Repair and Magic Weapon

[Lloyd Dupont]

Well one can easily break weapon in BRP compare to, say, D&D, and I like that.
I am just starting some dungeon crawling with BRP and I look forward to break some equipment....

Now, as I though about it...

Can you repair a sword? It would be like reforging the blade then, me think....
Which bring the additional question, what about Magical Sword? It such a big bummer when they break, they might not be worth forging in the first place hey?
(I mean all those POW points spend on something that is so likely to break seems a waste...)

Anyone can shed some light on those questions please?

[Agentorange]

I guess it depends on what you're enchanting it for

In RQ3 you could increase the armour and hit points of something  - but that didn't make them more dangerous, just tougher. equally  you could make up  an enchantment that makes the weapon more deadly  think of the " of slaying " style swords from D'n'd, but does that make it tougher ? Perhaps a truly great magical weapon needs multiple enchantments for different things.....

Which is going to be tough on the person doing the enchantment in terms of POW costs. So maybe you have groups of people coming together to forge a magical weapon, each contributing one layer of enchantment. say, the priests of a war god or fire god, maybe a group of sorcerers from a particular school of sorcery.

Or if you don't like this perhaps one person does it but it takes long periods of time with plentiful pauses for recovery between enchantment sessions - this would make enchanted weapons truly rare, but then equally truly a great treasure.

Or just make up some ritual enchantment spells of your own 👍

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Well one can easily break weapon in BRP compare to, say, D&D, and I like that.
I am just starting some dungeon crawling with BRP and I look forward to break some equipment....

Now, as I though about it...

Can you repair a sword? It would be like reforging the blade then, me think....

It depends on how it breaks. It if it just the tip or the tang it is possible to file down the broken section, make a new hilt to hold the shorter tang, etc. The Seax was often made from the remains of a broken sword. But if you want something comperable to what it was before it broke then reforging is the way to go. 

In some legends reforged weapons are considered superior and/or magical. Sigurd for instance. In fact, that's probably something Tolkein draw from for the Lord of the Rings. 

 

3 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Which bring the additional question, what about Magical Sword? It such a big bummer when they break, they might not be worth forging in the first place hey?
(I mean all those POW points spend on something that is so likely to break seems a waste...)

Anyone can shed some light on those questions please?

For magic it's a tough call. Most RPGs tend to assume that when a magical item is broken the magic leaves it, but...going back to the aforementioned legends, the opposite seems true. The magic is there, it is just that you need someone who is very skilled to fix/reforge the item without ruining it. But as it's not really covered in nmost BRP games, it's up to you.

Personally, I'd probably assume the item can be repaired, but it would be difficult to do so. Any bound spirits, demons, etc. would probably be freed when the item was broken (the exception would be if the spirit were bound in a gem on the pommel or some such and the blade was broken). Depending on if I wanted this to be a one roll repair or a task requiring multiple rolls to fix would determine the skill modifier, and consequences of failure. 

 

But it really comes down to just what BRP game you are planing and how you want things to work in your campaign. If you want broken magical items to be lost forever, then you don't need any special repair rules. IF you want to allow broken magical items to be restored, then you might want something. 

[Lloyd Dupont]

6 hours ago, Agentorange said:

In RQ3 you could increase the armour and hit points of something  - but that didn't make them more dangerous, just tougher. equally  you could make up  an enchantment that makes the weapon more deadly  think of the " of slaying " style swords from D'n'd, but does that make it tougher ? Perhaps a truly great magical weapon needs multiple enchantments for different things.....

That looks good in practice.. but BRP automatically applies a bit of damage on a better attack than parry for example... Though.. you could make the item last longer, obviously...

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It depends on how it breaks. It if it just the tip or the tang it is possible to file down the broken section, make a new hilt to hold the shorter tang, etc. The Seax was often made from the remains of a broken sword. But if you want something comperable to what it was before it broke then reforging is the way to go. 

In some legends reforged weapons are considered superior and/or magical. Sigurd for instance. In fact, that's probably something Tolkein draw from for the Lord of the Rings. 

Good to know.. I was thinking perhaps the power is in the pommel? I think I might just roll with that!...

[Joerg]

The cookie-cutter +X/+X sword of D&D is simulated by RQ's Bladesharp spell, and the cheap way to get such a sword would be to bind a spirit able to cast and power that spell, plus an activation condition and a dead crystal usable by both the spirit and the owner of the sword. And yes, this contraption would be in the pommel. But then, the blade would not get the option to resist magic that a blade inhabited by an allied spirit would receive.

RQ's Enchant Metal and inspired choice of material (e.g. silver or iron) will yield you a somewhat toughened sword able to hit (some) magical creatures. This would obviously be on the blade.

RQ3's Strengthening Enchantment could up the blade's ability to take and parry damage - another thing on the blade.

But while it is nice to protect your blade this way, why not protect your body instead, Sigurd's dragon-blood / Thetys'/Achilles' kettle-style? No need to parry, works against missiles etc... the only times when this could be disadvantageous would be if your character needs an appendectomy or a similarly invasive procedure. (But then, IIRC that procedure was by hit location, so maybe a mix of enhanced parrying facility and body improvement.)

 

Long duration RQ sorcery offers a couple of options to increase damage or to avoid armor. Disadvantages: will evaporate, can be dispelled. (But then, a Dullblade can override enhancements, too, and similar debuffs are possible.)

 

Humakti gifts (or the equivalent for your own setting) come with a cost, but the egregious munchkin player could create a semi-retired Humakti Sword sworn companion buffing up the sword and then loaning it permanently to the character. Possibly including the allied spirit of the Humakti?

 

From a general magical perspective, I would rule that the blade (or at least the backbone of the blade, if you have a sword made from welded components) is the soul of the sword, and if that is broken, it requires the metallurgical equivalent of a resurrection rather than just a healing. The shattered blade of the north receives a new name after Elrond's smiths reforged it. (Why did they wait that long, though? Did they enjoy the Angmar situation?)

Quite often, the "made by <famous bladesmith>" property is enough to make a sword magical. Repairs (beyond maintenance like re-sharpening and removing nicks and notches) done by anyone other than the original maker will take away that property, though.

 

Some settings allow a master bladesmith to do maintenance which drastically improves the sword's performance. At least in Gloranthan RuneQuest, such a procedure would be indistinguishable from a long duration sorcery spell.

 

WIth all that said, there is no reason to introduce materials into your setting which are intrinsically magical and allow the production of items with a permanent improved performance compared to your run-of-the-mill everyman's sword. (And the setting may well have run-of-the-mill materials allowing swords to interact with magic, too.)

 

Real world diatribe:

Metal is a weird material, anyway. While there are mono-crystalline metals (or semi-metals) which are used in technology, most metals are a mix of small areas of regular crystalline growth between interlacing snow-flake like outgrowths connecting these tiny crystallites with the neigbouring ones, sometimes resulting in a glass-like structure between the crystallites. All the components being metallic, the entire conglomerate then is surrounded by a shared band of electrons in a state similar to a plasma held in place by electrostatic interaction.

Any major break of a metal object would require welding, and that will form a glass-like layer of the adjacent pieces of the shard, without regaining the layered structure the blade originally got from mechanical deformation. It would require a highly precise magic similar to neuro-surgery to re-connect those structural elements. (But then, a Heal 6 or a six point Heal Wound will re-attach a severed limb, restoring similarly fiddly details.) I can see how shards of the blade part of a broke sword might be re-attached to a new backbone, regaining the special edge properties that blade had before breaking, but that would be more in the nature of a graft than a repair. That new backbone may of course be made mostly of the recycled material of the original blade. Which may be how the shards of Narsil became Anduril.

[Atgxtg]

18 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

That looks good in practice.. but BRP automatically applies a bit of damage on a better attack than parry for example... Though.. you could make the item last longer, obviously...

That's another reason why I prefer RQ3 Armor points. Damage below the weapon's armor points got soaked up by the armor and ignored. Thus, an echanted sword with 40 AP was not only very hard to break (you'd have to do about 80 points to deliberately break it at one go, or exceed 40 points multiple times), but can also stop a lot more with a parry.  

18 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Good to know.. I was thinking perhaps the power is in the pommel? I think I might just roll with that!...

Well for the crystal sure. I'd think that for an enchanted blade, the enchantment would be in the blade. Basically whatever the magic is effecting if probably what's magical. Of coruse the thing is with magical items is that as we don't seem to have any around to study, we have a lot of leeway in how we interpret things.

 

Case in point in D&D a creature that needs a magical weapon to injure takes full damage from a magical weapon, while in RQ such a creature usually only takes the magical component of the damage. Thus a Sword with Bladesharp 2 on it only does 2 points of damage to a werewolf- which might actually be worse than doing no damage. Either approach is equally valid.

 

[Lloyd Dupont]

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

That's another reason why I prefer RQ3 Armor points. Damage below the weapon's armor points got soaked up by the armor and ignored. Thus, an echanted sword with 40 AP was not only very hard to break (you'd have to do about 80 points to deliberately break it at one go, or exceed 40 points multiple times), but can also stop a lot more with a parry.

The small amount of automatic damage I mention is from the BRP resolution table (which I mimicked more closely after my first playthrough and update of my own resolution table) which state, for example: in case of say Special attack on normal parry, both do the damage and inflict 2 damage on the parry weapon. So, basically, weapon AP is irrelevant.... it's only Weapon HP...

BTW 40 damage? jeez talk about one shoting! 😮

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Of coruse the thing is with magical items is that as we don't seem to have any around to study, we have a lot of leeway in how we interpret things

And we have a winner for best comment 2021! 😄

[Atgxtg]

14 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

The small amount of automatic damage I mention is from the BRP resolution table (which I mimicked more closely after my first playthrough and update of my own resolution table) which state, for example: in case of say Special attack on normal parry, both do the damage and inflict 2 damage on the parry weapon. So, basically, weapon AP is irrelevant.... it's only Weapon HP...

Which is precisely why I prefer the RQ to BRP, where weapons/shields have AP and lost AP only when they take/block more damage than their AP score. For example if a sword (10 AP) parried an 11 point axe hit the sword would lose 1 AP, and only be able to stop 9 points from then on. 

14 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

BTW 40 damage? jeez talk about one shoting! 😮

Yeah, short of a giant or dragon, or other maga damage situations, such a weapon (or shield) would be indestructible. Of course it would take a lot of money time, effort, skill, and permanent POW points to create such an item in the first place.

14 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

And we have a winner for best comment 2021! 😄

Sorry, I have to decline the award. I pretty much paraphrased Gene Roddenberry from 1965-66. When discussing the aliens on Star Trek he said something similar in that he had to cast humans in the alien roles, as there were not an aliens around to cast for the show. He followed it up by stating that if anyone did know of any aliens they should have them contact him immediately for a regular role on the show. 

 

Besides, the only reason why we don't have any magic items to study is because I keep letting the fluid out of the eight ball when studying it.-"FUTURE UNCERTAIN, ASK AGAIN LATER"

[Atgxtg]

Just now, Atgxtg said:

Which is precisely why I prefer the RQ to BRP, where weapons/shields have AP and lost AP only when they take/block more damage than their AP score. For example if a sword (10 AP) parried an 11 point axe hit the sword would lose 1 AP, and only be able to stop 9 points from then on. 

Yeah, short of a giant or dragon, or other maga damage situations, such a weapon (or shield) would be indestructible. Of course it would take a lot of money time, effort, skill, and permanent POW points to create such an item in the first place.

Sorry, I have to decline the award. I pretty much paraphrased Gene Roddenberry from 1965-66. When discussing the aliens on Star Trek he said something similar in that he had to cast humans in the alien roles, as there were not an aliens around to cast for the show. He followed it up by stating that if anyone did know of any aliens they should have them contact him immediately for a regular role on the show. 

 

Besides, the only reason why we don't have any magic items to study is because I keep letting the fluid out of the eight ball when studying it.-"FUTURE UNCERTAIN, ASK AGAIN LATER" (and I wish I had used the last line as my original reply to the first post).

 

[Lloyd Dupont]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Sorry, I have to decline the award. I pretty much paraphrased Gene Roddenberry from 1965-66. When discussing the aliens on Star Trek he said something similar in that he had to cast humans in the alien roles, as there were not an aliens around to cast for the show. He followed it up by stating that if anyone did know of any aliens they should have them contact him immediately for a regular role on the show.

Well, you know, Hollywood and the video game industry are now winning awards for remastered old title.. so you are in good company! 🙂

Good time to count down... 2 1/2 weeks to me starting new job at EA Games! 😄 

Edited June 18, 2021 by Lloyd Dupont

[Atgxtg]

21 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Well, you know, Hollywood and the video game industry are now winning awards for remastered old title.. so you are in good company! 🙂

Ouch! You sank my battleship! 

21 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

 

Good time to count down... 2 1/2 weeks to me starting new job at EA Games! 😄 

Good Luck and Best Wishes.