Free-style weapon creation proposal [Archive] - Wizards Community

Free-style weapon creation proposal [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Masterful_Norg
10-10-05, 08:05 PM When a player wants to give his character a new weapon conventionally he/she has to rummage through legitimate Dungeons and Dragons material to find what he/she wants and pluck out the relevant information. As an alternative to the splat book method I propose a rule variant whereby characters may design their own weapons and become liberated from the ritual of page turning. This will appeal to those who favor formulaic solutions over those that depend on extensive reference materials.

This new system assumes that the character in question will use any weapon thus created in a way that is most efficient according to the weapons weight and dimensions and that only common sense shall hinder the description of the means by which it is used.

The first step in the fabrication of a new weapon would be determining the type of dammage it is capable of inflicting easily (without incurring penalties to attack roles). If a character chooses that the weapon should be equally suited to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning dammage or two of the previously mentioned then a compromise is necessary, which means lowering the maximum amount of dammage that can be incurred with the weapon. Therefore the dammage must be distributed between the weapon's available dammage types to represent how much surface area of the weapon is devoted to each type.

The second step in the fabrication of a new weapon is choosing the weapon's weight. The greater the weight of a weapon the more bludgeoning and slashing dammage it will be capable of inflicting (which is due to the greater surface area of the blade or club (representing greater oportunity for hitting the opponent) as implied by the greater weight (density is assumed to be constant)). If the weight exceeds the character's light load it will incure a -2 attack roll penalty (due to becoming unweildy) and if the weight of the weapon exceeds the character's medium load it will not only incure a -4 attack roll penalty, but also the dammage it can incure in the weilder's hands will not increase accordingly (due to the inability of the character to contribute his maximum energy to swinging the weapon). Higher weight will also limit the range at which the weapon can be thrown (though I am of the mind that the range should be a function of the character's strength and the weight of the object in question and not an actual stat of the weapon).

Physics tells us that Kinetic energy is equal to half an objects mass times the square of its velocity. The energy one is able to contribute to their weapon will remain constant except at the extremes which are 1-6 ounces and anything beyond the limit of the character's medium lifting capacity. Which justifies why the dammage does not increase because of greater weight, but because of higher surface area thus implied.

The third and final step in the fabrication of a new weapon is determining its density which is just a matter of increasing hp and hardness (1 hardness for every 10 hp) which will decrease the size of the weapon, its surface area and its maximum dammage. To determine the weapon's mundane cost in silver pieces square any additional hardness and multiply it by the weapon's weight.

Any special abilities of the weapon, such as that of a hook sword (the ability to grapple) incure a uniform 150 gp price increase and may require an exotic weapon proficiency feat to use without incurring attacks of opportunity and inflicting -4 penalties to grapple attempts thus made.

If the weapon happens to be a 9 foot long 3 foot wide sword with a handle that can slide up and down the length of the blade and rings where one can place their feet to run along the length of the sword while in mid air or as one end it stuck in or resting on the ground to open up a whole new dimension of awesome manuevers then the price is nothing because there really isn't any in game affect. However, if the sword also happens to be a pulley system or telescope in the disguise then the price shall increase by 1.5 times the cost of a pulley system or telescope.

As you can see I've only actually worked out the numbers for the first and second last steps because it seemed relatively easy and this is afterall just a proposal.
Edymnion
10-10-05, 08:30 PM Or you could just use the Weapons Balance Guidelines linked to in my sig.
Chonjurer reverse engineered the PHB weapons years ago. They are quick and easy to use, and it is impossible to create an unbalanced weapon using them, given the one exception that you cannot increase both threat range and critical multiplier on the same weapon. :D

Note that this was written for 3.0, but its very simple to convert to 3.5. All you have to do is fix the size names, and assume it makes only Medium sized weapons (which are easy to scale).
Masterful_Norg
10-10-05, 09:01 PM The problem with scaling medium weapons up is that you incur attack roll penalties quite quickly rendering buster swords and the like less feasable regardless of the character's strength. (Unrealistic? Yes. Fantastic? Definitely.)

I noticed that I didn't even include threat ranges, critical hit multipliers, and reach because they don't really come up in my games cause I play tri-stat (more like a hybrid between tri-stat and anime d20) which means I wouldn't even need rules for weapon customization (I'll just buy ranks in special attack). This thread is intended as an exercise (same goes for the other thread I started today).
fatal error
10-10-05, 09:49 PM Yeah, this seems way more complicated and, essentially, completely the opposite of how I would go about statting a new weapon.
I agree with Edymnion.

As for a buster sword, I don't play many anime/that genre games but does that refer to cloud's sword in FF7? If so, I would say it's a monkey-gripped size-large bastard sword, only imposing a -2 for monkey grip. But that's just me and I have no idea exactly how your system works.
Masterful_Norg
10-11-05, 01:40 PM -2 for monkey gripSee, its the penalty I have problems with. I think the ability to weild larger or smaller weapons should be inherent in the character's strength score.

I have no idea exactly how your system works As of yet there isn't really a system, only a vague account of what the adjustment of certain values would represent if there was a system. One thing that isn't in there is the fact bigger weapons should provide greater sheild bonuses, but seeing as their isn't a system yet anyway, there'd be plenty of room to fit that in. Again this is just something I had brewing in my mind for a while and the urge to share it has overiden my general apathy toward the d20 system, but its still just an idea that I'll never need.

To tell you the truth I don't mind the weapon ballance guidelines put out there by edymnion, but I would prefer a system where weapons aren't designated for certain users by their size, but by how much they weigh so that bandaid feets aren't necessary. The weapon guidelines don't allow players to adjust the price tag of the weapon to improve or lower the dammage it can do either.
Edymnion
10-11-05, 08:26 PM See, its the penalty I have problems with. I think the ability to weild larger or smaller weapons should be inherent in the character's strength score.In the simplest terms, Cloud weilds a Greatsword. Nothing more, nothing less.
IceFractal
10-11-05, 09:45 PM Or maybe he's wielding a Monkey Gripped Fullblade - which is certainly big enough to introduce leverage sillyness. :fight!:

Anyway, the weapon balance rules are pretty simple. I'd actually note that you could have a weapon with a 19-20/x3 crit range - you'd just have to calculate it as being equal to a 20/x5 crit range (which it is mathematically), and thus the damage would be two steps lower than a normal 19-20/x2 weapon - not just one step lower. Therefore, this:

Razor Sword
One Handed Martial Weapon
Damage: 1d4 Medium, 1d3 Small
Critical: 19-20/x3
Type: Slashing

Should be balanced. Or it could do 1d6 damage and be Exotic.
Masterful_Norg
10-12-05, 01:14 PM In the simplest terms, Cloud weilds a Greatsword.In ff7 Carrying Capacity almost never became an issue cause you could still only have 99 of everything. In this system I'm trying to ballance the sword's power with the burden it inflicts (I just haven't pulled out any numbers yet).
Nothing more, nothing less. After watching ff7: advent children (the movie) it becomes difficult to believe that cloud's sword can be waved away as nothing more than a great sword. In the 11 minute long fight with sephiroth there is a point when they fight in the falling rubble of the shinra headquarters (sephiroth's choice not cloud's) both are forced to hack their way through chunks of concrete the size of medium urban dwellings. In total the running time of all the fightscenes is about 36 minutes (slightly more than 1/3 of the movie (not including credits)). In that time we learn that the sword cloud is using now (not the buster sword) is in fact 7 swords which can be combined and seperated such that he can fight with any combination of two swords or in the end, one massive sword (its not too much bigger than the buster sword).

Because I play with an effects based game system doing any of the hence mentioned is easily accomplished.
leverage sillynessQuite. Either he's levitating the sword with his Qi/magic sword powers (its supposed to weigh 170 lbs), or he'd have to adopt a stance which involved leaning back at about a 45 degree angle whether or not he had super heavy boots. Just holding that position for any apreciable amount of time would give you muscles on muscles (if you didn't try it all at once).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Masterful_Norg 10-10-05, 08:05 PM	When a player wants to give his character a new weapon conventionally he/she has to rummage through legitimate Dungeons and Dragons material to find what he/she wants and pluck out the relevant information. As an alternative to the splat book method I propose a rule variant whereby characters may design their own weapons and become liberated from the ritual of page turning. This will appeal to those who favor formulaic solutions over those that depend on extensive reference materials. This new system assumes that the character in question will use any weapon thus created in a way that is most efficient according to the weapons weight and dimensions and that only common sense shall hinder the description of the means by which it is used. The first step in the fabrication of a new weapon would be determining the type of dammage it is capable of inflicting easily (without incurring penalties to attack roles). If a character chooses that the weapon should be equally suited to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning dammage or two of the previously mentioned then a compromise is necessary, which means lowering the maximum amount of dammage that can be incurred with the weapon. Therefore the dammage must be distributed between the weapon's available dammage types to represent how much surface area of the weapon is devoted to each type. The second step in the fabrication of a new weapon is choosing the weapon's weight. The greater the weight of a weapon the more bludgeoning and slashing dammage it will be capable of inflicting (which is due to the greater surface area of the blade or club (representing greater oportunity for hitting the opponent) as implied by the greater weight (density is assumed to be constant)). If the weight exceeds the character's light load it will incure a -2 attack roll penalty (due to becoming unweildy) and if the weight of the weapon exceeds the character's medium load it will not only incure a -4 attack roll penalty, but also the dammage it can incure in the weilder's hands will not increase accordingly (due to the inability of the character to contribute his maximum energy to swinging the weapon). Higher weight will also limit the range at which the weapon can be thrown (though I am of the mind that the range should be a function of the character's strength and the weight of the object in question and not an actual stat of the weapon). Physics tells us that Kinetic energy is equal to half an objects mass times the square of its velocity. The energy one is able to contribute to their weapon will remain constant except at the extremes which are 1-6 ounces and anything beyond the limit of the character's medium lifting capacity. Which justifies why the dammage does not increase because of greater weight, but because of higher surface area thus implied. The third and final step in the fabrication of a new weapon is determining its density which is just a matter of increasing hp and hardness (1 hardness for every 10 hp) which will decrease the size of the weapon, its surface area and its maximum dammage. To determine the weapon's mundane cost in silver pieces square any additional hardness and multiply it by the weapon's weight. Any special abilities of the weapon, such as that of a hook sword (the ability to grapple) incure a uniform 150 gp price increase and may require an exotic weapon proficiency feat to use without incurring attacks of opportunity and inflicting -4 penalties to grapple attempts thus made. If the weapon happens to be a 9 foot long 3 foot wide sword with a handle that can slide up and down the length of the blade and rings where one can place their feet to run along the length of the sword while in mid air or as one end it stuck in or resting on the ground to open up a whole new dimension of awesome manuevers then the price is nothing because there really isn't any in game affect. However, if the sword also happens to be a pulley system or telescope in the disguise then the price shall increase by 1.5 times the cost of a pulley system or telescope. As you can see I've only actually worked out the numbers for the first and second last steps because it seemed relatively easy and this is afterall just a proposal.
Edymnion 10-10-05, 08:30 PM	Or you could just use the Weapons Balance Guidelines linked to in my sig. Chonjurer reverse engineered the PHB weapons years ago. They are quick and easy to use, and it is impossible to create an unbalanced weapon using them, given the one exception that you cannot increase both threat range and critical multiplier on the same weapon. :D Note that this was written for 3.0, but its very simple to convert to 3.5. All you have to do is fix the size names, and assume it makes only Medium sized weapons (which are easy to scale).
Masterful_Norg 10-10-05, 09:01 PM	The problem with scaling medium weapons up is that you incur attack roll penalties quite quickly rendering buster swords and the like less feasable regardless of the character's strength. (Unrealistic? Yes. Fantastic? Definitely.) I noticed that I didn't even include threat ranges, critical hit multipliers, and reach because they don't really come up in my games cause I play tri-stat (more like a hybrid between tri-stat and anime d20) which means I wouldn't even need rules for weapon customization (I'll just buy ranks in special attack). This thread is intended as an exercise (same goes for the other thread I started today).
fatal error 10-10-05, 09:49 PM	Yeah, this seems way more complicated and, essentially, completely the opposite of how I would go about statting a new weapon. I agree with Edymnion. As for a buster sword, I don't play many anime/that genre games but does that refer to cloud's sword in FF7? If so, I would say it's a monkey-gripped size-large bastard sword, only imposing a -2 for monkey grip. But that's just me and I have no idea exactly how your system works.
Masterful_Norg 10-11-05, 01:40 PM	-2 for monkey gripSee, its the penalty I have problems with. I think the ability to weild larger or smaller weapons should be inherent in the character's strength score. I have no idea exactly how your system works As of yet there isn't really a system, only a vague account of what the adjustment of certain values would represent if there was a system. One thing that isn't in there is the fact bigger weapons should provide greater sheild bonuses, but seeing as their isn't a system yet anyway, there'd be plenty of room to fit that in. Again this is just something I had brewing in my mind for a while and the urge to share it has overiden my general apathy toward the d20 system, but its still just an idea that I'll never need. To tell you the truth I don't mind the weapon ballance guidelines put out there by edymnion, but I would prefer a system where weapons aren't designated for certain users by their size, but by how much they weigh so that bandaid feets aren't necessary. The weapon guidelines don't allow players to adjust the price tag of the weapon to improve or lower the dammage it can do either.
Edymnion 10-11-05, 08:26 PM	See, its the penalty I have problems with. I think the ability to weild larger or smaller weapons should be inherent in the character's strength score.In the simplest terms, Cloud weilds a Greatsword. Nothing more, nothing less.
IceFractal 10-11-05, 09:45 PM	Or maybe he's wielding a Monkey Gripped Fullblade - which is certainly big enough to introduce leverage sillyness. :fight!: Anyway, the weapon balance rules are pretty simple. I'd actually note that you could have a weapon with a 19-20/x3 crit range - you'd just have to calculate it as being equal to a 20/x5 crit range (which it is mathematically), and thus the damage would be two steps lower than a normal 19-20/x2 weapon - not just one step lower. Therefore, this: Razor Sword One Handed Martial Weapon Damage: 1d4 Medium, 1d3 Small Critical: 19-20/x3 Type: Slashing Should be balanced. Or it could do 1d6 damage and be Exotic.
Masterful_Norg 10-12-05, 01:14 PM	In the simplest terms, Cloud weilds a Greatsword.In ff7 Carrying Capacity almost never became an issue cause you could still only have 99 of everything. In this system I'm trying to ballance the sword's power with the burden it inflicts (I just haven't pulled out any numbers yet). Nothing more, nothing less. After watching ff7: advent children (the movie) it becomes difficult to believe that cloud's sword can be waved away as nothing more than a great sword. In the 11 minute long fight with sephiroth there is a point when they fight in the falling rubble of the shinra headquarters (sephiroth's choice not cloud's) both are forced to hack their way through chunks of concrete the size of medium urban dwellings. In total the running time of all the fightscenes is about 36 minutes (slightly more than 1/3 of the movie (not including credits)). In that time we learn that the sword cloud is using now (not the buster sword) is in fact 7 swords which can be combined and seperated such that he can fight with any combination of two swords or in the end, one massive sword (its not too much bigger than the buster sword). Because I play with an effects based game system doing any of the hence mentioned is easily accomplished. leverage sillynessQuite. Either he's levitating the sword with his Qi/magic sword powers (its supposed to weigh 170 lbs), or he'd have to adopt a stance which involved leaning back at about a 45 degree angle whether or not he had super heavy boots. Just holding that position for any apreciable amount of time would give you muscles on muscles (if you didn't try it all at once).