So what should magic weapons look like? (Page 1 of 2)

If keeping on the +1/+2 track, I'd make the bonus to hit, but not to damage. (or increase the damage die, just so it's still possible to do 1hp damage)

Hammers of the God has a couple of examples of how magic weapons could work.

I do have to say though that if a magic weapon or armor is all benefit and no danger, you're not doing it weird. It might give you power, but it should be a heavy, heavy burden.

(one review of Grindhouse said the magic items were worthless examples because they were all cursed... which was the whole point...)

The thing to do is to either make magical items have marginal benefit, or add drawbacks appropriate to their power.

A slaying sword that forces it's wielder to attack any living creature within melee distance once it is drawn is an example.

As is a suit of high bonus leather armor made from the skin of innocents, and thus no beneficial cleric/lawful spells will work on the character as long as it is worn, and perhaps sometime after. (days, weeks, until the character atones?)

Of course, you could also add in things like obviously ancient equipment that is unusually resistant or immune to rust or tarnishing, a cup that turns alcohol into water when filled with it, and other odd and questionably useful objects.

That is one idea I had:  say something is magical, but give no real mechanical benefit.  Or just have particularly ornate weapons and armor without any magic to them.  Another idea I had was to expand the "bonus vs. an unadjusted AC of X or higher", maybe to something like "+4 bonus vs. a uAC of 20-22" as the range 20-22 is the "realm of AC granted to beings clad in armor forged in the pits of hell" or some-such.

It occurred to me that, using just my previous ideas only, magical armor & shields would act exactly the same against all weapons, both non-magical & magical.  And that doesn't seem quite right to me.  So I think it might make sense to revise the base characteristics of magical armor & shields to this:

Magical Armor & Shields:  Protect against all weapons, including magical weapons.  Reduce damage taken when hit by any non-magical weapon by 1 Hit Point for each of magical armor & a magical shield.

So, in addition to being effective against all weapons, including magical weapons, such magical armor & shields also would reduce the damage taken from any hits with non-magical weapons.  And, against magical armor & shields, non-magical weapons would sometimes inflict no damage at all even when they do hit.

How does all that sound?

How about a well crafted shortsword with a large red gem in the handle? The gem appears to reflect more light than is available but never actually glows.

It has a demon bound to it and that makes the weapon magical and gives it some interesting properties. When used against undead or demons there are no bonuses. However, when used against living things or magical creatures/beings (like dragons and djinnis) the sword does D12 damage. It turns red after doing damage and turns a deep red if it participates in a kill of an intelligent creature. The colour fades over the next three days if it is not used. If the blade is not fed within three days of its last kill it will punish the wielder with terrible nightmares for ten nights. After 13 days it will block all attempts to heal ( natural and magical) the wielder of the sword until it is used to kill an intelligent creature.

Once someone uses the sword to kill 13 intelligent creatures or a single large or magical beast (like a giant, ogre, dragon etc) the sword will bond to him or her. At that point it will be nearly impossible to get rid of. Always retuning unexpectedly; laying in the road in front of the PC, replacing a mundane weapon in its sheath when the character isn't paying attention etc.

It would be great to have while campaigning but a bitch when you are laid up in town trying to heal some serious wounds. I might call it the Blood Drinker since that's what it does. The extra damage coming from it's blood draining effect when used. Not a nice weapon, but certainly an effective one.

I really like that the armour bleeds when it is penetrated. I love the concept so much I'm going to have to use bleeding armour in another context.

I think D10-1 is too much. I could see it absorbing D4-1, but no more than that. Other than that, I love this armour. The way I imagine it is pretty gruesome. It must scare the crap out of NPCs! They'd take one look at PC and think he was either a devil or in league with one. Not something you want to wear in Pembrooktonshire on market day.

In response to Ed...

Wouldn't making magic weapons ignore regular armor just lead to everything the party encounters that would normally wear armor and be hit at a base AC 12, doning magic armor just in order to survive?

This would lead to a proliferation of magic armor, which is almost worse than plus hit weapons.

Personally, +1 or maaaaybe +2 weapons as heirloom items or Hanzo style master weapons is fine with me.  It can help extend a characters pride just enough to really get them in deep trouble.  But any such weapon has to have a full background story, maybe even others who are seeking it, it can't just be a nice sword. +1 or +2 oddball weapons are great too.  Sure the fighter really wants a sword or the dwarf a hammer, but a +1 Pitchfork of Agony or +1 Arrows of Bat Slaying are great as well.  They lead to surprising role-play situations.  I mean, a crazy magician can make all kinds of stuff for some reason lost to time and replaced by legend.

Anything higher level or with special abilities is a fabled artifact in its own right.  I love the ego concept for swords from D&D and believe that it could be perfectly applicable to armor.  The Red Carapace would be great with an ego, as would Neko's Orphan Leather Mini-Skirt.

I generally hate simple +1 or whatever magic armor though...go figure.

I am actually quite certain that the Red Carapace would have an ego (it pretty much decides when it feeds), but its limited ability to communicate would probably result in those who wear it never actually knowing.  I could see a clever player somehow working out an unspoken contract with his armor, "feeding" it other people (i.e., putting it on them) so that the armor never feeds on him.

It does seem like you might be confused.  It seems like you might be confusing Armor Class with Base Armor Class (also known as Unadjusted Armor Class).

Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class is just the part of Armor Class that's due solely to armor & shield (or, in the cases of some creatures, armor-like body characteristics).  The Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class of people without magic armor or shield (and some non-magical creatures) is what ignoring non-magical armor would keep at 12.  (But creatures much smaller than humans might have Base Armor Classes higher than 12 -- because they're physically more difficult to hit.  And creatures much larger than humans might have Base Armor Classes lower than 12 -- because they're physically easier to hit.)

But they all might still have an Armor Class that's higher (or lower) than their Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class because of various Armor Class modifiers & adjustments.  And they all might also benefit from various To Hit modifiers & adjustments, too.

So, having a magic weapon that ignores non-magical armor doesn't mean that you can hit anything on a roll against just its Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class only.  It just means that anything without either magic armor (or shield) or a magical nature will have a Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class of 12 (or whatever's right for its size) against your magic weapon.  But you'll still have to roll against its total -- modified & adjusted -- Armor Class in order to hit it.  And that could be either higher or lower than its Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class, depending on what Armor Class and To Hit modifiers & adjustments it gets.

Do you see now how ignoring non-magical armor doesn't mean ignoring all Armor Class and To Hit modifiers & adjustments?  It just means ignoring non-magical armor (and armor-like body characteristics) when determining Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class.  That's all.

Exactly.  That's why their Base (Unadjusted) Armor Classes are different from their Armor Classes.

And magic weapons that ignore non-magical armor would ignore only the non-magical armor-like body characteristics that determine their Base (Unadjusted) Armor Class.  They wouldn't ignore either magical armor-like body characteristics or all the other factors that make up their total Armor Class.

While it's true that magic weapons that just ignore non-magical armor would be no better than normal weapons against people & things that don't have any armor (or shield) or armor-like body characteristics, such people & things are already almost always very easy to hit & kill.  So how much help do you really need with them, anyway?

Also, I'm not suggesting that ignoring non-magical armor should be the only characteristic that magic weapons should have.  I'm just suggesting it as a possible substitute for plusses to hit that might not cause the sort of arms race that plusses to hit do.  That's all.  So individual magic weapons still could have all sorts of other characteristics that'd make them more useful than normal weapons against unarmored people and creatures without armor-like body characteristics.  And all those other possible characteristics could be way more varied, interesting and weird than mere plusses to hit are.  In fact, they could even be unique.

Magic weapons of the sort I'm suggesting would help against things with magical armor-like body characteristics if such characteristics acted like the magic armor I suggested -- reducing the damage taken from each hit by a non-magical weapon by 1 Hit Point.  In that case, a magical weapon would do 1 Hit Point more damage than a similar non-magical weapon, which could possibly do no damage at all even when it hit.

Also, again, I'm not suggesting that ignoring non-magical armor should be the only characteristic that magic weapons should have.  I'm just suggesting that as a possible substitute for plusses to hit that might not cause the sort of arms race that plusses to hit do.  That's all.  So, just like with unarmored people and creatures without armor-like body characteristics, individual magic weapons still could have all sorts of other characteristics that'd make them even more useful than normal weapons against creatures with magical armor-like body characteristics.  And all those other possible characteristics could be way more varied, interesting and weird than mere plusses to hit are.  In fact, they, too, could even be unique.

Now it's clear that you definitely must be confused -- because I never said anything even remotely like that.  Ignoring non-magical armor instead of having plusses to hit doesn't mean that a magic weapon couldn't hit things that require magic attacks to hit.  In fact, that'd be the one thing that all magic weapons, regardless of their specific individual characteristics, would always be most useful for.  The ability to hit things that require magic weapons to hit is the most basic, fundamental, defining (and, so, I assumed, unnecessary to mention) characteristic of all magic weapons.

Also, with my revised suggestions for the base characteristics of magical armor, all magic weapons would be more useful than all non-magical weapons against that, too.

How so?  What sort of rules and exceptions are you imagining?

The only trouble I can think of at all is just deciding which creatures have non-magical armor-like body characteristics (all of which seem pretty obvious to me), what sort of armor those characteristics are like (which also seems pretty obvious to me, too), and which creatures have magical armor-like characteristics (which each referee can just decide for themself however they want).  And none of that seems to me like much trouble at all.  In fact, it’s just some of the stuff referees already have to think about anyway.  But, using these ideas, it’d just have some extra applications.  That’s all.

That would be true if the assumption it's based on -- "exhaustive rules and exceptions" -- was true.  But I don't see how that assumption is true at all.  Do you still think it is?  And, if so, why?

I suppose I can see that.  But I've just been assuming that, in LotFP games, no magic item would have such simple characteristics that any other magic item would likely have exactly the same characteristics.  In other words, every magic item would be unique in some way.

I think I now better understand your criticisms of my proposal and your reasons for those criticisms.  Thanks!  But I also still think those reasons must be based on some misunderstanding of what I'm proposing -- because I still don't see how any of them actually apply to it.

First, I don't see how it actually undermines anything about any game system, leads to any problem or loophole, or changes any core game concept for magic weapons simply to ignore non-magical armor & shields (and body equivalent) -- which just makes the Base Armor Class of the target whatever its unarmored Armor Class is instead of whatever the Base Armor Class of the type of armor & shield it's using (or its body is like) is.  All that does is make non-magical armor (and body equivalent) useless against magic weapons.  That's all.  How does that undermine any game system, lead to any problem or loophole, or change any core game concept?  I understand that it works by modifying the Armor Class of the target instead of the To Hit roll of the attacker, and also that it requires referees to decide how much of the Armor Class of a creature is due to any armor-like body characteristics it might have if it ever gets attacked with a magic weapon.  But so what?  How does any of that actually undermine any game system, lead to any problem or loophole, or change any core game concept?

It's just a simple way for magic weapons to be truly magical (inflicting damage as though the armor or armor-like body characteristics of the target aren't even there) instead of merely providing some ordinary, numerically defined, mechanical advantage (a plus to hit).  That's all.

Now, to address some of your specific criticisms:

No, I'm not.  If I thought that, then I'd also think it'd be useless for magic weapons to ignore non-magical armor.  But I don't think that.  I just think it probably won't make wielders of magic weapons nearly invincible, like you once suggest it might.  That's all.

I can see how you misunderstood that.  Sorry about that.  I suppose I should've specified that magic weapons that ignore non-magical armor won't give any benefit at all against the Armor Class of creatures whose Armor Class isn't due to either non-magical armor or any non-magical armor-like body characteristics, but that such magic weapons would still allow you to hit things that require magic weapons to hit them.  But I mistakenly assumed that the first part I didn't mention would be clear in context, and that the second part I didn't mention is just obvious by definition.  Again, sorry about that.

No, it doesn't.  It just illustrates the difficulty of explaining anything so clearly & unambiguously that it can't be misunderstood or misinterpreted by anyone for any reason.  That's all.

Huh?  No.  It'd just require each individual referee merely to decide for themself how much of the Armor Class of a creature is due to any non-magical armor-like body characteristics it might have if it ever gets attacked with a magic weapon.  That's all.  And I can't think of anything for which it's not obvious whether it has any such characteristics and what sort of armor any such characteristics are like if it does.  So, not only is it unnecessary to do all that work in advance, but it's also really easy to do it on the fly as needed, too.

It doesn't require any sort of conversion.  It just requires referees to decide how much of the Armor Class of a creature is due to any non-magical armor-like body characteristics it might have if it ever gets attacked with a magic weapon -- which is really easy to do on the fly as needed.  And that doesn't make it incompatible with base OSR games unless what you mean by "incompatible" is 'requires referees to think about something they might not have thought about before'.

Now it's clear again that you must be misunderstanding what this proposal is all about.  It has nothing to do with the quantity of magic items in a game.  Like you pointed out, each referee has total control over that in their own game.  This proposal is just about the quality of magic weapons, armor & shields in a game.  And it has just two intended purposes (neither of which am I sure it'll do, because I haven't actually playtested it yet):

1)  Replace the game mechanism that's most commonly & easily used to make magic weapons, armor & shields increasingly powerful -- plusses -- with something that doesn't have any set numerical value, and so can't be easily increased, to at least inhibit, if not prevent, a qualitative magical arms race.

2)  Make magic weapons, armor & shields more truly magical by making their base characteristics something beyond mere numerically defined, mechanical advantages.

Huh?  Why?  Do you still think that considering my further clarifications?

And this proposal doesn't do that, either -- unless you consider magic weapons, armor & shields having plusses to be core game mechanics of LotFP even though the only time the LotFP rules even mention the possibility of magic weapons, armor & shields having plusses is when they're saying not to do that.

Ed, I think the Degenerate is correct.

Your idea for magic items ignoring chunks of AC is needlessly complicated and wildly inconsistent. The resulting bonus from ignoring the armour component of AC would be equivalent to anything from 0 to +6 (possibly more) to hit, which I think is a little overpowered for LotFP.

I would never use your model for magic weapons and armour. You, of course, are free do as you wish.

Well it perhaps wouldn't be too far of a stretch of the imagination for a set of armor that has the spell Protection from Normal Weapons (or however it's called) on permanently -- and from this we can easily extrapolate weapons with something like "Piercing on Normal Armor", though for some reason I can only imagine it on edged weapons.

This presence would result in something akin to the following:

Normal Weapon vs. Magical Armor (w/ "Protection") = impossible (maybe allow on nat 20?)
Magical Weapon (if it has nothing else but "Piercing") vs. Normal Armor = as if no armor (uAC 12, maybe 13 with a shield?)
Magical Weapon vs. Magical Armor = normal

This particularly reminds me of Elric of Melnibone, and how his sword would cut through his foes as if they were butter, but when he faced that one guy with the magical armor he was stopped cold in his tracts.  But I would still suggest such weapons and armor being exceedingly rare, and I'm unsure if I'd want such a magical item model in every game that I ran (would cause quite a breach in the haves and have-nots, but enforced rarity can make something of a difference there).