Are magical weapons tacky? How stingy or generous are you with them on average?
>>46816934
I had a GM once let players make weapons as powerful as they wanted, as long as they could justify why it was powerful. It was part of a (relatively) historical Middle Ages RP.
Cue someone showing up with a 14 line soliloquy of why his sword was powerful. Highlights included:
-Used by the the Dioscuri in ancient times
-Contained wood from the true cross
-the bones of St. Julius
-thrice blessed in Rome
-never pierced innocent flesh
That ended up being a pretty neat RP.
>>46816934
in my setting there is only two ways of making a stabby metal magical; Being a fucking mythical smith or Doing mythical shit.
Blades made under the first circumstance are rare, have taken a lifetime worth of work and the few wich were made are, in history, separated one from the other by hundreds of years. <ost of then as been passed from father to son(or until it got lost or stealed) ever since made, the ones which were lost ahve they on history and myth around it being very hard to know if it is even true.cont, sending now for bump
>>46816934
In my setting, magical energy is everywhere, but in order to create magic items, it needs to be condensed beyond what man is capable of. The only way to get at magic that concentrated is to take it out of magical creatures. Cart your dead beasties back to the local enchanters' college to have them create magic weapons for you (each creature effectively being worth an amount of "enchantment credit") or sacrifice them at your god's altar and pray to have your gear blessed (same system, different fluff).
>>46818144
The other ones came from mythical deeds. Like a dark god son who have taken so much lives that now the blade feels when something alive comes near;
or a knight who wished to protect his land for all eternity, then he forged a blade and tempered it on his own heart, then pulled it out and continued working the blade until he passed out and died, now the blade carries his spirit. So yeah, my players do not randomly run into magical objects at all
>>46816934
I'd prefer for them to be rare and powerful, but I'm running Pathfinder where PCs need to have them at a fairly early level so they're pretty common.
>>46817338
On one hand, fuck that guy for minmaxing. On the other hand, that is EXACTLY what a medieval knight would say and do about his sword.
>contains wood from the true cross despite being made in the Trojan War
>is a medieval longsword despite being put together in the bronze age
Amazing. Knightly Romance is the best.
>>46816934
A weapon shouldn't in any case increase your physical attributes 2bh
I like using two systems.
Basically the first type of magic items, which are weaker items like +1 swords and armor, are always simply made of rare or mystic materials, forged by a blind man, first kill was a tyrant, etc.
The more powerful items have rarer and more potent effects (thrown and returns like boomerang, pierces all known armor, has a spirit insude, etc) has to be created by a mage or God.
>>46817338
This is fucking sweet.
They're pretty common in my setting, but most of them aren't really that special. Sure a +1 or +2 to hit and damage is cool, but it doesn't do anything besides that, and some better equipped military divisions make heavy use of using +# equipment.
The important magical items are the ones that gain renown. For a magical item to gain real bonuses there has to be legends surrounding them, or famous people used them in history.
Sure some fuck off adventurer can whack shit with a +2 sword and become famous doing that, but the peasant who stood against a tyrant king with just a pitchfork and stabbed deep into the tyrant's heart and slew him? That pitchfork gains power, and anyone who wields it finds themselves having an easier time killing royalty and starting revolts and that very pitchfork shows up from time to time in some random fuck off peasants hands, leading the charge against whatever fuck off tyrant kingdom.
A lot of my shit in my setting is powered by belief though, so if people stop talking about the Pitchfork of Protest, then it'll slowly just decay back to being a regular pitchfork.
>>46817338
Was he named Charlemagne by any chance?
for our setting , regular enchantments are very common and only limited by mass and material of the enchanted parts. they are powered by the users magic energy, and use up mana like spells. they can be made by most mages and everyone with an enchanting skill, so they are very common as mage's sidearm and even necessary to do shit against high-level armor such as 5cm steel plates and dragonskin.
mana cost vs effect strength can vary with skill of the maker and how well the material fits the enchantment type
blessed items , on the other hand are powered by their creators (gods spirits elementals etc) and can have effects beyond what can be done with known magic
>>46818389
sounds backwards. it means your players would end up dumping actually interesting weapons with backstories, to make way for more powerful weapons that were created because some mage cast a spell.
