Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

While you are updating the Magic Item Lists (especially for weapons/armour), here are some stuff I made up that might find a home inside this Supplement. Of course, the descriptions might need to be expanded or detailed better as I just listed abbreviated descriptions.

Additional Weapon Special Abilities:
Brilliant - shed light as torch. Creatures of darkness or shadow take additional 1d4 damage.
Defensive - wielder gets additional AC bonus equal to plus of weapon when used defensively (not for attack). The bonus is on top of any normal combat considerations for defensive fighting.
Disruption - undead struck by weapon must save versus Magic or be destroyed. Those that save still take additional 1d4 damage per strike but are immune to further ‘disruptions’ that day.
Electrical - weapon deals additional 1 point of damage from electrical shock, and all damage dealt is treated as electrical. (electrical version of 'Flames on Command')
Frost - weapon deals additional 1 point of cold damage (double against creatures of fire), and all damage dealt is treated as cold damage. (cold version of 'Flames on Command')
Ghostly - affects incorporeal creatures as if perfectly solid.
Poisonous - (edged weapon only) weapon’s edge is tainted by deadly poison. Anyone struck by weapon must save against poison or take 1d4 damage per round for 10 rounds. Each round the afflicted is allowed a new save to halt further damage. After a successful save the wounded person is immune to further effects that day.
Rusty - a successful strike affects the recipient as if struck by a rust monster. The typical progression is Shield affected first, then Armor/Body. Each strike against those with magical armor will reduce by one ‘plus’ before destroying item. If a victim fights defensively (such as using a weapon to parry) would put his/her weapon in jeopardy as well. Wielding a Rusty weapon grants complete immunity to rust monster attacks (or other Rusty weapons).

Armour Special Abilities:
Absorption - in addition to improved Armor Class, Armor (or shield) of Absorption reduces physical damage by its plus, down to a minimum of one point of damage per attack. Magical effects, cold, fire, or other energy type attacks are not absorbed.
Cold Resistant - grants +2 save bonus against cold/frost related effects and reduces damage by it’s plus, down to a minimum of one point of damage.
Fire Resistant - grants +2 save bonus against fire/heat related effects and reduces damage by it’s plus, down to a minimum of one point of damage.
Gleaming - has brilliant mirror-like sheen. It is immune to effects related to rust or corrosion. Character wearing Gleaming armor gets additional +1 on reactions with Humans, Demi-Humans, or those typically associated with civilized society (as determined by Game Master). The character has a -1 penalty on reactions with Humanoids, Monsters, or those associated with the forces of darkness and chaos (also determined by Game Master).
Grim - dark nature, generally adorned with spikes, symbols of death & destruction, and otherwise clearly against the forces of goodness. Wearer of such armor gains +2 bonus on saves related to poison, disease, and fear. The character has a +1 bonus on reactions with Humanoids, Monsters or those associated with the forces of darkness and chaos (as determined by Game Master). The character has a -1 penalty on reactions with Humans, Demi-Humans, and those typically associated with civilized society (also determined by Game Master).
Warmth - keeps wearer warm in cold weather/environments. Ignore environmental effects of cold exposure.

Thanks for the input, Nekron. Looking forward to the deconstruction.

I cooked up 'Quality' in an attempt to avoid the whole Masterwork business, while giving a name to the reason why you'd pay more than base price for an item. If you've got other ideas, I'd love to hear.

I hadn't done much with the lists beyond trying to incorporate the expanded item types (and I really debated including crossbows and quarterstaves). Additional special abilities is certainly an option. I'm also thinking about additional ammo/hurled only effects (Distance and Returning being the main ones, although a Speed/Reloading enchantment for crossbows might worthwhile - at least for item manufacture)

I need to check, but Ghostly may be redundant with being magical - I think all magic weapons can affect incorporeal creatures.

Between fire calls last night I got a chance to look it over my copy, got home and within 5 min the boys were drooling over the equipment and discussing what they could do with this or that. One of my old favorite TSR products was "Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog", there were so many items and not all of them useful, but they offered many roleplaying opportunities and this supplement fills that area that I needed. It is looking really good. What about mundane items? Or do you figure that the "Net Book" takes care of that area well enough?

At one point I had a section for household items - furniture, glassware, larder, art and such. I think I had it tied to the provisioning block - and then decided to make that one more trade-focused. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?

Yep, like I said those things add alot of roleplaying material, at least in my games they do. This supplement is already 17 pages or so, don't know how big it really needs to get to include that kind of stuff. Isn't there already a section detailing the trade stuff? Any more might just bog the thing down. I guess it really depends on the DM/Players, do they want or need that sort of detail? Is there that much call for it? I mean other than me of course. I love slipping those items into my hoards and dungeons. Grieves the players to learn they sold the item for 10cp when it was actually worth 100gp, or even better they threw it away. I'm mean like that though.

It certainly does help to have things to blow money on... MU's must spend heavily on their spellbook, but otherwise, most characters have little to spend on above their armor and weapons. I like the idea of players having some effort in thinking about what their characters do in their down time, and the things they want in their households. It spends a lot of that excess cash, and lends to adventuring hooks... especially for my children. Having their prized bull disappear in the night makes for an immediate expedition to look for him, only to find that the bull has been enamoured with the Gorgon (bull style) living nearby.

Wow, totally missed prize animals. There really ought to be a mention on that. Might also give a way to drop an extra hundred to turn your Hunting Dog into Rex the Wonder Henchman.

Or not.

Lessee: Reorganize equipment into smaller tables, add housewares, tweak special powers for weapons and armor, get animal upgrades... Make sure there aren't any missing specialist hirelings/jobbers (appraisers ... Put the old item descriptions in along side the new...

One interesting way that I have made animals more valuable is to use a system for quality (which this is a great place to include such a system). The idea was originally in a Dragon Magazine probably in the early ninties, but it was for horses... As I see it, we could apply it to any animal/creature. Nuts and bolts of it:

Quality: Randomly d% or choose as applicable.
01-25 Nag or Inferior Quality: HD rolled by d6 instead of d8, -25% on Cost
26-75 Standard or Average: HD rolled by standard d8, standard costs
76-95 Above Average: HD rolled by d6+2 instead of d8, x2 costs (double price)
96-00 Superior Quality: HD rolled by d4+4 instead of d8, x4 costs (quadruple price)

The quality designations could be used to tweak other stats which might depend on the animal. For instance for Draft Horses, Mules, Oxen, etc. the carry capacity might be enhanced. For speed animals (riding horses, race animals, etc. it might get extra movement rates). Guard/Fighting animals might get treated higher HD for attacking purposes (or lower for Nag quality) reflecting training/natural ability or whatever. I would suggest -1/0/+1/+2 for most of these sorts of adjustments... again, depends on type of animal.

Of course, one could factor in some other stuff like rarity of breed (when applicable) or rarity based upon being found outside its normal environment. For instance, buying a Guard (African) Lion in a region like the Arctic would make it very rare. However, I would simply add this set of caveats into descriptive text instead of as a system of hard rules for GM to follow. Something like "the Game Master is encouraged to adjust prices to suit his or her campaign based upon factors such as rarity of breed or for creatures from foreign lands or environments".

Recap: for a simple system of animal quality, just utilize the HD modifier (along with cost adjustments). If one wants added complexity, one could add in the other stuff (but I don't really suggest layering this sort of complexity onto something as simple as having a guard dog, at least for BFRPG).

FYI, even though Joe the Rat is going to be unavailable for next few weeks, He has managed to put together a new draft that includes even more stuff. I am going about doing some editorial review (and formatting work).... so this is really coming together nicely.

This may end up as a 20 or more page document of stuff to spend character's money on... right on!

That looks great so far. One thing that jumped out at me as I was glancing through it.

Under Chain Weapons you have save vs (???) listed. I would suggest a save vs Paralysis the same as for a Bola on the next page.

Ray