Shearing Sword, Plasma Blade
Original Shearing Sword wrote: Aura moderate evocation CL 9th
Slot none; Price 8,350 gp; Weight 8 lbs.
Description
This +1 greatsword is often found among the robot-hunters of Numeria. Three times per day as a standard action, the wielder can envelop the blade with a razor-edged field of force for 1 minute. Thanks to this field, the sword ignores the damage reduction of creatures with DR 5 or less (other than DR/epic), and when it’s used to attack an object or sunder a weapon, the sword treats the item as having a hardness of 5 less than the item’s actual hardness.
Shearing Plasma Blade wrote: Aura moderate evocation CL 9th
Slot none; Price 20,300 gp; Weight 3 lbs.
Description
This +1 plasma blade is often found among the robot-hunters of Numeria. Three times per day as a standard action, the wielder can envelop the blade with a razor-edged field of force for 1 minute. Thanks to this field, the sword ignores the electricity and fire resistance of creatures with electricity resistance and/or fire resistance 5 or less, and when it’s used to attack an object or sunder a weapon, the sword treats the item as having a hardness of 5 less than the item’s actual hardness.
As a Plasma Blade, it would still ignore the first 20 points of hardness in addition to treating hardness as 5 less than the item’s actual hardness when the Shearing Sword part is active. The main part that concerns me is changing the ignoring DR 5 or less (except DR/Epic) to ignoring Electricity Resistance of 5 or less and Fire Resistance of 5 or less. I feel like it might not actually be as useful now, since Resistance targets only one type of energy damage, whereas DR targets all but one type of physical damage, thus making ignoring DR better than ignoring Resistance.
Balanced? Probably a bit weak for 20K. Destroying objects in melee range isn't usually worth as much as that, and as your primary melee weapon the list of things it's weak against is long.
The field of force which is so sharp that it cuts thru weak fire or electricity resistance is kind of weird thematically though.
Would it be more appropriate, price wise, if it treats fire and electricity resistance as 5 lower than normal, instead of simply ignoring fire and electricity resistance of 5 or lower?
Also, it is mainly for tech games that would involve things like Robots, thus creatures that often have hardness, and I swear there was a developer who said that hardness interaction with things like Adamantine (or in this case, a Plasma Blade) that say “objects” also work if it is a creature with hardness, but I can’t recall who said it. It was talked about in a thread I saw a few months ago, but I can’t recall which one, and I forgot to favorite the post.
One way to calculate the price is to subtract the price of the +1 greatsword (Shearing Blade), and slap the resulting number onto the Plasma Blade's cost.
I know that D&D 3.5 did that a LOT for some items, so yeah.
JiCi wrote: One way to calculate the price is to subtract the price of the +1 greatsword (Shearing Blade), and slap the resulting number onto the Plasma Blade's cost.
I know that D&D 3.5 did that a LOT for some items, so yeah.
I usually follow the special weapon/armor/shield enchantments’ rule that they must have a minimum of +1 enhancement bonus before getting other magical properties added on, and thus in this case, I’d subtract the price of the greatsword and add in the price of the Plasma Blade. That way, it still is the same thing, just a different weapon type.
But the problem is that the Shearing Sword has an ability that allows it to get past DR more easily, but Plasma Blades deal energy damage only, thus that ability is useless. I thus changed it to getting past electricity and fire resistance more easily, but the final price doesn’t feel justified still, since resistances are less powerful than DR, thus it shouldn’t cost as much to get past them as it does DR.
Reducing electricity/fire resist by 5 for its effect puts it in the ballpark of something that you might use IMO. I might try to come up with a different reason for why it works than a sharp force field - some waffle about synergy, probably.
avr wrote: Reducing electricity/fire resist by 5 for its effect puts it in the ballpark of something that you might use IMO. I might try to come up with a different reason for why it works than a sharp force field - some waffle about synergy, probably. Thank you for your help. The idea for the weapon came from a story I'm writing, where a girl scientist with "magic" energy powers builds tech that uses the energy source she produces to do amazing things. I thought it would be cool if the plasma blade she makes could have its beam reshaped into a more sword-like shape, including an edge, and while looking for a robot on aon, that I found on d20, the search pulled up the Shearing Sword, which I felt was perfect for this in a game of Pathfinder.
To add to that, it being “sharper” actually would help it more, due to physics. You see, the more spread out something is, the less damage it will do despite being the same amount of energy (including kinetic energy) used, because the force is spread out across the surface area.
So if you turned a Plasma Blade’s pole shaped blade into a flat and sharpened sword shape, it would be less spread out when it hits, thus apply more damage to the hit location of the creature/object.
So that’s how it being sharper would allow it to get past resistances easier.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules
|
