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2013-08-26, 07:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
- Location
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Gender
Weapon material and corresponding bonuses
I'm not entirely sure if this has been done before, and I don't know if this is the right spot for it, but I have an idea for stat changes to weapons and Armor based on material. There are magic items made of other materials listed, but they arent expansive enough in my opinion. This list will assume steel is the normal material.
Iron; Double hardness, half the hitpoints of equivalent steel item, slightly cheaper (not sure how much cheaper), can't be repaired if broken due to brittleness.
Lead; +2 damage bonus for bludgeoning weapons, doubled weight. Only maces and hammers can be made from lead.
Titanium; half as light as equivalent weapon or armour piece made of steel. Extra attack with titanium dagger, rapier, or shortsword, -1 damage if bludgeoning weapon is made from titanium. (Should be significantly more expensive, not sure how much)
Bronze; half as expensive as equivalent weapon or armour piece, -1 to hardness, damage, and ac bonus.
Note; some of this is simplified, particularly the weight of titanium and lead.Last edited by Gorbad Ironclaw; 2013-08-27 at 12:29 PM.
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2013-08-27, 03:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Gender
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2013-08-27, 12:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
- Location
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Gender
Re: Weapon material and corresponding bonuses
I'm pretty sure Iron is harder than steel, but not stronger. It's also brittle, and cracks more easily than steel. I should probably change it slightly.
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2013-08-27, 12:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Poland
- Gender
Re: Weapon material and corresponding bonuses
Well, no, not in any way.
It's exactly the other way actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron
Generally, more carbon you dissolve in iron - the harder it becomes. Actually somehow 'structured' dissolutions are being called 'steel'.Avatar by KwarkpuddingThe subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.
Whoever makes shoddy beer, shall be thrown into manure - town law from Gdańsk, XIth century.
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2013-08-27, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: Weapon material and corresponding bonuses
Titanium is really not that great of a weapon material. Steel has much better characteristics when it comes to capability to flex, and at a given volume steel is significantly stronger than titanium.
Also, regarding materials - bronze is actually quite good for maces, and it might be worth tossing in alloys. Tungsten steel, for example, is harder, heavier, and more heat resistant than most alloys.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2013-08-27, 01:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
- Location
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Gender
Re: Weapon material and corresponding bonuses
Obviously I know nothing about metallurgy. So how could this be translated into 3.5 rules?
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2013-08-27, 04:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Location
- Midwest, not Middle East
- Gender
Re: Weapon material and corresponding bonuses
As a metallurgist, here's my advice.
Cast iron (not pure iron, which gets confusing) is a poor choice for edged weapons. It would work ok for bludgeons as long as you didn't hit anything too hard. I almost want to just use rules for stone weapons, which I would suspect are in Frostburn or something like that. Make them bad and cheap.
Lead: Probably balanced. If you want more realism you could make it deform over time but that's kind of a hassle.
Titanium: see mithral. Maybe not accurate, but it's the go-to light and fancy material.
Bronze: I honestly don't have much experience with bronze. Figure out what mechanical space it fills: make it better or worse in damage, durability, cost, weight. I'd guess you could put durability and cost both worse than steel.
Alloy steel: There are a lot of minor differences here. Rather than worry about the details, I would allow the players to buy more hardness or hp for the item and call it good. Maybe each extra hp is 50 gold, with a max of +10 or something, and each extra hardness is 200 gold with a max of +5. Or you could go nonlinear and make it so going from +4 to +5 hp costs more than going from +0 to +1.
I'm worried that you are trying to get more distinction for the materials than 3.5 really supports. Adamantine is mythical and great, mithral is mythically light, bone is terrible, and mundane metals are kind of in between. Yes, steel is probably better than other mundane options but how much effort is this worth?