So I am going to use Automatic Bonus Progression in my next game, but I felt that just like the normal system of magic items, it discourages the use of an arsenal of weapons, because only one, or maybe two of them have a worthwhile bonus to speak of at a time.
Also I thought in the new system masterworks seem a little bit obsolete, as anything but an entry barrier for making magic items.
so I decided to do this:
In addition to attuning once a day, a character may attune to any masterwork weapon, shield or armor combination at will as a simple action , or as a free action when drawing, donning or readying that weapon shield or armor, as long as all items in the weapon pair or shield and armor combination are masterwork. Clothing is always considered to be masterwork for this purpose.
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This would allow higher level characters to switch to weapons that are more appropriate for their situation without losing significant power.
I like this.
This is a really good houserule.
I tightened the text slightly as I think there was some redundancy.
Swift attunement: In addition to attuning once a day, a character may attune to any masterwork weapon, shield or armor at will as a swift action or as a free action when drawing, readying or donning that weapon, shield or armor. Clothing is always considered to be masterwork for this purpose.
Thanks.
That looks good to me.
The one potential concern here is Bane weapons.
Buy a bunch of Bane Daggers (or whatever), cover your bases with, oh, Evil Outsiders, Undead, a couple types of Humanoids, whatever the campaign calls for.
They're cheap, and being free to attune means you can always expect a character who uses this trick to have a +2 to hit and +9 damage.
You're right, it does make this a little worse - although this is something you could already do quite easily considering the free 1/day attunement (actually, it's quite worthwhile to do even in a normal magic game. Bane is very undercosted).
Given that the automatic bonus progression is designed to alleviate the need for monte-hall style magic marts, I think the solution here is to just not give easy access to bane weapon enhancements.
On the topic:
I think automatic bonus progression's main weakness is how much it amplifies magic item crafting feats. You really need to pair it with magic item crafting restrictions for it to be functional. I think, limiting crafted items to named items only may be a good rule to co-enforce: this solves all kinds of issues with bane and the like, without totally neutering the feats themselves.
It gets better because you can craft items with significantly less money involved, but still it would seem, that all you get from crafting feats is half the price on magic items in return for the feat investment. Buying a magic item is equally cheaper.
Flavor-wise I think Use Magic Device makes sense, but mechanically I'm not crazy about tying attunement to UMD since being able to change weapon attunement is most attractive for the martial classes that carry and want to use a variety of weapons - barbarians, rangers, paladins, cavaliers etc. That group very frequently has few skill ranks to spare, and/or don't have UMD as a class skill.
They're already strongly encouraged to invest in UMD to become WBL-casters by the mid-late game as it is, I'd be hesitant to give them even more incentive to become knock-off scroll-wizards.
Ah! I hadn't considered the T10/T20 option, that eases my concerns a fair bit. UMD is still trained only though...
Maybe you could make it a Charisma check, or if you're feeling particularly generous a will save, with the option to use your Use Magic Device modifier in place of your other modifier? That way most adventurers can shift their attunement if given a minute or two, whereas particularly strong-willed warriors or those that specifically train and focus on manipulating magic items can reliably shift it mid-combat.
I prefer a Will save to Charisma since this feels like something that adventurers should become better at as they become more experienced, whereas charisma check bonuses tend to be fairly static.
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Out of the way a bit, is there any good reason that UMD is a trained skill?
I mean, taken at face value, it's kind of the trained ability to improvise. What?! That, and the DCs are sufficiently high that having it further be "trained-only" seems redundant in terms of safeguarding or controlling it's access...
If I really wanted to I could argue that it's trained only because you really want to have a basic idea of what magic is and how it works before you start messing around with finding shortcuts in how you practice magic - in that regard it's similar to Spellcraft, which is also trained-only. My first guess would be that they inherited it from 3.x.
The problem is similar to how Linguistics is trained-only and Heal can be used untrained: Crossword puzzles are unsolvable without specific training, but you can improvise surgery with no prior knowledge. The skill system is simplified to keep the game running smoothly - it holds up to normal gameplay, but kind of unravels when you start to pay close attention to it.
Honestly I think you should keep it as simple as possible. There's no need to involve any additional factors. Why introduce class-specific or skill-specific factors when the whole idea is to de-limit all classes in terms of forced weapon choices?
I playtested this rule recently, and it worked well. However, the action needs to be greater than a swift action. As a swift action you can swap between dual-wielded weapons in a single round, which is problematic obviously. A move or standard both seem perfectly reasonable.
I don'T agree with tying this to checks and other mechanics. It's just another disadvantage to martials.
I came up with this so martial characters can switch out their weapons wothout losing a significant portion of their power level (which they do with both the regular static bonus variant rule, as well as core weapon enchantments), tying it to a check would just stand in the way.
Honestly I think you should keep it as simple as possible. There's no need to involve any additional factors. Why introduce class-specific or skill-specific factors when the whole idea is to de-limit all classes in terms of forced weapon choices?
I playtested this rule recently, and it worked well. However, the action needs to be greater than a swift action. As a swift action you can swap between dual-wielded weapons in a single round, which is problematic obviously. A move or standard both seem perfectly reasonable.
I see your point, moving your attunement to your main hand weapon in turns in whoich you can't full attack and back to both when you can would be a problem. In that case i would propose a move action.
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I think my solution will be to tie it to UMD (standard, DC 20), and then open up UMD itself by removing the "trained only" from it's description.
That way, anybody can do it by taking 20 (2 minutes), which is out-of-combat but effectively "at will," and those who invest skill points can do it as a standard action.
I'll also consider allowing Fighters to add their Weapon Training bonus when attuning to magic weapons from one of their specific groups.
If you make it a move action, perhaps make it so that you can move, draw, and attune in a single move action. Still no switching between weapons in a single full attack, but allows switching between ranged and melee without increasing the time further (still could switch in a single round if first weapon is dropped)
Yes, as in the original rule i posted it is still a free action while drawing a weapon, readying a shield or donning armor.