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View Full Version : Items to enhance unarmed/natural attacks (but what should they cost)



Threeshades
2007-10-22, 05:47 AM
Hey, I've been thingking about monks and other characters that use unarmed strike or natural weapons in melee combat (ive had an idea of for example a half-dragon that uses only his claws and bite attack and breath of course), I thought they might need some magical improvement for their attacks as well. Like all weapon-using characters can have +5 keen vorpal flaming greatswords of shock burst and doom or whatever, these characters also should have access to such improvements.
For monks/unarmed strikes it would still be quite easy. They could have bracers or gauntlets that are enhanced just like all other weapons (masterwork bonus for +300gp and then adding magical enhancements (+1...+5, keen, flaming, bane etc) at the same prices as for weapons. I think that should be fair but if not, feel free to point me to flaws in my ideas

But for characters with natural attacks (there we have for example Kenku with 2 claws, half-dragons with 2 claws and a bite attack, gnolls with gnoll ferocity who get a bite attack when raging) it might be a bit more complicated.
So I had a few ideas:

1. There could be rings that enhance only natural attacks done with the hand that they are applied to, and if applied to a hand of glory they enhance the bite attack or dont work at all.
I think these rings should cover the whole price for a magical weapon (including masterwork and enhancement bonuses). But also this ring uses up the ring slots of the character and blocks options for other useful things. so do you think in this case one ring with the price of masterwork weapon + the price of the enhancement bonuses would be fair or should it be less or evenn more expensive?

There might also be other items to enhance specific single natural attacks like amulets or helmets to enhance bite attacks, belts to anhance tail slaps or boots for trample/kick or other "foot-based" attacks.

2. Gauntlets/Bracers are another option: A pair of gauntlets or bracers could grant an enhancement bonus to the natural attacks of both arms of the pair of arms they are worn on (that would mean also a character with 4 arms and claws on each would just get bonus for one pair of claws) but in this case im not sure how much they should cost. Shoudl they cost twice as much as the enhancement of one weapon or more (considering that with multi-attack the secondary attack can strike without penalty) or maybe less (considering that you have not much of versatility between your two "weapons" like a TWFer with two differently enhanced weapons and that you have to use up your arms-slot)

3. This idea would probably result in the most expensive items: Rings/Amulets/gauntlets/belts or any worn items that enhance all of your natural weapons at once. They would also give the same bonus to each of your natural attacks so the versatility is quite gone, but after all you might be a character that has 3 natural attacks or even more than that so it can be quite powerful. But how much should an item like this cost? 3 times, or 4 times the cost of a weapon enhancement?



So what do you think how much GP these different items should cost?

if there are already rules for creating such items or if there are precreated items of this kind in some books already i would be happy if you pointed me to them.

Kantolin
2007-10-22, 05:58 AM
They actually do exist already, in core:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#amuletofMightyFists

I believe you can analyze the pricing system to make items with more than a +5 bonus, if you'd like to house rule the aiblity to make your natural attacks flaming or undead bane or sommat with an amulet of mighty fists, but hey.

Zincorium
2007-10-22, 06:01 AM
First off: Amulet of mighty fists. For any effect that enhances all of the player's unarmed strikes or natural attacks, this should be your primary pricing guide (Link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#amuletofMightyFists)). It's triple the cost of a regular weapon, so just take whatever effect you have, flaming or vorpal or whatever, and go by what a normal weapon would cost x3.

For items with just one natural attack, pricing it the same as a normal weapon, possibly slightly more for weird slots, would be fair.

Ninja Chocobo
2007-10-22, 06:12 AM
Or you could go Kensai (CWar) and enchant them that way.

d12
2007-10-22, 06:17 AM
In Savage Species there's a Necklace of Natural Weapons (in the Wonderous Items section). It can be given any weapon enhancement/special ability which are applied to specified natural attacks (for which said abilities make sense anyway, I would assume). For a necklace which only affects one kind of natural attack (unarmed strike in the case of a human monk), the pricing would be the same as any old magic weapon, plus some extra amount (600g, I think). The pricing structure gets a bit more complicated if you're affecting more than one natural weapon, but it shouldn't come into play unless you want to enhance other natural attacks on more unconventional races. Presumably you could adapt the item to another body slot for which it makes sense, such as the torso, whatever goes under armor/robe (dunno what the name of that slot is), belt, etc.

So if you (or another player) have a monk for some reason, Necklace of Natural Weapons is really the way to go. It's much more flexible and the pricing isn't so aggressively retarded. Now that you mention it, I might need to talk to the DM in my current game about retconning my AoMF as a NoNW, or at least treating it as such (came in a loot drop, not through purchase).

Threeshades
2007-10-22, 06:37 AM
First off: Amulet of mighty fists. For any effect that enhances all of the player's unarmed strikes or natural attacks, this should be your primary pricing guide (Link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#amuletofMightyFists)). It's triple the cost of a regular weapon, so just take whatever effect you have, flaming or vorpal or whatever, and go by what a normal weapon would cost x3.

For items with just one natural attack, pricing it the same as a normal weapon, possibly slightly more for weird slots, would be fair.


They actually do exist already, in core:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#amuletofMightyFists

I believe you can analyze the pricing system to make items with more than a +5 bonus, if you'd like to house rule the aiblity to make your natural attacks flaming or undead bane or sommat with an amulet of mighty fists, but hey.

Thanks, I must have missed that one. Probably because i have only a 3.0 book at hand. Did it come with 3.5 or some time after 3.0 core books but before 3.5?


Or you could go Kensai (CWar) and enchant them that way.

That's an option ive thought about too, but the XP expenditure seems quite hard.


In Savage Species there's a Necklace of Natural Weapons (in the Wonderous Items section). It can be given any weapon enhancement/special ability which are applied to specified natural attacks (for which said abilities make sense anyway, I would assume). For a necklace which only affects one kind of natural attack (unarmed strike in the case of a human monk), the pricing would be the same as any old magic weapon, plus some extra amount (600g, I think). The pricing structure gets a bit more complicated if you're affecting more than one natural weapon, but it shouldn't come into play unless you want to enhance other natural attacks on more unconventional races. Presumably you could adapt the item to another body slot for which it makes sense, such as the torso, whatever goes under armor/robe (dunno what the name of that slot is), belt, etc.

So if you (or another player) have a monk for some reason, Necklace of Natural Weapons is really the way to go. It's much more flexible and the pricing isn't so aggressively retarded. Now that you mention it, I might need to talk to the DM in my current game about retconning my AoMF as a NoNW, or at least treating it as such (came in a loot drop, not through purchase).

I will check that one out.
EDIT: Well for the Necklace of Natural Weapons I saw the pricing it said the price for a +1 bonus enhancing one natural attack and for enhancing 6 natural attacks. I was actually thinking about both claws or both claws AND the bite attack. It all looked kind of confusing to me.

d12
2007-10-22, 04:27 PM
I'm not sure if two claws (for instance) would be considered two different natural weapons. I certainly wouldn't consider it so, but WoTC and I operate under very different assumptions many times, so who can say. Operating under the assumption that multiples of the same kind of natural attack (such as having 2 claw attacks) are considered one natural weapon, a claw and bite combination (regardless of actual numbers of either kind of attack present on a given creature) being enhanced by a necklace would follow the pricing for 2 natural weapons (ie, multiply base price by number of natural weapons being enhanced). Furthermore, if you only wanted to enhance claw attacks, it would follow the pricing for only one natural weapon.

If that explanation came out a bit verbose or convoluted, you can PM me if you want and I can attempt to clarify. :smallsmile:

tyckspoon
2007-11-07, 02:01 AM
For monks, the simplest (although slightly homebrew) thing to do is probably to let them apply their unarmed strike damage to Gauntlets. Same magic weapon pricing scheme as everybody else uses, and they're still being slightly punished by having their magic weapons take up a body slot that most melee-ers can fill with something more useful, like Gloves of Dex or Gauntlets of Ogre Power. For creatures with multiple natural attacks, the Amulet of Mighty Fists is closer to a fairer pricing. You could also reasonably create single-natural attack enhancement items like claw sheaths, weirdly-shaped gloves, or metal jaws and price those roughly the same as normal magic weapons; I believe the Draconomicon has examples of that kind of thing made for dragons.