As part of a rewrite of the magic item system, I have been searching for a way to make weapons fit more smoothly into the system. (It will be yet another attempt to make the wealth system more abstract, as is surprisingly common on this forum.) One of the thing that bugs me about the current system is the way special abilities don't feel special; they are, in many cases, simply a way to increase damage. I think a flaming sword should feel distinct from an ordinary sword. I also want to decrease the cost of magic weapons. (The reasoning for some of these changes may be more clear once the wealth system is completed) Therefore, weapons in this system would have the following changes:
- Magic weapons use the same pricing structure as armor.
- A +2 magic weapon grants +2 damage, but no bonus to attack rolls.
- Most special abilities do not increase damage. Instead, they would have unique effects. The details of how this would work are still being developed, but intuitively, I would guess that a flaming weapon would have a chance to light struck targets on fire, a shocking weapon might stagger a struck target, and so on.
Would this ruin the feel of magic weapons in your game? Do you see the attack bonus as a crucial part of a +2 longsword?
Vadskye wrote:
Would this ruin the feel of magic weapons in your game? Do you see the attack bonus as a crucial part of a +2 longsword? It is not an insurmountable difference BUT combat will be more difficult against APL+ encounters. As the game stands now in the +2 weapon range assume full BAB attacks are somewhere around 8 or higher to hit, and 3/4th BAB attacks are around 12 or higher to hit - take away the +2 and a full BAB attack goes from a 60% hit chance to a 50% hit chance and a 3/4th BAB attack goes from 40% to 30%. This is somewhat balanced out by a higher proportion of the hits being critical but still this is a significant drop in combat potential. When getting into iterative attacks, even with buffs up the wazoo, that +2 is going to significantly increase the number of hits, and the loss of hits is only made worse by making weapons do less damage. Monsters also are not being rebalanced so they will be tougher foes for the players.
That said, the players usually have enough of an edge that the proposed changes aren't going to ruin the game, but it will make things tougher on the players. I'd hate to see the effect on combat maneuvers too, the dynamic would be significantly changed.
I should clarify that this will be part of my complete system overhaul, so this change by itself will actually not affect a player's chance to hit. If magic weapons lose their attack bonus, I'll decrease the AC of everything by an appropriate amount to compensate. It's more about the feel of a magic weapon; does it still feel like a magic weapon if it only improves damage?
How about you can pick whether to enhance the accuracy or the damage. So instead of a straight +1 Longsword having +1 accuracy and +1 damage, it has to be a +1/+1 Longsword with the first number being the accuracy and the second being the damage bonus. So, if you want a highly accurate weapon, you can have a +5/+0 Longsword. Each step scales like armor (since you're only getting a bonus to one value rather than two) and you have greater ability to "fine-tune" your weapons based on what advantage you want to exploit or what weakness you need to cover up.
Regarding other damage bonuses (ie. flaming, frost, shock), I can see those having effects on your physical stats. Maybe reduce the damage from dice to static values (ie. Flaming deals 2 fire damage) but each one causes some ability damage in addition. Burning could hurt their Con, Frost could hurt their Dex, and Shock hurts their Str.
Those poor iterative attacks ;_;
They might need some help if they don't get the magic item bonus to hit.
I'm checking out the Legend system, which has all iteratives at -5 instead of -5/-10/-15.
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