Mercurial Weapons -- good idea or bad idea?

[ColonelHardisson]

Check out Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" series. The sword of Severian, the torturer, is Terminus Est, and is used for executions. It's clearly the inspiration for Mercurial swords. Read those books and then tell me how stupid, silly, or bad they are.

Good idea. Very good.

 

[jasper]

why should we read a book which a weapon may be base on Col?


Bad idea bad enough we have darth mall's light saber um double weapon. Now in all this fantasy stuff we throw in a real life mechanic. I do allow them imc but at *3 the price at least.

 

[Zappo]

Considering that Weapon Specialization gives +2 damage for a feat, I see nothing wrong with "Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Mercurial Greataxe" giving what amounts to +1 damage.

But you can take Weapon Specialization: Mercurial Greataxe, for a total effective +3 to damage. There is no feat that gives you +1 damage for nothing, no ifs no buts, and stacks with Weapon Specialization.

It's not enough to unbalance the game, but it is enough to have lots of people using mercurial weapons. While I like having lots of people going around with (eg) bastard swords, because they make sense, I don't like having lots of people going around using a silly weapon.

 

[arwink]

Another vote for bad.

I'd allow them, but they're going to be rare weapons and anyone wanting to take the feat is going to search long and hard to find a dwarven weaponscrafter with suitable knowledge and training to make one.

 

[Tetsubo]

Bad. Bad. Bad.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Bad.

I consider them a mind-bogglingly stupid idea and would never even consider them in my game.

(come to that, most of the weapons in Sword and Fist were mind-bogglingly silly IIRC. Tumbling bolts anyone?)

 

[incognito]

blech

like most splat book weapon, IMO.

stump knife, anyone? I've had players semi-seriously ask if they could cut off their hand for this.

 

[arwink]

stump knife, anyone? I've had players semi-seriously ask if they could cut off their hand for this.

Please tell me you're kidding?

Oh, the fun that could be had with this one...

 

[Frostmarrow]

Bad. In SnF the merc-longsword does 1d10 damage, 19-20 x3. This was changed to 1d8 damage, 19-20 x4 in the errata. Still silly, though.

 

[Squire James]

Mechanically speaking, they are okay if you use their errata'd version (merc longsword 1d8/x4, merc greatsword 1d12/x4). Be prepared for some exceptionally mean crits once in a while, but 95% of the time it won't really matter.

They're pretty silly as anything but minor/major artifacts, though! I can see such weapons adding a bit of excitement to a high-level game where the fighters might be wondering what to do with their last 4 bonus feats. I don't really see level 1 characters running around with them... sorta like children playing with actual greatswords! Even the Long Sun series (which was pretty much an "anything goes" campaign) mostly limited such weapons to beings that already had a high degree of combat ability.

In my campaign, the famed "githyanki silver swords" are swords of this type. If you own one, a bunch of githyanki are after you!