Can You Use Shifting to Get Around Rarity With Weapons?

[Ravingdork]

Can the shifting rune transform into any same-handed weapon, regardless of Rarity? If so, is there anything stopping players from accessing Uncommon or Rare weapons in this manner short of the GM simply saying "absolutely not"?

[Claxon]

Well, I don't think it's a GM saying absolutely not so much as "your character has no reason to know such a weapon even exists, so how would they try to command the magic to take that form?".

Generally speaking uncommon and rare tags are meant to gate access, and the shifting rune shouldn't get around that. Whether or not those tags should exist and whether or not a GM should worry about allowing uncommon or rare tagged things into player's hands is another question. In some instances, rare and uncommon items are more powerful but on average they are not.

[Gisher]

Claxon wrote:

Well, I don't think it's a GM saying absolutely not so much as "your character has no reason to know such a weapon even exists, so how would they try to command the magic to take that form?".

...

Hypothetical:

A Halfling character in the party acquires a filcher's fork through the Halfling Weapon Familiarity feat.

The other party members now know that such weapons exist and exactly what they look like.

Now what prevents them from using shifting runes to turn their one-handed weapons into filcher's forks?

[breithauptclan]

At that point it is Halfling Weapon Familiarity that gained access to the weapon - not the Shifting rune.

[shroudb]

Access is just that, access.

If a GM wants a group to have access to weapons X, Y, Z which are uncommon because they are from region A, or uncommon because they are mostly used by ancestry Y, tht's his prerogative based on his worldbuilding/setting.

Shifting rune doesn't go around that any more than simply asking your GM "do my player knows what X weapon is, maybe based on my background?"

[YuriP]

Theoretically, if you have the proficiency, then you know and have trained with that weapon.

The rarity tags in the weapon is much more in terms of access, the game assumes that you know and know how to use even firearms, however strange this may be.

So yes, the Shifting rune allows you to turn your weapon into a base weapon that you are proficient with even if it is rare but only Clockwork Macuahuitl have such tag for a melee weapon and that's also an advanced weapon. So It's not like this rune was that big workaround.

[shroudb]

YuriP wrote:

Theoretically, if you have the proficiency, then you know and have trained with that weapon.

The rarity tags in the weapon is much more in terms of access, the game assumes that you know and know how to use even firearms, however strange this may be.

So yes, the Shifting rune allows you to turn your weapon into a base weapon that you are proficient with even if it is rare but only Clockwork Macuahuitl have such tag for a melee weapon and that's also an advanced weapon. So It's not like this rune was that big workaround.

i dont think anything about proficiency correlates to you "knowing" a weapon, much less having trained specifically with one.

it means that if you actually see the weapon, and grab it, you can actually swing it well enough, but it's an extrememental leap to say that you have personally grabbed and trained with each one of those separately.

the same way that if i give a dagger arts instructor a kris, he can potentially swing it well enough within a few minutes, even though he may have never seen one of those in real life before.

the simpler the weapon is to "grasp" the easier that is (hence simple/martial proficiency).

the opposite is also true:
you dont need to know how to use a weapon to know some very obscure weapon. A halfling may have never used a filcher's fork, but he has seen plenty of them in his fellow's arms.

[Ravingdork]

So if I announce that I am shifting my weapon into a specific other weapon, and if the GM allows it, everything's good?

So basically, nothing changes.

[shroudb]

Ravingdork wrote:

So if I announce that I am shifting my weapon into a specific other weapon, and if the GM allows it, everything's good?

So basically, nothing changes.

accessibility wise, that's how i see it pretty much.

[Claxon]

Ravingdork wrote:

So if I announce that I am shifting my weapon into a specific other weapon, and if the GM allows it, everything's good?

So basically, nothing changes.

More or less, but if it's uncommon or rare the GM may (rightfully) deny you for a bevy of reasons.

But access is meant to be a tool so that GMs running a campaign in fantasy England don't need to come up with reasons to say "sorry your katana wouldn't character doesn't make sense here".

[PossibleCabbage]

Ravingdork wrote:

So if I announce that I am shifting my weapon into a specific other weapon, and if the GM allows it, everything's good?

So basically, nothing changes.

I mean, there aren't really weapons that I would want to prevent the shifting rune from turning into for balance reasons. The whole "why would you even be aware that one of these exists" question is separate and might be one the player is able to answer to my satisfaction. This is not one they would generally able to answer in the case of a unique weapon though.

Like the Clockwork Macahuatl is canonically for sale at the Clockwork Caravan, if you can find Sihn Siphandon you can just buy one. If we do something like a 2e Technology Guide, it would probably be reasonable for the rule to be something like "the Shifting Rune can't recreate anything with internal mechanisms or that requires a fuel source."

[breithauptclan]

With the title including the phrase 'get around Rarity' it makes it sound like you are trying to use the Shifting rune to force or coerce your GM to give you access to a weapon that you otherwise wouldn't have.

Don't do that.

If instead you and the GM are both wanting you to have access to the weapon and are just looking for a way for you to in-game justify getting one, the Shifting rune would be a viable - though expensive - option.

[The Raven Black]

Gisher wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Well, I don't think it's a GM saying absolutely not so much as "your character has no reason to know such a weapon even exists, so how would they try to command the magic to take that form?".

...

Hypothetical:

A Halfling character in the party acquires a filcher's fork through the Halfling Weapon Familiarity feat.

The other party members now know that such weapons exist and exactly what they look like.

Now what prevents them from using shifting runes to turn their one-handed weapons into filcher's forks?

The same thing that prevents them from having crafters recreate the weapon now that they have access to it.

Likely answer in both cases is : nothing but the GM's will.

[YuriP]

shroudb wrote:

YuriP wrote:

Theoretically, if you have the proficiency, then you know and have trained with that weapon.

The rarity tags in the weapon is much more in terms of access, the game assumes that you know and know how to use even firearms, however strange this may be.

So yes, the Shifting rune allows you to turn your weapon into a base weapon that you are proficient with even if it is rare but only Clockwork Macuahuitl have such tag for a melee weapon and that's also an advanced weapon. So It's not like this rune was that big workaround.

i dont think anything about proficiency correlates to you "knowing" a weapon, much less having trained specifically with one.

it means that if you actually see the weapon, and grab it, you can actually swing it well enough, but it's an extrememental leap to say that you have personally grabbed and trained with each one of those separately.

the same way that if i give a dagger arts instructor a kris, he can potentially swing it well enough within a few minutes, even though he may have never seen one of those in real life before.

the simpler the weapon is to "grasp" the easier that is (hence simple/martial proficiency).

the opposite is also true:
you dont need to know how to use a weapon to know some very obscure weapon. A halfling may have never used a filcher's fork, but he has seen plenty of them in his fellow's arms.

Going to more extreme example. If a fighter enter in a room during an encounter and finds an Arquebus with ammo over the table it's able to take, fire and reload it normally like any other martial weapon even if it didn't have initial access to it and never found one before and it's far different than any other common weapon.

It's hard in the game mechanics to say that you don't know a weapon just because it's uncommon and based in this to restrict it's usage or to use a shifting rune to recreate one specially when the rune doesn't restrict in this way (there are many feats and spells that's explicitly says "common" as restriction. If don't have such text in a feat/spell/item you probably is nerfing it when you add such restriction by yourself).

[shroudb]

YuriP wrote:

shroudb wrote:

YuriP wrote:

Theoretically, if you have the proficiency, then you know and have trained with that weapon.

The rarity tags in the weapon is much more in terms of access, the game assumes that you know and know how to use even firearms, however strange this may be.

So yes, the Shifting rune allows you to turn your weapon into a base weapon that you are proficient with even if it is rare but only Clockwork Macuahuitl have such tag for a melee weapon and that's also an advanced weapon. So It's not like this rune was that big workaround.

i dont think anything about proficiency correlates to you "knowing" a weapon, much less having trained specifically with one.

it means that if you actually see the weapon, and grab it, you can actually swing it well enough, but it's an extrememental leap to say that you have personally grabbed and trained with each one of those separately.

the same way that if i give a dagger arts instructor a kris, he can potentially swing it well enough within a few minutes, even though he may have never seen one of those in real life before.

the simpler the weapon is to "grasp" the easier that is (hence simple/martial proficiency).

the opposite is also true:
you dont need to know how to use a weapon to know some very obscure weapon. A halfling may have never used a filcher's fork, but he has seen plenty of them in his fellow's arms.

Going to more extreme example. If a fighter enter in a room during an encounter and finds an Arquebus with ammo over the table it's able to take, fire and reload it normally like any other martial weapon even if it didn't have initial access to it and never found one before and it's far different than any other common weapon.

It's hard in the game mechanics to say that you don't know a weapon just because it's uncommon and based in this to restrict it's usage or to use a shifting rune to recreate one specially when the rune doesn't restrict in this way (there are many feats and spells that's...

never said you cant use one, i specifically said the opposite (see the bolded part)

but that exactly is what an Uncommon tag translates into game terms.

Something that is so out of place that not only you wont be able to find it (in the places where it is uncommon), but something that no single crafter in the entire region has ever heard of it and can replicate it.

The fighter knowing how to use it is more so because he has such vast knowledge of how to use weapons in general, that he can easily, within seconds, grasp how to use it IF he ever finds one and sees one.

It is not hard at all to say that someone who has trained with crossbows can instictively know how to fire a gun. reloadin may be a bit trickier, but that's what his generic knowledge over "martial weapons" gives him.

You are "nerfing" the rarity system into obsoletion if you think that a level 1 martial in a village, that he has never stepped out of before, just so happens to have seen and trained with uncommon, rare, or even unique weapons.

if someone has knowledge of what a weapon is, what's stopping him you think from replicating it, and thus rendering the entire Uncommon tag obsolete.

moreso when 70% of the adventurers have that knowledge about every single martial weapon that has ever existed?

also, i never said you cant use that weapon if you find one, i specifically said you can.
but the shifting rune is different, it actually doesn't lift at all the prohibition of access to a weapon.

ruleswise, Uncommon specifically says this: "Something of uncommon rarity requires special training or comes from a particular culture or part of the world. Some character choices give access to uncommon options, and the GM can choose to allow access for anyone"

so you either need GM access or a specific thing telling you you got access to an uncommon thing.

shifting rune says nothing about granting access, so it does not.