Firechanter
2020-10-15, 05:21 PM
Hey folks,
I want to make the beatsticks a bit more flexible for my PF1 setting, so I thought I'd take a page out of the MIC and whip up an Augmentation Crystal mechanic and also change the way weapon and armour upgrades are priced. Please review these ideas and let me know what you think.
Weapons and Armour
The cost for adding enhancement bonuses ("Enhancement") and all other properties ("Properties") is calculated separately, i.e. the bonus costs for Enhancement and Properties do not stack. The sum of any Property bonuses must never exceed the item's Enhancement bonus, and neither category may exceed +5 total bonus.
B Enhance Prop. Maxed Convtl.
+1 2000 2000 4000 8000
+2 8000 8000 16000 32000
+3 18000 18000 36000 72000
+4 32000 32000 64000 128000
+5 50000 50000 100000 200000
For instance, a weapon with a +3 Enhancement bonus and +2 bonus worth of Properties will cost 18000+8000 = 26.000GP (plus the base price of the Masterwork weapon and special material).
A full-blown +5 Enhancement weapon with +5 worth of Properties caps out at 100.000GP.
My intention is to let the players get more bang for the buck out of their WBL. Basically I'm cutting weapon/armour cost in half. You might see the limitation of having to advance the Enhancement bonus first as a drawback, but keep in mind this is for Pathfinder, where the bonus can't be boosted with GMW/MV as efficiently as in 3.5.
Weapon and Armour Augmentation Crystals
These special crystals are imbued with Properties that can normally be added to magic weapons or armour by inserting them into specially crafted sockets.
Embedding or removing a crystal into or from a socket takes one Move Action each.
As opposed to MIC rules, weapons do not have an inherent socket for free. In exchange, you can add multiple sockets to a weapon. (Same for armour.)
Note: Adding the same property twice in any way - be it by multiple crystals or using a crystal with a permanently enhanced item - does not produce stacking effects.
Crystal Socket
A weapon can be fitted with one or more sockets which can hold one Augmentation Crystal each. These sockets come in two varieties and price tags, Lesser (+1 bonus) and Greater (+2 bonus). A Greater socket can hold a Lesser gem.
A Lesser Socket can at a later point be upgraded to a Greater one, provided the total bonus equivalent does not exceed +5.
Main Question: Pricing
Basically I want to find a fair and balanced pricing scheme for sockets and crystals. As written above, my thinking is that sockets should be calculated as regular bonus properties, and crystals have a fixed price:
Lesser Crystals can possess any property with a +1 bonus cost. Market price: 4000GP
Greater Crystals can possess any properties with a total bonus cost of +2. Market price: 8000GP.
These price tags are up for discussion, though. I think 4k and 8k should be the upper limit though, since you've already paid the escalating price for the socket(s). So maybe it would be more fair to price them at 2k and 4k, respectively? After all, any crystal you're not currently using is just dead weight.
The entire approach differs from the MIC one basically in 2 things: one, you embue regular weapon/armor properties into the crystals, and two, you can have more than one socket per item.
For instance, you could have a +3 weapon with a +1 and a +2 socket. You encounter a Devil? Slap on Holy and Evil Outsiderbane crystals. A bunch of Slaads? There's an Axiomatic crystal for that. An incorporeal undead? Lucky we brought our Ghost Touch crystal! You get the idea.
Alternatively, I might ditch the sockets-as-properties and go the MIC route: every weapon and armour has exactly one socket, which does not count against any enhancements or properties.
However, this approach makes the pricing of the property crystals even more relevant.
Your thoughts?^^
I want to make the beatsticks a bit more flexible for my PF1 setting, so I thought I'd take a page out of the MIC and whip up an Augmentation Crystal mechanic and also change the way weapon and armour upgrades are priced. Please review these ideas and let me know what you think.
Weapons and Armour
The cost for adding enhancement bonuses ("Enhancement") and all other properties ("Properties") is calculated separately, i.e. the bonus costs for Enhancement and Properties do not stack. The sum of any Property bonuses must never exceed the item's Enhancement bonus, and neither category may exceed +5 total bonus.
B Enhance Prop. Maxed Convtl.
+1 2000 2000 4000 8000
+2 8000 8000 16000 32000
+3 18000 18000 36000 72000
+4 32000 32000 64000 128000
+5 50000 50000 100000 200000
For instance, a weapon with a +3 Enhancement bonus and +2 bonus worth of Properties will cost 18000+8000 = 26.000GP (plus the base price of the Masterwork weapon and special material).
A full-blown +5 Enhancement weapon with +5 worth of Properties caps out at 100.000GP.
My intention is to let the players get more bang for the buck out of their WBL. Basically I'm cutting weapon/armour cost in half. You might see the limitation of having to advance the Enhancement bonus first as a drawback, but keep in mind this is for Pathfinder, where the bonus can't be boosted with GMW/MV as efficiently as in 3.5.
Weapon and Armour Augmentation Crystals
These special crystals are imbued with Properties that can normally be added to magic weapons or armour by inserting them into specially crafted sockets.
Embedding or removing a crystal into or from a socket takes one Move Action each.
As opposed to MIC rules, weapons do not have an inherent socket for free. In exchange, you can add multiple sockets to a weapon. (Same for armour.)
Note: Adding the same property twice in any way - be it by multiple crystals or using a crystal with a permanently enhanced item - does not produce stacking effects.
Crystal Socket
A weapon can be fitted with one or more sockets which can hold one Augmentation Crystal each. These sockets come in two varieties and price tags, Lesser (+1 bonus) and Greater (+2 bonus). A Greater socket can hold a Lesser gem.
A Lesser Socket can at a later point be upgraded to a Greater one, provided the total bonus equivalent does not exceed +5.
Main Question: Pricing
Basically I want to find a fair and balanced pricing scheme for sockets and crystals. As written above, my thinking is that sockets should be calculated as regular bonus properties, and crystals have a fixed price:
Lesser Crystals can possess any property with a +1 bonus cost. Market price: 4000GP
Greater Crystals can possess any properties with a total bonus cost of +2. Market price: 8000GP.
These price tags are up for discussion, though. I think 4k and 8k should be the upper limit though, since you've already paid the escalating price for the socket(s). So maybe it would be more fair to price them at 2k and 4k, respectively? After all, any crystal you're not currently using is just dead weight.
The entire approach differs from the MIC one basically in 2 things: one, you embue regular weapon/armor properties into the crystals, and two, you can have more than one socket per item.
For instance, you could have a +3 weapon with a +1 and a +2 socket. You encounter a Devil? Slap on Holy and Evil Outsiderbane crystals. A bunch of Slaads? There's an Axiomatic crystal for that. An incorporeal undead? Lucky we brought our Ghost Touch crystal! You get the idea.
Alternatively, I might ditch the sockets-as-properties and go the MIC route: every weapon and armour has exactly one socket, which does not count against any enhancements or properties.
However, this approach makes the pricing of the property crystals even more relevant.
Your thoughts?^^