[RPG] Magic Weapon Creation

dnd-3.5emagic-items

So I have a few questions about Magic weapon creation in DND 3.5.

As far as I have been told the following notions are true:

  • A weapon can't have a +11 or higher enhancement bonus total (between the +x, and any other enhancement bonuses), unless in an epic campaign.

  • A weapon can have a Prefix and a Suffix enhancement on it (As long as it still follows the first notion I posted.)

  • An item can have the Masterwork, Enhancement bonus, Special Enhancement, AND Special material (Adamantine or similar), just merely has to be created with the additional costs.

  • Specific Magical Items can be enhanced as well, as long as it is created within all legal formations as shown above.

Assuming all of this is correct, I would like to request anyone whom can help me figure out a way to find enhancements, and differentiate between a Prefix and a Suffix enhancement.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it would just to be clarifying if some of what I understand is or is not true.

*Edits*

Thank you for responding very quickly to my question, and even more so gratitude to KRyan who answered all of my more clear questions. I was under the impression of another DM (and partially from DDO) about the suffix / prefix enhancements, and apologize for the ignorance.

As well, for the question about finding the enhancements, I was hoping for an SRD document with them all listed between the acceptable books, or if anyone has any methods easy for new players to find enhancement properties. At the time of the OP I was uninformed on how to find them, and have been recently shown where they are located in books.

Again, thank you VERY much on the assistance in Magic Weapon Creation.

Best Answer

A weapon can't have a +11 or higher enhancement bonus total (between the +x, and any other enhancement bonuses), unless in an epic campaign.

Correct; except under the rules provided in the Epic Level Handbook, magic weapons are limited to a maximum of +10-equivalent-enhancement-bonus (and +5 actual Enhancement bonus).

Standard wealth guidelines would make it exceedingly difficult for a non-epic character to afford such a weapon, and the opportunity cost (other items you could not afford) would generally make it undesirable anyway. That said, note that it is possible to afford and obtain epic equipment, including epic weaponry, prior to actually becoming an epic character, if your campaign/setting/ruleset includes the epic rules (this is especially true in high-wealth campaigns, or in high-power campaigns that allow characters to abuse loopholes that generate money in excess of guidelines). So it doesn’t necessarily have to be an epic campaign per se, it just needs to use the rules from Epic Level Handbook.

A weapon can have a Prefix and a Suffix enhancement on it (As long as it still follows the first notion I posted.)

There is absolutely no notion of prefixes or suffixes in 3.5; that notion was popularized primarily (as far as I know) by the computer game Diablo.1 Any number of special weapon properties may be applied to any given weapon and in any given combination (so long as they respect the +10 limit in non-epic games and any particular rules given in the special ability’s description).

For actually naming a weapon, the standard in 3.5 statblocks seems to be to use all special properties as prefixes, but with more powerful weapons it’s more of just a list than an actual attempt to give the weapon a name. For example, I doubt any of the characters would talk about a +1 flaming-burst collision eager vorpal long sword because that “name” is absurd. They probably call it the “Flaming Sword of the Wrath of God” or something. Many of Wizards’ own “Specific Weapons” work this way, particularly when supplements provided modular effects that replicated previously-unique features.

An item can have the Masterwork, Enhancement bonus, Special Enhancement, AND Special material (Adamantine or similar), just merely has to be created with the additional costs.

Yes, but I want to comment on a few things. First, to have any magical properties (enhancement or special abilities), it must first be masterwork, and to have any special abilities, it must first have a +1 Enhancement bonus. Many special materials (adamantine and darkwood for weapons, adamantine, darkwood, dragonhide, and mithral for armors) also require masterwork status. So while yes, you can have all of these, there are relations between them such that they actually require each other in certain cases. You are not free to take exactly which you want all the time.

Also note that a weapon can only be (meaningfully) made of one material.

Specific Magical Items can be enhanced as well, as long as it is created within all legal formations as shown above.

Any existing weapon can have additional magical properties added to it. The cost to do so is the new value of the weapon, less the previous value of the item. For specific weapons, a bit of arithmetic is required to determine the new value; this is not actually detailed in the rules, but you can determine the value of any unique properties by subtracting the value of the item’s normal properties, and then add that value on to the value of the new base weapon.

This does not apply to masterwork status or special materials; items have to be crafted from scratch with those properties.

Assuming all of this is correct, I would like to request anyone whom can help me figure out a way to find enhancements

This is a bit unclear; if you mean finding them within the game, that depends heavily on your DM and the setting he is running. It could be anything from “buy it at this conveniently-located store” to “you will never find that item,” though I’d argue the game does not work particularly well at either extreme.

If you mean finding the rules for new special abilities, the Magic Item Compendium is the best single location, though almost every book included at least a few.

I was hoping for an SRD document with them all listed between the acceptable books, or if anyone has any methods easy for new players to find enhancement properties.

Outside of the SRD, which lists the properties from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Epic Level Handbook, and Expanded Psionics Handbook, it is not legal to put the full stats online. That said, there are numerous community “handbooks” that list, rate, and recommend items, pointing you to the book where each may be found. I recommend Bungo's Bargain Basement, Ernir's list of necessary items, Shax’s Indispensible Haversack, and the Utility Belt, as well as any handbooks for the class you’re playing.

1 Wizards of the Coast did print a few licensed Diablo books around the time of Diablo II’s release, which coincidentally was right around the time of D&D 3rd edition’s release. I have seen commentaries that 3rd edition was (or felt like it was) influenced heavily by Diablo, but I have no evidence that these were accurate (they sound similar to the accusations that 4e is too much like an MMORPG). At any rate, these books did include a prefix and suffix system for 3rd edition (as well as for AD&D, in the first licensed book), which I’ve heard good things about, but it is not a part of the usual 3.x rules.