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I am working on a homebrew doc about mundane gear modification and options for martial characters. This is really my first try at this sort of thing. If this seems fun and worth perusing, I intend to put the finished thing as a free document or a "pay what you want" pdf. (Not pretending I am even close in quality to actual third party publishers)
Does it seem fun? How is the initial balance? Is the concept worth continuing and play testing more? Are there any parts that are confusing or overtly complex? Feedback, criticism and thoughts are greatly appreciated!
Benign: Sense Motive seems a bit odd to identify it as a weapon. Seems like it'd be Perception.
Predicted Faults: Seems reliant on crit failure rules, which are... something that a lot of players have issues with. If your table is cool with it, fine, but that's something I'd be careful of.
Bell Guard: Giving a +1 to avoid attacks with Gunslinger's Dodge seems... odd. Not necessarily unbalancing, but odd.
There's some significant variation in the power of different selections (the two Bow ones seem to be massively weaker than the Gun ones, for example), but I don't think it'd be unbalancing on the whole. The bonuses are significant enough to be noteworthy but not so much to massively upset anything.
Thank you for your feedback. It means a lot.
Benign: I agree completely. I will change it ASAP to perception.
Predicted Faults: Yes it does rely on crit failure rules existing, and was intended to give martial characters more options regarding that in tables that run it. I was thinking about also adding an additional quality that lets you confirm a crit by giving your weapon the broken condition for tables that don't go by crit-fail rules.
Bell guard:I might remove those secondary bonuses due to complexity. My original intent was that it gives a reason to take the quality in tables where opponents don't really disarm. Plus it seemed like a decent idea to give some support to the ACG. Do you think it would be a better idea to split it into two categories?
The weakness and strengths I need to fix through more testing and playtesting. I am glad that none of them seemed to be massively gamebreaking, or completely useless. I did have a vague idea to try to give a bit more support to weapons that aren't used as much, like thrown weapons, bludgeoning weapons and similar. I will try not to go overboard on that.
Bell guard, I would structure explicitly as working with Parries and only with parries, so it fits with the Duelist's Parry, the Swashbuckler's, and the Mythic Parry. Conceptually, it's sound, it just gets weird when me having a dagger with a certain hilt lets me jump backwards faster.
The latter I would work in as a separate Armor bonus. It's nice to have but doesn't really belong in the same spot, if that makes sense.
kestral287 wrote: Bell guard, I would structure explicitly as working with Parries and only with parries, so it fits with the Duelist's Parry, the Swashbuckler's, and the Mythic Parry. Conceptually, it's sound, it just gets weird when me having a dagger with a certain hilt lets me jump backwards faster.
The latter I would work in as a separate Armor bonus. It's nice to have but doesn't really belong in the same spot, if that makes sense.
That sounds like a good idea. I misunderstood your mention about gunslinger dodge seeming weird and thought it applied to swashbuckler parry as well the first time.
(Holding edits for a bit so I can do it all at once tomorrow or something, instead of in bits though.)
I plan to do something similar for my low magic/technologically advanced setting, so I am very interested in this (I am looking for a way to replace magical enchantments with technological modifications).
A few general observations and ideas:
- What are the Craft DC's necessary to implement these modifications?
- Special ammunition is a cool idea, but it does not really fit into this modification system, in my opinion (since you can buy as many different arrows/bolts/bullets as you like, modification slots don't hold the same importance for ammunition as they do for real weapons).
- For the purpose of balancing, you could create more powerful modifications that take up more slots. I could also imagine more complex weapons (with different parts or clockwork mechanics) having more modification slots than primitive wepons.
- I would like to see more modifications that have a small drawback under certain circumstances (like reinforced weapons being more difficult to hide, for example).
I'm curious what you have in mind for armor modifications!
Amanuensis wrote: I plan to do something similar for my low magic/technologically advanced setting, so I am very interested in this (I am looking for a way to replace magical enchantments with technological modifications).
A few general observations and ideas:
- What are the Craft DC's necessary to implement these modifications?
- Special ammunition is a cool idea, but it does not really fit into this modification system, in my opinion (since you can buy as many different arrows/bolts/bullets as you like, modification slots don't hold the same importance for ammunition as they do for real weapons).
- For the purpose of balancing, you could create more powerful modifications that take up more slots. I could also imagine more complex weapons (with different parts or clockwork mechanics) having more modification slots than primitive wepons.
- I would like to see more modifications that have a small drawback under certain circumstances (like reinforced weapons being more difficult to hide, for example).
I'm curious what you have in mind for armor modifications!
Glad that you like it!
-So far as craft DCs I intend to have standard DCs for making Artisan and Exemplar weapons, and not different DCs for each individual modification. I still need to experiment to see what a good DC would be.
-I agree with the ammunition bit. I will consider moving that to a separate "weapons and gear" section.
-My original draft had that actually. Each modification had a "slot cost" and a minimum grade listed. I ended up cutting that due to complexity. If all goes well I can see having a few multislot modifications though. Another consideration was "crown" modifications that could only be placed on Exemplar weapons.
-I have one or two in mind, and I do intend to do that. I just want to keep it mostly positive due to the fact that you are paying for it in gp up front. One of the shield modifications does that though .
-Talking about shield (and armor modifications) I should have a few added to the draft in an hour or two.
Amanuensis wrote: I'm curious what you have in mind for armor modifications! Shield and armor modifications added. I am unsure of what is proper ettiquete for saying so. Should I just edit the first post, or make additional ones?
I am oddly fond of the hemmorage modification, and can't wait to try it out in playtesting!
Your work has encouraged me to start writing up my own system and I found yours quite helpful as a source for inspiration. Since I'm looking for a way to replace magic items, I aim for a more complex crafting system, but the following modifications might be interesting to you as well (names are hopefully self-explanatory):
camouflage (armor)
thermal insulated (armor)
harpooning (crossbow, firearm)
wrist-loader (handcrossbow, small firearm)
collapsing (club, quarterstaff)
Amanuensis wrote: Your work has encouraged me to start writing up my own system and I found yours quite helpful as a source for inspiration. Since I'm looking for a way to replace magic items, I aim for a more complex crafting system, but the following modifications might be interesting to you as well (names are hopefully self-explanatory):
camouflage (armor)
thermal insulated (armor)
harpooning (crossbow, firearm)
wrist-loader (handcrossbow, small firearm)
collapsing (club, quarterstaff)
Thank you! Feel free to use any and all of my material if it would help.
This is mostly because I can't edit my original post:
I have added feats, three example weapon and armor runes (different subsystem) and some special materials. They have worse balance than the weapon modification system as they have not been play-tested, but feedback and comments are greatly appreciated.
I'll come back later with some feedback.
Complexity is an important factor.
I have a PC who is nuts about crafting, and after some 3pp inspiration, he came up with a modified version which I could say has some potential synergy with the homebrewing that's going on here.
cheers.
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