forge weapons

[galafrone]

Hi all, i am asking a point of view both in metagame terms and in game terms about the limit imposed to the forge weapons.
i am having difficulties with the idea of a 2h sword that can possibly be forged up to +6 (total damage step 14) and a dagger max +1 (total damage step 3)
(just to say the 2 extremes)
what i am trying to understand is:
1) there is a background idea behind the choice ? (what is exactly in terms of game concept the forging ? is already an enchanting work, so isnt only the "sharpening of the blade")
2) there is a mechanical idea behind it (that is a 2h sword need to do more dmg than a dagger in game terms, expecially at 9+ level ?
3) why not tying the plus to half the damage as is done with the armors ?
4) why not tying the plus allowable to the material used to craft the weapons (oricalchum, steel, different qualities of steel etc.etc)
i dont know if you have understood the question, sorry for my bad english

[ragbasti]

you did get it right, you can only forge a weapon to the maximum of its size.

I guess the idea beding this was kind of 2). Forging a weapon is basically optimizing it by magical means. Making it sharper in a way but there is probably more to it. Taking that into account, a dagger that has at most a 12 inch blade can only be optimized to do so much more damage, as the weapon itself stays the same. If a weapon is bigger, to take the extreme we could take the Troll Pole-axe, it does alot more damage already but therefore the potential for more damage is much bigger.
Seeing this absolutely logically won't work here, but I guess you could say that the bigger the weapon the more possibilities to optimize it there are.
This does of course not take into account threaded weapons, but even these have their limits ^^

Also keep in mind that there are also special weapons like the Vorst weapons, which get extra effects.

In secon edition things were different, you could basically double a weapon's damage step by forging it to the max. However that was severly overpowered and the size rule does make alot more sense ingame.
Just imagine a Troll Pole Axe with a Base damage step of 18 or so, adding an obsidiman wielding it....


as for 3/4:
only increasing it by half wouldn't do much of a difference to most weapons, and since a weapons damage is not tied to the material it was forged from, that rule would not have made much sense. Also this would lead to every high adept running around with an orichalcum weapon at some point which is just.. well just think about the price for an orichalcum coin...

[arma]

1) It's enchanting/magic, you can gather that from the fact that you can only do it with a talent, and that there's no skill for it.
2/3) There is a correlation between Size, Damage, and STR minimum on the weapons. In a way, the "half again" as with armors is already in there, in that Size and Damage correlate. It's one of the ways in which STR becomes more than a dump stat once you get to higher circles where you get damage enhancing talents.
4) There's rules for different materials in Namegivers of Barsaive, in case you haven't seen these. However, these go more for basic things and maybe add a new effect or special rules. The more magical stuff stays part of Enchanting. That magic is the better option to do everything is also part of having this high-magic setting.

[galafrone]

thanks for both answers
my problem is basically this: if you arent blocked by a str lower than 15, you are probably always going for the bigger weapon to do more damage right ?
In this reasoning i am considering the first 2 kinds of magical items, and only in terms of combat options, typical and rare threaded items, not the top 3 categories typical general rare general and legendary treasures
also, there are limits to an item to give a bonus to the damage up to the limit of the rank ?
for example, is doable a dagger rare general item that is +1 at first rank (max forging) and + 1 for the next 7 ranks up to a +8 damage (+10 overall) ?

also, is possible to give to a weapon a + 1 bonus to initiative ? (from the gm book it isnt allowable)

[arma]

You'll probably go for the bigger weapon most of the time, right.
Though under some circumstances, you won't:
- It's about going 2-handed. If a bigger weapon requires two hands, you might not go up.
- You're using Conceal Object extensively
- You're not actually using it to attack (caster's staff etc.)

The general idea of using Size for forging is that a sword starts out with more damage potential than a dagger, and that magic can take that and work better with the higher potential. There's more to work with for forging. But after that, with thread magic, they are the same.
IF you compare this to other games, say, DnD3 where you simply get +1 to +5 as a magic effect, it seems this handles both small and large weapons equally. In a way it does, but in effect, your dagger will be at D4+5 and your sword be at D8+5, and the sword will still always be better. ED and DnD seem to handle things very differently there, but that also is because ED has more sources for damage bonuses, and that makes the bonuses relative. You start getting a +rank from things like Surprise Strike or Crushing Blow, then comes Critical Hit, etc..

Now, you CAN technically do everything on threaded weapons. The design system in the GM Companion gives you free reign as to what effects they can have, the only real limit is the forging bonus that you'll have to take at Rank 1.You can add on damage at every rank, you can give a dagger some spacial ability to compensate for the Size bonus, and so on.
In the end, however, if you handle them all equally magic-wise, the dagger will always be Damage 2, and the sword damage 5. That difference will always be there, magic or not...

[galafrone]

yeah the starting values will be always here.
but the delta in ED will be dramatically different if i go with a dagger or a 2h
say a man with 16 in strenght, step 7 using 1 2hsword typical threaded is doing str 7 + 8 base 2hsword + 6 forging + 3 enchanting = step 24 dmg resolutions
the same man with a dagger will do str 7 dagger base 2, + 1 forging + 3 enchanting = step 13 damage resolution
(starts as a 6 step delta, ends with a 11 step delta if i exclude the base value, whereas the dd damage steps are always the same delta)
but i can understand the dagger (conceal object is a VERY good pov, expecially if i am a rogue/assassin/undercover agent maybe even using poisons or such

anyway, under this circumstances, why should a dwarf ever use a dwarven sword instead of a broadsword for example, if not for a "background" choice if he can choose to buy a typical threaded item ?
the dwarven sword is 4+2+3 (9) and size 2 for parry purposes, while the broadsword is 5+3+3 (11) and size 3 for parrying purposes.
if the dwarven sword doesnt give any benefit, it will become quickly a "forgotten" weapon in my campaigns

(also, on this way, there are rules limiting the size of the second weapon size or similar stuff ? or you can use same size weapons without any penalty ?)

[arma]

Yeah, the gain on the 2h sword is much better. Taking the +3 from enchanting out (because it's not really part of the weapon balance), you end up with 21 vs. 10. So the 2h sword is twice as good.
Taking STR out too (because that's relative as well), it's even 14 vs. 3, so you're getting close to five times as good (you already were from the start, however, because without any magic it's 8 vs. 2).

It IS apples and oranges, though, in the end. Using the 2h sword doesn't allow you to use a shield or off-hand weapon (in case of an off-hand weapon, you get 21 vs. 10+10 -- there are aspects to consider differences, but just for perspective...). You can only really compare 1h weapons with 1h weapons numbers-wise. You'll still see that the bigger ones are better, but not as much.


Second Weapon: Size doesn't matter with the talent, but does with the skill ("smaller than your one-handed limit" e.g. Size 1 or 2 for humans).

[galafrone]

thanks again arma, didnt noticed the skill difference before !
i will try to "insert" options (aka house rules) to give bonuses to "smaller weapons" to compensate a bit for the losses in terms of damage efficiency AND parry efficiency.
for example the dwarven sword can be given a bonus versus the disarm option, or stuff like that.

[ManDrake]

I'm confused why a smaller weapon needs to compensate for anything Galafrone. I have a Desktop computer and a smart phone. I can run applications on both, but sometimes I use the smart phone because it's more convenient. Daggers are cheap and I probably won't mind losing one if I throw them in a fight. Just to pile on to what Arma is saying, there are other things in the calculations that need to be considered. Using your example, a Dwarf Sword cost 6 silvers and a Broadsword costs 25. When silver is tight, most people go for what is cheap. And possession tends to lead to patterning. So if you use a weapon of any kind for long enough it starts to become a pattern item. Also in most of my games, I've run with the Weapon sizes for dwarfs actually being 2 and 4 for one handed and two-handed respectively. It didn't seem right to me that a Dwarf would be running around with a Polearm swing it easily in battle. So I made my game more in-line with what made sense to me. Another thing is talent knacks, some of them require smaller weapons. Like the Pin Up and Lightning Throw immediately jump to mind. The important thing I guess, is that for everything there is a reason and season as they say. Players have and carry around equipment that they never end up using, just because they might need it. In the narrow confines of a Kue's lair for example, you'll probably want the smaller weapon so you can have more range of movement. So your smaller weapons would have a use. If your players are carrying around nothing but Two-Handed weapons, it's pretty easy to build a scenario where they are of absolutely no value to them. I also make the recommended for blood magic, if you use something larger than a dagger, I make players have to roll to avoid doing extra damage to themselves.

[galafrone]