Whetting Blades

[Yogah of Yag]

Does anyone consider in their campaign that sharp edges lose those edges after a certain time/amount of use? Having used edged tools for many years, I know that they are very ineffective after a good amount of use. I thought of requiring the players to deduct 1 or 2 points from damage dealt if the blade had not been sharpened in a while to reflect this phenomenon. Conversely, those who carry and use a whetstone would not have to endure this penalty. Just some random thoughts.

 

[Lucius]

My players would simply take the closest weapon available, rom the horde of pirates they just took out. Why bother remembering to sharpen your weapons, unless they have sentimental value? Otherwise, a replacement can be picked up easily enough.

 

[Castel]

Arkbitannan weapons aren´t that easy to find, and in certan places even metal swords don´t even exist, so yes i think it´s a very good idea, you want your sword to slash/pierce, not to be used as a Club.

I myself for the sake of roleplaying did buy a whetstone, but it sure would be fun to have weapons that needed care.

Like at the end of each week that the metal weapon faced a battle it would need to be polished with the whetstone, or suffer from -1 to damage or -2 if it was used as a two handed weapon(you deal more damage, the metal suffers more).
Metal bludgeoning weapons would not suffer from this penalty

Each weak that you would battle with it and not use the whetstone, your penalty would be cumulative, having -2 in the second week, -4 if used twohanded.

The minimun damage that the blade itself would deal would be 1, and 2 if used twohanded, Arkbitannan weapons would only need this care once a year (good metal it is).
With the maximum penaltys, damage type would change to bludgeoning.

I don´t know if i should also apply the penaltys to Hardness, i know not much of blades.

What do you guys think?

 

[JamesMishler]

How about every time the weapon rolls minimal damage on a die it gets one "nick." When the total number of nicks equals the Hit Points of the weapon, the wielder suffers a -1 to hit and damage with the weapon. Until the weapon reaches that point, a whetstone can be used to buff out the nicks (which include minor dents, wear, slight bending, dulling, and so forth). Each hour of work with a whetstone removes one nick. After a weapon reaches a total number of nicks equal to its hit points, a grindstone is needed to fix it, as it really has a lot of nicks (or one or two major ones) and extensive dulling. Using a grindstone requires a Craft (Weaponsmith) check with a DC 5 + number of nicks or a Craft (Blacksmith) check with a DC 10 + number of nicks. A roll of "natural 1" that also fails ruins the blade.

Note that Akbitanian weapons using this system are special because of their high hit points, i.e., it takes a long time and a lot of bad hits to dull an Akbitanian weapon.

 

[geordiekimbo]

how about each time you roll a natural roll to hit of 1 your weapon takes one hitpoint of damage and a -1 to all damage rolls until the blade it tended...taking 1d6 minutes to restore a point of wear and tear damage.

 

[Foxworthy]

how about each time you roll a natural roll to hit of 1 your weapon takes one hitpoint of damage and a -1 to all damage rolls until the blade it tended...taking 1d6 minutes to restore a point of wear and tear damage.

You might want to have the players confirm the failure so that it's almost an opposite of a critical hit.

 

[Yogah of Yag]

How about every time the weapon rolls minimal damage on a die it gets one "nick." When the total number of nicks equals the Hit Points of the weapon, the wielder suffers a -1 to hit and damage with the weapon. Until the weapon reaches that point, a whetstone can be used to buff out the nicks (which include minor dents, wear, slight bending, dulling, and so forth). Each hour of work with a whetstone removes one nick. After a weapon reaches a total number of nicks equal to its hit points, a grindstone is needed to fix it, as it really has a lot of nicks (or one or two major ones) and extensive dulling. Using a grindstone requires a Craft (Weaponsmith) check with a DC 5 + number of nicks or a Craft (Blacksmith) check with a DC 10 + number of nicks. A roll of "natural 1" that also fails ruins the blade.

Note that Akbitanian weapons using this system are special because of their high hit points, i.e., it takes a long time and a lot of bad hits to dull an Akbitanian weapon.

Positively brilliant! :shock: Thanks.

 

[PlayWithBob]

How about something like this.

Critical Misses grant your opponent a sunder attempt vs. your weapon that grants no AoO.

Or would that be too much?

 

[Evil_Trevor]

I don't, with limited time to run games I don't want to spend the time or track all that, Most of my plots run over a period of time and I jump travelling and other non-eventful time and ignore a lot of non-relevant activities I and my players assume such things occur.

 

[Castel]

Having critical failure giving sunder attemps without AoO is very interesting... but it would have to be confirmed like a critical, and if the second again roll didn´t pass the enemys DV, then it would happen.

Well, there are all kinds of GM, some have time, others don´t (I don´t) about wethstones, well they would give a +4 in Craft (sword) check when repairing a damaged but not broken sword.
This way, probaly swords would brake in normal usage as a critical failure (a.K.a fumble) giving sunder attempts would make sundering more common, and even if it wasn´t destroyd, you with have a whetstone to help.
In all combats that i´ve done, not even once i broke a sword... but i had many 1 rolls so it would make the combat more real, because you can get your blade destroid when you lest expect... and not having a 1 being only a natural failure.

 

[Bregales]

Aside from one ritual knife the sorcerer got, the characters in my group aren't expected (by me) to keep the same possessions they took when rolled up. I simply give them the ability to preen their weapons in down time, unless they specifically state they do not want to sharpen their weapons. (And yes, I have at least one player who delights in eccentric character behaviors like that). In the Conan stories (Howard) often wrote of armor getting beat to shreds, but never really went into swords being worn down; but on the other hand there's a really cool scene in the movie "Conan the Barbarian" where Conan, Subotai and Valeria are sharpening their blades before entering the Mountain of Doom, so do whatever you want I guess.

On the one hand, since it's a fantasy game based on an early earth history period, I don't go into that much detail in a typical game unless I find it good for a particular story. We know from history that metallurgy just got better as the centuries progressed, and can state from personal experience that Renaissance blades were masterfully made and kept keen edges even after hard use (Met Museum, Metropolitain Opera, and I think my old fencing teacher got to handle some in the London(?) Musuem), but early iron age weapons probably wouldn't have been the same. The D&D Player's Handbook actually does have a whetstone listed if I recall, but Conan was made more for fast paced roleplaying so they don't list as much stuff as OGL D&D school.

Anyway, it's a good topic and there were some good suggestions, like JamesMishler's for example. I'd guess if you did want to go into this detail, you could use the suggestions given.

 

[Tim]

I just assume the PCs care for their weapons and armor on their down time, so no, they don't lose there edge.

However when a PC faces death and uses a fate point to survive often what will happen is the bulk of the blow will betaken by their weapon or armour, leaving them alive, (unconsious) but the weapon or armour destroyed. It makes for good story.

Also, I tell my players, don't get attached to stuff, the next story could start with them chained to the wall dressed only in thier smiles. :twisted:

 

[slaughterj]

Holy lots of recordkeeping for any method?! Seems like a lot of trouble for little benefit, especially for the Conan swords & sorcery genre. If you want this level of detail, you could add it to the system in one way or the other, but even if you wanted that trouble, the Conan setting doesn't seem to be the best place for it - maybe for some sort of tactical rules wargaming.

 

[Padre]

That's way too much detail for a game. Stuff like that ends with players making their "sets of usual activities" performed whenever they rest. It's annoying at first and after a while it just gets boring ("Okay, we set up a camp, do the usual stuff, etc."). It's a matter of resolution - you have to drop unnecessary stuff in order for the story to flow and players to have fun. Adventure is fun. Sharpening weapons, shaving, taking out garbage and washing loinclothes is not.

 

[Castel]

lol... whashing loinclothes... never thougth about that, barbies singing in the river while washing clothes... really not "Conan" Style.

Well, each one of us as his kind of GameMastering, i find these details in certan situations interresting, for example you´re in a noble court and you´re unshaven... thats not a good image you give to the nobles, then there is always some spare time to spend (at least in my campain, even if not much), it really depends on what kind of roleplay game you develop...
Or what you intend to do... you are not always obliged to take this is consideration...
And i think that Conan ins´t just grabing a sword and cutting people (even if that is very fun), you can also grab events and develop diplomatic, political and religius problems for the characters to solve.

About the blades, well you have to consider that they lose sharpness, and you have a whetstone for something, we were just discussing a way to make life in Hyboria more real (and it´s not totally defined so each GM decides what he wants).

And one of the things that i like about Conan, is that you´re restrained by the human limits (if you´re a scholar that doesn´t apply, but then, few scholar are considered Human)

We were talking about giving some use to the whetstone, that exists in the equipment, but then it doesn´t do anything... except that in roleplay lets you sharpen the blade, even if the real use of the item itself is simply "none" for game matters...

And we suggested some variant rules to make it more usefull...

 

[geordiekimbo]

Washing loinclothes...this reminds me of an encounter i ran when playing bog-standar D&D a few years ago.

Character was washing everyones spare clothes in river and was washing his own, so was almost naked, he gets attacked by a crocodile. Cue character dodging, running out of the river in his smalls to retrieve his weapon and fighting the croc for a few rounds before his comrades turned up. Fight ends, and the thief who had run over, says "don't make this an excue to skip your turn for wash day"

you had to be there, it was really funny timing

 

[Bregales]

Washing loinclothes...this reminds me of an encounter i ran when playing bog-standar D&D a few years ago.

Character was washing everyones spare clothes in river and was washing his own, so was almost naked, he gets attacked by a crocodile. Cue character dodging, running out of the river in his smalls to retrieve his weapon and fighting the croc for a few rounds before his comrades turned up. Fight ends, and the thief who had run over, says "don't make this an excue to skip your turn for wash day"

you had to be there, it was really funny timing

LMAO!!!!!!!!!! :lol:

It's a minute later and I'm still laughing. Reminds me of Gen Con at Cornell U all over again!

 

[Mark Dunder]

I just wanted to put my vote in on the "nick" idea by JamesMishler. This could work with any game. As Yogah of Yag said, "positively brilliant."

If you had a long running battle, and were only able to hone a few Nicks out, you could still keep an accurate record of how much damage your sword could continue to do. I'm already anticipating this in my campaign.

Thanks JamesMishler!