Bonding to Weapons and Armor / Dedicated Functions for Magical Jewery - Advice?

[Lazaryus]

I want to try a campaign where characters form emotional bonds to their weapons and armor. They get to bond with one set of armor and twice their band's worth of weapons and shields. They will be considered nonproficient with any weapon or armor they aren't bonded with, even another instance of weapon/armor of the same kind as one they're bonded with. They begin play bonded with weapons and armor chosen from their class proficiencies, but may retrain their bonds later on.

To make up for the inability to upgrade weapons and armor on the fly, I'll have rings, bracelets, circlets, and amulets have dedicated functions: rings grant weapon (and sometimes shield) enchantments on them to any attack made using that hand, bracelets grant armor enchantment to worn armor (or clothing), circlets boost magical attacks in some way (I'm not sure yet), and amulets grant spell resistance as well as bonuses to resist certain kinds of magic.

Any advice?

[Lazaryus]

Would it help if they get to treat their bonded weapons and armor as though they were masterwork?

[Quixote]

I'm not sure what kind of advice you're looking for; the system you've outline is different enough from the existing one that any experience I have with the published rules (or even my adjustments to them) is inapplicable for what you've got planned.

It's an interesting idea, at the very least.

How will you make up for the fact that 3-5 slots will be taken up by non-typical items?
What about cost of items vs. wealth?
And why can't they upgrade their items on the fly? I feel like handing your trusty longsword over to the gnarled old blacksmith to enchant it on his runic anvil is just the sort of thing you'd want to do with a weapon you have an emotional bond with.

[Lazaryus]

I thought you couldn't enchant(/disenchant?) weapons and armor after they've been created. Huh.

Anyways, by "not being able to upgrade weapons and armor on the fly," I meant stuff like the fighter not being able to just stuff his Brotherhood (greatsword) in his backpack, pick up an orc's greatsword and use it well right off the bat.

For the magic item slot issue, I use Innate Item Bonuses for the Head, Neck, and Ring slots.

[Scott Romanowski]

Quixote wrote:

And why can't they upgrade their items on the fly?

Good question! The CRB gives rules for upgrading items on page 553, "Adding New Abilities". Why are you eliminating that, Lazaryus, and adding a new system to replace it? With /masterwork transformation/ from UM the players can start with a mundane item, make it masterwork later, and even later add enhancements.

One problem I see is that of a character who would like to wear full plate. That character will have to retrain once he/she can afford that armor, at whatever cost that takes.

How will you handle a character that wants to throw weapons? If that character wants to carry a dozen short spears, isn't your limit penalizing?

[Lazaryus]

1.) As I have stated, I forgot you could add enhancements after the fact. Besides, having a few rings and bracelets with different enchantment would be a lot faster to switch between than retraining weapons and armor.

2.) I figured that I'd offer lower prices on starting equipment. How much of a reduction is to be decided.

3.) Players won't have to bond to thrown weapons to throw them proficiently.

[Scott Romanowski]

Lazaryus wrote:

As I have stated, I forgot you could add enhancements after the fact.

I'm sorry, I missed that.

[avr]

There's some suggestions and examples - not really a system - for items which scale with level without being upgraded here which might be interesting to you.

I'm not sure I know enough about game design to be a lot of help in creating the system you're talking about though, especially with all the other changes you like to make to the base PF system.