What do you think?
Am I the only that like this?
Nope! I like items to have some story and cool names. So long as they don't get too ridiculous or unpronounceable. Gives them a lot more value, makes them harder to get rid of, and can sometimes give the world itself a bigger story. One of my favorite parts in any game is when the backstory actually starts to thread together with the items you pick up. I'm sure there's a fantasy name generator for weapons somewhere.
I tend to only name items that are going to stick around for most of the campaign. Family heirlooms, lost relics, etc. Even when you are high enough level to discover a +2 keen flaming longsword, there's a +3 keen flaming longsword right around the corner, and naming everything takes away from the specialness I wanted to generate by naming things in the first place.
In the last game I ran, the King bestowed upon his son's protector the ancestral sword of his House, "Aureity, the Dawnfire" a greatsword that could be wielded in one hand, which had further powers the protector could unlock as she delved further into its secrets. But there were plenty of unnamed weapons at all levels.
What's the point of naming them if they won't come when called?
What do you think?
I think it is awesome in theory and will be terrible in practice.
Salamdra is awesome, until you find Brombasher, or the Fighter in the party uses a Greatsword instead of a longsword, and you can't throw Salamdra at the merchant fast enough.
And Craft Magical Arms and Armor will ruin it, too.
"Oh, man, Salamdra sounds awesome. But, wait, did you say a +2 Keen Flaming Longsword? Eh, Flaming isn't so great since fire resistance is so common--if we just sell it, Bob the Wizard could turn the money into a +3 Keen Longsword."
or
"Salamdra is badass, but it's not adamantine. I already have an adamantine sword that I could just enchant more..."
In other words, this only works at all if the only magical weapons are found and named, and both Crafting magical items and magical item merchants don't exist.
It's something that can work in small doses. Lesser minor (under 4,000 gp) and nearly all greater minor (4,000 gp or more, but less than 8,000 gp) items will almost definitely be unnamed. Some rare lesser medium (8,000 gp or more, but less than 18,000 gp) and the occasional greater medium (18,000 gp or more, but less than 28,000 gp) item will possibly be named. Many lesser major (28,000 gp or more, but less than 50,000 gp) and most greater major (50,000 gp or more) will probably have names.
In addition to market price considerations, there needs to be a reason why the item deserves a name: just slapping a name on a +3 longsword isn't going to make it feel "special" to many players, but a +1 flaming burst scimitar called "Inferno, the Trollbane" might generate some interest. Generally speaking, the more customized the item, the more likely it is to be named.
Ultimately though, no matter how much story background the GM invests in a magic item, the nature of the d20 game system promotes a constant drive to upgrade/replace as levels increase. If the owner or another party member can perform the upgrade, then you can ask the players to start naming their significant items as they become part of the stories surrounding the PCs; as characters start getting into double digit levels, they are becoming celebrities, movers and shakers, and possible legends in the making. Also, few specific items other than lesser/greater minor ones are probably going to be available for sale at any given time; the number of people that can afford them is just too small. Pretty much any greater medium or lesser/greater major item will probably need to be commissioned (requiring that the buyer has to find a crafter willing to make the item, probably front the creation cost, wait until the item is finished, and then pay the rest of the market price) or found; the bare-bones in the Core Rulebook glosses over the details involved, just as it does with other aspects that are role-playing rather than roll-playing (you shouldn't need system mechanics to determine what type of meat is in the meat pie an inn is serving, for example).
In addition to market price considerations, there needs to be a reason why the item deserves a name: just slapping a name on a +3 longsword isn't going to make it feel "special" to many players, but a +1 flaming burst scimitar called "Inferno, the Trollbane" might generate some interest. Generally speaking, the more customized the item, the more likely it is to be named.
Unfortunately, the more customized the item, the less likely it is to be to someone's taste. There are a lot of weak and crappy weapon abilities (from a cost efficiency standpoint--obviously some ability is better than no ability), and Flaming Burst is one of them.
Calling a +3 longsword "Bob the sword" isn't especially exciting, but when the choice is between Bob and Inferno, the Trollbane, almost anyone that understands the math behind the system is going to prefer actually using Bob.
In my actual play experience, I can tell you that the vast majority of found loot gets sold. I mean, the vast majority--like 95% or more. Most loot sucks, or if it doesn't suck, it sucks for the specific PCs that found it. A few sessions ago, my group found a Sylvan Scimitar, for example. What a great weapon for a group of level 4s to find, right?
Except, who was going to use it? I was a Druid--I could use it, but my Scythe was good enough at the moment as I would be wild shaping more and more beginning next level anyway. Our Oracle is a flame blaster (with a dip into Crossblooded Sorcerer) and I don't think he's ever held a weapon. The Inquisitor isn't proficient. The Dwarven Rogue is using a Dorn-Dergar (and is also not proficient). The Sorcerer actually does use a Scimitar (took an heirloom weapon for flavor, since he's Qadiran), but are we really going to put a weapon worth all our party's wealth combined into the hands of our worst fighter? He did actually want it, until I explained just how much money we'd get from it and what that could buy.
The GM looked a little crushed, as he must have put it there as a special cool reward for us, but it was just too specialized. Heck, for our party, every magic weapon that is neither a Dorn Dergar nor a battleaxe (our Inquisitor's preferred weapon) is probably getting sold. How often is a Dorn Dergar really going to be in random loot?
I just think this whole naming thing is going to get silly--unless your PCs are very "old school" or a bunch of Iomedae-worshipping battle clerics and inquisitors, you're going to get approximately zero mileage out of named longswords. A named scimitar is perfect for a Dex-Happy melee group, but garbage for almost everything else. If the game's world reflected PC favor, then you're probably looking at seeding a ton of named Composite Longbows (and they better be Adaptive or they'll be part of the buy/sell cycle, too), Falchions, Greatswords, and Earthbreakers, and not a whole lot else.
Blah, I feel like I'm rambling now. Here's the point: naming weapons is awesome--I love it as a trope, and feel like it is underutilized in general. However, it doesn't work in a game designed around ditching your old toys for shiny new ones every couple of sessions, nor does it work for a game with such excessive levels of customization. Since Pathfinder fits both of those, you may want to reconsider--I don't think the work will be worth the pay-off. And in fact, the pay-off may be negative, in the end, as I think selling something like "Inferno, the Trollbane" would actually hurt the feel of the game in the long run.
In addition to market price considerations, there needs to be a reason why the item deserves a name: just slapping a name on a +3 longsword isn't going to make it feel "special" to many players, but a +1 flaming burst scimitar called "Inferno, the Trollbane" might generate some interest. Generally speaking, the more customized the item, the more likely it is to be named.Unfortunately, the more customized the item, the less likely it is to be to someone's taste. There are a lot of weak and crappy weapon abilities (from a cost efficiency standpoint--obviously some ability is better than no ability), and Flaming Burst is one of them.
Calling a +3 longsword "Bob the sword" isn't especially exciting, but when the choice is between Bob and Inferno, the Trollbane, almost anyone that understands the math behind the system is going to prefer actually using Bob.
<shrug>
It depends on the characters and the campaign. A paladin (or possibly a cleric) of Sarenrae in a campaign featuring a lot of regenerating opponents could get a lot of mileage out of a +1 flaming burst scimitar; note that Improved Critical (Scimitar) and blessed weapon make the flaming burst ability much more useful. Other characters and campaigns, not so much.
Which is actually a large part of what I was talking about in the last paragraph in my post above. A named item that doesn't fit the party is just as likely to be sold as an unnamed one; however, just because the item doesn't suit the current group of characters of a particular campaign does not make it "crappy."
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The value of the item depends on your houserules. In a normal game following WBL it can turn into a drain. In one where WBL isn't removed for lower level weapons it could be kept. In one with scaling items you could probably keep it forever if you felt like it, possibly including roleplay for it. Weapons of Legacy/legendary weapon rules were built for that exact thing if I remember correctly, but its been forever since I've looked over those rules.
Personally, I like it for flavor at least. Not every item needs a name.
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I can think of a few ways named loot will serve a practical purpose.
1) Your players are terrifyingly RP-focused.
2) The item is a perfect fit for a particular PC. Explicitly designed for that one character (though the world's lore may not say so, the meta-game does).
3) The item isn't meant for a PC at all, but is used as a plot point (whether minor or major).
4) Related to 3: The item's existence enhances the flavor of the area, such as having a blade of baby sacrificing be found in a necromancer's lair. The choice to keep or sell may also serve as a character development point, which leads to...
5) The item enables a PC retcon or rebuild. A particular potent magic item might have a built-in wish ability that allows a new wielder to erase all their previous battle experience and replace it with experience with that item. This can essentially be considered a plot point (#3).
6) Related to #2: The item grows with the PC, matching its growth patterns to those of the PC.
7) ...?
However, simply tacking a name onto a randomly generated item is VERY unlikely to generate a desired result on its own. It must be something you add plot to. You can randomly generate an item, give it a name, then use that as an excuse to turn it into a plot point, but you can't just name every widget or it loses its effectiveness as a storytelling device.
One way to make named items worth using is adding cool circumstantial abilities but ignoring those in terms of market value.
So instead of:
Oh, a Salamndra is a +2 Keen Flaming sword? And I can sell it for 16k and spend those 9k to craft a +3 Keen sword instead? Sell!
you can have Salamndra as a +2 Keen Flaming Sword that casts Fire Shield on it's wearer once per day, allows one to be in hot environments comfortably like Endure Elements, and allows it's wearer to talk and read Ignan - but those powers are weird enough that you still can only get 16k on the open market for them, because finding a buyer paying more is hard - then they're much more likely to keep it (at least in my experience). From the gold price formulas the worth would probably be more like 42k than 32k, but it won't really upset game balance either way so why not?
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Two things to consider:
1) If you can foreshadow a little bit, named items will have more character if they have a specific utility. To use previous examples, your party could be bombing around with +3 weapons all their own, but if they have to travel through the trollmoors, they'll be happy they found Inferno, the Trollbane. Happy enough that someone could grow attached to it, like one grows attached to an NPC.
2) If you have a person who makes & upkeeps the party's magic gear, get them to spin some personality into the gear. I had a character make a cloak of resistance +1 from a pelt that was from a previous animal encounter that almost killed the recipient and some of the recipient's silver hair, which was used to stich in some runes or some such. That became *THEIR* cloak. Later, a different party member found a regular plain old clock of resistance +1, and it wasn't anywhere near as cool as the one that had history built into it.
2) If you have a person who makes & upkeeps the party's magic gear, get them to spin some personality into the gear. I had a character make a cloak of resistance +1 from a pelt that was from a previous animal encounter that almost killed the recipient and some of the recipient's silver hair, which was used to stich in some runes or some such. That became *THEIR* cloak. Later, a different party member found a regular plain old clock of resistance +1, and it wasn't anywhere near as cool as the one that had history built into it.
A few GMs ago I had a GM who put special qualities on items made from things we killed. Was cool to get a bonus. Guy didn't listen to WBL very well and made houserules on the go though.