A variety of magic weapons for cheap (sort of)?

So, my group just finished the first volume of Age Of Ashes with an (optional) encounter involving creatures with silver vulnerability, leaving my Thief with the choice of using my +1 Striking Rapier or my low-grade silver dagger. I ended up using the dagger and it worked well enough, but I realized I really wanted to cover all my bases with:

• Magical Silver Short Sword (P/S damage)
• Magical Cold Iron Short Sword (P/S damage)
• Magical Silver Light Mace (B damage)
• Magical Cold Iron Light Mace (B damage)

Needless to say, this is well beyond my means at level 5, but I see a potential 'cheap' option:

• Start with a +1 striking Spiked Gauntlet we recently acquired in my offhand.
• Add Doubling Rings we found earlier (gold ring on the gauntlet hand, iron ring on the main hand).
• Buy Silver and Cold Iron Short Swords (at 40g+ each, the Maces will have to wait a little bit).
• As long as my offhand is otherwise empty, I am treated as if I am wielding the gauntlet (due to the Free Hand trait) and the gauntlet's Fundamental Runes will be duplicated on whichever mundane weapon I am wielding in my main hand.

Now, I won't get any Property Runes duplicated until I can upgrade my rings to the greater version, I'll need to keep my offhand 'free' in combat, and I'll probably need to upgrade to 'standard' precious metal weapons at some point, but this seems like a fairly decent trade off for 'always having the right weapon enchanted.' Plus, you don't really care too much if you get disarmed or need to drop your main hand weapon for some reason.

Does this seem like a valid option for maximum combat flexibility?

I'm pretty sure this (or something like this) is exactly what was intended with Doubling Rings.

This actually seems like a (small, possibly intended) loophole to me. Normally to get higher level enchants on those special material weapons you have to pay to improve their quality grade, which can be quite expensive if you're trying to maintain more than one weapon with decent runes. However, if you have greater doubling rings and an enchanted spiked gauntlet you can gain the full rune effects without paying for a higher grade weapon, and just carry around an unenchanted low-grade weapon of every special material. The ability to target any weakness you want at high levels where those can be up to weakness 20 seems to be worth the 1300 gp compared to just enchanting one weapon directly, for any character who uses one primary melee weapon.

Something I've thought of while typing this: how do special materials and bows/slings interact? I can't find any rules for special material ammunition.

This actually seems like a (small, possibly intended) loophole to me. Normally to get higher level enchants on those special material weapons you have to pay to improve their quality grade, which can be quite expensive if you're trying to maintain more than one weapon with decent runes. However, if you have greater doubling rings and an enchanted spiked gauntlet you can gain the full rune effects without paying for a higher grade weapon, and just carry around an unenchanted low-grade weapon of every special material. The ability to target any weakness you want at high levels where those can be up to weakness 20 seems to be worth the 1300 gp compared to just enchanting one weapon directly, for any character who uses one primary melee weapon.

I can easily see a GM ruling the text on special materials overrules the rings so that low grade weapons can still only get the lower runes. This doesn't seem to be spelled out, but it seems the most 'reasonable' ruling to me.

Something I've thought of while typing this: how do special materials and bows/slings interact? I can't find any rules for special material ammunition.

Weapons made of precious materials are more expensive and sometimes have special effects. You can make metal weapons out of any of these materials except darkwood, and wooden weapons out of darkwood. To determine the Price of 10 pieces of ammunition, use the base Price for a single weapon, without adding any extra for Bulk.

BellyBeard wrote:

Something I've thought of while typing this: how do special materials and bows/slings interact? I can't find any rules for special material ammunition.

Precious Material Weapons (p599) wrote:

Weapons made of precious materials are more expensive and sometimes have special effects. You can make metal weapons out of any of these materials except darkwood, and wooden weapons out of darkwood. To determine the Price of 10 pieces of ammunition, use the base Price for a single weapon, without adding any extra for Bulk.

Thanks for the quote!

If you want to be even more flexible you can purchase a pair of gauntlets, each of a material of your choice, purchase doubling rings, and then give at least the "main" gauntlet the shifting rune.

True you can't really have this going until level 11 when the greater rings become an option, unless you get them early, but Shifting does let you change your gauntlets into any one-handed weapons you want, and when I imagine it I think of having liquid metal gauntlets, which sounds bonkers cool.