mercurial

[lrellok]

hey, i remember seeing something about mercurial weapons, weapons with a reservoir of mercury in them that gave them extra weight in a swing. Does anyone know what book they are in and where?

also, what book are the elven bows that double as clubs in?

[Glyde]

The mercurial blades are in Arms & Equipment I know for sure, not sure where else. It was pretty much just a more expensive version with x4 crit instead of 19-20/x2

[Smeggedoff]

I think the club bow is in Races of the Wild

[herrhauptmann]

Dunno about the club-bow, but the mercurial swords debuted in sword&fist, and as stated are in Arms and Equipment. However, not only are they exotic weapons, but they're so exotic that someone using them untrained takes an extra -2 penalty for the longsword, and an extra -3 on the greatsword.

[Glyde]

Dunno about the club-bow, but the mercurial swords debuted in sword&fist, and as stated are in Arms and Equipment. However, not only are they exotic weapons, but they're so exotic that someone using them untrained takes an extra -2 penalty for the longsword, and an extra -3 on the greatsword.

Probably because to the average fighter, they would just look like another longsword or greatsword. And when they tried to use it.. Whoops, lost my grip and now there's a greatsword in our wizard's chest :smalleek:

[fractic]

Probably because to the average fighter, they would just look like another longsword or greatsword. And when they tried to use it.. Whoops, lost my grip and now there's a greatsword in our wizard's chest :smalleek:

Yeah these weapons seem to be really badly balanced. I wonder if they would work at all.

[Piedmon_Sama]

IRL? I seriously doubt it, but I'm no swordsman. In fact, back in Middle School when my friends and I were in several 3.0 campaigns, the Mercurial Greatsword was our byword for "retarded." As in: "My character is a half-Drow, half-Vampire, half-Mind Flayer half-Demon Cleric of Himself... and he carries a Mercurial Greatsword." We had one player who always wanted to use one, and you better believe we taunted him mercilessly... :D

[xPANCAKEx]

it COULD in theory be used... but it would take a lot of training, and even then, you'd have a hard time stopping the momentum

it would be tiring to use to say the least, and you'd leave massive gaps open to exploitation,

[BRC]

it COULD in theory be used... but it would take a lot of training, and even then, you'd have a hard time stopping the momentum

it would be tiring to use to say the least, and you'd leave massive gaps open to exploitation,
I think the difficulty of use is represented by the exoticness of the weapon. It's so tough to use, that even if you know how to use a greatsword, you have to start all over again with the Mercurial one.

[Kizara]

Its an exotic weapon that changes a 19-20/x2 to 20/x4. Personally, I think the flavor is amazing when combined with the githyanki's silvered blade.

[herrhauptmann]

Probably because to the average fighter, they would just look like another longsword or greatsword. And when they tried to use it.. Whoops, lost my grip and now there's a greatsword in our wizard's chest :smalleek:

I was never questioning why they were exotics. It makes sense to me to need special training for a weapon that has its balance point change midswing. Plus, when you picked it up, I figure you'd notice the feeling of the blade wobbling because the mercury is sloshing around inside.

[Lert, A.]

All of which is why my group added the concept to a pick.

[mabriss lethe]

however, I could see them doing something similar with a warhammer/club/greatclub. I mean heck, you can buy "deadblow" hammers in a hardware store. same concept.

[sleepy]

Lava and water bats (the baseball variety) work like this... and are tremendously effective. Pretty sure their use is banned in every reasonable league involving people older than 10.

However, they work like this on a totally committed from full windup baseball swing, and the balance of the thing by the time the weight hits the end is closer to a woodaxe. While it would let you coup de grace better, it'd ruin weapon balance and be clumsy as all hell for anything that isn't a balls-to-the-wall overcommited swing. Greatswords are already kinda in this position, but longswords certainly aren't.

Of course, applying physics to D&D rarely ends well and such a sword is hardly the most ludicrous mundane equipment idea to have been published.

[Prometheus]

however, I could see them doing something similar with a warhammer/club/greatclub. I mean heck, you can buy "deadblow" hammers in a hardware store. same concept.
Exactly. Actually, I believe it was halberds (but I am really not an expert) that soldiers carried straight up into battle so that they could get the momentum boost from that first drop and most of the time that did the job.

[Kaiyanwang]

One of my players did great things with Mercurial + Karmik strike.

In short: crits happens.

Further, consider that if you use weapon categories of the Unhearthed Arcana, this weapon is an exotic heavy blade like the great falchion, 2d6,18-20/x2.
Is not a bad thing apply the weapon supremacy tier with weapon fairly different one from another.

The elven bows are in RotW and are both bows and quarterstaff. I like them because you can choose any combinations of attacks in the full attack, and you threat the space around you.

[Lord Denyuar]

Combine any mercurial weapon with the PRC Weapons Master from 3.0 (Sword and Fist) and you have one guy with an extremely high damage potential when criting.