Alea Iacta Est

There now follow guidelines for stealing abilities from existing specific weapons. Since I am probably the only person who comes to this website [.] who has access to the ELHB, I will be sticking to DMG items.

This seems really obvious to me, and presumably to some of you lot, but then every now and again I remember that the proportion of people with three years worth of degree-level maths under their belt is quite small, and that some of you may benefit from being told things I think are obvious (goodness knows that I benefit from explanations of things that people at college think are obvious...).

If you like some of the stuff from one of the specific magic weapons, but would like to add more, or try and take out some that is already there, take a look at this.

Take the price of a weapon, and look up the non-magical version version. I'm using the Assassin's Dagger as an example. Taking the price of the Dagger (10,302gp) as a starting point, we look up the cost of a dagger (2gp), and subtract a masterwork dagger from the overall cost, to get the portion of the cost that is due to the enchantment (10,000gp).

Once we have that, divide by 2000gp (for weapons) or 1000gp (for armour and shields). For the Assassin's Dagger, we have 5. Then square root it, to get the total Market Price Bonus equivalent. The use of the Assassin's Dagger as an example now highlights a little quirk: the specific magic weapons and armour do not necessarily use whole numbers worth of bonuses.

The total bonus for the Dagger is the square root of five, or approximately 2.24. Going back to the description of the item, we see that it has a +2 enhancement bonus, meaning that the rest of the bonus (around a quarter of a point) is for the increase to the save DC for the assassin's death attack.

The market prices of various abilities can be found this way, although weapons with multiple powers may make it difficult to determine the values of individual abilities. For example, the Holy Avenger (120,315gp, plus equivalent of approximately 7.75) has a baseline +2 enhancement bonus, but extra stuff for paladins only (including an extra +3 enhancement, half-strength holy effect, and some anti-magic properties). The extra stuff is worth five and three-quarter points as a bundle, but DMs must make their own rulings as to which bits are worth what.

It is worth noting at this point that the Flame Tongue is overpriced; it costs 32,315gp (equivalent to +4) and has a +1 enhancement bonus and the flaming and flaming burst powers. However, the description of flaming burst says that it includes flaming, so the weapon should only be +3 (+1 enhancement, +2 flaming burst), and cost 18,315gp. Rant over...

Here are the plus equivalences for the DMG specific weapons and armour (except for one-use items and those which are merely special materials, since these are already covered in the DMG). If you need any others and would rather not wade through the instructions above, mail me. Remember that I need the whole description of the weapon.