Masterwork Armors

[SableWyvern]

Sensical is not a word.

Actually it is, although "sensible" has pretty much taken over entirely in common useage.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Well in your campaign you can just limit it to arcane and divine casters. That make you feel better?

This comes off as patronizing.

I was simply making a point, not stating my personal preference one way or the other.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Can it work, is it neat? Sure. But it's not appropriate for all interpretations of magic.

The same is true for 3E/3.5E.

I mean... all dwarven mastersmiths are spellcasters or their fabled weapons are just giving you +1 to attack rolls? What?

Cheers, LT.

 

[hong]

Were you not making the point that 3e casters were not the best-suited folk for making magic arms and armor?

I was making the point that if you are trying to simulate 3E, nothing beats 3E. But simulating 3E is not the be all and end all of s*mul*tionism.

If not, well, perhaps you may want to work on your communication skills, and stop being so annoyingly obtuse, so as to better engender intelligent conversation.

Break out of your paradigm.

 

[GnomeWorks]

I mean... all dwarven mastersmiths are spellcasters or their fabled weapons are just giving you +1 to attack rolls? What?

...I don't see why we're suddenly comparing 3.5 and 4e.

It is nonsensical to me that plusses are interpreted as almost always being magical in origin, so I really don't care for either system's method of going about it. They're both weak, just in different ways.

I was making the point that if you are trying to simulate 3E, nothing beats 3E. But simulating 3E is not the be all and end all of s*mul*tionism.

...which is relevant how, exactly?

Break out of your paradigm.

For one post, hong, could you quit being a tool?

 

[SnakeNuts]

Whoa! I leave this thread for a couple of hours and... Boom! (no, I'm not Steve J.)

Okay, say you have scale armor and you want to turn it into +4 armor. There are component costs that come with that. 45.000 gp of them. Now I don't plan on letting the players go to 'ye olde magick shoppe' and ask for "45.000gp worth of your best generic components good man." They need to search a bit.

Maybe the 45.000 gp is the actual masterwork suit for the most part, with some other bits of arcana thrown in for good measure. Or maybe it's the cost of the components to turn the player's existing suit of scale mail into the masterwork version.

The Enchant Item ritual never says it uses the 45.000 gp itself to enchant the item, so like anything else that is hard to get, the players have to shop around for the components. I guess they're as hard to find as... oh, I don't know, a +4 magic scale armor?

 

[hamishspence]

Crystal Shard: Bruenor and Aegis Fang

He used a scroll, which, in 4th ed, would be a ritual scroll of Enchant Item. Also, the actual enchanting took one night. Whereas, in 3rd ed, he'd need to be a spellcaster, and enchanting would take months.

The hard bit is: what should Aegis fang count as in 4th ed? At the moment, closest equivalent would be a +4 vicious throwing hammer, since there is no throwing enchantment to put on melee weapons. It would still be usuable, but look a bit undersized.

Or you could take advantage of the Jotenbrund concept from Races of Faerun and use a bugbear statline for Wulfgar, saying his 6ft 10 inch height counts him as having Wield Oversized Weapon, making Aegis fang a Large throwing hammer. the only person we see wield it beside him is another barbarian, at least in early books. I'm not sure of Sheila Kree actually wielded the weapon.

 

[WhatGravitas]

...I don't see why we're suddenly comparing 3.5 and 4e.

Basically, because it's more or less the only fantasy data point I have, where spellcasters are *required* to create any magical item!

Which was the point of the discussion - that now non-spellcasters are able to create magic item.

Cheers, LT.

 

[hamishspence]

the ritual system

To assess it, should we look at its ancesters in 3rd ed? Epic spellcasting, D20 Moderns Incantations, and Unearthed Arcanas Incantations. All these tried to do unusual spells, and Epic spellcasting was too easily broken. the previos two were customizable, but still very slow (minimum 1 hour) and had worse failure consequences, often.

Now, with rituals, it combines the idea that anyone can cast them (with training) with use of the old, problematic spells.

Some things I thought were strongly fitting of novels. The ability of observed creatures to break the sensor. Fzoul did something like that when observed in Crown of Fire. Moloch in David Gemmells Last Sword of Power also broke the sensor when looked at, leaving the observer with nasty scorching.

Maybe the cost for rituals is a bit high, but the concept is good, I think.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Were you not making the point that 3e casters were not the best-suited folk for making magic arms and armor?

I think he's saying armorers and weaponsmiths are best suited for making arms and armor.