Weapon Enchantments in item form?

[CapnZapp]

_Does_ the game need them, though? Maybe yours does, but does mine?

Similar items (weapon/armor crystals) have been a (very) late addition in 3E and I'm still not entirely happy about the way they were balanced. I'm not sure I want them in 4E (yet).

Well, if you play with player wish lists and stuff like that I don't think you do need them.

But I'm thinking they would make a great DM tool to hand out specific and evocative treasure while keeping things as flexible as possible

In other words, adding value to the game.

I know nothing of the 3E counterparts, and I refuse to buy the argument "let's skip them in 4E, they were broken in 3E"... Nothing suggests WotC will make that same mistake twice!

 

[CapnZapp]

I dunno... giving them an item whose magical property is something like this:

"Short Rest (Consumable): Select one weapon, armour, or cloak. You spend a while binding this runestone to the target item. The item's enchantment is altered, as though via the Transfer Enchantment ritual, to the appropriate one of the following:
- Flaming Weapon +1
- (Heavy Armour) Whitefire Armour +1 [as per Whiteflame Armour, but swap fire and radiant in its powers, and add cold damage to the possible types it can adopt; lvl5]
- (Light Armour) Flamecut Armour +1 [as per Bloodcut Armour, but the resistance granted is 10 vs all but fire, 15 vs fire; lvl5]
- Flamedrinker Shield
- Cape of the Mountebank, Flame Red"

... would be perfectly reasonable. Come up with a shortlist of items which will be useful to various people in the party, and let them argue it out.

Thanks for your constructive suggestion (a first for the thread! )

However, I don't see why I should need to write down a shortlist. Preferably I would like something simpler, like

A rune of "Flaming +1". Apply to any weapon you can normally apply Flaming to.

-or-

A rune of "Flaming +1". Apply to any weapon.

-or-

A rune of "Flaming +1". Apply to any weapon or implement.

-or-

A rune of "Flaming +1". Apply to any item.



Using Flaming as a convenient example here. I'm fully aware the last suggestion is broken if it makes sense at all.

Always remember that the players won't get to manufacture any rune they want. So I as the DM gets to keep track of which enchantments they get to apply to non-standard stuff.

(Essentially browsing through the Fighter and Wizard CharOp build guides gives me a rough indication of which weapon and implement enchantments to avoid for this purpose )

 

[bganon]

Thanks for your constructive suggestion (a first for the thread! )
A rune of "Flaming +1". Apply to any weapon.

Why not just do this? Mechanically, this one is just a restricted (to Flaming) version of a scroll of Enchant Magic Item bundled with 1000 gp of residuum.

I guess what I'm saying, is that the game doesn't technically have "specific enchantments in item form", but making such things seems like such a small modification of the rules I don't see why I'd ever want WOTC to waste space printing up info on it. In other words, if you want to give your players a Flaming weapon without actually dictating the weapon type to them, what's keeping you from just going ahead and doing it? The rules already give you guidance on how much such an "item" should be worth and how long it should take to apply. I'm really having difficulty understanding what more you're looking for.

 

[the8bitdeity]

Instead, if you want to be able to offer, say, the selection between either Flaming, Frost or Lightning - but no other enchantments - then the loot pile or merchant or whatever needs something tangible...

This sounds like a very story dependent item (you're offering the players a choice which is somewhat tied to a story element), am I correct? If so I'd run this sort of thing less as a consumable and more as a thematic story element. Say they find an altar of elemental attuning, but the materials component is limited. There are three "vials" that the players can choose to put the components in, each corresponding to a particular element. Once the components are expended they've consumed their "one shot". Further use would be impossible due to lack of components or perhaps other story elements (cave in where the altar is kept, etc...)

Just a thought.

Ultimately though limiting choice like that is a very story themed item, and thus I think the story should solve the problem, not mechanics.

 

[N0Man]

CapnZapp, have you looked at Dragonshard augments at all from the Eberron Player's guide? They might not be exactly what you want, but they sound like they are in the ballpark.

 

[the8bitdeity]

CapnZapp, have you looked at Dragonshard augments at all from the Eberron Player's guide? They might not be exactly what you want, but they sound like they are in the ballpark.

Dragonshards == FF7 materia, which I'm completely for

 

[Ahrimon]

I would go the gem route. You could either have natural magic items, i.e. the stuff we have now, and "masterwork" items with no other property other than a single gem slot or just the masterwork stuff.

Then you hand out a weapon widget of +1 flaming or an armor widget of +1 whatever. They only work on the type of item that that enchantment would normally work on.

This would allow the party to more freely decide who get's what upgrade. Granted, I'd make it take a short rest to swap just to prevent the inevitable combat swapping.

At higher levels it would even eliminate the whole regular armor vs masterwork magic armor armor thing. Take a widget, place it on the masterwork plate (that in this system is just regular plate with a single slot) and with a flash, a poof and some trumpets playing in the background, you have +6 godplate.