[3.5] Mundane Weapon Enhancements

[AnimeTheCat]

I had an idea for a mundane weapon enhancement, one that can be applied with just a craft check while comforting the weapon. Call it Heavy or something, but it allows the weapon to be treated as a effort category higher for the purposes of power attack. Meaning a light weapon is treated as one handed and thus allows for a 1:1 power attack. Cost maybe 300 gp more and increases weight by 5 or double, whichever is less. A one-handed weapon is treated as two handed for power attack and allows 1:2 power attack ratio. Costs 500 gp and increases by 8 or double weight, whichever is less.

Does something like this exist or is this an idea that is unbalanced to apply?

[JoshuaZ]

I had an idea for a mundane weapon enhancement, one that can be applied with just a craft check while comforting the weapon. Call it Heavy or something, but it allows the weapon to be treated as a effort category higher for the purposes of power attack. Meaning a light weapon is treated as one handed and thus allows for a 1:1 power attack. Cost maybe 300 gp more and increases weight by 5 or double, whichever is less. A one-handed weapon is treated as two handed for power attack and allows 1:2 power attack ratio. Costs 500 gp and increases by 8 or double weight, whichever is less.

Does something like this exist or is this an idea that is unbalanced to apply?

Probably balanced if done carefully. One setting I had (which was Pathfinder not 3.5 but close enough) I made it so that some +1 and +1 keen weapons were not magical but rather simply very well forged blades. This was in part because I was trying to reduce how common magic in the setting was. This seemed to go ok. I ruled that such weapons were "magical" for purposes of overcoming DR so that DR really meant "magical or very, very sharp." This was only one campaign but I didn't notice any issues. A few of the other basic enhancements can also be probably fluffed as non-magical, but as you allow for more of them, more balance issues may show up.

[aimlessPolymath]

It's not technically unbalanced (nor particularly dangerous optimization-wise), but at high levels, the cost becomes nearly negligible, with no real opportunity cost to applying it. I would only OK it in my own campaign if other, competing enhancements were also available.