Upgrading existing gear

[zuljita]

Say you bought a really nice weapon, took weapon bond and signature gear on it, all that sort of thing. Then you come into a large chunk of cash. If you want to pay the town wizard to enchant it, is that kosher? If yes, does it take a significant amount of time? (I know GURPS rules for enchanting take time, but DFRPG takes different assumptions on many such things). If I'm willing to leave my favorite sword in town for a dungeon crawl while Enchanters-R-Us gives it penetrating, will it break things to let me do it?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by zuljita

Say you bought a really nice weapon, took weapon bond and signature gear on it, all that sort of thing. Then you come into a large chunk of cash. If you want to pay the town wizard to enchant it, is that kosher? If yes, does it take a significant amount of time? (I know GURPS rules for enchanting take time, but DFRPG takes different assumptions on many such things). If I'm willing to leave my favorite sword in town for a dungeon crawl while Enchanters-R-Us gives it penetrating, will it break things to let me do it?

My rule from my (pre-Dungeon Fantasy) DF game is that since a town "turn" is one week, enchantments, training, special orders, and the like take one week per expense (for armor and similar this is per piece) per enchanting circle/guildhall/merchant/craftsman available in town (usually either one or none of each).

[Anthony]

Whether this breaks things depends on the game style you want. In general, the feel of classic dungeon fantasy is that you get the magic items the GM felt like including, which may be weird, inconvenient, or suboptimal, whereas if you can just go to EnchantMart and get whatever you want, people are likely to standardize on a particular list of favored items. In addition, things like weapon bond are as cheap as they are because of the reduction in flexibility they cause.

[Kromm]

That's one of those "beyond the scope of the current rules" questions by dint of the boxed set being a starter set with only a modest focus on ongoing campaigns. For a quick-and-dirty rule:

Divide enchantment cost by $20 and use that as the number of days you'll be without your item; e.g., to improve your broadsword with Penetrating Weapon (2), which costs $5,000 on a melee weapon, you'll need to pay $5,000 and wait 250 days.

If the GM feels generous, then multiplying enchantment cost by (1 + N) halves the wait N times. For example, for that sword, paying $10,000 halves wait time to 125 days, and paying $30,000 gets wait time down to about a week (7.8 days). The extra money has nothing to do with magic . . . it's about reimbursing the Wizards' Guild for social and administrative difficulties such as losing business with Ye Olde Magick Shoppe, hiring extra help, and putting more magical stuff out there that will flood the market.

As for nonmagical changes, these aren't generally possible – armor and weapons have to be made fine or dwarven or whatever. The exception is making something ornate, silver-coated, or bejeweled. That takes a week and costs the difference in value plus a 10% commission. So if you also decide to add a silver coating to that broadsword, which would raise base item value by $1,200, you'd have to pay $1,320 and wait a week. This can't be sped up.

[zuljita]

Thanks, that's helpful guidance.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kromm

As for nonmagical changes, these aren't generally possible – armor and weapons have to be made fine or dwarven or whatever. The exception is making something ornate, silver-coated, or bejeweled. That takes a week and costs the difference in value plus a 10% commission. So if you also decide to add a silver coating to that broadsword, which would raise base item value by $1,200, you'd have to pay $1,320 and wait a week. This can't be sped up.

One thing that fits in this category that was some consternation to me is bows. I think it is possible to restring an existing bow to a new draw, within some limits, but I a) don't know enough about archery b) can't decide if this is event relevant for DF and maybe the bow should just be assumed to automatically be adjusted for the new ST and c) don't really want to penalize Scouts for improving ST.

[Kromm]

My schema is obviously very unfavorable to PCs. It's in line with what Anthony said: The whole point of stuff like Signature Gear and Weapon Bond is to offer big benefits (permanence, skill bonus) at a cost in flexibility. Something similar could be said about weapon skill . . . the downside to spending all your points on Broadsword skill is being out of luck when you come across an amazing mace or spear or morningstar. Magical loot is meant to be a little haphazard! But if you're willing to wait forever or pay big gobs of money, you're effectively trading one inconvenience for another, which I'd consider fair play.

Personally, I'd rather discard the points on lost Signature Gear and Weapon Bond, and get a new sword, than go eight months without my sword or pay an extra $25,000. If I'm spending $30,000, I'm getting something awesome. I'll earn more points on my next adventure and rebuy Signature Gear and Weapon Bond. But some players are really obsessed . . .

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kromm

My schema is obviously very unfavorable to PCs. It's in line with what Anthony said: The whole point of stuff like Signature Gear and Weapon Bond is to offer big benefits (permanence, skill bonus) at a cost in flexibility. Something similar could be said about weapon skill . . . the downside to spending all your points on Broadsword skill is being out of luck when you come across an amazing mace or spear or morningstar. Magical loot is meant to be a little haphazard! But if you're willing to wait forever or pay big gobs of money, you're effectively trading one inconvenience for another, which I'd consider fair play.

Personally, I'd rather discard the points on lost Signature Gear and Weapon Bond, and get a new sword, than go eight months without my sword or pay an extra $25,000. If I'm spending $30,000, I'm getting something awesome. I'll earn more points on my next adventure and rebuy Signature Gear and Weapon Bond. But some players are really obsessed . . .

The thing I've seen is when the player gets a cool bow (in my game an artifact bow) that is as good or better than anything they are finding, but then they raise ST. Is it reasonable for them to restring the existing bow, or not? Or even if they find a cool bow but it is a different ST than theirs?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

One thing that fits in this category that was some consternation to me is bows. I think it is possible to restring an existing bow to a new draw, within some limits, but I a) don't know enough about archery b) can't decide if this is event relevant for DF and maybe the bow should just be assumed to automatically be adjusted for the new ST and c) don't really want to penalized Scouts for improving ST.

I don't know enough about archery to speak with authority. My feeling is that within the very low realism level of the DFRPG, I'd probably go with "make an Armory roll." If the bow has tons of special properties, I'd repurpose the Fixer-Uppers rule on p. 15 of Exploits to make it at least a little challenging . . . adjusting a balanced, elven, fine bow with two enchantments on it should be harder than adjusting some munitions bow grabbed off Brigand #4 after the fight.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The thing I've seen is when the player gets a cool bow (in my game an artifact bow) that is as good or better than anything they are finding, but then they raise ST. Is it reasonable for them to restring the existing bow, or not? Or even if they find a cool bow but it is a different ST than theirs?

I think the only good way to do this would be to take an existing bow and mount something really stiff on the part of the bow that faces away from the archer when it's drawn (the "back" of the bow, as opposed to the "belly"). That will increase the draw weight required to pull it back.

In the real world, this is frequently sinew. It's done frequently enough - and after the fact - that it's got a term for it: "Backing" the bow.

This brief thread makes a brief drive-by at extreme backing, saying it can double the draw weight of the bow (increase ST by 40-50%).

Now, one magical way to do this is probably to cast some sort of bow-specific essential wood on the back of the bow, essentially self-backing the thing by reinforcing the outer bit. Or, go to Ye Olde Magick Shoppe and buy a strip of essential wood, and pay an elvish armorer druid/scout (retired adventurer!) to modify it for you.

But it's not crazy talk, and if you allow a 40-50% increase in ST for the bow beyond what the PC bought it as (so a ST10 bow can go to ST 14-15; a ST 15 bow can go to ST 21-22) for a fee, it's probably reasonable.

Edit: This dangerous pastime of adding "reality" to Dungeon Fantasy RPG makes me nervous. I feel like putting on a seatbelt or something.