Weapons' Progression

[Dulenheim]

I have been at odds with a concept lately. In games like fire emblem, you get swords, or just plain "weapons" made of better materials as you advance in the story and level your characters up, and each time the weapons tend to do more damage.

THIS I cant seem to find in any of the WoTC books.:smallsigh:

Therefore I have tried to set the damages myself, in the first chapter of my current campaign (we are in the second chapter now), this lead to really silly or downright overpowered weapons. (Fullblade which does 2d12 of damage).

this was my player's reaction:
http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j386/Dulenheim/dowantscoot_display.gif

and after a few rounds of combat, this was mine:
http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j386/Dulenheim/2yxkeox.gif

Most of my players were in love with the weapons, but i had to come up with an explanation for the stupidly powerful weapons, and why they wouldn't get weapons as powerful from there on.

I plan on allowing them to make powerful weapons, as they explore and gather ores, that then they can work into metals and then weapons. Thus getting a damage progression chart could be useful.

Any idea if one exists?

[Tokuhara]

It was mentioned on an episode of the D&D podcast that for Low-Magic campaigns to give players an additional +1 to hit & to damage at the appropriate levels for when they would recieve Magic Items/Weapon Upgrades

[Dulenheim]

This was my idea atm: in my game there'll be 5 metals which players can use to make weapons:


1 Bronze
2 Iron
3 Steel
4 Mythril
5 Phanaclax


each weapon has a set of possible dice rolls for damage, which apply to certain weapons. It would be assumed that weapons presented in the WoTC books are made of iron, and that bronze is way cheaper but less durable.

Other materials, such as dragonbone, ironwood and Gold have the same damage dices as some of the main materials, but will have added properties to them. Does that sound like a good idea? .-.

[vitkiraven]

Then there's the whole War of the Lance: distinction, renown... legendary variants of masterwork, for the bonuses to hit, having weapons made of heavy metals (I.e. gold and platnium) which increase the damage (at exotic proficiency), and the extra masterwork qualities which sprung up in a Dragon Magazine.
Hell, if you are not extremely hateful of third party, there's Swashbuckling Adventures for dracheneisen steel to make things better...
I'm all for giving the mundanes better things. Some of those may work for you.


Edit: I see the ideas you have and you should go with them. Sounds pretty good.

[Flickerdart]

Why exactly is a Fullblade that deals 2d12 damage overpowered? You've blown a feat on a weapon that hits for an average of 13 damage, while a plain old Greatsword hits for average 7 - a feat is worth more than 6 points of damage that will never scale.

You could just say that each point of enhancement bonus represents a better metal, so mundane weapons would be Bronze, +1 would be Iron, +2 would be Steel, +3 would be Iridium, +4 would be Jasmium, and +5 would be Orichalcum. I would avoid metals like Mithral and Admantine because those have actual game rules for them.