The future of crafted weapons

[Flailer]

Well, now that some +4 weapons are starting to drop, it kind of makes the current crafted weapons pointless to make, unless you specialize in one that doesn't drop anywhere.

So, this probably isn't a new idea, but I was thinking - maybe make the silvery weapons upgradable somehow in order to get the best weapons in the game? So, you go on some quest/some area where you can place your weapon inside a chest in the temple of fire after defeating the fire god in order to raise the enchantment on it to +5 and give it 2d6 fire damage. For acid, cold, electrical, sonic damage, please defeat the appropriate god in the appropriate temple.

This would keep the crafted weapon market lively and keep them relevant. And, it would increase demand, because most folks that specialize in a weapon are going to want multiple versions with different elemental damages on them.

How you keep the other crafted items relevant - I dunno.

[DeputyDog]

Not a bad idea.

We will probably add another level of crafting, but there is alot on our plate first. A quick fix may have to go in first.

[AggieDan]

Another idea is to let some of the sub-races be the only ones capable of adding certain enchantments to their crafted items.

Aasimar - Divine
Drow - Cold
Air Genasi - Electricity
Eart Genasi - Acid or stronger armour
Fire Genasi - Fire, of course
Water Genasi - Cold
Wood elf - Better bows

Also, you could put some restrictions on it based on classes, abilities and alignments. Though, the class restrictions already exist now that I think about it.

Weapon masters could get a little bonus to crafting their chosen weapon. Wood elves without a high DEX couldn't fashion the better bows. Neutral Aasimar couldn't add divine damage to their weapons.

As things stand now, generally crafters are humans. And there is something wrong with that. Humans are chosen more for their easy leveling. Having people go to more specialized races (especially those with ECL) would make those crafted items that much more valuable and provide more diversity in the player characters. It would also make banishment a spell that many people could keep in reserve if there are more plane-touched characters around.

[JesterOI]

Good looking ideas, but may require a lot of work.

I agree about having race checks be involved in crafting. Gnomes being tinkers, you would think they would have some advantages in certain areas.
Also with dwarves making some weapons or armor.

I think the easiest way to quickly implement race adjustments for crafting would be to have cost premiums/rebates.

For example take a dwarf.
The costs remain the same for crafting, let's say some fullplate costs 2000xp/20000gold.
Since dwarves are generally considered more adept at crafting heavy armor he would get a rebate on his crafting cost.
So he would pay the normal 2000xp/20000gold, but would get 20% of that back afterward.
So in the end he would end up actually paying 1600xp/16000gold, but would still get the full 2000 crafting xp.

Same could be done for elves and arcane crafting.

Humans aren't as good as dwarves for crafting armor or elves for craftng arcane items, but they are generally good at crafting, so would receive only a 10% rebate.

On the negative side:

Take elves and heavy armor...
They would pay the 2000xp/20000gold for some fullplate, then after would be charged a premium and have to pay an extra 20% since they aren't so good at heavy armor.
So in the end they would pay 2400xp/24000gold but only have 2000 crafting xp to show for it.

[Flailer]

Another idea would be to, instead of an option of adding elemental damage to the crafted weapons, is to add some damage resist to it - particularly for a two handed weapon, like was done for the Bow of the Forest. I can see making two handed weapons take some kind of penalty for having the added damage via the 1.5x strength mod, but not having either the damage resist or immunity you get from using a shield is pretty steep.

I'd say adding either some damage resistance or damage immunity, but not both, to two-handed weapons would be fair. Having such a large weapon out there has got to count for blocking some weapon damage.

[JesterOI]

Or dmg reduction equal to the enhancement of the weapon?