Weapon Styles, Basket Weaving, and Concept Obsolesence

[Gx1080]

The fact that Real Wolrd Concepts (tm) are brought as an argument again just proves that Weapon Specialization is a low-level concept.

It also proves that high-level martial classes should have weapon blasts.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Read my reply to Frank two posts above yours. TL;DR - you are either being intentionally deceitful or a fucking moron by repeatedly conflating switching weapon type with switching what a magic item does.

There's nothing sacred about the split between weapon type and magical item properties, except that weapon type is a lot smaller in story effect. In the grand scheme of things the difference between having your magical weapon being a sword or an axe is about as much as having a magical item property giving fire resistance 3 or acid resistance 3.

And it isn't just a simplification, there actually is a conflict of position there between:
* Magic items are so special that you should use anything you find, and modifying it would ruin the awesomeness.
* You don't need a wish list because you're going to be getting big piles of items anyway, and you can just give or trade away the ones you don't want.

THAT part is why I'm saying that you're being deceitful. It's an ambiguous statement that could mean 'you're in a survival horror game where using suboptimal equipment is better than nothing' to 'throw away what you last had for your shiny new thing immediately, no matter how good it is or what you could get instead' and you're implying the latter when I meant the former. If you're wielding a bastard sword and then come across an Excalibur but you want a Gram there's no one forcing you to like it or even use it. You can trade it with a party member for something else, including next dibs. You can give it to a minion. Whatever. This doesn't change even if there's literally nothing you can do with your share of the loot. What the hell is a paladin on a flying dragon supposed to do with a magic carpet and none of his party members are willing to trade? Nothing. You hit a patch of bad luck, like rolling three 1s in a row. You're not entitled to any booby prizes if that happens in a combat, so why should you get anything in that case? So shut the fuck up.

But usually it's not even that bad. The Excalibur is still better than what you're using so even though you really wanted a Gram you use that until it comes up. So claiming that the game is ruined or that you were forced to use something you didn't like is just bizarre and whiny.

By the way, when I say suboptimal I mean 'not the literally best result', in the same way that rolling a 85 on a 25d4 is a suboptimal roll despite being fuckrare in an actual game.

Isn't Frank's argument that there's not supposed to be such a thing as "what you want" (despite the fact that in D&D there are clearly good items and clearly shitty items) because wanting a specific item is kicking the GM in the nuts and is making the players' life a litany of bitter disappointment, etc.?

No, hogarth, that doesn't mean that there isn't supposed to be treasure you want more than another. You are actually supposed to not be completely satisfied with your winnings most of the time. It means you make do with what you have until that happens. A lot of games like poker and M:tG get the majority of their entertainment from the fact that while you don't get exactly what you want, you can still do something with what you have. What Frank meant was that if you had someone who was so entitled and crybaby that they can't imagine frequently having a hand or payout that didn't have exactly the array they want in it and threatened to hold up the game until they did then they should get bent. That doesn't mean you should like every hand that's dealt to you or that you shouldn't have favored hands or payouts.

Savvy?

My stance on this whole thing:

A game has to support at least the basic concepts that players will be playing, and "Specialist" is one of those concepts.

What a meaningless and empty statement, considering that Specialist can mean anything from 'Specializes in Transformations' to 'Specializes in Whittling'.

Care to explain why 'specializes in sword' is any more meaningful than 'specializes in basket weaving' or 'specializes in equipment that has acid resistance' and thus needs to be supported?

[shadzar]

My stance on this whole thing:

A game has to support at least the basic concepts that players will be playing, and "Specialist" is one of those concepts.

and that is exactly how it was built with those "specialists" in mind. here is a short list of them:

Fighter
Mage
Cleric
Rogue

[tzor]

Except that's not what happens, at all. If you give people items that they don't like the aesthetic of, and they feel compelled to use it anyway, they will do their damndest to pretend they aren't using it. The ugly armor will have a cloak worn over it. The skull crown will mysteriously be left out of any character descriptions. The +10 rubber chicken will be used in combat, but never referred to by name, and the guy will wear a sheathed sword which does get described, so as to imply that's what he's using.

I'll admit that I am not the poster child for the modern player, but way back in ... (gasp) second edition, I had a dwarf by the name of Khaned. (If you must ask, it was a joke on the power grid system in New York, Consolidated Edison or ConEd.) He started out as a axe fighter because that's the general sterotype (this was before we got into insane "weapon masters"). He started getting swords, so that's what he used at higher levels.

And then he got his super intelligent sword of Drow slaying ... Did I mention we had a half-drow paladin in the party? Hey the best AD&D games need a little agnst. ("Hey the dwarf is getting stary eyed ... keep him away from the paladin!") (Note that a half-drow paladin is not according to Hoyle, or the RAW, etc. I don't think that's the important point here.)

This was also the party that left the Dwarf outside of the portable hole, where dwarves still have a % chance of not having misc magic items work for them. You should have seen the panic when the portable hold failed with several party members still inside it.

But that was then and this was now. Then would be un-fun now. (SIGH)

[Chamomile]

This is a bit of a derail since the conversation has moved on a bit. But I was quoted directly and feel compelled to respond.

The same could be said of any kind of martial artist or sports weapon enthusiast. I would still rather face of against a fencer wielding a short stick than anything resembling a sharp fencing blade. The last thing I need is an inch of metal sticking into my eye.

Depends on the martial art. If it's a sport, than yeah, pretty much, although you really would be hard-pressed to find a sport less applicable to actual combat than fencing. But there are also martial arts designed by militaries explicitly to kill people. And I think I'd rather face anyone with a short stick rather than an actual sabre, because short sticks are significantly less lethal.

I'm calling bullshit here. Realisticly, soldiers focused on a few weapons.

You'll notice that it is still more than one, however. Soldiers can't spend their entire lives training before heading to the front. If nothing else, training costs more money than sitting on an army base digging trenches. No army in the world will teach a soldier nothing but the assault rifle (unless they just don't have the time or money to teach them more). And everything about logistics is totally moot in our analogy, because an adventuring party's logistics train is a bag of holding. PCs all specialize in front line combat, and every single one of them is going to be John Rambo, except since we're arguing a realistic system they will presumably do things that are actually effective for killing lots of guys instead of things which would look really cool if they actually succeeded in killing lots of guys.

Say you're a fighter with a new +2 sword, after having spent 5 levels and a couple of close friend's lives on finding better than a +1. Some dude wanders up with a bunch of +1 swords and wants to swap them for your +2 sword.

Again, this assumes that the only people trading magic swords are adventurers. Which doesn't even make sense unless you're in some kind of post-apocalyptic world, because adventurers typically can't make their own weapons (if they can, then the entire problem is solved because all drops ever are now trash that the PCs will replace with custom-forged items).

You talk about swapping with other adventurers in your party. Well, what if two different adventuring parties had an agreement to meet up after every quest in the same tavern and swap gear amongst themselves? What if other adventuring parties started joining in on that agreement? What if some wizards figured out there was a huge market for magic items in this town and set up shop to make custom items in exchange for whatever it is that they, personally, find valuable and can't manufacture on their own (souls, hope, favors, credit with other wizards, whatever)? What if something that was rare and valuable to wizards like gold is to regular people then became a de facto currency in this city? Hey, look! We just made a magic item bazaar! The only thing that can stop this from happening is if we intentionally design the world such that there is nothing wizards want from the world...And why would we do that?

There's nothing sacred about the split between weapon type and magical item properties, except that weapon type is a lot smaller in story effect.

How have you still not caught on that this is arguing against your position? Players care about how their characters look far more than the system cares about the difference in damage dice between swords and axes, and the GM doesn't have any right to change a character's aesthetic. Coming up with a reason as to why a sword can be converted into an axe within the narrative is trivial.

[hyzmarca]

(if they can, then the entire problem is solved because all drops ever are now trash that the PCs will replace with custom-forged items).

This isn't necessarily true. If your level 6 swordsman is forging his own custom +2 swords and comes across a +25 axe in a random pile of dragon poop it's unlikely that his custom weapons will be able to match that axe anytime soon.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

What a meaningless and empty statement, considering that Specialist can mean anything from 'Specializes in Transformations' to 'Specializes in Whittling'.

Fine, I'll refine my statement. Anything important enough that you can overcome challenges and achieve goals using it should be something you can specialize in.

So yeah, show me a game where, for some reason, whittling is an important part of the game, and I will agree that you should be able to specialize it. Fuck if I know what that is, but this is a hobby where "Guy who breaks through security systems" and "Guy who pilots vehicles" are actual things people expect to be able to play. And if I'm looking to play a sci-fi or cyberpunk game, and that game tells me I can't play a hacker or a pilot, well, I pretty damned well won't be playing that game.

[Mask_De_H]

What a meaningless and empty statement, considering that Specialist can mean anything from 'Specializes in Transformations' to 'Specializes in Whittling'.

Fine, I'll refine my statement. Anything important enough that you can overcome challenges and achieve goals using it should be something you can specialize in.

That also is laughably broad and almost completely meaningless.

So yeah, show me a game where, for some reason, whittling is an important part of the game, and I will agree that you should be able to specialize it. Fuck if I know what that is, but this is a hobby where "Guy who breaks through security systems" and "Guy who pilots vehicles" are actual things people expect to be able to play. And if I'm looking to play a sci-fi or cyberpunk game, and that game tells me I can't play a hacker or a pilot, well, I pretty damned well won't be playing that game.

"Hitting dude with a thing" and "hitting dude with another thing" are not as different as "breaking through security systems" and "piloting vehicles". The latter fill different conceptual spaces, the former is still melee combat. Unless the system is tailor-made for tracking every nuance of each kind of weapon and is primarily about those interactions in combat, the differences between weapons is conceptually very small.

You're being disingenuous.

[Ice9]

There's nothing sacred about the split between weapon type and magical item properties, except that weapon type is a lot smaller in story effect. In the grand scheme of things the difference between having your magical weapon being a sword or an axe is about as much as having a magical item property giving fire resistance 3 or acid resistance 3.

That's true, but "pure" edge positions are not the only valid ones. On the one extreme, we have the clown suit position, and on the other, we have total and instant fungibility. My personal preference is that:
* Physical form can be modified fairly easily.
* Magic properties, not so much, although you can of course trade it for favors or other items. And maybe there are some powerful items that can literally eat others.

The benefits of this are that magic items keep more flavor that total formlessness would give, while being easier to fit to a PC (matching one variable is easier than matching two, if that even needed to be explained).

I don't understand how a barter system works (paraphrased)

Yes, people trade things, including powerful and/or expensive things. I don't know how that's a difficult concept to grasp.

I'll try to spell it out for you:
* Why would A trade his +3 sword for B's many +1 swords?
* Because he actually trades it for shoes of lava walking.
* Because B got the shoes from a warlord who had them and wanted to equip his knights with magic swords.
* And also A had another +3 sword anyway.

Or maybe they actually remember that currency exists and use/create one. Depends on how many people there are trading items and how stable the market is. But even by pure barter, people do manage to trade things.

[Maj]

* Physical form can be modified fairly easily.

We've run some games where magic items (because they're magic, right?) change their appearance to match that best suited to the character. I had a lot of fun in those games.

[virgil]

* Physical form can be modified fairly easily.

We've run some games where magic items (because they're magic, right?) change their appearance to match that best suited to the character. I had a lot of fun in those games.

I did the same thing in one campaign, though they were still fueled by the souls of demon gods, with influences in the environment of them very slowly trying to regain consciousness.

[shadzar]

* Physical form can be modified fairly easily.

We've run some games where magic items (because they're magic, right?) change their appearance to match that best suited to the character. I had a lot of fun in those games.

and you can, BUT that is not what D&D is. every magic item isn't a Rod of Lordly Might.

Magic items are minor artifacts. Swords of Omens can change size from dagger to sword, but it is a major artifact. Excalibur will always be a sword.

can you make a magic item that can change shapes? maybe, but why would most people WANT to. the fact you make a weapon YOU need. when the enemy cant pick it up and use it, that is more function to it being ONE thing rather than being able to be many.

that would just destroy SoD for me, if all "weapons" change shape all the time depending on who wields them.

the One Ring changed size to fit the finger of the wearer...it didnt change into the One Hat, or One Cloak.

constant changing form is not something from magic, but cartoons, and sounds more like Judge Doom changing his hand from an anvil to a circular saw in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

notice Hank's bow never appeared in the game itself, but stayed in the cartoon and was the MOST ridiculous magic item.

and people like the movie with Superman's Jimmy Olsen and the Wayans brother, MORE than the cartoon series.

but still Hank's bow was an artifact not a normal magic item even.

[Username17]

On the one extreme, we have the clown suit position, and on the other, we have total and instant fungibility.

Again and still: the people advocating that a single player should have full control over the look and feel of everything they wear is advocating clown suits. As in: if a single person gets full fungibility on all their stuff, they are going to end up in brightly multicolored spandex. Eclectic equipment isn't clown suits. Color coordinated uniforms that only one person thinks are cool - that is a clown suit.

-Username17

[Seerow]

On the one extreme, we have the clown suit position, and on the other, we have total and instant fungibility.

Again and still: the people advocating that a single player should have full control over the look and feel of everything they wear is advocating clown suits. As in: if a single person gets full fungibility on all their stuff, they are going to end up in brightly multicolored spandex. Eclectic equipment isn't clown suits. Color coordinated uniforms that only one person thinks are cool - that is a clown suit.

-Username17

That's a pretty big leap in logic that has basically no basis in reality. It may be that occasionally one player will decide they want a super hero outfit, or want to wear a literal clown suit, but 99% of the time the players will have an aesthetic that fits into the game they sat down to play, that nobody really minds.

And honestly? If a given player CHOOSES to look like a clown, then I don't mind it. I'd much rather have one guy who actively chooses a clown suit than everybody wearing a ton of mismatched gear that while more setting appropriate looks more retarded than the literal clown suit.



But really, you stopped caring about anything resembling reality before this topic started. You want everything to be totally random and people to love whatever random bullshit you roll up on your charts, and any argument made you just actively ignore or twist ignoring anything reasonable to suit your limited view of things.

You spew the same bullshit over and over to drown out anything anyone else has to say until they get tired of arguing with you. Well congratulations, you win the argument. Here have a cookie, go draw up some random loot tables, enjoy your game. The rest of us will be enjoying games where the GM isn't being a dick to screw his players and saying it's for the good of the game.

[Username17]

That's a pretty big leap in logic that has basically no basis in reality. It may be that occasionally one player will decide they want a super hero outfit, or want to wear a literal clown suit, but 99% of the time the players will have an aesthetic that fits into the game they sat down to play, that nobody really minds.

I have to say this: team katana fetish needs to go to the store and buy some honest arguments. This "Your claims have no basis in reality" nonsense is only slightly less disingenuous than the "Noone is saying that thing you're arguing with someone else saying because it's slightly different than what I'm personally saying" crap. When Fuchs said that people being physically unable to go on deliberate side quests for all the equipment used and upgraded by a six person party was something that had no basis in reality, we knew he was smoking crack.

And when you claim that people wanting to transmute cloaks that are brown into cloaks that "better fit their idiom" and say that it is somehow not part of reality that players would use that to make color coordinated super hero uniforms, we know you're smoking crack too. Because it's a fucking cloak. The only reason to transmute it into a different cloak is to make a color coordination between your cape and your tights. And that's a super hero uniform. Or as people who aren't in the superhero genre call it: a clown suit.

You are the guys who are throwing "clown suit" around as an epithet against anyone whose position you don't like. The fact that you are the ones who are actually advocating people wearing actual suits for clowns is fairly ironic.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

This is 21 pages of Giant Frog

[Maj]

The only reason to transmute it into a different cloak is to make a color coordination between your cape and your tights.

Frank. Shut up. You clearly have no fashion sense whatsoever.

[Leper]

This is 21 pages of Giant Frog

There has got to be a glossary or something around here, right?

[K]

This is 21 pages of Giant Frog

There has got to be a glossary or something around here, right?

We've had one or two floating around, but with the bulk of specialized language we use on the forum we should probably sticky it.

[Fuchs]

That's a pretty big leap in logic that has basically no basis in reality. It may be that occasionally one player will decide they want a super hero outfit, or want to wear a literal clown suit, but 99% of the time the players will have an aesthetic that fits into the game they sat down to play, that nobody really minds.

I have to say this: team katana fetish needs to go to the store and buy some honest arguments. This "Your claims have no basis in reality" nonsense is only slightly less disingenuous than the "Noone is saying that thing you're arguing with someone else saying because it's slightly different than what I'm personally saying" crap. When Fuchs said that people being physically unable to go on deliberate side quests for all the equipment used and upgraded by a six person party was something that had no basis in reality, we knew he was smoking crack.

And when you claim that people wanting to transmute cloaks that are brown into cloaks that "better fit their idiom" and say that it is somehow not part of reality that players would use that to make color coordinated super hero uniforms, we know you're smoking crack too. Because it's a fucking cloak. The only reason to transmute it into a different cloak is to make a color coordination between your cape and your tights. And that's a super hero uniform. Or as people who aren't in the superhero genre call it: a clown suit.

You are the guys who are throwing "clown suit" around as an epithet against anyone whose position you don't like. The fact that you are the ones who are actually advocating people wearing actual suits for clowns is fairly ironic.

-Username17

I can see Frank standing before the mirror, loudly complaining that the people trying to tell him to swap his striped yellow coat so it doesn't clash too badly with his broad striped pants are the ones advocating clown suits.

Seriously, you don't trust players at all, right? You actually believe that if players get to decide what their characters wear they'll pick spandex superhero outfits, and not something appropriate for the campaign?

That explains a lot.

(and as I pointed out: You don't have to get on side quests for every piece of gear, the GM is supposed to have nice gear drop from the main quest. If you need a side quest for every piece of gear you want, then that's just further proof your system is shit.)

[Winnah]

Depends on the martial art. If it's a sport, than yeah, pretty much, although you really would be hard-pressed to find a sport less applicable to actual combat than fencing. But there are also martial arts designed by militaries explicitly to kill people. And I think I'd rather face anyone with a short stick rather than an actual sabre, because short sticks are significantly less lethal.

So replace the kali stick with a morningstar. I'd still rather face off against a fencer using anything but a sword.

Also, from what I know of martial arts training like the US MCMAP program, it's use is not developed for front line melee. It's for bodyguard/protection details in closed situations where high powered automatics are inappropriate. Even the Thai army does not seriously expect their soldiers to use kickboxing on the front line.

You'll notice that it is still more than one, however. Soldiers can't spend their entire lives training before heading to the front. If nothing else, training costs more money than sitting on an army base digging trenches. No army in the world will teach a soldier nothing but the assault rifle (unless they just don't have the time or money to teach them more). And everything about logistics is totally moot in our analogy, because an adventuring party's logistics train is a bag of holding. PCs all specialize in front line combat, and every single one of them is going to be John Rambo, except since we're arguing a realistic system they will presumably do things that are actually effective for killing lots of guys instead of things which would look really cool if they actually succeeded in killing lots of guys.

First of all, you brought up the real world soldier comparison, so don't shift the discussion off in to Walter Mitty fantasy land in order to support your point.

Now I can use a Steyr competantly. If I were forced to use another automatic rifle, I probably could, but I expect my performance would drop unless I spent time training with that weapon. There is a big difference between being a compentant marksman and a competant swordsman though. I know for a fact that if I try and fire a bow at a moving target, the only thing I'll hit is dirt.

Now if you want your fantasy RPG 'archer' to be just as skilled with a bow as with other forms of combat, namely every other weapon he picks up, that is a fair comment. Don't pretend it is even slightly 'realistic' though.

[K]

The problem with Team Katana is not that they are simulationists, but that they are fetishists.

If they they were simulationists, they'd be demanding that katana be almost useless on Large and Huge monsters and that longspears be the best weapon or that katanas were completely useless on stone golems and that hammers and picks be the only effective weapons.

Fetishists, on the other hand, want proportional rewards for increasingly large commitments to one weapon because it gives meaning to the fetish.

The fact that Team Katana uses simulationist arguments is a decoy.

[Chamomile]

So replace the kali stick with a morningstar. I'd still rather face off against a fencer using anything but a sword.

I guess, theoretically, so would I, but fencing relies on making really, really tiny scratches on the enemy, so an Olympic level fencer is seriously going to be less of a threat than an untrained guy with three feet of pointy metal, because that guy is going to swing it like a baseball bat, which will actually be potentially fatal if it connects and thus more dangerous than the Olympic level fencer who squanders the first five seconds of the fight inflicting a tiny cut somewhere on his opponent's arm and is probably dead or dying by that point.

Also, from what I know of martial arts training like the US MCMAP program, it's use is not developed for front line melee. It's for bodyguard/protection details in closed situations where high powered automatics are inappropriate.

...And?

First of all, you brought up the real world soldier comparison, so don't shift the discussion off in to Walter Mitty fantasy land in order to support your point.

And the real world soldier equivalent to PCs is a special forces unit that is really, really good at killing people and isn't trained to handle the logistics end of things so much. Regular soldiers have levels in warrior, not fighter.

There is a big difference between being a compentant marksman and a competant swordsman though. I know for a fact that if I try and fire a bow at a moving target, the only thing I'll hit is dirt.

How does this have anything to do with my point? I didn't say that being good with a longsword makes a fighter automatically good with a longbow, I said that focusing on a longsword to the point where the fighter doesn't know how to use a longbow is realistically a losing strategy. The real world demonstration of this is that no competent real world military trains their soldiers exclusively in just one weapon. The soldiers who get trained in logistics roles don't map easily to a PC role because logistics for a group of six people is just not complicated enough to have a dedicated profession for it, but even so they are still trained in both their logistics role and in several different weapons, which are used in several different situations. The idea of a fighter who is useless without his one specialized weapon is theoretically possible, but it doesn't show up in reality and it doesn't show up in-genre.

[Fuchs]

The problem with Team Katana is not that they are simulationists, but that they are fetishists.

If they they were simulationists, they'd be demanding that katana be almost useless on Large and Huge monsters and that longspears be the best weapon or that katanas were completely useless on stone golems and that hammers and picks be the only effective weapons.

Fetishists, on the other hand, want proportional rewards for increasingly large commitments to one weapon because it gives meaning to the fetish.

The fact that Team Katana uses simulationist arguments is a decoy.

It's not about having a katana, it's about having the weapon of your choice for your character. That can be a pair of daggers, a rapier and main-gauche, a two-handed sword, a sabre, a quarter staff, whatever fits that character in the player's opinion.

It's fashion, not fetish.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Fine, I'll refine my statement. Anything important enough that you can overcome challenges and achieve goals using it should be something you can specialize in.

And what happens when such a thing has a shelf life such that while at one stage of the game it's important in of itself in letting you overcome challenges but becomes increasingly irrelevant over time?

Should they be allowed to specialize in it past that point? Should the game set aside a conceptual pasture for such things as a reminder of when the obsolete thing used to be helpful?

On the one extreme, we have the clown suit position, and on the other, we have total and instant fungibility.

First of all, I don't give a shit about clown suits. Clown Suit Pros: Keyblade Armor, Akatsuki members, the Green Knight. Clown Suit Cons: Lord Frieza's men, Konoha ninja. Eclectic Outfit Pros: Half of the Final Fantasy villains like Rubicante, Kefka, Edea, and Cloud of Darkness. Eclectic Outfit Cons: The other half of the Final Fantasy villains like Kuja, Ultimecia, Emperor Palmecia, and Seymour. To each his own I say and I don't see any advantage in either.

However, I do care about people wanking about concepts past their expiration dates and/or ruining their own fun, so I'm going to talk about them.

My personal preference is that:
* Physical form can be modified fairly easily.

That I am totally against, for two reasons.

The first one is that it occupies a conceptual playspace that crowds out things that can be more useful for generating stories. When you allow someone to care about their axe (not the magical properties stapled onto it, but the fact that it comes in axe form) you get bullshit like 'My barbarian king John is a master of the greataxe and--' when if you don't let someone be defined by their axe you'll get something much more interesting like 'My barbarian king John summons nature spirits and--' or 'My barbarian king John regularly outfoxes Athena in wargames and--'. If the barbarian king John was not guaranteed 'axemaster' as a concept then he'd be forced to define his character in other terms.

The second one is that it sucks the coolness out of magic items. If Chewbacca miraculously defeats Darth Vader in an epic struggle to the death, it's lame as fuck for him to convert Vader's life support equipment into a bandolier and his lightsaber into a crossbow. If Link finds the Master Sword fusing it with his hookshot to create an Ivy Valentine-ish chainsword is lamer than lame. There was some bullshit

a few pages back about how this should only be allowed for 'minor' magical items instead of 'artifacts' but this misses the point like whoa. 'Minor' magical items become artifacts because of their friggin' history and the stories they're in (and hopefully generate), not by what properties they have in the DMG. The Shield of Prator ain't got shit power-wise on what you could create using the DMG guidelines, but it's an artifact because it has a history to it, pathetic as it is.

* Magic properties, not so much, although you can of course trade it for favors or other items. And maybe there are some powerful items that can literally eat others.

Yeah, no. Again you're imposing an artificial distinction between 'form' and 'property'. Sure, magical item properties grow in special effects a lot faster than mundane properties like whether the haft is metal or wood, but it's still a damn property. Is there any fluff reason why you shouldn't make your flaming sword a shocking sword but you CAN make a flaming diamond sickle into flaming wooden escrima sticks?