Magic Swords

[Username17]

OK, we're at a major point in the Book of Gears playtesting and need input from other people. The key is the degree to which magic swords scale. It is an article of faith that the basic enhancement bonus on the minor magic item "The Magic Sword" should have a scaling enhancment bonus - that's a number that is literally hard coded into the game and having someone throw down a 5th level character who doesn't have a +2 enhancement bonus on his blade is essentially saying that they are not really a 5th level character.

But the question remains about the scaling of flaming swords and lightning bows. That is, the item between that of the serious magic items (such as the Staves and Demon Swords) and the entirely interchangeable basic magic swords (that do nothing except allow players to play at an appropriate level). Here's the competing models:

1. Scaling Fire Damage in this model you pick up a flaming sword and it simply does 1 point of fire damage per character level. This means that a flaming sword is always a reasonable thing for you to run around with - but on the other hand it means that a flaming sword is always a reasonable thing to run around with - potentially encouraging the Sword Caddy, which is lame.
   
   
2. Fixed Fire Damage In this model, a flaming sword does one point of fire damage per caster level of the Sword, meaning that one flaming sword would do 3 points and another would do 7 points. In this way when you get a shiny new sword it is markedly better than an older sword and encourages you to drop the old one like a wife with cancer. Unfortunately, it also creates the possibility of being forced to constantly upgrade swords by tiny amounts you might not notice, which is lame.

Regardless of what we do, there are limitations and unfortunate side effects. The fact that people are continuously and unpredictably gaining new treasure from their adventures plays merry hell with any sort of game balance.

But the question remains: when people bust out the "moderate magic item" weapon, do people want the additional bonus to scale based on their level or the item's level?

We can now repeat this question for the Major Magic Item variant - when you get the Storm Bow that can shoot lightning bolts and such - do people want that tied to their character level or the item's level? The problems inherent are much the same. Asking people to carry a golf bag with a Storm Bow and a Black Bow in it is unfortunate, and having people feel compelled to upgrade from a Storm Bow to a better Storm Bow is likewise a bitter pill. And yet, while we can write treasure guidelines that suggest that neither event occur (and we have), we can't actually prevent either with surety.

-Username17

[Cielingcat]

Scaling to character level is better, since having to switch out your magic sword every few levels is lamer than having a bunch of magical stuff.

[User3]

I would rather carry two swords than constantly trade out one sword. A sword that ties to character level can be a family heirloom, or a blade of actual historical significance, but none of that flavor is really available if you have to trade swords out. Players should not be penalized for sticking to a single weapon (because some players always will, for flavor reasons), and the only way to make that not happen is scaling power to character level.

It'd also be nice if those swords could be level-appropriate at level 1, too. Having a sword where the fixed bonus scales to your level, and the cool ability does as well, would go a long way towards letting people have an actual signature weapon, which is something people really really really love for some reason.

[AlphaNerd]

How does the compromise work? Use fixed damage, but allow players to spend experience to increase the caster level (up to your HD) of the item. That way, you can still drop neat stuff (or not) in the players' laps, and yet they can still fondly wield the same flaming sword they got in that dragon's loot.

This helps prevent complete caddying (there is a cost to it), but means that things can scale pretty well, without excessive DM intervention.

If I had to choose between the two, I'd got for scaling fire damage, as I'm not the golf-bag type, so it doesn't ruin it much for me.

[User3]

The argument for not scaling the fire damage is that there would be an incentive to not strip the weapons and armor off the elite Serpent Guards when you fight the Snake King. If their swords only do 3 extra points of acid damage, you actually just pass them by at 10th level rather than having each player put one in his sword caddie. Since your swords are already better, you won't pick up another one, which you would do if they all had a different kind of scaling damage.

I mean, I like the idea of awesome things having magic items, but we're trying to get away from the need for people to have a Portable Hole for all the swag.

More important is this question: under what circumstances would your leave a body with magic items rather than strip it for those items? And remember that we already have decided to rework the wealth system so that selling magic items on the market is not an issue and collecting many small bonuses is less of an issue.

[Digestor]

The scaling damage seems cool but it seems somewhat awkward for a character to be able to have an end-game weapon very early on and simply watch it get better.

While that definitely ties in with weapons like Arthur's Excalibur or Lord Takashi's Katana of the seven stars as passed to him by his most honorable ancestor, it doesn't really leave a whole lot of reason for me to even BOTHER adventuring for cooler gear, as the chances of me finding something better than "ol faithful" are now even less than they were before.

I think one of the reasons why NWN2 sucked greatly was 'cause for half of the damn game you ran around using the Bone Phoenix simply because the other weapons blew...

I'd Say keep both depending on the situation, so basically if Lord Takashi receives the Katana of the seven stars then yeah, scale that sucker and give it some cool abilities when he finally avenges his father, but maybe Raiko the keen-eyed mercenary should find a sword that's better (after maiming a dragon with his fellows batman and superman) than the one he jacked from a level 9 wizard all those years ago.

[Judging__Eagle]

Yeah, but there are also players who will grab everything regardless of whether it's really worth grabbing or not.

Even, plain old swords.

Seriously, I've had PCs grab troglodytes javelins until they had over a hundred of them at levels 6 and 7.

Besides, what if the PCs have their own NPC followers and mooks? They would be very willing to send all the low-end stuff back home for use to defend their pad.

Really, the only time I'd leave something is when it's completely worthless or the really low-end armours (hide, studded leather and worse).

As for magic items.... I can't honestly say when I'd stop looting bodies that had magic on them.

Probably longer than I should. I've done so in the past.

When I was first playing Diablo 2, I was derided by my friends for picking up items that I couldn't sell for much, early in the game. Of course I learned about how to make a maxed magic-find barbarian and wasted less time with anything save for magical armours if I needed to fix something, but I seriously was picking up magic sabres that were worth less than 3k gp at lvl 40.


So, it depends. Some people will not care, and some people will grab everything.

There really isn't a middle ground that I can note.

Which could be a problem.


What if you place a cap on the number of Magical X's you can have?

So, you can have all sorts of capped cruddy weapons, and 1 or 2 scaling weapons?

[Fwib]

1175803550[/unixtime]]More important is this question: under what circumstances would your leave a body with magic items rather than strip it for those items? And remember that we already have decided to rework the wealth system so that selling magic items on the market is not an issue and collecting many small bonuses is less of an issue.

You'd only leave magic items behind if both you and any possible enemies following behind had no use for them. So nearly never, even if you're well into the wish economy, you can give them out to followers, donate them to good causes, or even just destroy them, ...it will be quicker and more convenient to just tip out your portahole of magic dross for your army than spend the time wishing for arms...

[Username17]

Also we're doing away with XP costs altogether. Having run the numbers from a lot of different angles - they just don't do what they are supposed to do. There will be other limitations on what people can make and what people can do. So the question of whether an item will grow as you do is irrespective of whether you put anything into it.

D&D is a swag-centric game. You will change primary swords at least four times on your way up the ladder to the ~12th level region where you start playing a Strategy Game rather than "adventuring" in the traditional sense. You start the game with a sword. Eventually you'll get a minor magic item sword that presents a scaling enhancement bonus. Some time after that, you'll get a Moderate Magic Item: the Frost Brand - it inflicts some cold damage. Sme time after that you'll get a Major Magic Item: the Sword of Arctic Power - it can change the weather and shit.

The question is not in fact whether you'll be forced to drop your father's sword at some point - this is D&D and you will do that. The question is merely whether there should be gradations of better and worse Frost Brands for characters to compare and contrast. It presents an extra thing people have to keep track of and an extra thing people can gloat over.

At its core it really is a discussion as to whether there should be 7 point Frost Brands and 8 point Frost Brands or just "Frost Brands".

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

Frost Brands.

I want the hero warrior to kick ass based on his BaB, not just b/c he's got an 7 point sword and his enemy has a 10 point sword.

[Modesitt]

I choose option 1.5: Fixed Fire Damage, but your weapons level up with you. When you gain a level, they gain a level.

Example: Fred buys a flaming sword at level 4. It has a caster level of three, meaning it adds fire three damage to every hit. Joe carries his trusty sword around with him until level 14 level before selling it. It now has a caster level of thirteen.

Edit: I want it to be possible for a low-level person to end up with a really awesome weapon. There are a few other ways you could appease me. One would be that weapons use your character level or your weapons' caster level, whichever is higher.

[User3]

1175804587[/unixtime]]The question is not in fact whether you'll be forced to drop your father's sword at some point - this is D&D and you will do that.

Right, but I think it is still worth minimizing that. I can handle upgrading swords once every ~three levels, but changing multiple times in a single adventure seems way excessive. It makes getting a better sword much less cool, too.

[Digestor]

Frostbrand 7 and frostbrand 8, though if you want to limit the difference of the two - by all means, but regardless of scaling some weapons will be inherently better than others.

Lord Kaos of Underhell should definitely have a cooler weapon than you, even if the difference is only +1 and some extra jagged edges that shriek in horror when he swings his Crucifier of Hope.

[Catharz]

Some characters are already encouraged to carry around a 'caddy.' Rogues should be carrying around a bag of staves. To take ad vantage of his class features, a fighter should be carrying around a golf bag of exotic weapons. Here is a little list of weapons I wrote up for a fighter, to take advantage of Weapons training, Problem solver, and Pack mule:

Code: Select all

[br]Exotic melee	 |Damage|Crit|Rch|H|lb| GP[br] Flindbar [???]  |[br] Kusarigama -dt  |1d6  S|19x2|10*|L| 3| 10[br] Ramhammer [Pln] |1d10 B|    | 10|2|15|100[br] Ritiik [ICO]	 |1d8  P| x3 |   |2| 6|  5[br] Spiked chain	 |2d4  P|19x2|10*|2|10| 25[br] Tigerskull [ICO]|1d8 BP| x4 |   |1| 8| 15[br] Warpike [RoS]	 |2d6 SP| x3 | 10|2|15| 45[br][br]Exotic ranged	|Damage|Crit|Rng| lb| GP[br] Greatbow [CW]	|1d10 P| x3 |120| 6 |150[br] Harpoon [ICO]	|1d10 P|    | 30| 10| 15[br] Warsling [RoTW]|1d8  B| x4 | 50| 1 |  5[br]  Skiprock	|1d6  B|    | 15|1/4|  3

Ramhammer: The ramhammer can be used to make bull rush attacks. It grants a +2 bonus, and prevents the normal AoO.
Ritiik: Gets lodged in people and trips them.
Tigerskull club: Disarms and trips at +2.
Warpike: Double damage when set against a charge, and can be used to make trip attacks.

Harpoon: The harpoon gets lodged in people and slows them.
Warsling: The warsling can be used to fling skiprocks. It also deals x4 damage on a critical hit, awesome with Sniper.
Skiprock: The skiprock will ricochet after hitting a target, allowing another attack.

So you've got 3 weapons usable with a shield or TWF. One has reach & can trip with a bonus, one has an auto-disarm, and one just deals good damage and can be used to trip. All damage types ar represented.

You've also got four two-handed weapons. One has a cool bull rush ability. Another has a cool trip ability. The rest have reach, and can be used to trip. All damage types are represented (and the warpike is just badass).

Then you have your ranged weapons. One is for battlefield control by slowing people and dragging them around, one is for dishing out a lot of damage to a lot of targets, and one is for long-range sniping.


In this case, the 'golf bag' is appropriate. It is appropriate for a fighter to prepare for battle by dropping his portable hole filled with weapon racks.
In the case of the barbarian, the idea is simplicity. In theory at least, the player will stick to a few weapons because he doesn't want to deal with all that stuff.

As weapons have value, we can hope that the barbarian will be pawning his off.


I'm hoping that there will be a real distinction between pre- and post- wish weapons, meaning that a character's weapons will either be pawnable or have significant value which can make them usable as bargaining pieces. Although I have no idea how 'free' crafting fits with a wish economy.

1175799821[/unixtime]]...drop the old one like a wife with cancer.

[User3]

I propose both:

A frostbrand does cold damage equal to your level or its level, whichever is lower.

Think of it this way-- you can set the item's level equal to 20, at which point it's exactly like option one. In fact, for heirlooms and artifacts, that's what you do. Your father's sword has a maximum level of 20, you never have to stop using it.

However, the Snake Guard Swords are only level 7, so if you're level 12, you don't need ot bother collecting them all.

Best of both worlds.

[technomancer]

I agree with OrionAnderson -- psudo-scaling seems to be the best option. You scale, but only to a degree.

I was thinking a minimum and maximum scale. Some weapons are simply more badass than others, So there's a really neat Frostbrand who's minimum is 7, and whos maximum is 15. If you pick it up before level 7, it's really cool, but if you keep it past level 15, you're really lame. Anytime in between, it's level-appropriate.

[AlphaNerd]

It doesn't have to be experience, you could throw some more magic diamonds (or whatever) on that frost brand to increase its bonus up to level-appropriate.

Again, this way you can have special treasure drops and decrease the caddy effect. Of course, it means more bookkeeping, which is obnoxious, though not odious.

People who want are going to go golfing are going to anyway, you just make it a better option if they are all inherently scaling.


But if you just want a vote one way or the other, I'd still go for scaling. Golfers be damned.

[MrWaeseL]

Your father's sword has a maximum level of 20, you never have to stop using it.

Why? Remember, D&D isn't some shitty JRPG. Things usually have a decent plot around here.

[Digestor]

I think the whole "back story to awesome item of awesomeness" is more or less implied by the fact that it's... awesome?

...and the actual back story would be up to each individual game?

[Essence]

I can't agree more with OrionAnderson. I've always loved Everway for the 'threadweaving' idea - where you could have a legendary artifact in your possession from level one, but not have access to it's abilities until you were of an appropriate level to do it.

With Orion's rule, a Samurai's Ancestral Blade could totally start with a caster level of 30, and have 3 or 4 special abilities with prerequisites like "this ability doesn't work in the hand of a character below character level X", giving not only scaling within an ability, but scaling across multiple abilities as well.

The 'collector' syndrome is a player-specific thing. I had a player that always took everything off of everyone. He left every corpse he created ass naked when he leaves, just on the policy that "if it's feigning, or gets resurrected, or whatever, he won't use this against me again." You can't stop that kind of thing, and it's fruitless to try.

[Judging__Eagle]

1175821005[/unixtime]]

Your father's sword has a maximum level of 20, you never have to stop using it.

Why? Remember, D&D isn't some shitty JRPG. Things usually have a decent plot around here.

Here, here!

I'm not allowed to watch other people playing Console RPGs b/c I'll spoil the plot.

Of games I've never seen before, played or even heard about.

I read too much and not enough.

Lord Kaos of Underhell should definitely have a cooler weapon than you, even if the difference is only +1 and some extra jagged edges that shriek in horror when he swings his Crucifier of Hope.

Lord.... "Kaos" has a better sword, b/c he's a better fighter.

The flavour still works; and most BBeGs are usually one level or more higher than the PCs anyway.


What Alphanerd said about banishing Golfbags; I'm all for it, but I'm also all for smart players who play fighters to seriously pack a pile of weapons.

Serously, who do you think is more capable as an armsman?

1. The man in riding a thoroughbred charger wearing a gleaming set of full plate. He wears a kite sheild emblazoned with the emblem of the god of chvalrous combat on his off hand and holds a lance that crackles with electricity braced on a strap on his main hand. A mace that drops motes of light into the air is held at his belt.

or

2. The man is riding a calm-looking looking horse, his armour is rusted, taking away all the shine. He's literally covered in weapons. A greatsword is clipped to his back, a half-dozen darts arrayed in clips are on each of his pauldrons. You can only see the handles of what is probably a pair of short swords strapped to the small of his back, a longbow meant for horseback use rests in a sheath on the front of the horses saddles with a quiver full of arrows on it's opposite side. You're positive that he's got a pair of mace handles sticking out of the top of his right rear saddlebag and a trio of javelins are in a special scabbard on the opposite side. You don't know how he's got so many daggers clipped to his armour, but he's done so and they don't seem to limit his movement at all.





Then again, I pack a pile of normal weapons simply to have a lot of choice.

A throwing ax is a great 'scouting' weapon, since you can chuck it right of the hop after moving, then charge the rest of the way while drawing your main weapon.

That ax came in handy when I had to kill me some zombies right afterwards.

Yes, i was a spiked chain fighter and I didn't think to pack a longsword or great sword.

The monk who was with us was even worse off though. I mean, he was level 4 and still didn't have a hand axe at least.

[Digestor]

^ Oh definitely, but being that not only is he a better fighter and so capable of using his weapon better than you (so if you both had basic steel swords his would still be better in his hands) his is also the fucking blade of Lord Kaos of Underhell, the Crucifier and so his should also have an INHERENT bonus to it, so even if you did reach his level his weapon would still be better than yours.

That's just me though, maybe I'm the minority?

[User3]

Either way is going to be a problem. So, to turn the question around, which problem is worse?

For me, the decisive factor is that even if damage doesn't scale, there is still likely to be some advantage to carrying around a golf bag full of weapons. It doesn't matter if your Fire Sword only does +10 damage and you have an Acid Sword that does +15 -- sooner or later you will run into something that either takes 6 points less damage from acid or takes 6 more points of damage from fire. And then you'll pull out the Fire Sword and revel in your one point of extra damage.

So -- if you are the kind of player who has enough patience to do this kind of bookkeeping and tracking of what does how much damage against what -- you are actually going to hoard the "best" magic item you have of each class regardless of how much of a comparative advantage you get from it. You get a comparative advantage at all, and if you're exerting this much effort in the first place, that's plenty.

On the other hand, constantly upgrading your weapons is a pain in the ass. It requires everybody to do extra bookkeeping and regular adjustments to their character sheet whether they want to do that or not. It results in the non-bonus powers of your "primary" weapon shifting around a lot as you switch weapons. On balance, I'm going with scaling damage.

Whichever one you ultimately pick, though, you might want to put in a sidebar with the other alternative as an optional rule, along with an explanation of why you might want to use that. For some campaign styles, swapping out your weapons regularly is totally appropriate.

--d.

[Username17]

One thing on the table is for Artifacts to come in at a minimum power. So while a "Magic Sword" is level appropriate gear for a 1st level character (providing as it does a +1 enhancement bonus), "The Sword of Kas" actually is a +6 weapon even in the hands of a tinker or squire. So there exists a mechanic for "The Crucifier" to be wicked awesome above and beyond what people of your level should normally have.

Of course, that sort of thing is way less frequent for characters to get. After all, having made the Fighter independently good without having a powerful magic artifact it is no longer required that he gets one. Indeed, giving powerful artifacts to our fighter is potentially unbalancing (unless you're in crazy town with druids abusing shapechange).

So ironically making a better fighter means that you get a lot less Excaliburs, Stormbringers, and Crucifiers. Sorry, but those really are relatively infrequent now.

The question is actually and simply whether it is worse to compare each and every frost sword you come across to your own to see which is "bigger" or to know in the deepest parts of your heart that any of the frost brands will do.

---

There still is a Sword of Arctic Power (a major magic item) and even Winterbringer (a potent artifact) for your character to potentially upgrade to - but those seriously may not get on the table before you stop playing the character.

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, give it different non-scaling abilities that you can only get for BBeG weapons?

I know what you mean, the BBeG could/should have a boss sword. However, what if the PCs want to use it afterwards?

No, wait, the weapon itself is more powerful?

Easy, it's got an extra level scaling feature. It's a cold, undead damage sword; and you've only got a fire sword; his sword really hurts when it hits you.