Quote:
Originally Posted by sjmdw45
I'd rather avoid that. CF is purely additive, which works for DF since it's inherently quick-and-dirty. In a more fully-fleshed-out universe, you might want to consider that e.g. it's harder to give Meteoric Iron a Very Fine edge than it is for normal steel, so CF would be multiplicative instead of additive.
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For a material to have (and keep) a Very Fine edge, it has to be hard enough that the edge doesn't roll or dull easily, even when it hits something hard like bone, wood, or metal, and tough enough that it doesn't chip out. In the real world, this is a tricky balancing act. An optimal steel formulation, given proper heat treatment, and skillfully sharpened, will get you there. Soft iron won't ever get you there, neither will copper. Bronze might, I suppose, but AFAIK bronze is more fragile than weapons-grade steel and would probably chip out, if the blade itself didn't break first. Same with, say, obsidian. I don't know whether silver runs to soft or brittle but I understand it's a lousy weapon material. In a more realistic game, none of those materials should be
allowed to have a VF edge, period.. so the question of how much it would cost is moot.
With a fantasy material that exceeds the physical limits of steel, it shouldn't be much harder to make a VF edge than it is to make a normal edge. In this case, you have three cost factors:
- The material itself, which may (or may not) be prohibitively expensive. This is independent of the other two.
- Working the material into a blade. If the material is very finicky (needs a very precise heat treatment, or special tools or rituals) then you may have to pay a premium for a smith with a high skill level or knowledge of the secret techniques. If the material is merely extremely hard and tough, then a normal smith could probably work it, but require more time, or you may need to find a specialist again (other special tools or rituals). On the other hand, perhaps a truly wondrous material is easy to work, as if answering the desire of the smith.
- Putting a VF edge on it.* The more superior the material is to steel, the easier (cheaper) this ought to be, up to the point where any correctly-made blade is automatically VF. (Alternately, you could extend the range up to Super Fine, and, say, Ultra Fine.. though note that any edge better than Super Fine is probably monomolecular, or exceeds the limits of material science.)
So, I'm not sure what qualities you imagine Meteoric Iron to have compared to ordinary weapons-grade steel (or which ones DF may have assigned it); if it's a lesser material, then it should probably be forbidden to have a VF edge at all. If it's a greater material, then it should actually cost less to put a VF edge on.. but using one generic additive modifier is probably not too distant from reality, and avoids excessive charts and/or calculations in weapon design.
* Note that working the blade and putting the edge on are interrelated. For instance, Japanese swordsmiths folded their blades multiple times in order to increase the quality of the steel, and to avoid weak spots being caused by impurities, and in doing so created the potential for the blade to have a VF edge; is this "working the blade", or "creating the edge"? It's both. Likewise for heat treatment. But for the sake of demonstrating what costs are involved in bladesmithing and how they can vary, it's easier to pretend they're two separate things.