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Old 12-12-2017, 05:09 PM   #11
sir_pudding
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Default Re: Weapon Bond & Signature Gear

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Old 12-12-2017, 08:36 PM   #12
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Default Re: Weapon Bond & Signature Gear

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post

Which is why I never take it as a Player. It's an inevitable wasted exp.
That depends a great deal on the campaign, the player, and the character.

If the GM doesn't regularly hand out sacks of money . . . or if the GM does, but money can't buy high-quality or magical weapons, so you have to find them . . . or if the GM doesn't routinely give out fantastically powerful weapons instead of money . . . well, the weapon you start with might be the best one you see. That isn't at odds with Dungeon Fantasy at all. It's quite possible for an in-genre campaign to feature loot that mostly just increments the "money" counter until the PC in question has enough to retire in luxury, with the real reward being earned character points and personal power. And it's quite possible for most of the non-cash loot to be limited-use stuff like arrows, potions, scrolls, charged wands, Lesser Wish rings, and so on.

The player might regard "1 point to be lost eventually for the equivalent of 4 points of value right now" as a fair trade. Earning a replacement point is easy, and until you go through four Weapon Bonds to similar weapons, you're still ahead of buying skill. The player might also view characterization as more important than efficiency, of course, and opt to stick with a weapon just because it's important to stick with the weapon. The latter works best if you also have Signature Gear – and if you do, you've paid 2 points for the equivalent of 4 points of value, which still comes out ahead.

Beyond characterization, there's the question of whether you need item upgrades. Someone who starts with a boatload of money, all sunk into some super-fancy weapon insured with Signature Gear and boosted with Weapon Bond, might have a better weapon than Fate ever puts in a treasure chest. Someone who has ST 24 and a humongous club might not ever meet the monster that needs more damage to kill, so if all the "better" Two-Handed Axe/Mace weapons in the game actually do is eke out an extra +1 or +2 to damage, they might be worth more sold to Wally's Weapons for the cash to buy better armor over at Pete's Plate or a prepaid resurrection at the Generally Nice Temple of Totally Not Necromancy.

And that's just being selfish. If the player and/or character thinks more in terms of group effectiveness, maybe it's better to stick to the weapon with the Weapon Bond, figure "Well, I got +1 for 1 point instead of 4 points," and let less capable associates have slightly better weapons – or even sell such weapons for cash to help allies by resurrecting them or equipping them in other ways.
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Old 12-13-2017, 02:27 AM   #13
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Default Re: Weapon Bond & Signature Gear

I get the rules as written, but I'd still run it my way.

The way I look at it, if you lose the Signature Gear through no fault of your own, I as the GM give you an equally valuable replacement. But that means equally valuable to you, not just "with the same cash price". If you lose your grandfather's Balanced, Very Fine ivory nunchucks, I don't give you a $1080 Ornate cheese grater. I give you something that's roughly as pricey, makes use of one of your best skills, and ties into your personal background or developing story somehow. So, from my perspective, that 1-point Weapon Bond is one aspect of the item's value to you, and therefore you get that 1 point's worth of replacement too.
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Old 12-13-2017, 03:59 PM   #14
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The way I look at it, if you lose the Signature Gear through no fault of your own, I as the GM give you an equally valuable replacement. But that means equally valuable to you, not just "with the same cash price". If you lose your grandfather's Balanced, Very Fine ivory nunchucks, I don't give you a $1080 Ornate cheese grater. I give you something that's roughly as pricey, makes use of one of your best skills, and ties into your personal background or developing story somehow. So, from my perspective, that 1-point Weapon Bond is one aspect of the item's value to you, and therefore you get that 1 point's worth of replacement too.
My perspective on this is nearly the reverse.

When I came up with Weapon Bond, my idea was, "This is the special sword that just feels right in your hand; the balance and the size of grip and so on mean that it works like an extension of your arm." That sort of sword should be especially valuable to you. Of course you could walk into an armoury and have them provide you with a sword that was nominally the same kind of sword, and you could use it well enough—but you wouldn't be quite as good. You ought to take special care of your special sword.

(In principle, you could spend another character point on another Weapon Bond. But it should go beyond having the character point and the cash. The GM should make you go through a long search and try out a lot of swords. Maybe you'd have to roll against Connoisseur (Weapons) and succeed by a big margin, for example.)

But suppose that you have Weapon Bond and Signature Gear, and that means that if you lose your sword, you can just buy another sword, and it will be equally special. That takes away all incentive to treat this as a valuable possession. "This is my sword Anduril that was passed down to me by my fathers of old." <sword breaks> "This is my sword Excalibur that handed to me by a mysterious woman in a lake." <sword breaks> "This is my sword. . . ."

I stipulate that Signature Gear makes it unlikely that you'll lose the item, just as it's unlikely that you'll be blinded or crippled. But you're going to try to protect yourself against attacks that could permanently disable you, and you should try to protect yourself against losing your Signature Gear, too. And I prefer a rules interpretation that provides incentive to do that.
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Old 12-13-2017, 04:12 PM   #15
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(In principle, you could spend another character point on another Weapon Bond. But it should go beyond having the character point and the cash. The GM should make you go through a long search and try out a lot of swords. Maybe you'd have to roll against Connoisseur (Weapons) and succeed by a big margin, for example.)
Or go through a lot of effort to customize a weapon to you, probably by making Armory rolls and spending money on changing grips, cross-guards and pommels.
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Old 12-13-2017, 04:34 PM   #16
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Or go through a lot of effort to customize a weapon to you, probably by making Armory rolls and spending money on changing grips, cross-guards and pommels.
Or just spend 400 hours training with it over a couple of months in a montage.
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Old 12-13-2017, 05:09 PM   #17
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Or just spend 400 hours training with it over a couple of months in a montage.
Dungeon Fantasy doesn't use those rules from GURPS.
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Old 12-13-2017, 05:34 PM   #18
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Or just spend 400 hours training with it over a couple of months in a montage.
I would not allow it to be done by training, and certainly not in a montage. What training does is raise your skill, and the point costs for that are already established.
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Old 12-13-2017, 05:43 PM   #19
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I would not allow it to be done by training
Exploits p. 93 says you can spend earned points (with optional training expenses if using those rules) on anything on your professional template. Weapon Bond appears on Barbarian, Holy Warrior, Knight, Martial Artist, Scout and Swashbuckler. Not allowing them to buy Weapon Bond seems odd, given that they can train traits like Discriminatory Smell, Resistant to Poison, or Luck which are even less plausibly trained.

I'm not sure why Weapon Bond would be a thing you could only acquire prior to play. Why can't you find or customize a weapon that fits you later?
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Old 12-13-2017, 06:15 PM   #20
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Exploits p. 93 says you can spend earned points (with optional training expenses if using those rules) on anything on your professional template. Weapon Bond appears on Barbarian, Holy Warrior, Knight, Martial Artist, Scout and Swashbuckler. Not allowing them to buy Weapon Bond seems odd, given that they can train traits like Discriminatory Smell, Resistant to Poison, or Luck which are even less plausibly trained.

I'm not sure why Weapon Bond would be a thing you could only acquire prior to play. Why can't you find or customize a weapon that fits you later?
You certainly can, and I do envision people buying Weapon Bond in play if they choose to. But you also have to have the narrative of, "I acquire the sword." For an ordinary sword, that would just be walking into the armoury and plunking down your money (I assume DF doesn't make you wait a couple of weeks while the armorer does the work!). But to find *exactly the right sword* for you, I would want you to have to go to some trouble: Visit armorers in several different cities, go through loot in dungeons, provide some *narrative* of how you arrange to acquire the trait you spend the point on. It isn't as if you could just pick up any sword you came across and have it be exactly the sword you needed for that special relationship.
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