The whole point of the thread was to increase the danger of combat by increasing weapon damage...
Calculating ELs seems pretty easy to me. Increase damage for creatures with EL that is about the same as a warrior's EL when that warrior would typically be able to afford a masterwork weapon.
The use of the term "unbalancing" in the above post is difficult to understand because I don't know what increased mastercraft weapon damage is unbalanced against. Monsters? Increase damage for high EL monsters. Spellcasters perhaps? I guess. But spellcasters are usually supported by fighters. It's about as "unbalanced" as saying everybody gets half as many hit points.
And the effect you describe (everybody buys the better weapons) is to be expected. In the star wars rpg, blasters and lightsabers are basically 3 die weapons, slugthrowers and vibroblades are 2 die weapons, and primitive weapons are 1 die weapons. Everybody uses blasters unless they have roleplaying reasons to do otherwise. And combat is more deadly. You can kill most first level characters -- that's reduce them to -10 hit points in D&D terms, though SW uses wound points -- with a single shot from the most common weapon around (the blaster).
As to "anyone with money can get one", that's the way it is already. There is a gp value for increasing damage by 1 die that I'm sure someone with the inclination could figure out. However, the point of the original post was to increase damage over what it is under the core rules (to increase the deadliness of combat). So, masterwork should be cheaper than that. I didn't mean to imply, however, that they would be cheap. You can make the price whatever you want. If you make a 3d8 legendcraft longsword cost 100,000gp, nobody will buy it until they could afford to place a nice enchantment on it (epic levels).
Calculating ELs seems pretty easy to me. Increase damage for creatures with EL that is about the same as a warrior's EL when that warrior would typically be able to afford a masterwork weapon.
The use of the term "unbalancing" in the above post is difficult to understand because I don't know what increased mastercraft weapon damage is unbalanced against. Monsters? Increase damage for high EL monsters. Spellcasters perhaps? I guess. But spellcasters are usually supported by fighters. It's about as "unbalanced" as saying everybody gets half as many hit points.
And the effect you describe (everybody buys the better weapons) is to be expected. In the star wars rpg, blasters and lightsabers are basically 3 die weapons, slugthrowers and vibroblades are 2 die weapons, and primitive weapons are 1 die weapons. Everybody uses blasters unless they have roleplaying reasons to do otherwise. And combat is more deadly. You can kill most first level characters -- that's reduce them to -10 hit points in D&D terms, though SW uses wound points -- with a single shot from the most common weapon around (the blaster).
As to "anyone with money can get one", that's the way it is already. There is a gp value for increasing damage by 1 die that I'm sure someone with the inclination could figure out. However, the point of the original post was to increase damage over what it is under the core rules (to increase the deadliness of combat). So, masterwork should be cheaper than that. I didn't mean to imply, however, that they would be cheap. You can make the price whatever you want. If you make a 3d8 legendcraft longsword cost 100,000gp, nobody will buy it until they could afford to place a nice enchantment on it (epic levels).
