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View Full Version : PEACH New Special Material from Wheel of TIme to Pathfinder: Heartstone



AOKost
2017-08-17, 02:36 PM
I'm trying to convert a material from the book series Wheel of Time to D&D/Pathfinder. I have a homebrew version that I will share as a general idea, but I would really like to have it PEACHed.

HEARTSTONE
~ Homebrew
The product of transmuting the right materials together to produce a semi-psi-crystal metal, but has the transparency of glass, with ever so slight dark hairs flowing through it giving it a dark undertone and without refracting light at all, making it appear somewhat dull and lackluster. The material has natural facets that make it even more effective for whatever use it is put to. The material is considered psionic crystal and metal, but is impervious to rust, and corrosion, as well as heat/warp metal and transmute earth. The transmutation process for creating heartstone is kept extremely secret by those that know how to make it. Besides being a focus for psionic abilities, it has an unheard of quality that makes it sought after by those that know of its existence.

It has the amazing quality of taking any damage it sustains and making it stronger and more resilient. An item made of heartstone starts with a hardness of 10 and double its hardness in hit points (20). Half of any hit point damage taken (if the item isn't Destroyed), is in the next round added to the items hardness permanently, and the hit points are restored to the new total of double the hardness.
(It's been suggested that instead of 'instant repair' that the material have either Regeneration or Fast Healing of a set number, possibly equal to the item's hardness. It's also been suggested that the amount of hardness increased be 1/4 or less of the damage instead of 1/2. Thoughts?)

For example, a dagger made of heartstone would initially start with 10 hardness, and 20 hit points. If someone manages to overcome the 10 hardness or by other means deal 10 hit points of damage to it, at the beginning of the next round, the hardness increases to 15, and the items hit points are restored to the items new total of 30 hit points.

Once a heartstone armor reaches 20 + Hardness and armor gains damage reduction of 1/- for light armor, 2/- for medium armor, and 3/- for heavy armor, and in weapons it can bypass damage reduction as if it were Adamantium. Every 20 points of Hardness after the first 20 increases the damage reduction by 1/- to each category of armor.

The last property of heartstone is that with the right magical techniques, it can absorb the properties of other materials, giving that property to it. For example, heartstone could be infused with the properties of Mithral to overcome DR/Silver, and for it's weight to be reduced by ½. Heartstone can only absorb the properties of any Special Material once.
(I thought this would be a neat trait that I'd never heard of before in any Special Material. The closest would come from the Special Weapon Property Metaline.)

Weapons made from heartstone give an inherent +2 bonus on damage, increases critical threat range by 1, and critical multiplier by 1. A true heartstone blade ignores armor bonuses of armor, as well as deflection bonuses from magical items. Against magical armor, the weapon needs to have an enhancement bonus equal to or greater than that of the armor in order to have any special effect; otherwise, it is treated as a normal weapon. Any material incorporated int Heartstone with similar properties stack with the hartstone property when properly imbued.
(This could easily be tossed asside as there are a few materials that give similar bonuses, but not all...)

Requirements to create heartstone: Ability to cast 5th level transmutation spells, Craft: Alchemy 10 ranks. To further enhance the properties of heartstone with other materials, a Spellcraft check of the Transmutation school must be made, adding the Craft: Alchemy skill for a total. The DC of adding a property to heartstone is 20 + 2 for each property already added. For example: If a heartstone dagger has the Silver property of either Mithral or Alchemical Silver infused to it, it would take the on the ability to bypass the damage reduction of creatures that are resistant to everything but silver. Heartstone may take on any number of properties, but each property requires an equal amount of material (Adamantine) equal to the weight of the item made of heartstone. The base material becomes Iron, and all the properties are then infused into the heartstone, which takes the best properties infused into it. For example: a dagger of iron normally made of 1 pound, would become heartstone weighing 4 ounces. You would still need 1 pound of Mithral to infuse its properties into the heartstone.

The Cost of this procedure in ritual components is 2,000 gp per material to be infused, plus the material to be infused cost. For example, if you were to wanting to infuse the properties of 3 materials into the heartstone, the ritual would cost 6,000 gp + (the cost of 1 lb of Mithral) + (the cost of 1 lb of Crystal, Blood) + (the Cost of 1 lb of Umbrite) and the DC checks may be made all at once, but at an increased DC equal to 20 + 2 per any other infusions previously successfully made, and + 2 for each substance to be infused in the current ritual.

It can initially be crafted from Primordial Clay that is transmuted in a specific way to become hard, but retains it's chaotic maliable essence within that can be further manipulated (Knowledge: Planes DC 60).

rferries
2017-08-18, 08:39 PM
Hoo boy! A very complex material, clearly... I'm not sure how to judge it. Maybe use the hardening (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/spells/hardening.htm)spell as a baseline for comparison? Is there any way to streamline the mechanics?

AOKost
2017-08-20, 05:56 AM
Much of it can indeed be whittled down. The only real part that should remain in that case, sticking with lore friendly Heartstone. The "casters" of that verse would take an iron/steel item and then transmute it into heartstone with a 'simple' spell that took little to no effort. The properties of true heartstone were that 'it takes anything that would damage it, such as this dagger striking it, and use it to make itself stronger' or something along those line... I don't remember the exact passage... That's where the 'damage taken becomes hardness and increases the base item's HP depending upon it's hardness (double the hardness in HP/inch thinckness, minimum 1).

The rest is stuff I'd like to see in a material. Especially the transmutation qualities of my Homebrew Heartstone. The reason it's got such a high Knowledge check to even find out about it is to keep players and the general 'worlds at large' from knowing about it... it's supposed to be uber secret, and require a 10th level caster & alchemist to even attempt making it in the first place...

The part about DR when at 20+ Hardness just seems to make sense... The few materials out there that are 20+ hardness generally give a DR. So I figured that increasing the DR by Hardness increments of 20 seemed to make sense.

We can easily do away with:
"Weapons made from heartstone give an inherent +2 bonus on damage, increases critical threat range by 1, and critical multiplier by 1."

Though I'd really want to keep:
"A true heartstone blade ignores armor bonuses of armor, as well as deflection bonuses from magical items. Against magical armor, the weapon needs to have an enhancement bonus equal to or greater than that of the armor in order to have any special effect; otherwise, it is treated as a normal weapon. Any material incorporated int Heartstone with similar properties stack with the hartstone property when properly imbued."
because that's not actually a property due to a material per-say... It comes from a template that can be added to bladed weapons that basically incorporates diamonds into the blade... Though it would be simple enough to say something along the lines of "when a weapon made of Heartstone attains Hardness of 25+ then X.

I should add a line to the effect after the sentence:
"Heartstone can only absorb the properties of any Special Material once."
to the effect of "If a Special Material is able to be refined, then it is possible to apply each tier separately, but if doing so, then it must be done in order of tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, etc. Conversely, if one has enough refined tier 3 Special Material, then the Heartstone absorbing the properties of the special material can only be taken once" but that seems overly cumbersome...