Silvered Adamantine Weapons

[B1okHead]

In basic 5e it says you can coat a weapon in silver for 100 gp. One of my players asked if he could silver his adamantine greatsword, and if so, what would be the effect.

I'm at a loss of what to do about this. Any ideas?

[Sartharina]

In basic 5e it says you can coat a weapon in silver for 100 gp. One of my players asked if he could silver his adamantine greatsword, and if so, what would be the effect.

I'm at a loss of what to do about this. Any ideas?

It's a silver+Adamantine greatsword.

[B1okHead]

Awesome. That's gonna be a cool weapon :smallcool:

[Inevitability]

Just say it is an alloy, or something.

[da_chicken]

I don't belive we've seen rules for adamantine or mithril, have we?

[Balyano]

I would assume it works just fine. I imagine the silver would be a thin veneer on the sides of the blade, any on the edge would be removed either by sharpening or by the natural cutting action of the adamantine when it strikes any target harder than the silver. I've always figured silvered weapons worked that way anyway. The normal metal does the cutting and the silver acts as it contacts the flesh on its way through, acting kind of like burning a hydras stump. Of course that makes more sense vs regeneration. Since silver overcomes DR and I doubt silver would hang around on the edge to effectively I would assume it's mere presence on the side of the blade is enough to overcome unholy protections and such. But if you are going to add silver to something expensive like an adamantine greatsword you might as well make it fancy. Silver inlaid, engraved with some scene of great battle, or a holy prayer, or the face of a loved one that was felled by some werewolf/devil whose guts you intend to bury the sword into.

[rlc]

I would assume it works just fine. I imagine the silver would be a thin veneer on the sides of the blade, any on the edge would be removed either by sharpening or by the natural cutting action of the adamantine when it strikes any target harder than the silver. I've always figured silvered weapons worked that way anyway. The normal metal does the cutting and the silver acts as it contacts the flesh on its way through, acting kind of like burning a hydras stump. Of course that makes more sense vs regeneration. Since silver overcomes DR and I doubt silver would hang around on the edge to effectively I would assume it's mere presence on the side of the blade is enough to overcome unholy protections and such. But if you are going to add silver to something expensive like an adamantine greatsword you might as well make it fancy. Silver inlaid, engraved with some scene of great battle, or a holy prayer, or the face of a loved one that was felled by some werewolf/devil whose guts you intend to bury the sword into.in nethack, even just punching things while wearing silver rings is enough, so i'd say that your idea should work fine.

[Knaight]

Just say it is an alloy, or something.

Given that it silvers an existing weapon, it doesn't need to be an alloy. Something more like electroplating (in which one metal gets coated with a thin layer of another metal) would work just fine.

[Inevitability]

Given that it silvers an existing weapon, it doesn't need to be an alloy. Something more like electroplating (in which one metal gets coated with a thin layer of another metal) would work just fine.

Yeah, but then I can see problems with the adamantine never actually touching the creature, as it is covered in silver. That, or the silver slowly gets chipped away because it keeps being smashed against things only adamantine can break through.

[Knaight]

Yeah, but then I can see problems with the adamantine never actually touching the creature, as it is covered in silver. That, or the silver slowly gets chipped away because it keeps being smashed against things only adamantine can break through.

I'd expect the silver to get all sorts of damaged. As for the adamantine never touching the creature, this isn't really much of an issue - it's still a harder, sharper, more durable material. Back when DR/Adamantine was still around, it clearly represented things that were really hard to cut through that adamantine was good enough to damage, not things that reacted adversely with the material, which is where silver generally came in.

I could see it being an issue with a cold iron weapon, but that's about it.

[Tholomyes]

I could see it being an issue with a cold iron weapon, but that's about it.I feel dumb. I had a post all typed up on how it could reasonably be done, to ensure that the metal would be able to cut effectively, with the greater hardness of Adamantine, but use the adverse reaction properties of cold iron to be effective against demons and fey, and then I remembered "Oh, right, cold iron."

[Person_Man]

It's a well worn trope that you need a weapon made out of material X to beat monster Y. Silver for werewolves, wooden stakes for vampires, an ancient magic blade to kill Grendal, the Black Arrow to kill Smaug, etc.

But I've always felt that such circumstances should be rare and special, and players should have to quest to discover and/or find the weapon they need to defeat the special enemy, and that weapon would be extra effective against said monster, and not just remove a penalty. Why does the Fighter need to carry a golf bag with 3-4ish different weapon types so that they don't suffer a penalty when fighting a certain monster? It's not like the Wizard has to carry 3-4 special wands to fight certain monsters, after all. If he happens to come across a monster who is immune or resistant to X, he has plenty of spells that can do X or Z by default.

[Sartharina]

an ancient magic blade to kill GrendalIf I remember correctly, Grendal was beaten to death with his own arm. Or something like that.

[Person_Man]

If I remember correctly, Grendal was beaten to death with his own arm. Or something like that.

Now THAT is a great example of a unique weapon the player's would need to obtain to defeat a monster!:smallsmile:

I think you're correct, and I was remembering how Grendel's mom was killed with a magic sword found in her lair or something. It's been 20 years since I've read it and it's been re-written a hundred different ways, so I'm sure I'm screwing up the specifics.

[Sartharina]

Now THAT is a great example of a unique weapon the player's would need to obtain to defeat a monster!:smallsmile:

I think you're correct, and I was remembering how Grendel's mom was killed with a magic sword found in her lair or something. It's been 20 years since I've read it and it's been re-written a hundred different ways, so I'm sure I'm screwing up the specifics.

The sword used to kill his mother wasn't magic (At least not the version I read - the only piece of 'magic' at all was Grendel's spell to dull the weapons of the Geat warriors) - just really frikken huge.

[Job]

I've been laboring under the impression that the applied silver needed to be on the cutting edge (or mace spike, etc.) to be effective and it was for that reason silvered weapons in 3.5 took a -1 penalty to damage.

Silver would almost immediately lose its edge and deform on impact causing (slightly) less trauma. And as already stated the silver veneer attached to the weapon via some combination of achemical adhesion and braising would wane over time. therefore requiring some maintenance or replication, especially when paired with a super-metal like adimantine or mythril.

[Knaight]

It's a well worn trope that you need a weapon made out of material X to beat monster Y. Silver for werewolves, wooden stakes for vampires, an ancient magic blade to kill Grendal, the Black Arrow to kill Smaug, etc.

But I've always felt that such circumstances should be rare and special, and players should have to quest to discover and/or find the weapon they need to defeat the special enemy, and that weapon would be extra effective against said monster, and not just remove a penalty. Why does the Fighter need to carry a golf bag with 3-4ish different weapon types so that they don't suffer a penalty when fighting a certain monster? It's not like the Wizard has to carry 3-4 special wands to fight certain monsters, after all. If he happens to come across a monster who is immune or resistant to X, he has plenty of spells that can do X or Z by default.

Some of these are pretty common though. Silver is easy to get ahold of - it makes sense that just about anyone in the werewolf hunting business just goes and buys it. Wooden stakes aren't much harder to get. It's frequently more a matter of preparation than anything - that werewolf is going to be extremely dangerous to the unprepared, and a lot less dangerous (but almost certainly still dangerous) to those who knew ahead of time that they were fighting a werewolf.

As for removing a penalty, provided that the penalty only exists because of the weakness - which is how DR has generally been used, and appears to be how resistance bypassed by materials is used - I don't see the issue. Removing a penalty everything else takes makes it extra effective. It's just a different way to portray things - "this monster has HP X, all non-silver weapons deal 1/2 damage" and "this monster has HP 2x, all silver weapons deal double damage" are almost identical, with the differences mostly coming up with healing. It's a solid way to do things. DR in particular was pretty nice, as it did provide a functional immunity to most low grade stuff (as it should) without also providing an immunity to being thrown off a giant cliff onto hard rocks (which generally shouldn't be there).

With all that said - I'd agree about keeping things rarer than they are. Werewolves being susceptible to silver pretty much has to stay. Fey and cold iron is an edge case, where some sort of resistance makes sense, but a susceptibility to iron in general or even metal in general would be fine. Other than that, quite a bit could probably be cut entirely.