making master work armor and weapons more interesting

[Kol Korran]

this too might be put in homebrew, but i think it's light enough to perhaps be awarded a place here.

in a coming campaign i wand to make masterwork weapons and armor more customizable. the basic idea is each MW weapon (haven't decided on the exact price yet) has 2 "slots" of improvement the weapon smith can use to enhance. thus different MW weapons are a bit different.

for example:

the +1 to hit (might take 2 slots)
guarded- +2/3 against being disarmed
resilient- increase hardness
lighter make (2 slots) enable a one handed weapon to be considered as a light weapon (for TWF for example)
water slide- enables the weapon to suffer reduced penalties fighting in water.
climbing hook- the weapon can ne used while climbing giving perhps a +2?
greater pull (crossbows, might be worth 2 slots)- you can pull the cord farther, giving +2 to damage
tripper/ disarmer- enabling such properties at weapons without them, perhaps giving a slight bonus (+1/ +2) to the weapon?


the same thing might go with armors and shields, though i have less ideas for them.

good idea? bad idea? any glaring problems? :smallconfused::smallwink:

(search word: piratewitch)

[prufock]

My immediate thought is that some of these things are already replicable in the available rules, so I don't see anything really game-breaking here. For instance, Feycraft, Elvencraft, Githcraft, and Dwarvencraft weapons all have particular features that improve the weapons in some way. Hardness, weight, and other such qualities can be influenced by making the item out of different materials, which already assumes masterwork quality in the cost structure (adamantine, mithril, darkwood, etc).

Other qualities you have listed here can be found by combining two items. The bonus versus disarm can be accomplished with a locking gauntlet (though your listed bonus is smaller). Just price accordingly to add that quality to a weapon (I think the +50% that magic weapons use for multiple qualities is reasonable). Ditto for the climbing weapon - just add a climber's kit. I like this idea, it makes a weapon seem "special" in little ways.

Tripping and disarming is possible with other weapons, so adding it to some weapon shouldn't be too difficult - however I would probably rule unusual weapons like this as exotic. I wouldn't even require it to be masterwork for this, you're basically just creating a whole new weapon at this point.

One thing I would steer clear of is the +damage idea. I'm not sure if there are precedents to this outside of magic weapons (serrated?), but a flat damage bonus like that would be too powerful for the cost, I think, considering the cost of magic weapon enhancements. Increasing the damage die is probably a better bet, seeing as how it can be done with larger weapons, "greater" versions of existing weapons (ie Heavy Crossbow vs Light Crossbow), and so on.

[Seerow]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202722


Fully fleshed out homebrew system doing basically what you're looking for.