The damascus uber-weapon

[FoxWander]

Just read thru the "mithral vs. silver" thread and someone mentioned making a weapon out of multiple materials to bypass all of them, then someone else summarily rejected the idea and it was never brought up again. But this is an idea I've liked for a long time now, so I thought I'd make a new thread about it.

In RL modern damascus is made by layering different metals and welding them together. Then it's folded, heated and hammered again to make lots of thin layers in all kinds of neat patterns. Now in RL something like silver and steel couldn't be damascised like this but there's no reason to think this couldn't be done in a magical fantasy world. Now granted such a thing would be bypassing the "flavor" concept of all those neat material DR rules, but that's no reason to say it wouldn't be done if it could be done.

The main restrictions for such an uber-weapon would be the high cost of all the materials (x2 for cold iron, +3000 adamantine, +20-180 silvered, oh, and +300 cause it would pretty much have to be Masterwork) THEN researching the magic to do it (you'd need magic for the different temperatures involved) THEN finding someone to make it. If one of my PCs wanted to shell out 3420 gp (just in materials ) for a non-magical MW longsword that could be used against most DRs, I'd let 'em do it.

Of course a much easier version might be a morning star with individual silver, cold iron and adamantine spikes.

 

[CRGreathouse]

If one of my PCs wanted to shell out 3420 gp (just in materials ) for a non-magical MW longsword that could be used against most DRs, I'd let 'em do it.

Any character who was going to make an adamantine weapon would add 420 gp to make it cold iron and silver -- it's a no-brainer, really, unless you already have a cold iron/silver/adamantine weapon...

You mihght as well remove DR from the game.

 

[FoxWander]

Yeah but you throw in the magic to make it possible or that ONE half-crazed dwarf who's skilled enough to do and charges whatever he feels like and you can make it as expensive as you want. I did say that 3420 was just the cost of materials.

The point is- I've seen damascus knives made of bronze and steel layers. It's completely possible to make damascus of radically different materials. Since creatures exist which require the use of different materials to defeat, somebody would figure out a (ridiculously expensive) damascus process of putting them all in one weapon. But it would be a highly specialized skill, so the rarity and expense should balance it.

 

[Knight-of-Roses]

I would allow such a blended weapon, but would impose a penalty on the damage inflicted by such a mixed weapon (say by one die size) to reflect its lack of purity when overcoming DR (and only in that case).

This would make such a weapon flexible but also expensive and not as powerful as having the 'proper' material type.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I did say that 3420 was just the cost of materials.

The problem is that this is a static cost. It's a lot, perhaps, to the character who has to decide between an 8000 gp +2 sword and a 6000 gp +1 all-material sword, but when a character is spending 50,000 gp for a +5 weapon, an extra 7% tacked onto the price for breaking all DR is just too good.