Making superior weapons more fun

[Rarelyfly]

So I asked a while back if I should take superior weapon training, and the result was generally negative. So when some friends wanted me to dm for them, I decided it would be a great time to experiment with something new I had worked on.

The mysterious "something" I had worked on was a set of rules to make superior weapons more exciting.

For instance, my friend Jeff had a greatbow. Aside from its regular d12 of damage, I gave it the added ability of my own "perforate" property. What it does now, is if two enemies are standing directly next to each other in his line of effect, his arrow will pierce through the first target and hit the second. He really enjoyed this, as did the rest of the party, so I gave similar properties to the rest of the superior weapons.

It's not complete, but here are the few I came up with.

Greatbow: perforate (explained above)
Bastard Sword: dismember (critical hits do x4 damage and permenantly remove either the targets main hand or offhand)
Craghammer: shellshock ( target is pushed two squares and knocked prone )
Waraxe: sunder (critical hits can destroy any offhand weapon, including shields)
Kukri: visceral (any kills made with a visceral weapon demoralize enemies in a close burst 5 ((demoralized: -4 to attack rolls and armor class))

That's the list so far, please feel free to come up with new abilities for weapons not posted, or comment on the weapons already posted.

[Burley]

So, these are things that are usable only with the Superior Weapon feat, yeah? I like the idea, but keep in mind that 4e is, generally, all about balance, especially between those who use weapons and those who don't. If you open up these very powerful add-ons to weapon users, you're going to see some of disparity between classes.

Now, let it be said that I'm a big fan of adding rider-effects to things that are hum-drum. So, what I suggest is to tone down what you have a bit. If I may:

The Greatbow is an interesting, fun, strategic and situational bonus. However, I would only allow a certain amount of damage to transfer to the second target, probably d12, without any additional damage, like stat or feat bonuses to damage. And, then, only on a crit.

The Bastard Sword doing x4 damage is waaaay too much. Remember that a critical hit does automatic max damage, not double damage. Now, if you made it max damage and then roll damage as normal, then you've got a decent rider effect. However, that something that most characters only have access to in Epic tier, if at all. I would suggest, seeing as how it is a feat that you can get in Heroic tier, that you say "On a crit, the target takes a -2 to attack and damage for the rest of the encounter. This effect can stack, up to a -6." A crit is supposed to tip the scale, not knock it over.

The Craghammer is already an amazing weapon, and there are already a ton of feat combinations to support it. Considering that dwarves can get access to it with Dwarven Weapon training, which has extra bonuses on it already, I don't think it needs anything extra. Too much frosting on the cake and the cake become about the frosting.

Waraxe is an interesting ability. On a crit, allowing a saving throw, I say, keep it. Why not? It's so situational, I doubt it'd ever come up, anyway.

As for the kukri, consider "On a crit, 1 on-going damage, no save. This effect can stack, up to 5 on-going damage."


My reasoning for these is mainly this: moving people around, doing area damage, and area debuffs are generally things that weapon users don't have access to, because other classes have access to them. You have to be careful to not give a player who rolls well too much access to things that will step on other party members. Sure, they only happen about 5% of the time, but that is still enough to make Player A feel like they should have chosen a different class.

Up to you. That's my piece. I look forward to seeing what else you come up with, and how it ends up working in your game after further use.

[masteraleph]

Interesting idea, but definitely overpowered in terms of options- most of these are better than enchantments, and they're all better than feats. x4 on a crit, applying damage to adjacent enemies (unless you meant it applies 2/3/4 damage, not all of the damage), etc. are what entire builds go for.

Craghammer is the most interesting of the bunch, but I'd restrict it to pushing. If they really want the prone, let them take Hindering Shield and World Serpent's Grasp and need to hit multiple times, etc.

Really, though, there are two classes of Superior Weapons. I agree that Greatbows and Bastard Swords need something extra- all they get is a damage die increase. Most of the others are good enough, and when they aren't, it's for some other reason (Wizards restricting Rogue powers to not work with Superior Crossbow, Hammer support being inferior to other support, etc.)

[Kurald Galain]

I think these are great ideas that will make the campaign more flashy and memorable, and you should absolutely not tone them down in the name of balance. As long as all players are having fun and everybody has access to these, it's not unbalancing so go for it!

I like the greatbow and craghammer best, as they have tactical ramifications and make players care more about who is standing where on the battlefield. Even funnier, a character can use his craghammer to position an enemy, so that a teammate can perforate him. These abilities would no longer work if they're restricted to a crit.

You may want to consider something similar for superior implements, because right now the only superior implement worth using is the "accurate" one which has a bland-but-effective +1 to hit bonus. For example, it would be fun to set enemies on fire (ongoing damage) in certain circumstances.

[Nicol Bolas]

So I asked a while back if I should take superior weapon training, and the result was generally negative. So when some friends wanted me to dm for them, I decided it would be a great time to experiment with something new I had worked on.

The mysterious "something" I had worked on was a set of rules to make superior weapons more exciting.

For instance, my friend Jeff had a greatbow. Aside from its regular d12 of damage, I gave it the added ability of my own "perforate" property. What it does now, is if two enemies are standing directly next to each other in his line of effect, his arrow will pierce through the first target and hit the second. He really enjoyed this, as did the rest of the party, so I gave similar properties to the rest of the superior weapons.

It's not complete, but here are the few I came up with.

Greatbow: perforate (explained above)
Bastard Sword: dismember (critical hits do x4 damage and permenantly remove either the targets main hand or offhand)
Craghammer: shellshock ( target is pushed two squares and knocked prone )
Waraxe: sunder (critical hits can destroy any offhand weapon, including shields)
Kukri: visceral (any kills made with a visceral weapon demoralize enemies in a close burst 5 ((demoralized: -4 to attack rolls and armor class))

That's the list so far, please feel free to come up with new abilities for weapons not posted, or comment on the weapons already posted.

Rebalanced to still be good but not quite so..3.5 esque?

Greatbow: Roll 1d12/2d12/3d12, add damage modifiers besides ability mod to the roll. How often are people really adjacent?
Bastard Sword: Roll damage dice again on a crit.
Craghammer: Pushed 2 and prone is good enough tbh.
Waraxe: Melee attack rolls get -2 penalty and ongoing 5/10/15 damage (save ends)? Destroying weapons is so situational that it's almost not worth it.
Kukri: Close burst 5, -2 attack rolls and -2 defenses (save ends)

Those are all pretty close.

And I agree about superior implements needing some zest as well.

[Yakk]

Perforate: If there is a foe directly behind your target, any damage die that rolls maximum value also damages the foe behind your target.

Sharp: A critical hit lets you make a second attack on the target's Fortitude with the same modifiers. If it hits, remove a hand or limb from the target (DM's choice which hand/limb). This causes problems for the target usually.

Brutal: A weapon damage die roll that is at or under the Brutal value is replaced with a max damage die roll.

Sunder: A critical hit destroys a held item, or relatively inorganic appendage (like a stinger or claw), on the target.

Shellshock: If you roll maximum damage on a [W] damage die, the target is pushed a square. If you roll a critical, the target is knocked prone and pushed 1 square per [W] from the attack.

Visceral: When you kill a target with a Visceral weapon, all enemies within burst 5 of the target are demoralized. The first attack on a demoralized target deals double damage, then the condition is removed.

Deadly: If you deal damage exceeding half the target's HP before the attack with one hit, the target dies.

[Sol]

There's room to improve the bad superior weapons without making superior weapon feats mandatory -- but if you improve them all relatively evenly, it could make for a fun campaign.

Superior Implement fix may be as easy as saying, "pick two," as well as de-coupling the varying bonus combinations from specific implement types.

[darkdragoon]

perforate: probably worse than carrying around some Shiver-strike, but then again it's free, so eh.

dismember: depending on what damage you are including (per plus bonuses? rings?) either ridiculous not much different than high crit. if we're going for the former, it seems pointless to have a bit about losing a limb when they are already splattered all over the floor.

shellshock: hammers already have lots of push and prone support.

sunder: unless your entire campaign is fighting off one specific group of eladrin, kobold shield guards etc. this is basically pointless, and even then, it's not all that good against them.

visceral: this seems to be really strong to Tsor's Brutal Finish, Horrid Dispatch etc., although those aren't limited to a specific weapon either.

[Calen]

I think that a lot of these are great fun and would make weapon training more useful. Of course it is unbalanced but if every player has the option to go for these and aren't complaining then why not?
If you do want to balance you are probably better off adding an existing weapon property to the weapon in addition to what it already has.

ie.
Spiked Chain - Add the High Crit Property
Greatbow - Add the Brutal 1 Property

[Rarelyfly]

Good ideas all around. By the way, anyone got any ideas for implements? The party wizard is feeling left out.

[Yakk]

Honestly, junk existing superior implements. Given that the best they could do was "Accurate Wand" (adjective that describes game mechanic as the name of the item? Pfah).

Either go with Superior Materials used to make the Implement. So some kinds of wood have certain effects, etc. Either that, or invent new implements that "count as X".

I like the materials thing better, because I can think up more fun materials than I can implement variants.

So a Mithril Wand will have certain properties in common with a Mithril Staff.

Metals: Adamantium, Mithril, Cold Iron, Quicksilver, Silver, Gold
Crystals: Glass, Diamond, Ruby, Sapphire, Ice
Woods: Elderwood, Ash, Oak, Ironwood

Tricky part is why would you require proficiency to extract the feature? Maybe you need a feat to be able to extract any property from any raw material, instead of a feat per raw material? Or, we could make it an "alignment" thing, where the feat represents bonding with a particular implement, or with a particular material.

The nice thing about the specific feats is that it could have a generic bonus, plus a bonus when using the bonded material.

If we chose, we could split this by power source. So Arcane might use a different kind of system than Divine or Psionic or Primal or Shadow.

[Burley]

Either go with Superior Materials used to make the Implement. So some kinds of wood have certain effects, etc. Either that, or invent new implements that "count as X".

So a Mithril Wand will have certain properties in common with a Mithril Staff.

Metals: Adamantium, Mithril, Cold Iron, Quicksilver, Silver, Gold
Crystals: Glass, Diamond, Ruby, Sapphire, Ice
Woods: Elderwood, Ash, Oak, Ironwood

Tricky part is why would you require proficiency to extract the feature? Maybe you need a feat to be able to extract any property from any raw material, instead of a feat per raw material?

I'm doing something similar to this in my Oz campaign. Sort of.
Humans with Arcane classes must use implements made of Emerald, which is plastic in our world, but, when brought to Oz, it siphons magic out of the world so that non-magical Humans can use magic.

Also, there is Cold Iron, which gives a +2 bonus to damage and a -2 penalty to attack, since the PCs will all be non-human races, ie Fey. With a feat, however, any character can learn to safely wield Cold Iron, which requires subjecting yourself to Cold Iron until your body becomes immune to the negative effects.
So, with the feat: +2 to damage rolls when wielding a Cold Iron implement or weapon and you ignore the penalty to attack. Also, when wielding Cold Iron and using a power which applies an effect which a save can end, then target takes a -2 to the save.

I don't think it's too powerful and, because Cold Iron is foreign and taboo, a character would face some repercussions for using it.


But, this makes me think the other materials you listed. Perhaps the Primal characters take a single feat that gives different bonuses based on the type of wood their implements and weapons are crafted from. I would give precious stones to Arcane and Divine and special metals I would imagine could be for anybody but Primal characters.

It does seem a bit complicated, though. Really, why not just say: "Implements made of Ruby give a +1 bonus to powers with the Fire keyword." Why take an extra feat for it? I suppose because we're talking about taking feats for bonuses.

[Kurald Galain]

For example,

• Earth implement: whenever you hit someone with an attack with this implement, the square he is in becomes difficult terrain.
• Fire implement: anyone you hit takes 2 ongoing fire damage, but if you roll an 1 on an attack you take 2 ongoing fire damage (which ignores fire resistance).
• Air implement: whenever you score a critical hit, you gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed until the end of the encounter.
• Water implement: the first creature you hit with this implement during your turn is pushed 3 squares.

[Burley]

For example,

• Earth implement: whenever you hit someone with an attack with this implement, the square he is in becomes difficult terrain.
• Fire implement: anyone you hit takes 2 ongoing fire damage, but if you roll an 1 on an attack you take 2 ongoing fire damage (which ignores fire resistance).
• Air implement: whenever you score a critical hit, you gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed until the end of the encounter.
• Water implement: the first creature you hit with this implement during your turn is pushed 3 squares.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but how does the Earth Implement affect anything? I mean, you take the move penalty when you enter a square, right? So... I dunno...

Also, are these implements just, like, infused with the elements?

Also, something that, I suppose, we aren't really thinking about: How are these bonuses going to interact with actual weapon/implement enhancements? Extra damage? Extra forced movement? At what point does it become too much? I mean, I know that "As long as all the players have access, then it's balanced just fine." But, if a critical hit can remove a limb, potentially removing movement or an attack from the Solo Brute, that encounter would sorta become less fun for everybody, right? Doesn't this sorta add in the save-or-die elements from 3.5 that were left out because it'd have one character end an encounter?

Am I looking too much into it? Did I ruin it? I ruined it. Sorry, guys. I ruined it. Hey, mom? I ruined it. I know, I know. Yeah. It's ruined.

[Yakk]

Well, as the OP wanted to make Superior Weapons flashier, making them more than a small damage/accuracy boost for the feat is part of the goal.

Doing the same for implements would either (A) give the Superior Weapon equivalent toys for free, or (B) make it cost a feat for access.

We could take a step back and say "feat taxes for this sort of thing are dumb". An alternative way to balance this might be "superior items cost 3x as much as normal items, and this includes when they are enchanted", but are otherwise feat-free: proficiency is tied to a baseline implement or weapon proficiency.

Everyone proficient with martial axes now knows how to use a double-axe.

[Tegu8788]

Not flashier, but works into feat related issues. If you take the Expertise feat, you gain training in a Superior weapon of that type. Possibly an additional +1 to-hit. Not flashy, but more accurate and with the Expertise bonus, that's something. And easy to translate to Implements.