Obsidian Weapons

[Zilfer]

Curious was looking through dungeon master guide for materials for odd weapons and such. Someone noticed in Van Richten's Arsenal that you could have weapons out of differing materials, but I'd like to know if that changes mechanic wise in the game but i can't seem to find anything on it besides that it changes the weapon's base cost by x2 according to Arsenal.

So anyone know if it changes Hardness or HP?

I'm pretty sure just by real life applications it would decrease hardness but its sharp as hell or can be so would it possibly up the Crit multiplier? Or the Crit Range? In the past I made 1 blade who's tip was lined in diamond and increased the crit multiplier by one. Think an Obsidian Blade (in this case a shortsword) would be ok to do that? (I may make it more than double but other than that I don't think it could hurt too much right?)

Alright thanks for the responses!

[The Giamarga]

Obisidian in d20pfsrd

[Zilfer]

Thanks for the Pathfinder link, though the one i found in Van Richten's said to double the price not half it. o.O' Thanks for the link however.

Also, I mean no offense when i say this but your name makes it really hard to google search for any information on your namesake. I literally couldn't find a possible lead to reading anything about the Giamarga.

[alhoon]

IIRC obsidian weapons had a chance to break on an attack or something. Natural one I think.

[Arjuna]

I was watching Antiques Road Show the other day and it had a Jade letter opener. I thought that a Jade dagger would be cool. I was hoping that the link to the obsidian weapons would have something on it. Not to hijack your thread but does anyone know if a jade weapon is possible?

[A G Thing]

Wasn't there something about that in Oriental Adventures or Rokugan? I have to go now but if I come back and no one has checked I will break out the books and see!

[Zilfer]

I'll have to ask one of my friends that has the oriental books to check.

On a side note homebrewing obsidian to have a better crit range but easier to break sound like a good trade off?

Current weapon break system I use is a 1, then a "confirm break. (1,2,3) which I could up a few more numbers. Though it makes more sense for larger weapons to break more often than smaller ones.

Anyone got 2cents?

[High Priest Mikhal]

Obsidian weapons in Ravenloft have Hardness 8, 10 HP per inch of thickness, suffer a -1 penalty to Attack and Damage Rolls, and threaten to shatter on a natural 1 on an Attack Roll unless the wielder makes a DC 14 Reflex Save (I think that 's everything, I can't remember). The reason it's so expensive is it's relatively rare compared to iron in most domains. Volcanic glass isn't easy to find with so few volcanoes in the Core.

In Oriental Adventures there's no real mechanics to the materials, other than that Shadowlands oni cannot regenerate wounds inflicted by either, jade offers a +4 bonus to Fortitude saves to avoid Shadowlands Taint (the same Taint in UA and Heroes of Horror), and obsidian is cursed by the moon to drive its wielders mad. In Ravenloft jade would probably have the same statistics as obsidian weapons, but a price multiplier of x4 (jade is a precious stone and rarer than obsidian in the Core). Since both are stone rather than metal, they also can't be sharpened once dulled (unless magic is used). Interesting factoid: a knapped flake of obsidian is sharper than surgical scalpel. So much as touching it can inflict a deep cut, but also dulls it to that -1 Damage penalty after one use.

[Zettaijin]

For what it's worth, Dark Sun made plentiful use of obsidian due to the lack of metal.

[The Giamarga]

Also, I mean no offense when i say this but your name makes it really hard to google search for any information on your namesake. I literally couldn't find a possible lead to reading anything about the Giamarga.

There's no one the Giamarga in Ravenloft canon afaik. And there's not much to find on giamarga in general. Dion's Shadow and Steel: Weapons of Legacy in Ravenloft netbook mentions a giamarga in one of the legacy item's write up (tha harp of the giamarga iirc). Aside from that I only found the word in various sites about the language patterna. Even in published Ravenloft material the word only appears as an obscure footnote in Domains of Dread. That's why i chose it as a pseudonym.

Also you can exclude my user name when googling: like this.

[High Priest Mikhal]

For what it's worth, Dark Sun made plentiful use of obsidian due to the lack of metal.

True, as well as bone and flint. I used to have PDFs of all the 2e AD&D Dark Sun books, but I've lost them somewhere, so I can't really say if bone, flint, and obsidian weapons also took penalties in that setting. Bone and stone (like flint) are detailed in VRA for Ravenloft, with bone only 5 Hardness, 8 HP per inch of thickness, and stone with the same stats as obsidian (except no Damage penalty for bludgeoning weapons since it's not as prone to shattering as obsidian is).

[The Giamarga]

An excellent 3e Dark Sun conversion is available at Athas.org It probably has rules for these materials...