Bonuses for Mithral weapons? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Bonuses for Mithral weapons? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Nom
02-01-06, 04:27 PM An interesting thought just occurred to me.

As it stands, weapons gain only minimal advantage of being made from mithral. However, in "real life" the ability to make a slashing weapon of only half normal weight but the same length and "strength" would be a big advantage. Lighter = faster = more damage, plus more manoeuvrable.

Is this practical to model in D&D in a balanced way? Mithral weapons already get +1 mundane enhancement bonus to hit for being masterwork, so that's not really an option. What about a mundane +1 enhancement to damage? Or increasing the die size?

Ideas welcome.
tarkin
02-01-06, 04:43 PM They also are relatively cheap, at least for weapons that weigh a little bit.

Because of the minimal cost, you really can't give them any other advantages without making them unbalanced.
jaelis
02-01-06, 04:56 PM You could bump the cost and make it +2 to hit... sort of "super masterwork." A thousand gp might be OK, if it doesn't stack with magic enhancement bonuses. Actually, 1000 gp for a light weapon, 2000 for a 1H, and 4000 for a 2H might be a way to go.

I wouldn't go for it myself 'cause it seems unnecessary. But you're right that in real life, reducing the weapon weight is a big deal. OK, I don't know about actual weapons. But I do know that the lower weight is why aluminum baseball bats are so much better than wooden ones.
ShinAkuma2
02-01-06, 05:06 PM OK, I don't know about actual weapons. But I do know that the lower weight is why aluminum baseball bats are so much better than wooden ones.

Aluminum bats are better for making contact, but not for hitting hard.

Since aluminum bats are lighter, they are easier to swing, and can even be adjusted in mid-swing. However, a pine or ash bat hits harder when swung correctly, and no professional player would ever be caught using aluminum because of that cut in power.

If you want, make Mithral +2 to hit, -1 to damage. Personally, as a player of halflings and goblins, the cut in weight is valuable enough.
Molot
02-01-06, 05:22 PM Lighter = fasterThat is true only to limited extent. Human has his own limit on how fast can he move the sword-vielding hand. With a longsword, steel is light enought to get maximum energy. Anything lighter would move only bit faster (or no faster at all) and have much less energy due to
E= (m * V^2) / 2

Half weight = half energy = half damage
For humanoids and lighter than steel materials it was measured.

Have fun :]
jaelis
02-01-06, 05:52 PM Aluminum bats are better for making contact, but not for hitting hard.

Since aluminum bats are lighter, they are easier to swing, and can even be adjusted in mid-swing. However, a pine or ash bat hits harder when swung correctly, and no professional player would ever be caught using aluminum because of that cut in power.

If you want, make Mithral +2 to hit, -1 to damage. Personally, as a player of halflings and goblins, the cut in weight is valuable enough.

No professional player would be caught using an aluminum bat because they are forbidden by regulations, because if they used aluminum bats, everyone would hit home runs all the time. Anyone can hit a ball further with an aluminum bat than a wooden one, and all the compelling scientific explanations I've ever read attribute that to the greater velocity you can attain. Because it's lighter.

Honestly, that may not translate to anything meaningful about weapons. But if you're trying to whale on a baseball, aluminum is better.

You can read about it on plenty of web sites, but here's one (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021120065531.htm) that is probably fairly convincing.
kraegor
02-01-06, 06:27 PM I agree with the previous statements.

First of all though, you have to realistically break down weapons into true categories.

Slicing
Chopping
Piercing

Slicing (slashing) are sabres and scimitars, they would definately increase the +hit because of weight, but you wouldn't notice difference because your strength of swinging a 5 pound object and a 2 lb object would be about the same for force you dealt (if you consider a slicing straight across in a horizontal line)

Chopping like with axes, falchions and halbards, would also increase your hit because they are light, but would DECREASE damage because they are swung in an arc-like motion and you don't get the weight of the weapon behind the "chop". So you would be looking at a decrease in damage.

Piercing weapons are thrust, so technically it would improve your hit because they are lighter, but if they are TOO light, then you wont have the stability of balance (imagine a 3 foot long pencil) and damage is based totally on thrust, and not weight.

So as you can see lighter weapons would really only focus on Slicing/Slashing weapons.
Nom
02-01-06, 07:48 PM They also are relatively cheap, at least for weapons that weigh a little bit.

Because of the minimal cost, you really can't give them any other advantages without making them unbalanced.Agreed. I'm assuming that the cost of mithral would possibly need to be updated in line with the abilities.
But you're right that in real life, reducing the weapon weight is a big deal. OK, I don't know about actual weapons. But I do know that the lower weight is why aluminum baseball bats are so much better than wooden ones.It applies to weapons as well. There's a reason why most true medieval swords typically weigh less than 4 lb. (less than 2kg). See http://www.thearma.org/ for a variety of essays on the history and physics of medieval weaponry.

For a slashing weapon, most of the damage comes from the impact of the end of the blade, quite near the tip. It's not about the mass of the weapon, but about speed, strength and flexibility. At the ideal impact point only rotational forces are applied to the hilt, which means the sword itself continues in it's existing trajectory while the weapon rotates around the hilt. What ends up happening is that the wielder's strength is applied at one end of a lever to stop the striking tip giving way at the other end.

Within reason, the mass of the blade isn't that important. It's simply a way of transferring as much energy as possible from you to a small target point on your opponent.

Head impact weapons are different and yet similar. In this case, you're trying to accelerate a mass and strike the target with that mass; as far as I can tell, there's less leverage effect. Of course, the momentum of the handle has to go somewhere, and I'm not sure how such weapons utilise that. Perhaps someone wiser in such lore could enlighten us.

However, in a toss up between mass and speed it's still better to go for speed, as long as your impact mass is strong enough to stand the collision. A heavy, slow object will impart broad-based momentum to the target, moving it. A small, light, fast object will impart its kinetic energy to a much smaller area of the target, making it more likely that the impact point will yield rather than spread the energy over the entire mass of the target. A bullet is the classic example of this; only a few grams, yet accelerated to great speed.
Nom
02-01-06, 07:59 PM Piercing weapons are thrust, so technically it would improve your hit because they are lighter, but if they are TOO light, then you wont have the stability of balance (imagine a 3 foot long pencil) and damage is based totally on thrust, and not weight.Just thought of something with respect to this:

A sport foil weighs 500 g (about 1.1 lb). A sport epee weighs 750 g (about 1.65 lb). If they don't bend like they ought, these weapons can punch deep into an unarmoured target (this is a real risk if you strike wrongly with an epee, even though it's blunt).

Obviously, a plate-armoured target is more resistant to puncturing, but the real issue is whether you can stop the spike from being knocked aside. Mass is one way to do so, but it's really about grip. The grip needs to be sufficient that you can apply the power down the shaft in the direction you want it to go. As long as the shaft won't yield, it can be as thin and light as you can make it.
StevenO
02-01-06, 08:06 PM No professional player would be caught using an aluminum bat because they are forbidden by regulations, because if they used aluminum bats, everyone would hit home runs all the time. Anyone can hit a ball further with an aluminum bat than a wooden one, and all the compelling scientific explanations I've ever read attribute that to the greater velocity you can attain. Because it's lighter.
....
You can read about it on plenty of web sites, but here's one (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021120065531.htm) that is probably fairly convincing.

The actual reason a good aluminum (or more accurately a metal) bat hits a ball further is because it has better elastic contact. The bat's shell flexes more than wood which compresses the gas in the bat; that compressed gas then pushes the shell and ball back with less energy loss than a wooden bat would have.

If you want to give a Mithral weapons a bonus the most recommend one is to allow it to count as a Silver weapons when overcoming damage resistance. Giving it any other bonus is unfair because while a lighter longsword may not be affected much a heavy mace made of Mithral would lose a lot of momentum when made lighter.

Also remember mithral is actually has a higher harness than steel and I believe more hp. That makes a mithral weapon harder to sunder.
pres_man
02-01-06, 10:45 PM You might allow a mithral weapon to be finessable if they are one-handed (light already are) even if they normally can not be (e.g. allow mithral longsword to be finessed), but maybe they can't get the benefit x2 for power attack when using two hands.
Lady Maedhros
02-01-06, 11:01 PM If you want to give a Mithral weapons a bonus the most recommend one is to allow it to count as a Silver weapons when overcoming damage resistance.

See, now, that's exactly backwards of the way we play it. Since the whole point of alchemical silver is that the weapon is made of it, giving that bonus to some other metal seems counterintuitive.

However, since mithral is associated with good - check out celestial armor or whatever in the DMG - we have mithral overcome DR x/Good. Darkwood overcomes DR x/Evil.

Cuts down on golfbagging, at any rate, and gives mithral a little punch. But then, we've been fighting a lot of devils recently. Had to cut us a break somehow.
jaelis
02-01-06, 11:07 PM The actual reason a good aluminum (or more accurately a metal) bat hits a ball further is because it has better elastic contact. The bat's shell flexes more than wood which compresses the gas in the bat; that compressed gas then pushes the shell and ball back with less energy loss than a wooden bat would have.

Must ... not ... hijack ... thread ... Cannot ... resist!

Metal is indeed more elastic than wood. But neither is nearly as elastic as a baseball. If you take a high speed picture of a bat hitting a ball, you see that neither a wood nor a metal bat deforms very much. The ball, however, is squished down to about half it's normal diameter. I'm pretty sure that minor differences in the bat deformation have little to do with the problem.

But more interestingly, are you suggesting that the air inside the aluminum bat provides a more significant elastic force than the metal itself? Unfortuanately, air is rather soft. For instance, if you tried to use a blowup plastic bat, I'm confident you would find that it didn't work very well.

That is a nice suggestion pres_man. Rather than adjusting power attack, I'd make it like a rapier, you don't get 1.5 x str bonus. But what about light and 2H weapons? And the rapier itself, for that matter?
pres_man
02-02-06, 12:29 AM That is a nice suggestion pres_man. Rather than adjusting power attack, I'd make it like a rapier, you don't get 1.5 x str bonus.
Yeah, that's what I meant. I thought I read somewhere that you don't get x2 for power attack when using a rapier two-handed. I don't see it in the rapier entry, so never mind about the power attack issue.
But what about light and 2H weapons? And the rapier itself, for that matter?
They look pretty in mithral don't they. ;)

Seriously though, I don't think making a light weapon out of mithral should have much effect, they already are pretty light this small change I don't think would make them any easier/better to use.

As for 2H weapons I thought maybe let them be finessable also, but I don't know how I feel about somebody finessing a greatsword. I'm not sure how balancing finessability is, so it is hard for me to judge without having something to compare it to (like the rapier for one-hand weapons).
Lotus Crane
02-02-06, 12:43 AM See, now, that's exactly backwards of the way we play it. Since the whole point of alchemical silver is that the weapon is made of it, giving that bonus to some other metal seems counterintuitive.
However, silver weapons do less damage and have less hit points than normal weapons, with a neglible increase in cost. Mithral weapons are considerably more expensive than normal weapons, thus letting them bypass DR/silver without sacrificing hit points and damage the rest of the time seems a fair trade-off for the cost compared to alchemical silver.
Essentially silver weapons (or more likely, short-term vials of alchemical silver) would be what a party uses against the wererat or vampire spawn at 5th level, and mithral weapons would be what a party uses against the werewolf lord or elite vampire at 15th level.
Tyler Do'Urden
02-02-06, 02:34 AM My current favorite bonus for a mithral weapon is to allow it to be Monkey Gripped without penalty. You still need the feat to weild a larger one without changing the handedness, but if you do you don't get the -2.
Rulebook
02-02-06, 07:53 AM Unfortuanately, air is rather soft. For instance, if you tried to use a blowup plastic bat, I'm confident you would find that it didn't work very well

thats a given, but theres a few points you overlooked

air compressed down with no place to go is actually incredibly hard, which lead to a whole science called Pneumatics (think jackhammers... air is what pushes them)

combine that with how much more metal likes to spring back to its own shape as opposed to inflatable plastic.

the lighter bat lets you swing it faster, but thats about where the faster = farther arguement ends really. the faster swing lets you add enough energy to overcome the lightness of the bat so you end up hitting about as hard as you would with the wooden bat (maybe less hard). its the material itself that does the extra work (a prime example of this can be seen in golf clubs... they might be lighter, but its the metal flexing like a spring that adds to the swing)
Dev Vim
02-02-06, 07:58 AM That is true only to limited extent. Human has his own limit on how fast can he move the sword-vielding hand. With a longsword, steel is light enought to get maximum energy. Anything lighter would move only bit faster (or no faster at all) and have much less energy due to
E= (m * V^2) / 2

Half weight = half energy = half damage
For humanoids and lighter than steel materials it was measured.

Have fun :]

thank you for saying it. actually less weight means that you have the same problem katanas have, little stopping power. a mithril mace would really suck because in the end you wouldnt have the force backing it. in truth heavyer metals work better for heavy weapons and lighter materials work better for ligher weapons. it depends on the weapon and how its used.
pres_man
02-02-06, 10:22 AM Jaelis: I've thought about the rapier, since it would not get a bonus for mithral using my idea of allowing them to become finessable. Perhaps a rapier that is sized larger could be finessed (in the rapier text it must be correctly sized to be finessed, of course if it is treated as a light weapon it can still be finessed).

My current favorite bonus for a mithral weapon is to allow it to be Monkey Gripped without penalty. You still need the feat to weild a larger one without changing the handedness, but if you do you don't get the -2.
I've considered that also, but I'm not sure of how powerful it would be. I've thought perhaps allowing this but making the weapon be treated as exotic.

That is a halfling could treat a medium mithral shortsword as an exotic light weapon (with -2 size penalty) or as one-handed martial weapon (with -2 size penalty). A human could treat a large mithral greatsword as an exotic two-handed weapon (with -2 size penalty). Yet for weapons correctly sized for the creature, mithral does not change the handedness.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nom 02-01-06, 04:27 PM	An interesting thought just occurred to me. As it stands, weapons gain only minimal advantage of being made from mithral. However, in "real life" the ability to make a slashing weapon of only half normal weight but the same length and "strength" would be a big advantage. Lighter = faster = more damage, plus more manoeuvrable. Is this practical to model in D&D in a balanced way? Mithral weapons already get +1 mundane enhancement bonus to hit for being masterwork, so that's not really an option. What about a mundane +1 enhancement to damage? Or increasing the die size? Ideas welcome.
tarkin 02-01-06, 04:43 PM	They also are relatively cheap, at least for weapons that weigh a little bit. Because of the minimal cost, you really can't give them any other advantages without making them unbalanced.
jaelis 02-01-06, 04:56 PM	You could bump the cost and make it +2 to hit... sort of "super masterwork." A thousand gp might be OK, if it doesn't stack with magic enhancement bonuses. Actually, 1000 gp for a light weapon, 2000 for a 1H, and 4000 for a 2H might be a way to go. I wouldn't go for it myself 'cause it seems unnecessary. But you're right that in real life, reducing the weapon weight is a big deal. OK, I don't know about actual weapons. But I do know that the lower weight is why aluminum baseball bats are so much better than wooden ones.
ShinAkuma2 02-01-06, 05:06 PM	OK, I don't know about actual weapons. But I do know that the lower weight is why aluminum baseball bats are so much better than wooden ones. Aluminum bats are better for making contact, but not for hitting hard. Since aluminum bats are lighter, they are easier to swing, and can even be adjusted in mid-swing. However, a pine or ash bat hits harder when swung correctly, and no professional player would ever be caught using aluminum because of that cut in power. If you want, make Mithral +2 to hit, -1 to damage. Personally, as a player of halflings and goblins, the cut in weight is valuable enough.
Molot 02-01-06, 05:22 PM	Lighter = fasterThat is true only to limited extent. Human has his own limit on how fast can he move the sword-vielding hand. With a longsword, steel is light enought to get maximum energy. Anything lighter would move only bit faster (or no faster at all) and have much less energy due to E= (m * V^2) / 2 Half weight = half energy = half damage For humanoids and lighter than steel materials it was measured. Have fun :]
jaelis 02-01-06, 05:52 PM	Aluminum bats are better for making contact, but not for hitting hard. Since aluminum bats are lighter, they are easier to swing, and can even be adjusted in mid-swing. However, a pine or ash bat hits harder when swung correctly, and no professional player would ever be caught using aluminum because of that cut in power. If you want, make Mithral +2 to hit, -1 to damage. Personally, as a player of halflings and goblins, the cut in weight is valuable enough. No professional player would be caught using an aluminum bat because they are forbidden by regulations, because if they used aluminum bats, everyone would hit home runs all the time. Anyone can hit a ball further with an aluminum bat than a wooden one, and all the compelling scientific explanations I've ever read attribute that to the greater velocity you can attain. Because it's lighter. Honestly, that may not translate to anything meaningful about weapons. But if you're trying to whale on a baseball, aluminum is better. You can read about it on plenty of web sites, but here's one (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021120065531.htm) that is probably fairly convincing.
kraegor 02-01-06, 06:27 PM	I agree with the previous statements. First of all though, you have to realistically break down weapons into true categories. Slicing Chopping Piercing Slicing (slashing) are sabres and scimitars, they would definately increase the +hit because of weight, but you wouldn't notice difference because your strength of swinging a 5 pound object and a 2 lb object would be about the same for force you dealt (if you consider a slicing straight across in a horizontal line) Chopping like with axes, falchions and halbards, would also increase your hit because they are light, but would DECREASE damage because they are swung in an arc-like motion and you don't get the weight of the weapon behind the "chop". So you would be looking at a decrease in damage. Piercing weapons are thrust, so technically it would improve your hit because they are lighter, but if they are TOO light, then you wont have the stability of balance (imagine a 3 foot long pencil) and damage is based totally on thrust, and not weight. So as you can see lighter weapons would really only focus on Slicing/Slashing weapons.
Nom 02-01-06, 07:48 PM	They also are relatively cheap, at least for weapons that weigh a little bit. Because of the minimal cost, you really can't give them any other advantages without making them unbalanced.Agreed. I'm assuming that the cost of mithral would possibly need to be updated in line with the abilities. But you're right that in real life, reducing the weapon weight is a big deal. OK, I don't know about actual weapons. But I do know that the lower weight is why aluminum baseball bats are so much better than wooden ones.It applies to weapons as well. There's a reason why most true medieval swords typically weigh less than 4 lb. (less than 2kg). See http://www.thearma.org/ for a variety of essays on the history and physics of medieval weaponry. For a slashing weapon, most of the damage comes from the impact of the end of the blade, quite near the tip. It's not about the mass of the weapon, but about speed, strength and flexibility. At the ideal impact point only rotational forces are applied to the hilt, which means the sword itself continues in it's existing trajectory while the weapon rotates around the hilt. What ends up happening is that the wielder's strength is applied at one end of a lever to stop the striking tip giving way at the other end. Within reason, the mass of the blade isn't that important. It's simply a way of transferring as much energy as possible from you to a small target point on your opponent. Head impact weapons are different and yet similar. In this case, you're trying to accelerate a mass and strike the target with that mass; as far as I can tell, there's less leverage effect. Of course, the momentum of the handle has to go somewhere, and I'm not sure how such weapons utilise that. Perhaps someone wiser in such lore could enlighten us. However, in a toss up between mass and speed it's still better to go for speed, as long as your impact mass is strong enough to stand the collision. A heavy, slow object will impart broad-based momentum to the target, moving it. A small, light, fast object will impart its kinetic energy to a much smaller area of the target, making it more likely that the impact point will yield rather than spread the energy over the entire mass of the target. A bullet is the classic example of this; only a few grams, yet accelerated to great speed.
Nom 02-01-06, 07:59 PM	Piercing weapons are thrust, so technically it would improve your hit because they are lighter, but if they are TOO light, then you wont have the stability of balance (imagine a 3 foot long pencil) and damage is based totally on thrust, and not weight.Just thought of something with respect to this: A sport foil weighs 500 g (about 1.1 lb). A sport epee weighs 750 g (about 1.65 lb). If they don't bend like they ought, these weapons can punch deep into an unarmoured target (this is a real risk if you strike wrongly with an epee, even though it's blunt). Obviously, a plate-armoured target is more resistant to puncturing, but the real issue is whether you can stop the spike from being knocked aside. Mass is one way to do so, but it's really about grip. The grip needs to be sufficient that you can apply the power down the shaft in the direction you want it to go. As long as the shaft won't yield, it can be as thin and light as you can make it.
StevenO 02-01-06, 08:06 PM	No professional player would be caught using an aluminum bat because they are forbidden by regulations, because if they used aluminum bats, everyone would hit home runs all the time. Anyone can hit a ball further with an aluminum bat than a wooden one, and all the compelling scientific explanations I've ever read attribute that to the greater velocity you can attain. Because it's lighter. .... You can read about it on plenty of web sites, but here's one (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021120065531.htm) that is probably fairly convincing. The actual reason a good aluminum (or more accurately a metal) bat hits a ball further is because it has better elastic contact. The bat's shell flexes more than wood which compresses the gas in the bat; that compressed gas then pushes the shell and ball back with less energy loss than a wooden bat would have. If you want to give a Mithral weapons a bonus the most recommend one is to allow it to count as a Silver weapons when overcoming damage resistance. Giving it any other bonus is unfair because while a lighter longsword may not be affected much a heavy mace made of Mithral would lose a lot of momentum when made lighter. Also remember mithral is actually has a higher harness than steel and I believe more hp. That makes a mithral weapon harder to sunder.
pres_man 02-01-06, 10:45 PM	You might allow a mithral weapon to be finessable if they are one-handed (light already are) even if they normally can not be (e.g. allow mithral longsword to be finessed), but maybe they can't get the benefit x2 for power attack when using two hands.
Lady Maedhros 02-01-06, 11:01 PM	If you want to give a Mithral weapons a bonus the most recommend one is to allow it to count as a Silver weapons when overcoming damage resistance. See, now, that's exactly backwards of the way we play it. Since the whole point of alchemical silver is that the weapon is made of it, giving that bonus to some other metal seems counterintuitive. However, since mithral is associated with good - check out celestial armor or whatever in the DMG - we have mithral overcome DR x/Good. Darkwood overcomes DR x/Evil. Cuts down on golfbagging, at any rate, and gives mithral a little punch. But then, we've been fighting a lot of devils recently. Had to cut us a break somehow.
jaelis 02-01-06, 11:07 PM	The actual reason a good aluminum (or more accurately a metal) bat hits a ball further is because it has better elastic contact. The bat's shell flexes more than wood which compresses the gas in the bat; that compressed gas then pushes the shell and ball back with less energy loss than a wooden bat would have. Must ... not ... hijack ... thread ... Cannot ... resist! Metal is indeed more elastic than wood. But neither is nearly as elastic as a baseball. If you take a high speed picture of a bat hitting a ball, you see that neither a wood nor a metal bat deforms very much. The ball, however, is squished down to about half it's normal diameter. I'm pretty sure that minor differences in the bat deformation have little to do with the problem. But more interestingly, are you suggesting that the air inside the aluminum bat provides a more significant elastic force than the metal itself? Unfortuanately, air is rather soft. For instance, if you tried to use a blowup plastic bat, I'm confident you would find that it didn't work very well. That is a nice suggestion pres_man. Rather than adjusting power attack, I'd make it like a rapier, you don't get 1.5 x str bonus. But what about light and 2H weapons? And the rapier itself, for that matter?
pres_man 02-02-06, 12:29 AM	That is a nice suggestion pres_man. Rather than adjusting power attack, I'd make it like a rapier, you don't get 1.5 x str bonus. Yeah, that's what I meant. I thought I read somewhere that you don't get x2 for power attack when using a rapier two-handed. I don't see it in the rapier entry, so never mind about the power attack issue. But what about light and 2H weapons? And the rapier itself, for that matter? They look pretty in mithral don't they. ;) Seriously though, I don't think making a light weapon out of mithral should have much effect, they already are pretty light this small change I don't think would make them any easier/better to use. As for 2H weapons I thought maybe let them be finessable also, but I don't know how I feel about somebody finessing a greatsword. I'm not sure how balancing finessability is, so it is hard for me to judge without having something to compare it to (like the rapier for one-hand weapons).
Lotus Crane 02-02-06, 12:43 AM	See, now, that's exactly backwards of the way we play it. Since the whole point of alchemical silver is that the weapon is made of it, giving that bonus to some other metal seems counterintuitive. However, silver weapons do less damage and have less hit points than normal weapons, with a neglible increase in cost. Mithral weapons are considerably more expensive than normal weapons, thus letting them bypass DR/silver without sacrificing hit points and damage the rest of the time seems a fair trade-off for the cost compared to alchemical silver. Essentially silver weapons (or more likely, short-term vials of alchemical silver) would be what a party uses against the wererat or vampire spawn at 5th level, and mithral weapons would be what a party uses against the werewolf lord or elite vampire at 15th level.
Tyler Do'Urden 02-02-06, 02:34 AM	My current favorite bonus for a mithral weapon is to allow it to be Monkey Gripped without penalty. You still need the feat to weild a larger one without changing the handedness, but if you do you don't get the -2.
Rulebook 02-02-06, 07:53 AM	Unfortuanately, air is rather soft. For instance, if you tried to use a blowup plastic bat, I'm confident you would find that it didn't work very well thats a given, but theres a few points you overlooked air compressed down with no place to go is actually incredibly hard, which lead to a whole science called Pneumatics (think jackhammers... air is what pushes them) combine that with how much more metal likes to spring back to its own shape as opposed to inflatable plastic. the lighter bat lets you swing it faster, but thats about where the faster = farther arguement ends really. the faster swing lets you add enough energy to overcome the lightness of the bat so you end up hitting about as hard as you would with the wooden bat (maybe less hard). its the material itself that does the extra work (a prime example of this can be seen in golf clubs... they might be lighter, but its the metal flexing like a spring that adds to the swing)
Dev Vim 02-02-06, 07:58 AM	That is true only to limited extent. Human has his own limit on how fast can he move the sword-vielding hand. With a longsword, steel is light enought to get maximum energy. Anything lighter would move only bit faster (or no faster at all) and have much less energy due to E= (m * V^2) / 2 Half weight = half energy = half damage For humanoids and lighter than steel materials it was measured. Have fun :] thank you for saying it. actually less weight means that you have the same problem katanas have, little stopping power. a mithril mace would really suck because in the end you wouldnt have the force backing it. in truth heavyer metals work better for heavy weapons and lighter materials work better for ligher weapons. it depends on the weapon and how its used.
pres_man 02-02-06, 10:22 AM	Jaelis: I've thought about the rapier, since it would not get a bonus for mithral using my idea of allowing them to become finessable. Perhaps a rapier that is sized larger could be finessed (in the rapier text it must be correctly sized to be finessed, of course if it is treated as a light weapon it can still be finessed). My current favorite bonus for a mithral weapon is to allow it to be Monkey Gripped without penalty. You still need the feat to weild a larger one without changing the handedness, but if you do you don't get the -2. I've considered that also, but I'm not sure of how powerful it would be. I've thought perhaps allowing this but making the weapon be treated as exotic. That is a halfling could treat a medium mithral shortsword as an exotic light weapon (with -2 size penalty) or as one-handed martial weapon (with -2 size penalty). A human could treat a large mithral greatsword as an exotic two-handed weapon (with -2 size penalty). Yet for weapons correctly sized for the creature, mithral does not change the handedness.