A player in a game I run has a 17th level wizard/EK character who recently used a Miracle to have the soul and intelligence within her mace given a body. There's complicated backstory behind all this, but the long and short of it is that after the character was killed at low level by a bugbear captain wielding this mace she took a feat called Weapon Avenger from Kobold Quarterly that meant that part of her spirit was trapped in it, giving the weapon some minor benefits. After the PC was Raised, she took the weapon for her own, enchanted it, made it intelligent, and since then has interacted with it on a regular basis. They used to argue about which one was "really" the original character, given that both had pieces of the original soul.
Anyway, after this Miracle, the new character (who will become the PC's cohort) is a magus whose weapon, naturally, is the self-same mace. In point of fact, she is officially the first magus in my campaign world. The connection to this mace is integral to the concept of this NPC. However, while thinking about this as a GM, I was thinking what a shame it was that such a potentially interesting character was shackled to such a suboptimal weapon (simple weapon, one-handed melee, damage 1d8, crit 20/x2). And then I had an idea.
Would it be unbalancing if it were possible for a mace-wielding character to upgrade mace weapon statistics (for any normal mace) by taking the feat Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Mace, which we would say gives maces a weapon stat block of (exotic weapon, one-handed melee, damage 1d8, crit 19-20/x2, +2 on Sunder attempts)? I know there is something like a precedent with the Bastard Sword, which can be used two-handed as a martial weapon but needs EWP to be used one-handed. Would such a feat be worth doubling the chance of a crit (discounting critical confirmation checks) from 5% to 10% and adding a +2 bonus to sunder attempts?
Bumping because I'd really appreciate feedback on this question before I run my game on Sunday.
Would it be unbalancing if it were possible for a mace-wielding character to upgrade mace weapon statistics (for any normal mace) by taking the feat Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Mace, which we would say would give maces a weapon stat block of (exotic weapon, one-handed melee, damage 1d8, crit 19-20/x2, +2 on Sunder attempts)? The idea behind such a feat is that anyone proficient in simple weapons can wield a mace as if it were a glorified metal club, but with additional specialized training, a character can learn to make it a weapon roughly comparable to a long sword damage-wise, with a small bonus to sunder attempts. Of course, Improved Critical would already do most of what this proposed feat would do (increasing the critical range from 20 to 19-20), but I was looking for a feat that would stack with Improved Critical without being abusive.
I don't believe there would be a long line of players looking to give their PCs this feat for optimization reasons, because it still would not be at all feat efficient to use it to transform a mace into a good combat weapon. However, for PCs with a strong in-character reason to fight with maces (the above-mentioned NPC, clerics whose deity's favored weapon is a mace, etc.), I think it might be a way to go. The only question I have is whether it is about right, strengthwise, or if it is too strong or too weak. Thoughts, anyone?
What's wrong with just boosting the threat range with Improved Critical (or an appropriate property) and make it a Sundering weapon, rather than messing about with creating what amounts to new weapon properties?
Well, honestly I don't even really care about the sundering part that much. I threw it in just because otherwise the weapon stats were completely identical to long sword, aside from being a bludgeoning weapon and not a slashing one. It seemed as if a feat to upgrade a substandard weapon should make at least slightly better in some small way than a common martial weapon. However, the player in question has never tried a sunder maneuver even once, so I don't think he'd care a great deal whether this character was a little better at it now or not.
However, as far as boosting the threat range, Improved Critical on a weapon with a normal threat range of 20 is not worth it unless the multiplier is greater than x2 or the damage is considerably higher than a single d8. It would be worth it, maybe, with a threat range of 19-20. I'm not really sure the player in question would want to take both feats, but I am trying to come up with something that could allow the magus character described up top to seem formidable with a normally subpar weapon without being too OP. As for boosting the threat range with a magical property, that is possible, I suppose. However, although I could easily imagine creating a counterpart to Keen for bludgeoning rather than slashing weapons--Smushing, perhaps--I was trying to come up with a viable skill-based upgrade because it just seemed as if it would be cooler. Besides, if Keen doesn't stack with Imp. Crit., neither would Smushing.