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View Full Version : Weapon And Material Homebrew (Please PEACH; help with pricing)



Ranged Ranger
2017-11-17, 12:55 PM
Posted this to my Homebrew thread, but wasn't getting any replies to that thread... I saw someone telling someone else that consolidated threads didn't get much feedback b/c they were perceived as a place to put finished pieces, so I thought I'd pst some of these separately.

Not sure how to price new materials... Please PEACH...

New Weapon: The following stats are for a medium sized Kirustav:


Kirustav
1d10 19-20/x2 s

or
1d12 20/x2
6 lb
(1.5 lb from blade)
trip, reach*,
*optional, -2 AC when used this way
monk, polearm
Cost 30gp

[tr]
This exotic weapon resembles a slightly longer than normal quarterstaff with a curved blade bound to one end. When striking with the end with the blade, it deals 1d10 slashing damage with 19-20/x2 crit. Striking with the other end deals 1d12 bludgeoning damage with 20/x2 crit. At the beginning of the wielder’s turn, they may take a move action to adjust their grip – doing so allows them to treat it as a reach weapon (loosing the ability to strike adjacent foes), but take a -2 to AC until for the rest of the turn and any subsequent turn until they switch back to normal grip (also a move action). The Kirustav is a trip weapon. It is part of the polearm and monk weapons groups.

New Weapon Material:
Vashojiki: This brightly colored (green, orange, or purple) (color does not affect function) ceramic is made by infusing clay from the windenweald with powdered mundane crystal before firing it. The wild magic of the windenweald and the crystal interact to give the material unusual properties. Unlike most ceramics, it is strong enough to be used for weapons, while still being light weight compared to steel or other weapon materials (2/3 the weight of an equivelent iron weapon). Half the damage dealt by an Vashojiki weapon ignores DR overcome by cold iron. Additionally, Vashojiki reacts violently to windenweald magic in other things. A weapon made from this material does one more point of damage to creatures with the windenweald subtype. The mundane crystal allows a wielder with psionic ability can infuse the weapon with power. The next target hit with the weapon takes +1d6 to damage (this stacks with extra damage to windweald creatures).
Items may be made entirely out of Vashojiki or may have a blunt striking end coated with a thin layer of Vashojiki; items using the material as a coating do not gain any improvements to the item's weight.
Vashojiki has a hardness of 12 and 30 hit points per inch of thickness. While both ceramic and crystal are susceptible to the shatter spell, the combination of the two provides a +6 to saving throws to resist it. Despite the presence of Mundane crystal in the ceramic, Vashojiki is not considered a metal, allowing druids to use it. Making a weapon out of Vashojiki increases the cost of a weapon by 4,500 gp. Also, any magical enhancements cost an additional 2,000 gp due to the difficulty of enchanting it.

aimlessPolymath
2017-11-17, 06:43 PM
Hm.

The thing is, as far as I can tell, material pricing is made up of magic and dreams.
There are two factors that really control material pricing, and game balance isn't one of them:
-Cost of material acquisition. Adamantine and mithral are rare and difficult to extract.
-Difficulty of working. Cold iron, darkwood, and alchemical silver are hard to make.

In terms of cost as a factor of value, I see the following properties that could be priced:
-Half-power cold iron
-Darkwood power; can be used for druids
-Deals +1d6 damage (~8k gp- a +1 flaming weapon, up-priced a touch because this can be enchanted and it's unconditional, even though 1d6 isn't a lot)

Ranged Ranger
2017-11-18, 01:21 AM
Hm.

The thing is, as far as I can tell, material pricing is made up of magic and dreams.
There are two factors that really control material pricing, and game balance isn't one of them:
-Cost of material acquisition. Adamantine and mithral are rare and difficult to extract.
-Difficulty of working. Cold iron, darkwood, and alchemical silver are hard to make.

In terms of cost as a factor of value, I see the following properties that could be priced:
-Half-power cold iron
-Darkwood power; can be used for druids
-Deals +1d6 damage (~8k gp- a +1 flaming weapon, up-priced a touch because this can be enchanted and it's unconditional, even though 1d6 isn't a lot)

So using the properties as factors I'm coming up with about +8400 for a a weapon, but using rarity compared to adamantine I'm coming up with about +4500...

I also noticed that srd lists the value of Cold Iron significantly lower than I'd expect, but adds 2000 to the cost of each enchantment... some playing with the numbers and I'm thinking this averages to about an average of 4000 extra costs per weapon... increasing the cost of cold iron by 4000 per weapon and getting rid of the additional cost for enchantment looks much closer to what I would have expected....

The material being hard to enchant sounds right to me, so I think I'll go with a base price of +4500 with an increase in enchantment costs of 2000 per enchantment.



By the way, Does the weapon look ok?

aimlessPolymath
2017-11-18, 01:35 AM
The weapon's good. It's like the Swiss Army Knife of polearms, and I would definitely consider getting one. Need to trip someone 10 feet away? I gotchu. Need to be able to attack both skeletons and zombies in the same full attack? Easy. Need to transition from base damage to critical hits as you go up in level? Weapon Focus keeps working.

Ranged Ranger
2017-11-20, 01:22 AM
The weapon's good. It's like the Swiss Army Knife of polearms, and I would definitely consider getting one. Need to trip someone 10 feet away? I gotchu. Need to be able to attack both skeletons and zombies in the same full attack? Easy. Need to transition from base damage to critical hits as you go up in level? Weapon Focus keeps working.

Is it to good for the price? TBH I based the price on its simplicity of construction w/o even thinking of game ballance...

aimlessPolymath
2017-11-20, 08:59 AM
Weapon pricing is actually slightly less obscure.
Pricing it by Lemmy's Custom Weapon system, which is a thing of magic and wonder, it is a
Two-handed Exotic Bludgeoning weapon with
Adaptive(reach, - 2AC)
Alternate Damage Type(Slashing)
Trip

So it costs 10 gp +3 *4gp
=22 gp.

Weapons just aren't very expensive, to be honest.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VJNynrpwteY3NLoXRMrPXkEdUZMJJxZokWidA16ef_w/mobilebasic

Edit: Actually, with only 2 points of mods, this qualifies to be a Martial weapon, with a cost of either 10 or 12 gp (on mobile right now)

jqavins
2017-11-20, 03:39 PM
Why does getting thumped with a kirustave cause more damage (1d12, average is 6.5) than being cut by one (2d4, average is 5)?

Ranged Ranger
2017-11-21, 01:34 AM
Why does getting thumped with a kirustave cause more damage (1d12, average is 6.5) than being cut by one (2d4, average is 5)?
Because properly executed slashing damage is inherently a glancing blow, while properly executed bludgeoning damage is a direct hit. Bludgeoning damage will have a higher average hit, while slashing weapons sharp edge will give them a better chance of dealing unusually high damage... (represented in mechanics by a better crit range)

Technically the rules leaves out two other types of damage that melee weapons could do: Chopping damage (an intentional direct hit with a blade, more damage with the risk of the weapon getting stuck) and rending damage where you try to split the difference between slashing and chopping (proper weapon use of axes should be rending damage...)

Incorporating these would probably look something like this:


type
rules
modified rules


slashing
2d4 19-29/x2 s
2d4 19-29/x2 s


peircing
2d4 20/x3 p
2d4 20/x3 p


bludgeoning
1d12 20/x2 b
1d12 20/x2 b


chopping
doesn't exist
1d12 19-29/x2 c 20% chance of weapon getting stuck on hit*, increasing to 50% on crit


rending
inconsistent, but often 2d4 20/x3 s
1d10 19-20/x2 r


*either [let go of the weapon] or [loose dex to ac and take an additional -2 to ac until end of next turn, use a standard action on next turn getting it unstuck (provoking AoO's)]
Thinking about it more, I may change the slashing damage to 1d10 19-20/x2 s