Greetings fellow Wizards,
Recently during one of my campaigns a player raised the following question.
"Can I spend 2+ Weeks and the Required gold to research an opposed spell to Reinforce Armaments?"
[Reinforce Armaments]
1st level spell
Transmutation School
The rules state that yes he certainly can, further more I'm not about to tell him no, my one concern is that neither the player in question nor myself have ever crafted our own spell{s}.
My main concern is that the resulting spell should be higher then level 1.
This is due to the fact that Reinforce Armaments grants the target item the "master work Quality", doubles its hardness and negates the fragile quality for the spells duration, Should this new Arcane research bear fruit and be classed as a level 1 spell then in theory it would remove the "master work quality", half the items hardness and bestow the fragile quality for the spells duration.
Not soundly over powered yet, but another member of the party is a fan of spells like break and shatter and I'm just worried that certain challenges may instill less fear so to speak.
All in all, what would be the best way to go about crafting this new spell? Weaken Armaments.
I'd be looking at fort negates, that way its going to be hard to land on most things using weapons. I'd also have it not remove masterwork just half hardness and make the weapon fragile.
It wouldn't be out of the realms of fairness to make the new spell only work on mundane weapons since no one would be casting the base spell your using as a template on a magic sword anyway.
Perhaps a lesser version which is level one and only effects none magical weapons, fort negates and does not remove masterwork. A normal level three version which effects magical weapons, fort negates and still does not remove masterwork. Then a level five greater version which effects all weapons fort negates and does remove masterwork.
The main thing I see with it removing masterwork, is it's either going to do nothing to magic items, or else depower them completely. Magic Items need to be MW to be enchanted, so technically removing masterwork would mean the magic is no longer valid... but that's pretty ridiculous and would be even higher than 5th perhaps.
Instead of removing masterwork or the like just let it grant an item the broken condition or something similar (-1 to hit for weapons, or -1 ACP for armor) rather than confusing the issue by 'removing masterwork'. The rest of it Egoish's suggestions seem pretty good. Give any attended item a fortitude save, unattended objects no save. If the party wants to shatter their loot then it's the same as a fighter taking the sunder route.
The main thing I see with it removing masterwork, is it's either going to do nothing to magic items, or else depower them completely. Magic Items need to be MW to be enchanted, so technically removing masterwork would mean the magic is no longer valid... but that's pretty ridiculous and would be even higher than 5th perhaps.
Instead of removing masterwork or the like just let it grant an item the broken condition or something similar (-1 to hit for weapons, or -1 ACP for armor) rather than confusing the issue by 'removing masterwork'. The rest of it Egoish's suggestions seem pretty good. Give any attended item a fortitude save, unattended objects no save. If the party wants to shatter their loot then it's the same as a fighter taking the sunder route.
now i think about it the spell you just described already exists, mages disjunction does pretty much exactly what you discribe to weapons but also dispels all magical effects and buffs in the area.
In this case i'd change the greater version to a mass version identical to the second one that can effect magic weapons but doesn't toy with the mw quality and make the spell level seven. That way it fits into the progression well.
Level 1 fort negates, half hardness and fragile, does not effect magic items
Level 3 fort negates, half hardness and fragile, effects magic items
Level 7 1/cast level within 30ft of each other fort negates, etc.
I'll leave formatting up to you.
Thank you both for the responses, Ive been reading up on this myself and peanuts seems to have hit a nail so to speak, although break covers giving an item the broken condition.
My conclusion 1st level, fragile quality, half hardness and appropriate saves respectively due.
The current spell[Reinforce Armaments] seems to imply mundane items in the flavor text after all it bestows the Master work quality for the duration of the spell, of course logically anything none mundane is either MW or Magical which requires the latter, So the spell only effect mundane to begin with.
Should be fun though, we just wont let the rogue near his spell book.
After all using this spell on glass would in my ruling reduce its hardness to 0, allowing the dashing scoundrel to tear through windows like paper.[Glass Hardness 1, Paper Hardness 0]
Just noticed you already posted a response Egoish, but Ill stick with the level 1 spell for now, if he chooses to dabble further I know where to turn, cheers.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Good morning Foxpaw.
Well shatter is a second level spell that can destroy any non-magical object of up to 10 lbs/level. (Will negates)
So I think you're on the right track with 'remove masterwork, half hardness, half HP' being a first level spell. When I reversed a spell for Donna's Dozens I kept it the same level.
Having just read the whole spell since i've been at work i have a few ammendments to the suggestions i have put forward.
Weaken armaments
School: transmutation
cleric 1, magus 1, sorc/wiz 1, witch 1
Cast time: 1 standard action
Components: v, s, m/df (a rusted pin)
Range: touch
Target: one suit of armour or weapon touched
Duration: 10 mins/level
Save: will negates
SR: yes
You weaken one suit of armour or a weapon with a melee touch, normal weapons or armour become fragile, masterwork items loose their masterwork bonus and their hardness is halved or a magical items hardess is halved for the duration of the effect. An already fragile item is unaffected by this spell. This effect will not stack twice to make an item which was masterwork fragile.
This better represents the effects of reinforce armaments reverse engineered into a weakening spell since the spell we're reversing has different effects on different quality items. I'd make a mass version of this close range, no touch attack, 1 item/level within 30ft of each other as a fifth level spell.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Having just read the whole spell since i've been at work i have a few ammendments to the suggestions i have put forward.
Weaken armaments
School: transmutation
<snip>
Nice write up. My only advice would be to remove that it affects magic items. Shatter can't affect them, so it seems fair. Else it looks good to me.
Wonder if there should be a hardness limit? I mean it doesn't matter for reinforce armaments, since it's unlikely you'd find a fragile adamantine dog slicer, for example.
Having just read the whole spell since i've been at work i have a few ammendments to the suggestions i have put forward.
Weaken armaments
School: transmutation
<snip>Nice write up. My only advice would be to remove that it affects magic items. Shatter can't affect them, so it seems fair. Else it looks good to me.
Wonder if there should be a hardness limit? I mean it doesn't matter for reinforce armaments, since it's unlikely you'd find a fragile adamantine dog slicer, for example.
i'm of the opinion that this spell should affect magic items as unlike shatter it changes the properties of the item rather than breaking it outright, bear in mind that the basic spell can infact make an +1 adamantium dogslicer hardness 40+ as reinforce armaments works on each class (fragile, mw, magic) differently.
Having it "just" half a magic items hardness doesn't have any real affect unless you or someone else follows it up with a sunder attempt.
I should also probably have added something on the bottom about countering and dispelling and being countered and dispelled by reinforce armaments.
I really wouldn't add the "takes away mastercraft" bit.
It would negate all magical properties of the weapon. And that's far more powerful than a level 1 spell should be.
A better solution is to give a -1 penalty to hit if the weapon is masterwork.
I really wouldn't add the "takes away mastercraft" bit.
It would negate all magical properties of the weapon. And that's far more powerful than a level 1 spell should be.
A better solution is to give a -1 penalty to hit if the weapon is masterwork.
The spell i suggested only has an effect on none magical mw weapons by removing the mw property, if the weapon is magical it only halves its hardness.