Legendary Craftmanship Weapons

[SamuraiY]

Note: I'm not sure this is really the right place for this because I'm looking more for suggestions than comments on my house rules. Also I don't know 3.5 rules. Some of this might be in there.

One of my few problems with the DnD system is that the actual craftsmanship in a weapon isn't really taken into acount. There's normal weapons and there's masterwork, at least in 3e. How would you express a truly legendary quality weapon in DnD statistics? How would you handle the DCs for making one?

I'm thinking maybe some sort of point system. You could take the base DC for a Masterwork weapon and increase it by, say, 10 points and that weapon woiuld have one point. By expending those points (obviously at the point of creation) you could change the statistics of the weapon. For instance, you could increase the Crit range, add another point to the attack bonus, etc.

Comments?

 

[Yair]

To make it balanced, mimic the magical crafting rules.
Have the crafter take a "Craft Legendary Arms and Armor" feat, and have them spend the same XP and gp for the same enhancement bonuses as someone with the Craft Arms and Armor feat. I would keep the DC for making the item the same (one still needs to add the masterwork component at DC 20, of course), or 20.
Since it provides enchancement bonuses, it does not stack with magic.
It is slightly better than magical enhancements, in that it can be combined with magical enchanement (for a +5 vorpal ( +1 magical) brilliant energy sword), and in that it is not subject to antimagic or disjunction. On the other hand it costs more time and requires skill ranks to pull off. Probably a bit powerful, but workable as long as abuse with stacking magic on top is not allowed.
The crafter still can't imbue his armaments with special abiltiies. The DM may allow special materials (components) to allow for specific abiltiies (forging the weapon in coals brought from the elemental plane of fire for that flaming sword, crafting the sword out of a dragon's bone for that dragonbane sword, and so on).

That's my 2c.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Is this crafting done by PC or NPC ?

If NPC's are doing the crafting then I allow spontaneous magic item creation.
the goddess of craft blesses their effort and adds extras.
This requiries time, extra special materials collected personally, the crafter can ignore requirements, like having the caster levels or feats (skill focus craft is required minimum). The extra time is a great way to keep it out of the PCs hands, what active group has the time to wait a year to finish an item?

I allowed one pc the same blessings. His PC with +19 in craft:swordsmithing, spent a year making a siginature sword, only intending to enchant it to +2. The sword has a streak of folded darkness within it and it feels hungry when used. (campaign never resumed, and he never found out what had been added, but he knows it was something.)

I have also heard rumors that AU uses dire weapons, which have a +1 damage non magical enhancement, not cumlative with any magic.

 

[babomb]

I'd say make the rule mimic the Masterwork rules:

Creating Legendary Items You can make a legendary item — a weapon, suit of armor, shield, or tool that conveys a bonus on itsuse through its extraordinary craftsman ship, not through being magical. To create a legendary item, you create the legendary component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item and masterwork component. The legendary component has its own price (900 gp for a weapon or 450 gp for a suit of armor or a shield) and a Craft DC of 30. Once the standard component, masterwork component, and legendary component are completed, the legendary item is finished. Note: The cost you pay for the legendary component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the cost in raw materials. The bonus granted by legendary items is an enhancement bonus, and as such, it does not stack with magic that grants the same bonus.

A legendary weapon grants a +1 to damage (in addition to the +1 to attack rolls granted by masterwork weapons). This strikes me as a bit too cheap for an antimagic-proof +1 weapon (1200 gp + standard weapon cost or 400 gp + one-third cost for PC crafters). The tradeoff, I guess, is that the magic +1 still has to be paid for to add any other magical abilities. Also, it would take significant skill point investment and take longer to make, I think. A legendary shield/armor would have, say, an additional 1 point lower check penalty, a 5% lower arcane spell failure, and 1 point higher Max Dex. A legendary tool or instrument grants an additional +2 to skill checks.

You can play with the costs (and/or benefits); I just tripled the masterwork costs and added 10 to the DC.

 

[SamuraiY]

Pretty good ideas. As for who is making it, I think PCs should be able to do anything an NPC can, but in this particular instance it would be made by an NPC. If a PC were to do it I would want it to require epic or near epic skill. I would prefer to make it stronger than just an additional +1 damage, but it would be incredibly rare and take a very long time to make. The sort of weapon that would make its crafter into a legend in his profession. Something like a Masamune blade. I don't know how good they really were, but I'm refering to the (probably over hyped) blades he is said to have made.

 

[Kerrick]

I ran across this same discussion on the Monte Cook boards last year, and it prompted a friend and I to come up with a new system, which was something we were already toying with. We made it so that if you have a certain number of ranks in Craft (whatever), you can make superior weapons (which, of course, cost more). The weapon then gains a craftsmanship bonus to hit and damage (but it's not magical). This stacks with the enhancement bonus and all other bonuses. Just in case anyone's wondering, a +10 (divinely craft) weapon requires something in the neighborhood of 55 ranks and requires a DC 80 check (I'm not sure if that's totally correct - I don't have the rules to refer to). +10 is the max a non-epic crafter can make.