Ironwood Lute?

[DJ_Lycos]

I'm working up a semi-pacifist support type bard and I was wondering if there is a way to get an ironwood (or some other special type) lute, so that if I need to get into some kinda combat it wont smash if I use it to hit someone with, without having to spend an ass load of gold to get.

This considering the DM doesn't allow me to have one as a special item starting out.

[Waker]

If you're a pacifist, wouldn't it defeat the purpose to smash someone with a lute?
Hiring a Druid to cast Ironwood would require spending 660gp (hiring a minimum 11th caster to cast a 6th level spell is (60gp X 11)) On the upside you can try to convince your DM to give the lute an enhancement bonus to it since in is weighs less than the amount possible to enchant via the spell.
I would think the cheaper solution would be to use Summon Instrument and just get a new lute every fight.

[gbprime]

It's still an improvised weapon either way. -4 to hit.

[DJ_Lycos]

If you're a pacifist, wouldn't it defeat the purpose to smash someone with a lute?
Hiring a Druid to cast Ironwood would require spending 660gp (hiring a minimum 11th caster to cast a 6th level spell is (60gp X 11)) On the upside you can try to convince your DM to give the lute an enhancement bonus to it since in is weighs less than the amount possible to enchant via the spell.
I would think the cheaper solution would be to use Summon Instrument and just get a new lute every fight.

Its a just in case type thing...in most groups its hard to never get into combat...if I need to I can smack em once or twice till someone else can jump in.

[DJ_Lycos]

It's still an improvised weapon either way. -4 to hit.

I know...its not something I'm going to be doing all the time

[Big Fau]

I seem to recall an actual weapon that doubled as a musical instrument. Check the Dragon Compendium, Arms & Equipment Guide, CAdv, and possibly Cityscape.

[Keld Denar]

Complete Scoundrel has weapons you can attach to your instrument. As a bonus, they are easy to conceal.

[No brains]

I believe the answer would be an instrument blade. It's in either C Adv or C Scoundrel.

[Darrin]

I seem to recall an actual weapon that doubled as a musical instrument. Check the Dragon Compendium, Arms & Equipment Guide, CAdv, and possibly Cityscape.

Steel flute. Secrets of Sarlona. Making it out of Darkwood or Ironwood would be fairly trivial, I should think.

The Cityscape web enhancement has the all-mighty Lute Bow (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070314a).

[Randomguy]

You can get an instrument blade for 10gp: Basically a dagger that pops out of whatever musical instrument you want. You take -2 to attack with it though. It comes with iron reinforcements, so that it doesn't break as easily.

[No brains]

It took me a while, but this reminded me of a story about some Chinese guy who wanted to kill the then-emperor. He tried once with traditional murder methods and failed. This resulted in him being blinded but not killed by the emperor.

The reason he wasn't killed was because his cover to get close enough on his first attempt was a lute player, one who happened to be phenomenally good. So good in fact that the emperor offered to let him live blind and still play for him even after trying to kill him.

So over time the blind lute player plays for the emperor continues to plan to kill him. He keeps playing until he feels the emperor will let him close enough to let him strike again.

On the day he feels he is close enough, he puts a lead weight in his lute and plays beautifully until he thinks he's close enough and then swings!

He misses about as terribly as one would expect a blind man to miss and the emperor decides he's had enough of his crap and orders him executed.

Makes you think.

[Diefje]

I'd carry a "wear it to battle" instrument at all times. Keep your fancy one for when you have to really impress people. It'd totally be worth the encumbrance to just smash lutes over peoples heads all day.