[Kromm]

This is now major thread veer: I ran a lengthy campaign where special swords (with some kind of scary name, I believe "Entropy Shards") were the standard weapons of any minion of the campaign arch-nemesis above the "fodder" level. These blades had a good chance of disintegrating any weapon that parried them or that they parried – though they weren't powerful enough to disintegrate suits of armor, and couldn't affect living targets. The only way to fully avoid this effect was to use such a sword (it was immune to its own juju) or a weapon that was immune to magic; otherwise, you were left trying to avoid crossing swords, hoping the disintegration damage roll would be low, or using Luck to weasel out of it.

There were plenty of these swords to go around, but they were widely known to be capital-E Evil and suspected to attract monsters, so nobody would buy them from the PCs. That left using them or . . . not. Interestingly, the players were not keen on using these things, as that meant disintegrating loot. Plus these swords came in a single style that not everyone was skilled with, and were significantly less effective than the PCs' fine, magical, etc. weapons in all respects save for the special ability. A few PCs carried them around for use against strong foes with clubs and other cheap weapons, but most of the players weren't willing to carry the extra encumbrance or risk attracting monsters.