs. Teenagers with awesome hair styles, no acne, and massive, ridiculous swords.

Heh.

Maybe you could introduce a custom spell based on flame blade that looks like a big anime sword and has some of these properties. If he's a Voltron fan in particular, he may go for it.

 

[udalrich]

Many of these features aren't standard, so you need some way to figure it without being able to easily compare to existing items. One way to look at this compare the weapon with a weapon the player could use and look at what you would need to do to that weapon to make it into something with the same stats as the player wants.

The sword is a normal greatsword with these enhancements:
Base +2 enchantment

Obviously, a +2 bonus.

It can be used by warmages without needing to take the martial weapons feat
It can be wielded 1-handed without penalty

I dislike allowing players to add restrictions to magic items, especially if there's no obvious reason. That way lies the 7 gp +5 sword of doom, only usable by chaotic neutral fighters named Bob who worship Loki and wear breastplates.

I think warmages get all simple weapons, so lets call the base weapon a heavy mace or morning star (1d8, 20/x2). Change the damage type to slashing for free, since there's no significant benefit if your facing a variety of opponents. Getting the damage back to greatsword levels (1d8->2d6) means raising the average damage from 4.5 to 7, so +2.5 damage. That's about a +1 bonus. You can think of it has half a normal +2 enhancement (since there's no to-hit bonus) or a standard +1d6 energy damage that's reduced since nothing has resistance to it.

Total so far: +3

The damage die is increased to 2d10

2d6 to 2d10 is on average +4 damage. Call that another +2 bonus.

Total so far: +5

Critical threat range is reduced to only a roll of 20
Critical multiplier is increased to x4

The threat range has already been dropped to 20, so that's taken care of.

A threat range of 19-20/x2 and 20/x3 are interchangable. Changing 20/x2 to 20/x4 would be similar to applying a variant Keen (that affects the multiplier rather than the range) twice, so probably a +2 bonus. Alternately, increasing the crit multiplier often decreases the damage dice one size. (Compare a rapier and a long sword). So decrease the damage dice twice, giving us 2d6 20/x4. Bumping the damage up to 2d10 again is a +2 bonus (see above ) That's two ways to measure this as a +2 bonus.

Total so far: +7

It confers some kind of feat which allows the user to apply intelligence bonus instead of strength bonus to hit & damage

This one is challenging. Instead needing to keep both strength and int high, you can dump strength to the point where all you care about is not being encumbered. So instead of starting with 16/15, you might start with 18/10. Also, you don't need to buy +X strength magic items or split your attribute increases, so you'll end up with something like 28/10 (+6 item, 4 levels) instead of 22/21 (+4 item x2, 2 levels each). You're certainly getting more than a +1 to hit and damage out of this, so I'd call it at least a +2.

Grand total: +9
Cost: 162,350 gold

Finally, lets compare it an item that you could make using standard enhancements. (Well, almost.)

This does 2d10 + 2 + (Int - Str) damage, or an average of 13 + (Int - Str).

A +5 Keen Keen Shocking Frost mace would do 1d8 + 2d6 + 7 damage, or an average of 11.5. It would be +3 better to hit, but would do 1.5 less damage (plus the difference from using int instead of strength). It would also have similar critical characteristics. Except for applying Keen twice, this is also a completely legal weapon for a warmage to use. (I also doubt that it's unbalancing to allow keen twice on a simple weapon. Doing so on a rapier or a scythe is much more likely to cause problems.)

That seems about the right price to me.

 

[Animal]

wow, this sword seems too unbalanced to just sell it for gold. i'd make it a legacy weapon, if i were you.
if you do it right, anime kid would also love it - a half-intelligent sword that takes you on a series of quests to fully unleash its powers and lets you attune to it in exchange for a fraction of your life force.. sounds quite JRPG'ish

 

[Jeff Wilder]

The sword is a normal greatsword with these enhancements:

[*]Base +2 enchantment
[*]It can be used by warmages without needing to take the martial weapons feat

Almost, but not quite, a feat equivalent. +5,000 gp. Also see below, regarding the pricing of using Int with the weapon instead of Str.

[*]It can be wielded 1-handed without penalty

A feat equivalent. +10,000 gp. (In my campaign, also a +10,000 gp "looks stupid" tax.)

[*]The damage die is increased to 2d10

This is an average damage increase of +4, which is a little higher than an energy enchantment. Call that a wash. On the other hand, it doubles on a crit, so with this:

[*]Critical threat range is reduced to only a roll of 20

... call it a +1 equivalent.

[*]Critical multiplier is increased to x4

Equivalent (in value, not mechanic) with keen three times, but keen three times isn't worth a +3 equivalent on a 20-crit weapon. +2 equivalent, and +10,000 gp. But I would not allow this ability to stack with keen or with Improved Critical.

[*]It confers some kind of feat which allows the user to apply intelligence bonus instead of strength bonus to hit & damage
[/list]

+1 equivalent. This would be worth more in other hands; the +1 is in consideration that the use is restricted to a warmage (who could be blowing the utter crap out of stuff with magic anyway).

So adding things up gives us a +6 enhancement bonus equivalent, +25,000 gp. 97,000 gp value; 48,500 gp to create.