Need help with some swords

[Blackhawk748]

So i will be playing a character that is going to have 2 swords. Yes, hes based off of a Witcher. So obviously one sword is going to be Silvered, the problem is, what should the other sword be made out of? Personally im thinking Cold Iron, but im not sure.

BTW the game will be E6.

[Honest Tiefling]

Never played Witcher, but adamantine can be quite nice in my opinion if one does not wish to go for Cold Iron, but there are issues of cost and such. 3.5 or Pathfinder?

[Chronikoce]

As I assume you know already the silver sword is for monsters and the non silver one would be for humans. Therefore I think the above suggestion of adamantine would be a good choice from an rp perspective because of its ability to cut through the armor and weapons of your foes.

That being said, I think you could also just use a masterwork steel sword and rp it as being particularly high quality.

[Blackhawk748]

Never played Witcher, but adamantine can be quite nice in my opinion if one does not wish to go for Cold Iron, but there are issues of cost and such. 3.5 or Pathfinder?

Whoops, 3.5. Shoulda specified

[Darrin]

I'm partial to Starmetal. Same properties as adamantine but also does +1d6 vs outsiders/extraplanar.

[Blackhawk748]

I'm partial to Starmetal. Same properties as adamantine but also does +1d6 vs outsiders/extraplanar.

Nice. The reason i wasnt gonna pick Adamatine is because it doesnt pass DR (at least none that i can recall) and so i went with Cold Iron, as DR/ Cold Iron seemed more common. Also Cold Iron doesnt look super different from normal iron, so that was a benefit.

[AslanCross]

Nice. The reason i wasnt gonna pick Adamatine is because it doesnt pass DR (at least none that i can recall) and so i went with Cold Iron, as DR/ Cold Iron seemed more common. Also Cold Iron doesnt look super different from normal iron, so that was a benefit.

DR/Adamantine is indeed pretty rare (because Adamantine itself is pretty rare). It's usually on constructs. Apart from the Iron Golem and the epic Adamantine Golem, there's the Blackstone Gigant from Fiend Folio (updated to 3.5) and the Elder Eidolon from Lords of Madness.

However, if you had an Adamantine weapon it has the added ability of being able to sunder a lot of stuff. That said it's better as armor than a weapon.

[Chronikoce]

If the whole point is to have the two swords for the roleplaying similarity then I would like to point out that any metal beyond steel is going to have some advantage in combat with monsters of some sort.

In the witcher franchise his normal sword explicitly isn't good vs monsters which is why he carries the silvered one and as such I would argue it should not be a cold iron weapon (which bypasses the Defenses of Fey).

[Darrin]

Also, there are spells and magic items that can add adamantine to a weapon. With the exception of the Metalline property, there is no way to add cold iron to a weapon.

[Blackhawk748]

If the whole point is to have the two swords for the roleplaying similarity then I would like to point out that any metal beyond steel is going to have some advantage in combat with monsters of some sort.

In the witcher franchise his normal sword explicitly isn't good vs monsters which is why he carries the silvered one and as such I would argue it should not be a cold iron weapon (which bypasses the Defenses of Fey).

I understand this, but, sadly, Silver only works on a few things in DnD, so just having a normal sword seems like wasted potential.

[mabriss lethe]

Baatorian Green Steel is a decent low level option: You want the special material version from...fiendish codex 2. not the special weapon ability of the same/similar name. It allows piercing and slashing weapons to deal an extra point of damage, is not innately masterwork, and stacks with magic enhancements.

[Gildedragon]

If you can trade the silver for pandemonic silver: go for it

Have one or both be blended with Oerthblood

[Elder_Basilisk]

DR/Adamantine is indeed pretty rare (because Adamantine itself is pretty rare). It's usually on constructs. Apart from the Iron Golem and the epic Adamantine Golem, there's the Blackstone Gigant from Fiend Folio (updated to 3.5) and the Elder Eidolon from Lords of Madness.

However, if you had an Adamantine weapon it has the added ability of being able to sunder a lot of stuff. That said it's better as armor than a weapon.

If you're just going to have one weapon, it should be adamantine (or green starmetal in 3.5 since that is like adamantine but better).

Adamantine's best ability is that it is very difficult to sunder. Most other metals need to be +5 before they hit the key hardness 20 benchmark that means other adamantine weapons don't ignore their hardness. Adamantine/green starmetal comes with that right off the bat. It may never come up, but if it does, you will be glad that enemies cannot one-shot sunder your weapon then add injury to insult by using combat brute to continue through and hit you. A lot of your wealth will be tied up in the magical enhancements on your main weapon. You owe it to yourself to protect it. Adamantine/Green starmetal: accept no substitutes.

There are quite a few other benefits to adamantine too.

A. It ignores hardness of less than 20. This makes it very effective for whenever you need to break chains, carve through a door, or in some circumstances even carve a new door into a wall. With an adamantine/green starmetal weapon, you have a lot more strategic options.

A2. Oh, it's also effective at sundering in the unlikely event that you ever want to break your loot. (Well, if it's not magic, it doesn't really matter, you can just have the cleric put it back together with make whole, on the other hand, if it's not magic, breaking it probably isn't that big of an advantage either).

B. DR /Adamantine. Aslancross is missing the forest for the trees on this one. Being able to hack through DR /adamantine is a big deal. Sure, there are not many monsters with native DR adamantine, however the elephant in the room is stoneskin. Stoneskin grants DR 10/adamantine and there are lots and lots of enemies who will cast stoneskin or have stoneskin cast on them. In practice it is likely to be one of the most common DR types.

Now, all that said, if adamantine is much more for the one-weapon does everything kind of character. If you are relying on multiple weapons like Gerard from Witcher, I think cold iron is competitive for the second weapon. It fits the theme of a monster hunter and between a cold iron and a silver sword, you can get by most material based DR that doesn't come from stoneskin. Green starmetal is still a very solid choice though.

[Troacctid]

Another good option if you're interested in bypassing DR would be frystalline, which makes the weapon good-aligned for +2000 gp. Very useful if you're up against evil outsiders.

If your weapon is going to be nonmagical, then you could make it out of blue ice (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040911a&page=5), which gives a +1 enhancement bonus to damage for only +500 gp. However, this does not stack with the enhancement bonus of a magic weapon.