I don't necessarily want to make a new set of weapons (especially exotic weapons), but I wonder what kind of stats this weapon would use:
Aside from that, I'm looking for ideas for new special materials. Special materials are lots of fun and help bring a cultural flair to shopping and trading for new equipment, which is something I want to play up in my next campaign. Alternative names for existing materials can help spice things up (like calling cold iron/mithril/adamantine blue/white/black steel).
I have an idea for a material I call 'inksteel' which is an alloy of steel and an inky, murcury like metal that ends up looking like damascus obsidian, but metal, not flaky glass. I don't have many specific uses for it, but armor with inksteel used in its construction (studded leather would be viable for this purpose) grants a +2 equipment bonus to stealth, and will reduce the cost of the shadow property by some amount.
I don't necessarily want to make a new set of weapons (especially exotic weapons), but I wonder what kind of stats this weapon would use:
Aside from that, I'm looking for ideas for new special materials. Special materials are lots of fun and help bring a cultural flair to shopping and trading for new equipment, which is something I want to play up in my next campaign. Alternative names for existing materials can help spice things up (like calling cold iron/mithril/adamantine blue/white/black steel).
I have an idea for a material I call 'inksteel' which is an alloy of steel and an inky, murcury like metal that ends up looking like damascus obsidian, but metal, not flaky glass. I don't have many specific uses for it, but armor with inksteel used in its construction (studded leather would be viable for this purpose) grants a +2 equipment bonus to stealth, and will reduce the cost of the shadow property by some amount.
Well how large is the spit for a normal (medium) creature?
if dagger sized use stats for a daggerif short sword sized use stats for a short sword
etc.
Alternate names is not that hard as just call the materal what you desirte to call it.
I'd avoid any special properties. The last thing you want is to make something that is strictly better than a core weapon and then you have everyone and their goldfish wielding the Ka'Kroc from the Distant East.
I'd avoid any special properties. The last thing you want is to make something that is strictly better than a core weapon and then you have everyone and their goldfish wielding the Ka'Kroc from the Distant East.
Unless you up the price and/or give it a bit of a downside. A two-handed short sword that generally deals -1 damage would be interesting (I have no idea if a spit is especially battle-worthy or not, as I've never tried using the thing, I'm just ... spit-balling* ... here, based off the fact that it looks kind of dull). Alternatively, it might be two-handed, but have a lower crit-range (only on a natural 20).
Also, as the tip isn't sharp, it's almost definitely not a piercing weapon.
* Ohohohoh! Oh, how cleaver I am! Oh, the cleverness of me!**
** It's from Peter Pan. I don't really think that.***
*** Well, maybe a little.
Actually, I've watched a video of the sword-makers who made that weapon "destroying" another of their products, and all of their weapons are very sharp and very stout. I do not doubt that the weapon is designed for cutting rather than stabbing, but nor do I doubt its ability to perform capably in either capacity. That may be due more to the construction than the design, but I don't know. I'm not a smith.
Also, I think the point of the special materials thing went over everyone's head (or beneath their notice, whichever). I was fishing for ideas from the community. Yeah, I could call stuff like mithril whatever I want to make it sound even more exotic, but I want to hear what OTHERS have done to spice their game up. Telling me to call it whatever I want, while possibly well-meaning, came across as snark.
PS: I feel like labeling this weapon as a short sword is really narrowing the scope down. I would agree if the handle was merely twice as long as normal, but it is literally half handle, half blade. I don't feel like short sword fits the bill.
I'm thinking closer to quarterstaff, where one end simply does slashing damage instead of bludgeoning. That's the best I've come up with so far.
I meant, by way of cutting v. stabbing, that because the edge isn't pointed, it probably wouldn't deal "piercing" damage. Though your point stands. :)
Reference the handle, just seeing it on its own, it's very difficult to tell how long the thing is in comparison, say, to a person's hand. If it truly is short-sword blade length, then I'd classify it as a slashing short sword, probably with the possibility of two-handed weapon, maybe with a lower crit range (with exotic weapon proficiency maybe allowing it one-handed with a secondary weapon that deals bludgeoning, and/or maybe a higher crit range, or something like that).
As far as materials go, it's just been something I've had to think about. So far "new materials" have been handled pretty well by official products (especially the Eberron Campaign Setting and Forgotten Realms Underdark books, and I have precious little reason to introduce new ones. When I do, they're usually slight repaints of existing stuff. Some new ones I've created, however are:
* - unlike the Chrono Trigger substance, this is a dark purple crystal, that faintly (sub-audibly, but almost-tangibly when touched) "hums" with psychic (psionic) energy. In game terms, its very similar to a gestalt of deep crystal-cum-bronze wood (heavy, but fully capable of holding a razor edge, chargeable with psionic energy, and otherwise has the better traits of bronze wood and deep crystal, which I've forgotten now hardness/hit point wise). This is basically a macguffin substance that I use. In the world it's placed in, warforged who use it are more "potent" (though I purposefully leave that vague - basically, they're more "real", mind/soul/spirit-wise) than their counterparts who use more "mundane" cores. This basically interacts strongly with the residents of Dal Quor (I have a very different cosmology in that campaign) and bypasses any damage reduction they may have, regardless of what it is. Further, it reacts... poorly... to negative energy creatures (not staying very psionically potent when dealing with them). It also has many other uses that are more applied phlebitonum than anything else, but, being super rare and valuable, my peeps were satisfactorily awed by the introduction of a demiplane nearly made of the stuff and suffused with an epic massive combination desecrate and unhallow effect (which, in the campaign world, was created in the ancient past by a heretical offshoot of elves who desired to be free from possession by Dal Quor spirits, and so sought undeath). Anyway, that's dreamstone.
* - take a Crysmal from the "deepest" regions of the Underdark and and elemental plane of earth. Make it really dark green. Gestalt deep crystal and crysmal crystal together. Voila. Deep Crysmal Crystal. (It also automatically bypasses the damage reduction of air elementals, kind of like Kheferu^ does for earth elementals, so there's also that).
* - this is based off of a molecule I actually came up with for a chemistry project (it involved emeralds, onyx, clear quartz, and iron) and wrote out the formula for. I have no idea the actual chemical properties of the thing, but, in games, I've had it react with salt water and elemental energy to kind of create a "charge". Effectively, this means that when you have an elemental damage type (like, say, acid, or sonic) that by focusing that energy into a core of this stuff, and using some raw "magic" (ala spellfire from FR), specialized craftsman can "freeze" the energy (and turn the water solid around it), which can be released in bursts by anyone trained in how to access it. You can think kind of a reversed Material from FF7 - there's plenty of different ways to access the powers and effects, but the more you use one, the more it turns into liquid (mostly vapor, but with some runoff) until it finally dissipates (though a craftsman can, again, "charge" the thing with the appropriate skill and training). In this campaign, this was pretty much the unobtanium and only real "magical" material - the best craftsmen could put multiple energy types, or even create other effects altogether (again, I refer you to FF7, or even FF6 with the magitite).
* - not so much a "special material", as an artifact-level random "item" (or rather, substance), this super-rare stuff (found in natural "fountains" on occasion) grants a single vision, a one-use breath weapon, costs some ability score damage, and grants a permanent supernatural curse, poison, disease, or blessing (usually a potent spell-like ability, but sometimes inherent bonuses or other useful things). Gods drink it free of charge (i.e. with no drawbacks), but mortals may just pay a phenomenal fee (i.e. get obliterated)... or they might gain incredible boons. Also it gets you totally smashed. I introduced this in what effectively was a desert world (this isn't technically accurate, but it's the closest single description you can use), and the PCs found a fountain of it. A couple of PCs decided to try it, and went on a bender. They ended up with something like three or four kinds of lycanthrope (depending on the PC), several constant spell-likes, a supernatural ability or two, and a few inherent bonuses. One of 'em took an inherent penalty to a score. None of them died horribly. Those lucky dogs^^.
* - replace "demon" with "any given outsider" and replace "stone" with "substance that had enough blood to absorb and enough time to do so", and you've got this substance. Effectively, it takes the alignment of whatever blood (or other liquid part) that it's absorbed over time. This has few game effects other than radiating a strong alignment of the appropriate kind. You can also do this with elemental traits, or even other strong bits of essence. This is mostly just used for story reasons (in truth the substance is completely normal except for the aura it emits), but sometimes I'll reward people who use stuff to craft or grow specific things that are related to the substance (or particularly antithetical to the substance). So, let's take the aforementioned "demonstone". Demon blood - lots of it - was spilled over some rocks (purposefully or not) and they absorbed said blood. Now they radiate chaotic evil. Basically, that's all they do - they are not truly "inherently" evil, they just "read" that way to magic (kind of like tieflings). If a player really wanted, I might say that they could be used against devils (as bullets) to overcome DR/chaos. Some good soul finds them, realizes their history, and wants to "redeem" them, so he either smashes them and turns them into fertilizer for a seed he acquired in the celstial realms, or perhaps makes a holy weapon out of 'em. Or maybe uses them as the center of a sacred alter which he hallows/consecrates to his good god. In any event, it's stuff I'll generally roll with (while pretending that was my original intent all along) and let the players think "this would be a cool idea" with it.
Does that help? :)
^ Kheferu is found in the book Sandstorm as a special material.
^^ Literally, in one case.
I meant, by way of cutting v. stabbing, that because the edge isn't pointed, it probably wouldn't deal "piercing" damage. Though your point stands. :)
Reference the handle, just seeing it on its own, it's very difficult to tell how long the thing is in comparison, say, to a person's hand. If it truly is short-sword blade length, then I'd classify it as a slashing short sword, probably with the possibility of two-handed weapon, maybe with a lower crit range (with exotic weapon proficiency maybe allowing it one-handed with a secondary weapon that deals bludgeoning, and/or maybe a higher crit range, or something like that).
As far as materials go, it's just been something I've had to think about. So far "new materials" have been handled pretty well by official products (especially the Eberron Campaign Setting and Forgotten Realms Underdark books, and I have precious little reason to introduce new ones. When I do, they're usually slight repaints of existing stuff. Some new ones I've created, however are:
* - unlike the Chrono Trigger substance, this is a dark purple crystal, that faintly (sub-audibly, but almost-tangibly when touched) "hums" with psychic (psionic) energy. In game terms, its very similar to a gestalt of deep crystal-cum-bronze wood (heavy, but fully capable of holding a razor edge, chargeable with psionic energy, and otherwise has the better traits of bronze wood and deep crystal, which I've forgotten now hardness/hit point wise). This is basically a macguffin substance that I use. In the world it's placed in, warforged who use it are more "potent" (though I purposefully leave that vague - basically, they're more "real", mind/soul/spirit-wise) than their counterparts who use more "mundane" cores. This basically interacts strongly with the residents of Dal Quor (I have a very different cosmology in that campaign) and bypasses any damage reduction they may have, regardless of what it is. Further, it reacts... poorly... to negative energy creatures (not staying very...
Awesome stuff! That's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to get people posting.
Follow suit, forumites!