Weapon Styles, Basket Weaving, and Concept Obsolesence

[Username17]

If the group doesn't want to go on side quests then I can easily make the katanas stolen part of the main quests by making the thieves involved with the BBEG.

So after the players decide to not go quest for a treasure, as the DM you decide that you'll give it to them anyway?

Congratulations: you just managed to find a way to make the katana character even more poisonous to the group dynamic. His very presence apparently makes all decisions made by the collective of players completely meaningless.

-Username17

If the collective decisions of the players are "FUCK YOU, Player A", then something is wrong anyway. If the group doesn't want to make sure everyone has fun - and letting people play what they want, and use what weapon they want is a big part of having fun - then the group's not worth much to begin with.

However, if teh group consensus is: No side quests, then all the character-centric stuff happens in the main quest, easy.

Wow. Did you just read what you wrote? That just gives the whole fucking show away, doesn't it?

• Player A wants to go on a side quest where the party tracks down a magic katana from Shufang that he heard rumors of so that his character can get a weapon that the player thinks will be cool.
• Player B wants to go on a side quest where the party kills the Blue Cardinal to avenge his character's father.
• Player C wants to go under water to fight the Sahuagin pirates at the source because he thinks underwater adventures are cool.
• Player D wants to go to the Frozen North and fight the Frost Giants because they did some nasty stuff early in the campaign and that seems like the next thing to do.

If the party votes and decides to fight the Sahuagin, the Blue Cardinal is not going to fall over dead in an emotionally satisfying fashion. It's not telling Player C "Fuck You" if they go off and fight Frost Giants. And yet, if the party decides to vote against Player A's suggested side quest, this is apparently an insult of such magnitude that the DM has no choice but to ham handedly force that side quest to be completed regardless of what the players do or don't do?

And this is why the katana master is unacceptable. No other player suggestion is considered by anyone to be more than a suggestion. And with four to seven people at the table, it is very likely that the vast majority of suggestions will not be acted upon by the group. But apparently the katana master "has" to get his way every time he makes a katana suggestion or the game falls apart. That is the most poisonous that it is possible for a character concept to be for the group dynamic.

No character concept should be powerful enough to override the democracy of the table in a cooperative storytelling game. If it is that powerful, it should not be allowed.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

If it is that powerful, it should not be allowed.

This sounds so hilarious with only a little context.

You heard it here first: Frank Trollman says the Weapon Focus tree is too powerful to be allowed!

[Username17]

Take a look at your Wonder Woman example... With a few exceptions, her aesthetics reference birds/wings, stars, tiaras, red, blue, rope, and bracers. Looking over her costume through the years, if she came across fullplate armor, she'd turn it down (she's worn a breastplate a few times, and chainmail once). She also appears to wield primarily swords, spears, the occasional double-headed battleaxe, and a sickle (once).

That is a terrible example. She was running around in full body chain with plate on her chest, forearms, shoulders, hips, and lower legs with a golden magic helmet this year. That is more extensive than most versions of half plate. In the battle against Medousa she wore Hoplite Armor with actual retractable wings. Not shown in that picture: the eagle visor comes down to form an airtight face mask.

Wonder Woman goes to war with whatever magic armor she happens to have. Usually it's just a breast plate, but when she gears up, she goes for heavy armor sometimes. There is absolutely no evidence that Wonder Woman would turn down a suit a plate armor when going into a major confrontation. She has gone up to 75% plate coverage with chain mail filling the gaps. Considering that that is what actual historical "plate armor" provides, I don't know what more evidence you could possibly require to indicate that Wonder Woman would wear "full plate" if it gave her an additional +2.

BTW, real plate armor looks like This. Differences between Wonder Woman's plate armor are as follows:

• Wonder Woman does not have plate on the front of her thighs, and relies on chain all the way around instead of just on the back.
• Wonder Woman has titanic plate greaves instead of using leather boots.
• Wonder Woman has a plate band that appears to go all around the middle of her upper arm instead of having a set of jointed plates that hang on the outside of the upper arm.
• Wonder Woman has a suggestive V-neck in her breast plate through which you can see the chain shirt underneath.
• Wonder Woman's chain shirt manages to magically extend in a turtle neck up to the base of her chin.

That is full plate. As in, once you take into account the artistic license, it's pretty similar to historical 15th century platemail. So what possible reason would we have to believe she wouldn't wear plate armor? She already did it.

-Username17

[Ice9]

Player A wants to go on a side quest where the party tracks down a magic katana from Shufang that he heard rumors of so that his character can get a weapon that the player thinks will be cool.
Player B wants to go on a side quest where the party kills the Blue Cardinal to avenge his character's father.
Player C wants to go under water to fight the Sahuagin pirates at the source because he thinks underwater adventures are cool.
Player D wants to go to the Frozen North and fight the Frost Giants because they did some nasty stuff early in the campaign and that seems like the next thing to do.
...
But apparently the katana master "has" to get his way every time he makes a katana suggestion or the game falls apart.

No, that's how it works if you specifically design the rules to work that way. How it works in a sane system is more like:
They go underwater and fight the Saguagin pirates. Player A gets a magic trident. When they have a little downtime, Player A reforges that trident into a katana (spotlight time taken - 10 seconds). Problem fucking solved.

Your premise is that switching the type of a weapon is some huge complicated process that drags the game to a halt and marginalizes all the other players. I'm saying that's fucking retarded, and the only reason you would design a system that way is to justify your stupid "only the DM should be deciding aesthetics" position.

You also keep conflating "switching the physical type of weapon" with "switching what magic abilities the weapon has" which is either dishonest or oblivious.

[Username17]

How it works in a sane system is more like:
They go underwater and fight the Saguagin pirates. Player A gets a magic trident. When they have a little downtime, Player A reforges that trident into a katana (spotlight time taken - 10 seconds). Problem fucking solved.

I would be tempted to say "lol no" except that I am in fact not laughing. What I really mean is fuck no. That is one of the worst suggestions on this thread. And there are some majorly shitty suggestions on this thread. It is perfectly OK for a character to simply have a magic katana that levels with him or for a character to be allowed to forge a succession of bad ass katanas over the course of the game. Both of these are reasonable.

What is not reasonable is to have characters take the magic items of the world and tear them apart with crowbars in order to get the power crystals and then weld those power crystals onto other weapons. Nor is it acceptable or reasonable for the players to put the magic items they find up at the "auction house" and divide up the payment received so that each participating character can fork over their share to get some sort of unrelated derivative equipment bonus.

If you make magical items fungible, or worse yet made out of fungible pieces, then they aren't magical anymore. At best you could have some sort of steam punk or post apocalyptic aesthetic where you tried to make the fact that things were cobbled together from other working things into being cool on its own. But it's never going to feel magical. You've literally just told the players that none of the magic items are permanent or intrinsically worth anything - that no legendary items are meaningful or even possible, because everything just gets parted out and reskinned every time it changes hands.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Did Frank just dis the eye of thundera/sword of thundera (that new series, whatever happened to that?) and say it was impossible?

Thats what it sounds like...

[shadzar]

Player A gets a magic trident. When they have a little downtime, Player A reforges that trident into a katana (spotlight time taken - 10 seconds). Problem fucking solved.

Steal Enchantment

This spell "steals" the enchantment from a magical item and places it within another, non-magical item (the material component). Both objects must be touched by the wizard during casting. The two items must be of the same category (blunt weapon, edged weapon, ring, amulet, shield, armor, wand, etc.).


Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

not even a choice in AD&D until you an find a 14th level wizard to do it. then only if you used a supplement. the precursor to S&M in 2.5

"reforging" would destroy the current item. the process would be destroying the item o it would lose its magic.

Hey let's reforge the One Ring... oh wait.. melting it destroys it and it loses it magic abilities...

MOST people jsut flat out dont want to mess with it, a well it doesnt make sense, since MOST damn fiction has a weapon destroyed when you try to make it into something else.

this isnt Starmetal being made into a weapon but destroying a weapon to make another when you forge it into something else.

[Aryxbez]

since something like a rapier IS in a group with other weapons, then why can the rapier wielder jsut not accept a blade within the same group rather than having to have a rapier? why must they force this need for the rapier on everyone else playing?

Well Shadzar, since I have to assume ye forgot to read my post, here it is again: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=233664#233664

When you're done, and have confirmed that ye read it, maybe then can respond to my post with some relevance. Otherwise, if somehow my posts have become too hard for you, then all I guess I can suggest for you, is to leave the Den, since my posts aren't any harder to read otherwise.

So then, assuming you've read my post, have to keep in mind, the assumption in the case I brought up, was saying the rapier wouldn't be different rules-wise, from any other one-handed weapon. So yes, that would include other swords like Longswords,Bastard swords, scimitars,battle axes, warhammers, and warpicks. Probably would be some differentiation for light weapons, throwing or something (shrugs). Anyway, at this point, since the rules hang up is gone, I'd see no reason to deny a player a perfectly reasonable aesthetic. Especially when we get past "low level" concerns, and what ye wield is whatever, and if want to stick to a particular look, then that's fine too. Hell, even the Warriors Three, from Thor Comics, had a rapier guy who wielded that for the most part.

Funny Shadzar would be hung up on the "rules" of rapier existence, over the aesthetic, which ya know, is part of the "game".


Well Frank, Fuchs was also saying in the case if the campaign had no sidequests. So your examples wouldn't be that applicable, as the PC's would likely be doing that Frost Giant thing or whatever. Then, since those would never been implemented there, a DM can/will utilize those ideas into the main adventure instead. After all, probably add more depth to the adventure itself, or hell, save em later for the story, all the same, be dumb to let nice ideas go to waste.

[shadzar]

So then, assuming you've read my post, have to keep in mind, the assumption in the case I brought up, was saying the rapier wouldn't be different rules-wise, from any other one-handed weapon.

ok i guess being polite doesnt help in conversations here at all so let me make in in terms all the Denners can understand.

YOUR MORONIC FUCKING GROUPS SUCK ASS.

all one-handed weapons do NOT function the same way. so your groupings are shit.

now with that premise, go back and read the post i wrote quoting you initially in this little dialog and it should help you understand things.

im not sucking a player's dick because he wants a magic pink tutu, and he aint sucking mine to get it either.

grow the fuck up and learn your wants ("aesthetic weapon") doesnt' outweigh the groups or games needs.

your group implies no mechanical difference, and some people like slashing, bludgeoning and piercing, and the fact that a short sword and long sword do different amounts of damage.

i dont care for weapon speed factor, but it is easy to ignore.

likewise IF you are doing it in YOUR game, i dont give two shits WHAT you do. the problem is assuming the game dictates that EVERYONE should do it so Fuchs can throw a temper tantrum to get his rapier.

hey wasnt it people here saying a gimped idea form SKR was bad? how about that one-legged fighter that doesnt have any penalties to fighting skill? that was bad too right?

so how the fuck is a singular weapon fop that cannot adapt and stlls and disrupts the game better than those.

you cant have your fucking cake and eat it to.

now people saying a weapon is an aesthetic are saying a one-legged fighter PC is a viable choice that does NOT hamper the rest of the party?

when your aesthetic is so selfish that others in the group have to conform to it...you need to rethink your priorities. is having a fop or dandy with a rapier what is important to you, or playing the game itself?

[Username17]

Well Frank, Fuchs was also saying in the case if the campaign had no sidequests. So your examples wouldn't be that applicable, as the PC's would likely be doing that Frost Giant thing or whatever. Then, since those would never been implemented there, a DM can/will utilize those ideas into the main adventure instead. After all, probably add more depth to the adventure itself, or hell, save em later for the story, all the same, be dumb to let nice ideas go to waste.

Fuchs is just being a twat. He said he'd give out the katana even after the players rejected the offer to go on a sidequest to get the katana. Then he made a straw man about how it was impossible for the players to have perfectly good reasons for rejecting a sidequest including going on other side quests.

When the players don't do something, it is generally because they chose to do something else. If an idea gets voted down, shoving it in sideways is an insult to everyone at the table.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

that no legendary items are meaningful or even possible, because everything just gets parted out and reskinned every time it changes hands.

Every single person arguing with you in this thread has said that artifacts can't be changed. This makes them more meaningful than if they were just a magic item with bigger pluses.

Also, I don't really keep up with Wonder Woman so I can't tell for sure, but did you just claim that Wonder Woman's toy is canon? Again? Because this isn't canon to Spider-Man, even though I found a picture of it on the internet.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

No, that's how it works if you specifically design the rules to work that way. How it works in a sane system is more like:
They go underwater and fight the Saguagin pirates. Player A gets a magic trident. When they have a little downtime, Player A reforges that trident into a katana (spotlight time taken - 10 seconds). Problem fucking solved.

Your premise is that switching the type of a weapon is some huge complicated process that drags the game to a halt and marginalizes all the other players. I'm saying that's fucking retarded, and the only reason you would design a system that way is to justify your stupid "only the DM should be deciding aesthetics" position.

You also keep conflating "switching the physical type of weapon" with "switching what magic abilities the weapon has" which is either dishonest or oblivious.

No, that's not a sane system, that's a retarded one. I'm in favor of the GM cherry picking items on occasion for the party, so you'd think I'd be with you, but no, that's fucking retarded

It's not overcomplicated, it is a system that breaks vermissilitude and replicates something that exists nowhere in any of the source that this game comes from. When a hero finds a weapon in a fantasy story, he either uses it or he doesn't. Either option is perfectly fine. But never have I read a fantasy novel or seen a fantasy movie where the hero went "Well, this axe is okay, but I think I'm going to turn it into a sword instead". Not even if "turn it into a sword" means take an axe in his possession and move the enchantment there.

Quit arguing for it, it's bad.

[Username17]

that no legendary items are meaningful or even possible, because everything just gets parted out and reskinned every time it changes hands.

Every single person arguing with you in this thread has said that artifacts can't be changed. This makes them more meaningful than if they were just a magic item with bigger pluses.

Every magic item is an "artifact" of some sort or another. Some people are arguing for some half assed setup where the katana master is only forced to give up his katana or suffer the consequences late in the campaign with the acquisition of the Ax of the Dwarven Lords or some similar end-game relic, but that's not really different from this happening as soon as the party defeats the Red Reaper and acquires a life stealing scythe. It's just quibbling over whether they intend to distort the campaign to sate the player's addiction to katana drops for a longer or shorter time.

Also, I don't really keep up with Wonder Woman so I can't tell for sure, but did you just claim that Wonder Woman's toy is canon? Again? Because this isn't canon to Spider-Man, even though I found a picture of it on the internet.

That is a model of the Wonder Woman costume from the Flashpoint miniseries that went on for three months this year. I could have linked a comic page of her, but I couldn't find one that was sufficiently high resolution and also showing a full body. Yes: she totally wore plate armor this year in the actual comics during a massive crossover event. Just like the Conan, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Darth Vader, and indeed every single fucking example that has been brought up of a character that doesn't change equipment in response to getting awesome swag during adventures - it's a bad example. Because she totally does.

-Username17

[Aryxbez]

ok i guess being polite doesnt help in conversations here at all so let me make in in terms all the Denners can understand.

all one-handed weapons do NOT function the same way. so your groupings are shit.

Politeness does have worth in general yes, however that was something you had lacked. When you chose to quote a small bit of my post, taking it out of context to go off on your rantings. That there looked to me you didn't even read past a few words, and taking with it out of context assumptions I found rather disrespectful.

As for my example on weapon groupings, I didn't say it was some full fledged system, more or less a base idea that would be helpful in this discussion. As for the small differences between one-handed weapons, in the abstraction of RPG's, those very small differences, seriously do not matter in the end. If need be, can have some vague abilities per each weapon, like giving you "edge" to disarm someone because your weapon is hooked, or something like a flail, or whatever. Especially when we're talking past the low levels Shadzar, there is more to D&D than the first five levels of play, so you know.

your group implies no mechanical difference, and some people like slashing, bludgeoning and piercing, and the fact that a short sword and long sword do different amounts of damage.

Yes, that partly would be the point, and those "some" people can easily keep playing the editions they are in fact playing, no need to cater to the minority (or lowest common denominator for that matter). However that's just minor quirk of a weapon, if really hellbent on it, just write it down on your character, that their weapon does "slashing damage" or "gouging damage" for whatever the hell that means, considering its the same kind of physical weapon damage in the end. As for shortsword vs. Longsword bit, I did mention could have a group for "light weapons" where stuff like shortsword would belong instead, or something like that.

grow the fuck up and learn your wants ("aesthetic weapon") doesnt' outweigh the groups or games needs.

when your aesthetic is so selfish that others in the group have to conform to it...you need to rethink your priorities. is having a fop or dandy with a rapier what is important to you, or playing the game itself?

So when did Flavor text of a game become immature, and breaking the players "needs"? I sincerely doubt they would be the only player that would give some worth to the weapon they're wielding, caring to have their weapons flavor text as well. Rapier is in fact part of fantasy trope far as I recall, so "conforming" shouldn't be any harder than "conforming" to the player with the battle ax, or the guy wearing a roman helmet.

Long ago, I used to care about the idea that a scimitar and longsword would be statted the same, or even a longsword and a warhammer (gasp, oh the humanity!). Realized, the differences aren't all that much in depth in the end, especially for a combat systems that generally deal in the abstract anyway. Besides Shadzar, I thought ye would want to support something that focuses more on the "game", especially when you're supposedly rather fine with ignoring rules to your system you hold so intimately towards.

EDIT:

Every magic item is an "artifact" of some sort or another.

Well if "every" magic item is an Artifact, how does that make them special exactly? Especially to having such high degree of fidelity to their form being attached?

Also, probably would recommend that you stop bringing up toylines to be canonical in any worth of the sense, as it doesn't serve to support a point you've made at all. After all, Dragon Ball Z toys came with Guns and staffs for the characters, and pretty much none of them actually wielded one, or would need to, for that matter.

[shadzar]

Rapier is in fact part of fantasy trope far as I recall, so "conforming" shouldn't be any harder than "conforming" to the player with the battle ax, or the guy wearing a roman helmet.

what the OotS naked bard trope?

Who other than Zorro do you REALLY hear about using a rapier?

only like the A&EG says, noblemen fighting duels.

again i ask in this trope of a one-on-one duel.. how many orcs, balor, etc are going to take a PC up on a one-on-one?

for general purposes a rapier a an aesthetic of character fall flat and outright fail.

If that rapier can be convinced to being an elite noblemans weapon and that the world would benefit form it, then likely chance to see them, but as such they wouldnt be magical to "drop". any salvaged would likely be melted down, and the only way to fight a one-on-one duel would be with the agreement of the opponent.

is the rapier then being used in some sort of diplomacy attack, excuse me i mean "aggressive negotiation"? If so make sure to have Jar-Jar there with you to screw other things up.

remember that not everyone wants to play with all tropes, even if you can find a decent one. that is why "swashbuckler" appeared in Dragon and Complete Fighter/Thief books and NOT the core books.

most people dont ply in French settings, so the Musketeers really wouldnt be commonplace either.

this is the problem that is being explained.. when the world makes no sense other than being a game so that a player can use a tool of the game as an aesthetic.

Bob the Fighter: Nobody but Swishy Swashbuckler here has ever seen one of them swords before, so how did this guy have one in his treasure?

that is called breaking the 4th wall. after doing it once, it keeps happening as more is let slip through and then you dont have one, and the characters are all talking about levels, and modifiers.

some people just happen to like the have the 4th wall intact as well as verisimilitude and their suspension of disbelief; rather than jsut dump ALL of those so say "its jsut a game so lets act like it doesnt really mean anything".

people actually play FOR the suspension of disbelief, verisimilitude, and strive to keep the 4th wall intact.

HELL White Wolf made a game that the entire point is to keep the 4th wall intact!

but back to D&D, why break the wall for a single player so that it crumbles down for everyone else?

the game is ALL about how much your own SoD can withstand before it breaks. once that happens for many the game is over, and Fuchs and his rapier are readily able to be the sphere of annihilation to the 4th wall.

so as i said before, which is more important, this silyl weapon for an aesthetic that can destroy the game for others in MANY ways to where they no longer wish to play; or being able to play the game in the first place.

pick your priority, and remember you picked it. dont blame others because of the choice YO made.

*you, being the person having to make the choice as opposed to the poster being replied to.

[Chamomile]

Every magic item is an "artifact" of some sort or another. Some people are arguing for some half assed setup where the katana master is only forced to give up his katana or suffer the consequences late in the campaign with the acquisition of the Ax of the Dwarven Lords or some similar end-game relic, but that's not really different from this happening as soon as the party defeats the Red Reaper and acquires a life stealing scythe.

Yes, it is. Characters switching weapons because they came across something legendary is something that happens all the time. Characters switching weapons because they came across something very slightly better than what they had before happens pretty much not at all. That is a phenomenon unique to games, and it is stupid, so if you want to have non-artifact level magic items at all, you are going to have to find a way to deal with it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well if "every" magic item is an Artifact, how does that make them special exactly? Especially to having such high degree of fidelity to their form being attached?

That is a phenomenon unique to games, and it is stupid, so if you want to have non-artifact level magic items at all, you are going to have to find a way to deal with it.

The whole idea of there being 'artifact' and 'non-artifact' magical items is a quirk of 3rd Edition magical items and is a reasonable distinction to make in gameplay... in THAT game.

In a system where you can't just declare that you have a magical item because you have enough of some unrelated resource (for example, magical items are only either found or crafted by some unique plot-related impetus), the distinction between artifact and non-artifact magical items is totally meaningless.

I think you might mean 'magical item that doesn't objectively do a whole lot but is better than nothing' and 'magical item that makes a huge difference' assuming otherwise level-appropriateness. If so, that's a distinction that could have its own thread but doesn't mean anything in the context of this discussion. But the whole idea of there being 'magical items' and 'artifacts' may or may not even exist depending on the system. You could be playing a Greek Mythology-style campaign where there's no such thing as 'weak' magical items and Hydra's Blood poison arrows are the bottom limit of power. You could also be playing Urban Arcana where one of the most powerful magical items in existence is a magically trapped briefcase with some hidden compartments. Or you could be playing a hybrid of both.

That said, as far as D&D goes, for most campaigns I think that personal combat improvement items should go the Greek Mythology route and you should never find anything more weaksauce than a +2 Fiery Wounding Whip. Depending on the shininess/grittiness of the setting you can make an allowance for a magical item industry of stuff so tiny it wouldn't qualify as a James Bond gadget (continual light lampposts, maps that draw the area around you, etc..) or even larger projects like magical trains or floating islands, but I personally don't care much for a D&D game where some podunk monarch has a 20-man praetorian guard where everyone has +2 armor and weapons at the minimum.

[Seerow]

The whole idea of there being 'artifact' and 'non-artifact' magical items is a quirk of 3rd Edition magical items and is a reasonable distinction to make in gameplay... in THAT game.

It's been a distinction in pretty much every edition of D&D ever.

Plus, how does "Every magic item ever is an artifact" work with "All loot is determined by a random roll"? Are you really going to take the time to stat up a few hundred unique magic items, give them history, cultural association, etc, and just let them show up randomly somewhere?

I could see "Every magic item is an artifact" in a game where the GM is specifically placing items at places where they make sense. Of course, at that point the GM is specifically placing items, so if he doesn't give the player a weapon of the type he actually wants to use the player can call shenanigans and the DM can't just point to the dice and say "blame them not me".

If you're randomly rolling to see whether mook #185 has an Artifact, and if so which one though, you're pretty much destroying any sense of consistency in the world to begin with. Mainly because these are all really important items that are steeped in history, but you can't answer the basic question of "Why does this guy have this?". That question can be handwaved when you have a distinction between regular magic items and artifacts. When everything is an artifact, that sort of thing demands an answer.

[Chamomile]

An artifact is a distinct, unique magical item with its own history, like Excalibur, the Holy Grail, Mjolnir, or the Book of Vile Darkness. If it didn't exist in your campaign world before you rolled it up on a random treasure table, then it is not an artifact by definition. It doesn't matter how powerful an item is, if a character has to change their aesthetic just to pick up randomly dropped treasure every third adventure, that's stupid. If a character has to put the sword away and pick up a lance because the setting is named after that lance, that's fine, but otherwise it's impossible to make any magical artifacts with any weight in the story, and that's bad.

Having hierarchical weapons at all is not genre appropriate to any genre I've ever heard of. If you're going to have your PCs upgrade their weapons or armor more than once or twice total across an entire campaign, you are breaking genre. The only question is how and why.

[Username17]

Actually, the tropes of D&D are culturally ingrained now that characters routinely upgrade their weaponry. In Wheel of Time, Matt upgrades his bullshit weaponry into a proper longbow, and to an evil magic dagger, and to a weird anti-magic glaive. I don't even know if he kept getting weapon upgrades later on, because I stopped reading. The main character upgraded his main weapon so many times that he was eventually literally in psychic communication with a giant statue made out of atomic bombs that he was beating people with - which got so fucking ridiculous that the author had to have the character put that shit away and start over from scratch.

Comic book heroes, and serial characters of any kind, tend to go on long enough that they get a lot of weapon and armor upgrades. Iron Man stopped incrementing the numbers on his armor with the Mark V, but that was like forty years ago - and the years in between have given the armor upgrades names like "Stealth Mark III" and "Thor Buster". He got "Model 29" eight years ago, and has been through several iterations since then.

Characters who get a lot of story put into them get a lot of weapon upgrades. Luke Skywalker has two lightsabers introduced over the original movie, but in the expanded universe he gets like 3 or 4 more that do slightly different stuff.

But really all of that doesn't fucking matter. The point is that in fantasy gaming, people get a succession of weapons. The fact that this also happens in comparable serial fiction is not important - it would be a fact of the fantasy gaming genre either way.

And during the succession of weaponry, each one is more "special" than the one before it. Meaning that it is harder to mail order a copy of whatever it is that you just got each time you get an upgrade. Now the more special you go, the less plausible it is that you would have exactly the length and color specifications you might like. If there is only one copy in the kingdom, the idea that you would be able to swap it in for a different version is absurd. If there is only one copy in the universe, even more so. Now where you specifically draw the line of the point where you are not going to indulge the player's insistence that everything he gets is specifically a katana is up to you, but that line will be drawn. And once it is, the katana fetishist is going to have to come to terms with the fact that he has a fucking Sword of Kas, and it's not a fucking katana.

And once you've agreed that you are eventually going to have to stop indulging the katana fetishist's petulant demands for katanas, why the fuck are you allowing the katana fetishist to distort the story or overrule democratic selection of sidequests at any point? Sooner or later the katana user is going to have grow up and grow a pair, why would you let the katana user ruin anything on his way to that realization?

-Username17

[Seerow]

Actually, the tropes of D&D are culturally ingrained now that characters routinely upgrade their weaponry. In Wheel of Time, Matt upgrades his bullshit weaponry into a proper longbow, and to an evil magic dagger, and to a weird anti-magic glaive. I don't even know if he kept getting weapon upgrades later on, because I stopped reading.

Matt starts out with a 'proper longbow' and ends up making himself a new one after losing the original somewhere along the way when he finds the kind of wood he had back home to make one out of. When he left home that longbow was literally his only weapon, and he was happy with that. He then picks up a cursed dagger, not because he wants the dagger but because he thinks the ruby in the hilt would be worth a good amount of money, and he then spends the next 2 books trying to severe his connection with the damn thing. Somewhere along the way he starts carrying around a dozen knives, and eventually he picks up the Ashandrei (which isn't actually anti-magic at all, that's his medallion.) and that's pretty much what he uses for the next 8 books, except the rare occasion when he pulls out one of his daggers because the Ashandrei isn't nearbye or he needs to hit something further away.

The main character upgraded his main weapon so many times that he was eventually literally in psychic communication with a giant statue made out of atomic bombs that he was beating people with - which got so fucking ridiculous that the author had to have the character put that shit away and start over from scratch.

Except it was never really a direct upgrade. Like he never threw away his heron marked sword until the damn thing got literally melted, then was more than happy to take a new one when he got the chance. Callandor was basically an artifact, and one that had pretty dangerous repercussions for using on his own. The Choden kal were made to be basically the atomic bomb of the age of legends, and Rand didn't want to even let the Forsaken know that he had them, let alone use them, until he whipped them out to cleanse the source.

The actual upgrades Rand got that he could use? He starts out with a sword, it gets destroyed. He gets another sword. I think that one gets destroyed too. Eventually he gives up on this mundane sword thing and starts summoning one out of fire, until he realizes just blowing everything up because he's a goddamn Wizard is more efficient. He also started with a longbow, but I don't remember that ever really coming up past book 2, when he uses it to shoot those things in the alternate dimension.

In terms of weaponry to augment his magic, besides the two artifacts he basically can't use safely except in specific circumstances mentioned above, he also gets his hand on an Angreal that he actually can use regularly, in the shape of a tiny fat man statue he carries around in his pocket. Not surprisingly, at this point the shape of his angreal is less important than the fact that by channeling through it his strength is multiplied several times over. If the little fat man were suddenly turned into something else, nobody in the WoT-verse would blink twice. Whereas if Calandor were suddenly a Crystal hammer instead of a Crystal Sword, it would be a collective "what the fuck?". That's the difference in an artifact and a normal magic item.




And at this point, we've now examined Mat, Perrin, and Rand, the 3 main characters of Wheel of Time (I went over Perrin earlier in the topic). Throughout the books which seem to encompass pretty much an entire campaign from low level to near epic (possibly past epic in the case of Rand), each of these main characters changes weapons roughly twice. Each time when doing so represents something significant in the character (Rand realizing that using a sword isn't important to him anymore because he can blow shit up with his mind is a big step for him. Perrin forging Mah'alleinir was an indication of a huge change in his mindset. Mat taking the Ashandrei isn't as obvious of a thing at first, but him gaining it comes at the same time as he shifts from useless prankster to God of Generals due to his deal with the finn's, the new weapon is indicative of that change, though even he himself doesn't quite grasp the change for some time to come)

Most importantly, in two out of three cases, the choice was made by the character. Perrin -chose- to drop the Axe to use his hammer instead, and then to use his hammer to forge a new hammer fitting to his station. Rand chose to no longer try to chop people's heads off and instead make the heads explode. Matt took his new weapon on the premise he had already 'paid' for it so he might as well keep it. Of course it helped that he was already familiar with Quarterstaff fighting and he could use the Ashandrei in much the same way, so it was a weapon he liked, but his is the case of the character who takes what comes. The other two made an active choice to say "I'm changing what I use now".

And once it is, the katana fetishist is going to have to come to terms with the fact that he has a fucking Sword of Kas, and it's not a fucking katana.

The problem here is that you are STILL making the assumption the player will eventually get the fucking Sword of Kas. This isn't a given in most campaigns. In fact, in most of them the idea that you could actually have an artifact for your character is going to get laughed out. Artifacts have always been something that shows up for a specific piece of plot, not something characters get as a part of their expected power.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Artifacts have always been something that shows up for a specific piece of plot, not something characters get as a part of their expected power.

And the proposal is that all magic items (or at least the big ones) should be like this.

[Chamomile]

Iron Man is still using repulsor rays and the uni-beam despite decades of suit modifications, and every one of Luke's new lightsbaers were still lightsabers. Batman is actually famous for having a staggering number of gadgets on him at all times, and yet batarangs and grappling hooks are still his staples. He modifies his batsuit to do a lot of different things, but it's always a batsuit. And typically when a long-running hero gets a suit upgrade, it's not long before they revert back (Spider-Man does this for both the symbiote suit and the cosmic Spider-Man arc, although it's worth noting that the cosmic Spider-Man arc was stupid). And within a year, Wonder Woman is going to look like this again (if she doesn't already), because she always has and always will.

And not a single one of these changes was ever made by rolling dice. The Wonder Woman writers did not roll on a table to determine that she was going to wear plate armor, they sat down and thought "hey, I bet Wonder Woman would be really cool in plate armor." Weapons in particular carry a message. They are a defining part of a character's aesthetic in any action media. A character who wields a sword looks different from one who wields an ax or a bow, just like a character with a pistol looks different from one with a shotgun or a sniper rifle. Robbing players of the ability to define their aesthetic just so you can fap to random tables is Gygaxian-level stupidity.

The line drawn between artifacts and non-artifacts is that artifacts are part of the setting and when you break them down and remake them into something else, you are destroying part of that setting's history. It doesn't actually matter how common or rare the weapons are supposed to be in that setting because we are making the setting, so they can be as common or as rare as we want. If we want turning frost hammers into frost swords to be easy, we can do that, and since we're breaking genre by having hierarchical weapons in the first place, it doesn't even matter. Non-artifacts are random drops and the setting is exactly the same if they get recycled into something else, save that recycling non-artifacts is now a thing that happens in the setting...And why is that bad? Who cares?

[Seerow]

Artifacts have always been something that shows up for a specific piece of plot, not something characters get as a part of their expected power.

And the proposal is that all magic items (or at least the big ones) should be like this.

So all magic items are specifically placed by the DM to be a part of the plot?

Fine, but don't BS about how it's randomly rolled dice that are telling the character their character concept sucks. At that point it is the DM specifically putting in items and ignoring what the player wants.

If you're randomly rolling which plot centric artifact is going to show up, you're doing something pretty weird that I can't relate to as D&D at all.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Iron Man is still using repulsor rays and the uni-beam despite decades of suit modifications, and every one of Luke's new lightsbaers were still lightsabers. Batman is actually famous for having a staggering number of gadgets on him at all times, and yet batarangs and grappling hooks are still his staples. He modifies his batsuit to do a lot of different things, but it's always a batsuit. And typically when a long-running hero gets a suit upgrade, it's not long before they revert back (Spider-Man does this for both the symbiote suit and the cosmic Spider-Man arc, although it's worth noting that the cosmic Spider-Man arc was stupid). And within a year, Wonder Woman is going to look like this again (if she doesn't already), because she always has and always will.

Iron Man made his own stuff!
Luke Skywalker made his own lightsabers!
Batman hires people to make his stuff!

Spiderman and Wonder Woman are generally reverting their character to be literally the same as before, so their old equipment still works.