Another spin to masterwork weapons...

[Pekkias]

Hi,

 

I wanted to share this idea which I got from some OD&D forums and have been using in my home PnP D&D 3e and 4e games... In my opinion it adds more feel to the game.

 

Basic +1/+2/...+X weapons (and other plain +X items) are not magical! Instead they are exceptionally well made and/or made from special materials. E.g. Steel items are either cold iron or mithral, wooden items are made of darkwood, leather from some monster hide (and of course all are very good quality too). This could cover items for example to +3, (so that items of +4 and +5 would describe enchantments) or even all plain +x items (I personally think that a good line would be in +2 or +3 in BG).

 

some examples:

 

+1/+2/+3 Longsword: +1 Dwarven Steel/ +2 Cold Iron/ +3 Adamantine

+3 Bow: Darkwood Bow, This bow is finely crafted from darkwood and its string is made of fine elven hair...

+3 Leather armor: Wyvern skin armor

 

You could have them without the plusses in the names...

 

Of course special "named" items also have some kind of enchantments on them...

 

So the only thing to change would be few lines in item description and probably name, in some cases just patching would do the trick I think.

 

 

Just my thoughs,

 

-Pekkias

[Jarno Mikkola]

You could have them without the plusses in the names...

Well, I kinda like this idea of removing the odd "+number" from the item name, but I do have a reservation, this would need to be independent component, as the other weapons from other item adding mods wouldn't be updated in the primary component... but that's even harder to code.

[Demivrgvs]

Short reply: this is a too drastic change over vanilla and PnP rules and feel. (Not to mention I have a quite close deadline, thus I've not enough time to discuss in depth something like this.)

 

Long story: I do not like much the whole +X enchantment level thing for a couple of reasons (e.g. I hate that a cool weapon may become uselesss only because it's a +1 weapon) and I instead like quite much to have weapons and armors of specific and unique materials. Anyway, removing or heavily altering the former is an almost impossible task within this engine, because we should also consequently alter tons of things (e.g. PfMW and similar spells). A simple renaming of things like you suggest instead do not change much ok, but it may generate some serious confusion (e.g. a creature previously immune to +1 weapons now need a cold iron weapon to be hit), and it can lead to a strange world where cold iron weapons and adamantine weapons are really too "common". The +X may sound bad when you read it in the weapon's main name, but it's just there to give you a quick understanding of the weapon's "power level", it's not really part of the name. I could as well remove the "+X" part from names and achieve more or less the same goal of replacing them (I'd prefer this solution), but I think the end result is not worth the effort, as tons of players would surely dislike it as much as you dislike the current vanilla solution.

[Pekkias]

this is a too drastic change over vanilla and PnP rules and feel.

This is how all D&D players nowadays might think, but what I read from the original D&D forums, the idea that +1 was not magical, just high quality etc was Gary Gygax's original idea...

 

But yes, I understand what you are saying...

 

I can live with the plusses, but what I don't like is the straight description that "this weapon is magical". So what about keeping the name intact and the plusses in it but just changing part of the items full description... Does't your main component alter these already in some way?

 

Examples

In vanilla we have longsword +1: ...The blade hums slightly in your hand, the only overt evidence that magic runs through it.

-> Change it to ... This beautiful blade is forged from high quality pattern welded steel and has runes inscribed upon it.

 

longsword +2 in vanilla: A sword of standardized enchantment, powerful though it is. The great southern nations...

-> Change to: This sword is forged from mithril, a very rare and precious metal. The blade is decorated with runes and mystic engravings. The great southern nations...

 

As a side note I noticed drow longsword is described to be adamantine in vanilla and no reference to magic.

 

Here is a list for forgotten realms special materials that could be used.

 

 

 

Anyway as another question, how hard would it be for me to change these for my own game by editing your mod (main component?) before installing it?

[Demivrgvs]

I can live with the plusses, but what I don't like is the straight description that "this weapon is magical". So what about keeping the name intact and the plusses in it but just changing part of the items full description... Does't your main component alter these already in some way?

I can't alter those description to make those magical weapons look like they are not magical. A similar change has much more strings attached than you think. For example I should also alter Protection from Magical Weapons to say something like "this spell protects from x, y and z materials".

 

As a side note I noticed drow longsword is described to be adamantine in vanilla and no reference to magic.

Yep, though vanilla's lore on drow items was full of errors. It was misleading players to believe adamantine was the cause of both the extraordinary quality of drow armors/weapons and the cause of them not resisting the sunlight, whereas the only thing adamantine should do is making those armors extremely resistant. This is a long story, but if you read IR's description of drowcraft items you can have a better idea of what I'm saying.

 

Here is a list for forgotten realms special materials that could be used.

Thanks, though I already have quite a lot of sources for special materials (in fact I do have a bunch of rare materials used within IR like gree/red steel, starmetal, etc.). As I said I do like to use special materials, and have them affect the items (e.g. starmetal is effective against extraplanar beings, adamantine armors grant incresed resistance, etc.), but they can't be used in place of +X enchantment level in a standard D&D setting.

 

Anyway as another question, how hard would it be for me to change these for my own game by editing your mod (main component?) before installing it?

You simply have to alter the respective description in the item_descriptions.tra file you can find within the 'language' folder. It may take quite some time but it's not hard to do at all.

[Pekkias]

I can't alter those description to make those magical weapons look like they are not magical.

I'm not saying that they can't look magical, just that they don't say it directly... If you say a fine sword has runes inscribed upon it, it probably is magical, but it lets the player to imagine and imo adds some flavour rather than just saying this item is magical.

 

Yep, though vanilla's lore on drow items was full of errors...

Oh, I thought it was the 2nd ed. way (tried to remember how it was on good ol' Salvatores). Good that you cleared things up.

 

But you are right the work might be too much for practically no gain. I just had to say this idea out loud and not to stay silent and regret .

 

Thanks for your replies... guess I have to do some text editing