Silver Weapons, Weird Things That Aren't Enchantments, Armor Piercing

[The Wyzard]

This is really three different issues, but I don't want to spam the board with three different threads. So.

1. Silver weapons are, in fact, not feasible from an engineering standpoint. You can't make a silver sword; the metal is too soft. Are we generally in agreement that silver weapons and armor on Cidri are the result of alchemically-altered silver, or a silver alloy produced using metals that don't exist in the real world, etc.? I didn't see this in the book anywhere (I may have missed it), but I've been assuming it was obvious.

2. How would you handle it if a player wanted special items that didn't seem to quite rise to the level of an enchantment? This is relevant because enchantments are expensive and if you have more than one enchantment on an item, the expense is multiplied. So, let's say a player wants a sword that is just a hilt, and a blade of burning blue energy manifests when it's wielded. (For the record, I'm picturing this as more like the sword in Hyper Light Drifter than a lightsaber.) No special damage or anything, it has stats and requirements as per a broadsword, frex. It's a little lighter because it doesn't have a blade.

Would you want that to be its own enchantment? Just add a lot to the base cost of the equipment? Tell the player that if they want to buy a damage/DX boost enchantment AND immunity to break weapon (because, hahaha, you can't break the blade, the player almost snuck one past you!) then you'll call it good.

One could probably imagine all kinds of "minor" enhancements or variations to an item that don't seem like they're worth an entire enchantment on their own.

3. Is there room in the rules for weapons with Armor Piercing? It's common in games where armor functions to reduce damage (as it does in TFT), that some weapons have an AP rating that allows them to ignore so many points of armor. I've gone back and forth on this. On the one hand, picks and hammers exist already, and if the game was intended to have AP as part of the rules, it would already exist. On the other hand, maybe they should have had AP, because it lets you rank weapons on more than just "does more damage/does less damage." If a sword is better for unarmored or lightly-armored opponents, and a pick or mace is better for heavily armored opponents, then there's an additional tactical layer beyond just looking at the amount of raw hits someone puts out.

On the gripping hand, if almost all opponents are wearing armor, AP is basically just a damage boost.

Hmm.

[platimus]

On #1, I think I did read something to that effect in ITL somewhere. "Silver-weapons" and "silver armor" are some kind of silver alloy.

On#2, strange coincidence, I was thinking about how the Wizard Staff could be "re-set and re-dressed" to be a Jedi's lightsaber this morning.

it has stats and requirements as per a broadsword, frex. It's a little lighter because it doesn't have a blade

Sounds like you've already got it figured it out for what you want...unless I'm missing something. You just need to figure out how common these energy blades are in your campaign and how much they cost.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by The Wyzard

So, let's say a player wants a sword that is just a hilt, and a blade of burning blue energy manifests when it's wielded. (For the record, I'm picturing this as more like the sword in Hyper Light Drifter than a lightsaber.) No special damage or anything, it has stats and requirements as per a broadsword, frex. It's a little lighter because it doesn't have a blade.

Thundarr's Sun Sword! Actually, given Cidri's history, this kind of high-tech item masquerading as magical wouldn't be out-of-scope for a clever GM.

[Shostak]

1. ITL 140, "Iron, Silver, and Magic" discusses the nifty silver alloy that is almost as strong as steel.

2. That sounds like enchantment-level to me. And, yes, you could break that weapon--just not the blade: weapon malfunctions and blade is too short to be fully effective, for instance.

3. Armor piercing seems already baked into the damage of weapons. It might make for a less expensive enchantment, though--weapon does normal damage against an unarmored foe, but has magic that bypasses some of the armor. Why not?

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by The Wyzard

3. Is there room in the rules for weapons with Armor Piercing? It's common in games where armor functions to reduce damage (as it does in TFT), that some weapons have an AP rating that allows them to ignore so many points of armor. I've gone back and forth on this. On the one hand, picks and hammers exist already, and if the game was intended to have AP as part of the rules, it would already exist. On the other hand, maybe they should have had AP, because it lets you rank weapons on more than just "does more damage/does less damage." If a sword is better for unarmored or lightly-armored opponents, and a pick or mace is better for heavily armored opponents, then there's an additional tactical layer beyond just looking at the amount of raw hits someone puts out.

I considered adding something like this as well... composite longbow ignores 1 hit stopped, heavy crossbow ignores 2, etc. Not sure I would apply AP to melee weapons though.

[Skarg]

1. Good point re: scientific realism, if it is the silver we know about here. My take is that somehow the silver being talked about is something else, whatever that is, that ends up costing 10x a steel weapon and being as good for weapons... and armor. I'd prefer to have a self-consistent work-up of how that works. i.e. Does it involve a mix with iron and how much valuable silver can you get taking apart different weapon and armor types and melting them down for the silver.

2. Even the smallest enchantments count for the rule of five, and pushing the rule of five means there's some really heavy enchantment in play, so no, I don't have exceptions for cheap enchantments.

However if a magical effect is mainly just cosmetic and/or a minor effect, I might allow wizards to create an enchantment in such a way that it includes that effect as part of the way it does some other enchantment. The limits of those styles and minor effects could either be due to a talent of the particular enchanting wizard ("all Bubu's enchantments come with a blue glow") and/or specific versions of enchantment recipes that are a bit different from the conventional ones, or even entirely new enchantments.

Assuming the guild did have such an energy sword enchantment researched, and I wanted it to be available as a single enchantment along with some more powerful enchantment, I might combine it with those (and maybe also make it available in multiple levels) that yes, essentially mean you get one single enchantment that gives you both the energy sword thing and the other enchantment. i.e. make a table of power levels for energy sword - one is just like a sword of the desired size in combat, the next one does +1 damage and costs a bit more than enchanting a sword for +1 damage but is just one enchantment to do both, etc.

Personally, during play, I'd tend to say that's not a thing that the wizards guild is known to have an enchantment recipe for, so a wizard (PC or not) would need to try to research it. (My years of experience GM'ing TFT and seeing what happens when there's a lot of magic easily available for sale, has made me greatly prefer magic items to be quite limited in availability.) If it's a campaign where I'm letting people bring in peculiar things they can imagine for whatever reason, then I'd figure out if it's magic or not and if it is, it still counts for the rule of five with other Cidri enchantments, but I'd probably just let them have it (to a similar degree I'm allowing other PCs to start with weird stuff) since it's peculiar but not powerful in the conventional sense. Or in a GURPS Magic campaign, it could be an illusion disguise on a normal sword.

3. I would theoretically allow an AP weapon enchantment, and I'd make it just a slightly easier version of Weapon/Armor Enchantment (that doesn't stack with it).

You could develop AP house rules for other weapons, though as you see from starting to get into it, to do it well is not an entirely simple thing, and it will impact the balance of things in the game. Other weapons could have other traits too... and you're off re-designing the combat system. :-)

[The Wyzard]

Originally Posted by Shostak

1. ITL 140, "Iron, Silver, and Magic" discusses the nifty silver alloy that is almost as strong as steel.

Thanks! Page cites are always the best. :D

...

Originally Posted by Skarg

Other weapons could have other traits too... and you're off re-designing the combat system. :-)

Yeah, that's the problem with house rules. It's tough to know when to stop. For example, I don't really like critical hits very well, RAW - I think they're too lethal, and the game is pretty lethal to start with. This combines somewhat with how I think the crit/autofail numbers for rolling more than three dice are maybe a little wonky.

But once I start messing around with alternate critical hit rules, pretty soon I'm redesigning *everything.* :D

[Helborn]

Originally Posted by The Wyzard

2. So, let's say a player wants a sword that is just a hilt, and a blade of burning blue energy manifests when it's wielded.

Would you want that to be its own enchantment? Just add a lot to the base cost of the equipment? Tell the player that if they want to buy a damage/DX boost enchantment AND immunity to break weapon (because, hahaha, you can't break the blade, the player almost snuck one past you!) then you'll call it good.

#2 - you still want Immunity to Break Weapon because that spell would break the hilt if that is the "weapon" that holds the enchantments.

Originally Posted by The Wyzard

3. Is there room in the rules for weapons with Armor Piercing?
Hmm.

#3 - AP is already built in via the damage reduction of armor and the damage done of weapons. You get the same effect as "ignoring X number of hit reductions" by enchanting a +1, +2, +3, etc. damage.

I have found games with extensive tables of weapon damage vs armor types to be extremely tedious, but if you have a group of gamers into it, create some tables of weapons vs armor.

[larsdangly]

The silver alloy idea is obviously some sort of fictional/mythical/definitely not scientifically rational thing. Silver alone could not be used to make a useful weapon. Silver does not form a ferrous alloy, so you can't imagine it is 'seasoning' for a steel sword. It does form alloys with some other common metals, but all I'm aware of lack the mechanical properties to make a sword or other useful weapon. So, it is basically just a thing that exists 'in game'. It's not the end of the world; Runequest did the same thing.

[DouglasCole]

Steel weapon deeply inlaid with enchanted silver runes?