Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

There's already a published 4E book that does this, and I'm pretty sure it is GURPS Fantasy.

edit: except of course that that list does it the way it ought to be done, rather than the way you proposed, by basing it not on Wealth but on Cost-of-Living.

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

Yes, but Peter, your quest for non-GM-dependent ways of doing things strikes me as, well, a personal obsession of yours that has nothing to do with good gaming. You're like Lord Vetinari wanting to read music off the printed page because letting musicians get involved just spoils it . . . or a fan of a book who objects to any hint of a film director's having a personal vision.

Role-playing games are a participatory art in which the GM is the principal creator. Their individual utilization of the game rules and the game setting (if there is one) ADDS VALUE to the game for their players. A good game book is one that facilitates the GM's personal creativity. It's a springboard, not a monorail. And GURPS Low-Tech, like all GURPS books, is intended to provide that sort of resource to GMs.

Bill Stoddard

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

I think the "how to do very fine spears, axes, etc" thing qualifies as it was blessed by a krommsponse.

Other than the many obvious concerns that I'm sure are getting addressed (by Dan) and the general extra delicious quality and sexyness of the chicks by the quality of the writers and editors on this one... I can't remember any more off the top of my head.

I would like the more elegant system of Cost Factor (CF) being generalized outside of DF. But that's not what the topic is about, there's plenty of wishes flying about.

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

Wasn't there some discussion a while ago about generalized equipment quality rules.
Something that takes the craftsmanship idea another step and makes it not just for swords, or swords, spears & axes, but to anything hand crafted by an expert.
Wasn't there a set of high quality lock picks that gave a skill bonus? or was that in 3E? Anyway, a generalized (dare I say Generic) ruleset for crafting items should include some consideration for fine and very fine products.

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

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.

In other words, I don't see any value in generalizing CF rules out of DF because CF is a very genre-specific assumption.

-Max

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

On the other hand, multiplicitive modifiers do not seem to meet the reality check for most weapons and armour. It is explicitly not harder or more expensive to make a sword of the finest materials well balanced than it is to make a sword made out of poor steel balanced. In any real world sense, additive modifiers serve to adequately model how the quality of the materials and the design are seperate and these elements do not meaningfully influence the cost of each other.

As for the specific example given, Dungeon Fantasy 'Meteoric Iron' is a fantastic material with little or not necessary resemblence to a real world substance. It is not necessarily harder to work than normal steel, unless the GM particulary wants it to be (in which case he'd adjust the cost).

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

This works fine if you're playing in a world that is uniformly TL 3. There was a time when swords of all qualities would have been available, but they would all be made of bronze. Even the Very Fine Bronze swords must have been inferior to Very Fine Iron swords, or bronze would have stayed in use. It may be a matter of weight, breakage, cost, time to make, etc... rather than damage, but there was some reason that some materials replaced others in higher tech levels.

More to the point, if I play a character from TL 2 in a TL 3 campaign, I'm getting 5 points for it. My fine iron Broadsword would be great when we encounter faeries, but it shouldn't be identical to the steel swords of my companions in every other respect.

Similarly, an obsidian arrow head is demonstrably sharper than steel, but it may be too brittle to deal with armor, etc....

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

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.

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

Eh, in the real world, cost is an excellent reason for one material to replace another.

Bronze isn't particularly brittle or soft. It's in many ways an excellent material for armour, being denser than iron/steel, for example. But bronze is an order of magnitude rarer than iron, making it more expensive.

Sometimes the tech level advantage is just to make it cheaper to make the same thing out of other materials.

Re: They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!
 

I thought it was too brittle to use for larger blades?