So what should magic weapons look like? (Page 1 of 2)

If keeping on the +1/+2 track, I'd make the bonus to hit, but not to damage. (or increase the damage die, just so it's still possible to do 1hp damage)

Hammers of the God has a couple of examples of how magic weapons could work.

I do have to say though that if a magic weapon or armor is all benefit and no danger, you're not doing it weird. It might give you power, but it should be a heavy, heavy burden.

(one review of Grindhouse said the magic items were worthless examples because they were all cursed... which was the whole point...)

The thing to do is to either make magical items have marginal benefit, or add drawbacks appropriate to their power.

A slaying sword that forces it's wielder to attack any living creature within melee distance once it is drawn is an example.

As is a suit of high bonus leather armor made from the skin of innocents, and thus no beneficial cleric/lawful spells will work on the character as long as it is worn, and perhaps sometime after. (days, weeks, until the character atones?)

Of course, you could also add in things like obviously ancient equipment that is unusually resistant or immune to rust or tarnishing, a cup that turns alcohol into water when filled with it, and other odd and questionably useful objects.

That is one idea I had:  say something is magical, but give no real mechanical benefit.  Or just have particularly ornate weapons and armor without any magic to them.  Another idea I had was to expand the "bonus vs. an unadjusted AC of X or higher", maybe to something like "+4 bonus vs. a uAC of 20-22" as the range 20-22 is the "realm of AC granted to beings clad in armor forged in the pits of hell" or some-such.

How about a well crafted shortsword with a large red gem in the handle? The gem appears to reflect more light than is available but never actually glows.

It has a demon bound to it and that makes the weapon magical and gives it some interesting properties. When used against undead or demons there are no bonuses. However, when used against living things or magical creatures/beings (like dragons and djinnis) the sword does D12 damage. It turns red after doing damage and turns a deep red if it participates in a kill of an intelligent creature. The colour fades over the next three days if it is not used. If the blade is not fed within three days of its last kill it will punish the wielder with terrible nightmares for ten nights. After 13 days it will block all attempts to heal ( natural and magical) the wielder of the sword until it is used to kill an intelligent creature.

Once someone uses the sword to kill 13 intelligent creatures or a single large or magical beast (like a giant, ogre, dragon etc) the sword will bond to him or her. At that point it will be nearly impossible to get rid of. Always retuning unexpectedly; laying in the road in front of the PC, replacing a mundane weapon in its sheath when the character isn't paying attention etc.

It would be great to have while campaigning but a bitch when you are laid up in town trying to heal some serious wounds. I might call it the Blood Drinker since that's what it does. The extra damage coming from it's blood draining effect when used. Not a nice weapon, but certainly an effective one.

I really like that the armour bleeds when it is penetrated. I love the concept so much I'm going to have to use bleeding armour in another context.

I think D10-1 is too much. I could see it absorbing D4-1, but no more than that. Other than that, I love this armour. The way I imagine it is pretty gruesome. It must scare the crap out of NPCs! They'd take one look at PC and think he was either a devil or in league with one. Not something you want to wear in Pembrooktonshire on market day.

In response to Ed...

Wouldn't making magic weapons ignore regular armor just lead to everything the party encounters that would normally wear armor and be hit at a base AC 12, doning magic armor just in order to survive?

This would lead to a proliferation of magic armor, which is almost worse than plus hit weapons.

Personally, +1 or maaaaybe +2 weapons as heirloom items or Hanzo style master weapons is fine with me.  It can help extend a characters pride just enough to really get them in deep trouble.  But any such weapon has to have a full background story, maybe even others who are seeking it, it can't just be a nice sword. +1 or +2 oddball weapons are great too.  Sure the fighter really wants a sword or the dwarf a hammer, but a +1 Pitchfork of Agony or +1 Arrows of Bat Slaying are great as well.  They lead to surprising role-play situations.  I mean, a crazy magician can make all kinds of stuff for some reason lost to time and replaced by legend.

Anything higher level or with special abilities is a fabled artifact in its own right.  I love the ego concept for swords from D&D and believe that it could be perfectly applicable to armor.  The Red Carapace would be great with an ego, as would Neko's Orphan Leather Mini-Skirt.

I generally hate simple +1 or whatever magic armor though...go figure.

I think the armor could exert its ego by physically by inhibiting a user who did not bend to its will.  Maybe locking the arm tight during combat or tripping the character up at some crucial moment. The armor refusing to aid the player, in other words. A character that gave in to the armor entirely could face possible takeover such as what is possible with high ego swords.  This armor is a fantastic idea, maybe even having it be part of some set with a shield and weapon that helped shape the history of some ancient empire or something.  Lots of possiblilites.

Back to Ed...

Maybe I am confused here but, how does ignoring non-magical armor mean you don't ignore AC, it is derived from the type of armor that is worn?  With no armor you are AC 12.  If you ignore non-magical the AC goes to 12 - otherwise you are not actually ignoring the armor at all, just adding in some negative modifier that would keep the AC lower than 12.  Granted the normal To Hit mods would still apply, as they would with normal and magical armor.

With regard to monsters and animals, many of them use AC as a composite for lots of different characteristics, and we are not just talking dragons and purple worms, but bears and wolves as well;  speed, dexterity, hide thickness, scaly plates, phasing in and out of existence, training, etc.  A magical weapon which does not help against mundane critters and men, especially in LotFP seems like a pretty useless weapon for most adventuring situations, or at least no better than a standard sword.  Coupled with your idea of the sword not helping against magical creatures, whose AC is based on many of the previously mentioned items in addition to actual armor, makes it useless in all situations. A major reason to obtain a magical sword in the first place, so you can actually connect with wraiths and other such things that require magic attacks to hit them.  From what I can tell based on what you listed the weapon would only help against normal armored men and nothing else.

I think overall, a weapon ignoring armor is more trouble than it is worth at least not without exhaustive rules and exceptions, which runs counter to playing OSR game systems in the first place. 

I like weapons that do either +1 to hit or +1 to wound only, not both.  Against magical critters that require magical attacks to hit, then that is the bonus to hit right there ---you get to attempt to hit (assuming a wounding sword, a plus to hit would apply as normal).

I think all items should be rare and have a back story, but relics and artifacts should be absolutely unique.  A masterfully crafted sword with a permanent sharpness spell that grant +1 to wound could exist in multiple forms.  But a specific Orb of Endless Rain would be unique.  Or something like that.

If you change the way weapon bonuses are utilized by shifting from modifiers that apply to the attacker's to hit dice role, to effects that change the target's base AC and then derived modified AC, this is a major change to the system mechanics.  Period.  Modifiers on the attack have their effect upon die rolls, not upon the target.  How a game handles armor class and to hit rolls is a core element of the games design.

Don't believe me? Here is a a quote directly from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Referee book, page four:

        "Here are the fundamental parts of this game:

         *The six ability scores which give certain adjustments for all characters
         *Character classes with capabilities separate from ability scores
         *Levels gained by experience points and the accumulation of abilities based on that level
         *Hit points, armor class, how to hit
         *Saving throws
         *Memorized/prepared spells

           And that’s it. What the ability scores are, what
           they adjust, what the classes are and what their
           powers are, what experience is awarded for,
           what happens when one gains a level, and the
           categories of saving throws, all of these things
           can be changed. Everything not related to these
           points is completely irrelevant for defining
           what the game is and can be discarded or mod-
           ified or replaced as you like.

           You are the Referee. If you don’t like something,
           change it.

           But it is always a good idea to understand the
           rules and see what they are trying to do before
           you decide they should be changed or replaced."

There you see a list of the fundamental mechanics of the game, or rather what makes it Lamentations.  You, as a DM can change your game, sure, but notice that James does not recommend changing those core mechanisms, just small aspects of them.  In this context the changes are mostly just changes to a game terms name, not to the system itself.

If you change the mechanic of how magical weapons to hit bonus works, you change item four in the above.

A change to a monsters AC is also a change to four above.

A change to how spells work is a change to four and six above.

So that is three fundamental mechanics changed with your ignoring non-magical armor class idea.

But if you still do not agree, then read on....

You would absolutely need to change spell hit and damage descriptions in order to account for this new system. If each creature has a shifted AC that a DM has objectively determined based upon his own views about a monsters physiology and what aspects of its defensive capabilities are magical and non-magical, then these same changes would apply to spells, and possibly other forms of attacks and damage, like holy water or oil fire. Or do you honestly believe that magical spells and magical weapons should operate on wholly different resolution mechanics within a single combat?

If you cannot see the implications of changing this mechanic, and the amount of work it would unnecessarily place upon the GM (see below for how to handle power creep) then I don't know what other arguments to make to you.
Go to http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi and post your idea.
And also ask them what the fundamental and core mechanics of D&D, OSR, and LotFP magical weapon damage happen to be.  Maybe I am not being clear enough.

LotFP is based upon Dungeons and Dragons 0e, with some bit of Holmes and Moldvay -  it has pluses that add to a weapons, and magical weapons, attack role.  That is a fundamental mechanic of the game system.  They do not subtract from AC. Most do not even provide pluses to damage.  A change from this IS a mechanics change.

So please explain how you are not advocating changing the game mechanism?

And again your basis for this "rules fix" is that an arms race exists in any game where a GM allows players to use plus magical weapons.  This is fallacious and patently untrue.  A GM is NEVER obligated to provide more weapons and more armor simply because the player desires them. This is, in fact, poor game mastering. Gygax himself called the handing out of magic items wholesale as"Monty Haul" gaming and advised to avoid it

You MAY provide a few +1 or +2 weapons in order to allow your campaign to progress to more difficult dungeon levels and to allow players to slay monsters by allowing characters to hit creatures that are immune to normal attacks.  That is all.

  The original D&D had provision for a +3 sword, spear, shield, and warhammer, as well as a few weapons that got +3 against certain enemies, nothing else.  These four items would be fantastic artifacts obtained only at the highest levels of a campaign and probably after many, many PC deaths.  They are more party rewards for dedicated play than they are individual awards for power gamers.

I apologize if this comes off as mean or bull-headed but you have some good ideas, I just want you to understand why this is not one of them.

Ed and degen both have points - i suppose it's how you look at it.

Sometimes I think it helps to realize that some things are mathematically equivalent, and one needs to take a deep breath and stop thinking like a gamer and just imagine what would be cool.

I like the drawbacks and benefits model quite a bit, although one should try to balance them somewhat, while at the same time not being too formulaic in the approach.

Personally I find the one magic weapon which ignores non magical armor to be quite alluring. Safe to say it won't come with a magical scabbard and you'll constantly cut your-self/stuff/horse etc with it until you figure something out. If I used that item I would have magical armor only improve AC by the pluses or what have you, not the base figure.

Safe to say that while I don't mind the +1 sword, I think that magical weapons should be rare and badass. On dragonsfoot there was a recent argument regarding the sword of sharpness in terms of if it should sometimes cut off the head a la a vorpal sword. Many were firmly against this idea, but to me that's a bit silly. If you limit the campaign to one or two of these weapons and make them hard to get (while they're being used against you no less), then how terrible is it for a higher level character that earned it to possess a sword that occasionally ends a fight prematurely by decapitating the dragon?

Whenever things like this stump me I think of Old Geezer (Mike Mornard) saying "we just made up some S**t we thought would be cool".

I admittedly have only read a few posts in the above thread, but I thought I'd provide an example I'm planning on using in my campaign for critique.

Mankiller: Mankiller was supposedly given to the Hochmeister of the Sword Brothers by one of Armadeus's chief Lieutenants.  Its history before that point is unknown; however, bards and scholars alike believe that it was forged in the Pit itself.   It appears as a two handed sword whose blade bears a strange, reddish tint.  Hellish runes on the blade reveal the swords name if Read Magic is cast upon it.  This does not reveal any of Mankiller's abilities, but it does make these abilities easier to research.

Mankiller provides a +1 bonus to to hit rolls.  In addition, when a command word is uttered or a natural 20 is rolled on a to hit roll the sword drains one HD or Level of energy from the target.  Those struck by this attack possess strange wounds.  Their skin becomes translucent, and their hair becomes shock-white.  This power has a 3d10 charges rolled when the sword is first found by the player characters.

Mankiller is powered by a human soul, namely the soul of its last wielder.  Once the drain energy charges reach zero, the soul inside the sword is obliterated forever and the current user's soul is placed inside.  His or her body then becomes a horrible form of undead bound to the sword until it is slain and the sword finds a new master.

The sword passed from Hochmeister to Hochmeister as the Brothers descended deeper into darkness.  It is said to have slain Prince Cludewig when the men of the West assaulted Nightwick Abbey, but there are none alive who can confirm this.

Edit: I added more descriptive detail.

Last edited by Evan (2011-11-13 10:48:07)

Well, it looks like I might have judged Ed's idea too harshly. When it's delivered like this it sounds cool and makes sense. I think it would work for one, unique item but I'd still hate to see all magic weapons with these characteristics.

Shit, I didn't (consciously) remember that.

When trying to figure out what the spear should do, what did come to mind was "If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut," from Kill Bill.