Precious material weapon cost and hp for large weapons

[Kainite101]

Part 1
Having a little trouble deciphering the precious material costs for weapons and armor. To keep it simple, as it seems to have the same header description for most materials, it describes weapons, and the cost of standard grade being 250 gp per bulk. But page 599 lists weapons as 880 gp + 88 gp per bulk. Now normally I would have gone with specific trumps general, but page 599 specifically called out weapons in the descriptions. Also 1k (rounding up) for a standard grade weapon seems a but on the steep side (weakness damage is kind of specific)...

Part 2
Would you up the hp of items one degree for each size increase? Example normal sized long sword is 5 hardness and 20 hp. A large long sword would then bump up one 'catagory' and make it 7 hardeness and 28 hp. Seems silly a giants weapon is just as easily destroyed as a medium size creatures...

Thoughts?

[Taja the Barbarian]

Chapter 11: Crafting & Treasure / Materials / Precious Materials wrote:

Source Core Rulebook pg. 577

Materials with the precious trait can be substituted for base materials. For example, a hammer’s head could be made of adamantine instead of iron. Items made of a precious material cost more than typical items; not only does precious material cost more, but the crafter must invest more time working with it. In addition, more powerful items require precious materials of greater purity. A number of precious materials are described below. The Price entry for each material gives the Price of a simple non-magical item made of that material, based on its Bulk (if the item is lighter than 1 Bulk, use the price for 1 Bulk), as well as Prices for different amounts of the material itself. Prices for armor, shields, and weapons made of precious material are in the Armor (page 555), Shields (page 586), and Weapons (page 599) sections of this chapter.

Yes, 'Standard Grade' Cold Iron and Silver weapons are 880g + 88g per bulk: These are clearly not intended to be as commonplace as they were in previous editions.

Note that 'Standard Grade' is what you need for mid-level runes: At lower levels, the 'low grade' versions will do fine for a fraction of the price (40g + 4g per bulk) until you need to upgrade past +1 striking.

Chapter 11: Crafting & Treasure / Materials / Crafting with Precious Materials wrote:

Source Core Rulebook pg. 578

...

Low-grade items can be used in the creation of magic items of up to 8th level, and they can hold runes of up to 8th level. Standard-grade items can be used to create magic items of up to 15th level and can hold runes of up to 15th level. High-grade items use the purest form of the precious material, and can be used to Craft magic items of any level holding any runes.
....

[Zapp]

Weapons made out of precious metals serve two functions:

They have inherent benefits. But this is really only notable for Cold Iron and Silver/Mithral. (Every other precious metal is so niche you don't want to spend money on them except in specific cases.)

Other than that, the reason why you would want to purchase or (literally) upgrade your low-grade Mithral or Cold Iron weapon is because otherwise you're limited to +1 striking runes. (To get to +2 and greater striking you must first have a standard-grade weapon.)

The mechanical reason for this is to ensure you pay to keep enjoying that extra damage to devils or demons (etc) as you level up... your runes. (You yourself still get the full extra damage from a Weakness regardless of level. That is, a level 20 Fighter fighting a Balor with a low-grade cold iron weapon, still gets +20 damage on each hit. Thus, the incentive to upgrade is indirect, since that Fighter would miss out on the extra damage dice a Major striking rune would grant, and with only a +1 potency rune, accuracy is down, and the weapon is limited to a single property rune)

If you don't care about exploiting Weaknesses, you should know that while you technically need to upgrade the "grade" of your regular steel or wood weapon to accommodate better runes as well, that costs 0 gp.

Yes, a +2 Greatclub or +2 Dagger assumes "standard-grade wood" and "standard-grade iron", but that doesn't cost extra so most players likely don't realize they had the upgrade or even that common materials like steel and bone are graded just like adamantium and orichalcum. :)

[Kainite101]

Any thoughts or rule page for part 2?

[thenobledrake]

Size doesn't need to inherently carry a change in hardness or hit points, and in fact the table on page 577 that gives examples of material statistics has the separation between a normal weapon and the "next category" be a "structure"

So your sword doesn't get more HP or hardness for being larger until it is literally a bridge or the like.

As for why? The rules try to make game play that functions and doesn't require a lot of fiddling with - they are not an attempt to simulate real structural integrity concerns.

[TheFinish]

Kainite101 wrote:

Part 2
Would you up the hp of items one degree for each size increase? Example normal sized long sword is 5 hardness and 20 hp. A large long sword would then bump up one 'catagory' and make it 7 hardeness and 28 hp. Seems silly a giants weapon is just as easily destroyed as a medium size creatures...

Thoughts?

PF2 doesn't have changes associated with size, unfortunately. Your idea can work, of course. If you prefer, you can also use the PF 1 method: for every size smaller than medium, halve the hit-points; for every size larger than medium, double them.

Hardness should probably remain the same, since the material is always the same, what's changing is the mass (which is represented by HP).