Pyramid #3/89: Alternate Dungeons II

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Ternas

Hate to pop in again, but I got into another conversation about this issue with one of the players I know.

Is there a real difference between Dragonbone from DF8 and the Spirit Wood weapon modifier from this issue? I mean other than the latter being +5CF more expensive and allowing for bows to be made unbreakable from taking Spirit Wood?

I can absolutely understand it fitting in with the whole Eastern Adventure theme, with a good portion of the Eastern culture myths I know revering dragons, it's probably more unlikely they'll be killing them for bones than such western adventures which consider dragons to be little more than overgrown reptiles that double as a firestarter. But hey, at least with this material, Bow Fencers won't have to worry about breaking them on a parry.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. in most eastern mythology you don't fight a dragon you worship or run from it. And if you kill it (good luck!) you've probably irked off the gods.

More mechanically - it's never set right with me that you couldn't use Dragonbone for bows. I know WHY it was done (it'd be hard to shape the stuff) - but it always felt weird to me. I've always been of the mind that as long as it's not unbalanced just make it cost more. So a spirit wood bow does pretty much what you say: it won't break easily when used by someone with a Bow Fencer power-up. That's essentially it. (Under the hood it's just Essential Wood with a cost factor.)

I suppose if you wanted you could say that spirit wood bows cost +16 CF more and give the effects of elven because of their tensile strength. The GM would need to decide if this could stack with elven and/or the Strongbow perk - I personally would probably allow it since the cost would be prohibitive as hell.