Silvered Weapons

Tom,

The reason such an item wasn’t included is that one of the goals of “Monster” creation was to avoid the tried and true methods of killing certain monsters, such as silver weapons for werewolves.

A bit of the horror is taken out of the game when everyone immediatley knows how to kill a creature or at least its weaknesses.

In the adventure I ran years ago involving werewolves, I made sure that silver was not their vulnerability. Instead, they could only be killed by “blessed” fire. Made for a much more tense game.

The reason such an item wasn’t included is that one of the goals of “Monster” creation was to avoid the tried and true methods of killing certain monsters, such as silver weapons for werewolves.

Yeah, no I get that. I didn’t miss the line in the werewolf entry, “precious metal of GM’s choice.” I’m just surprised because its only a matter of time before some player asks, “what do I have to do to get a weapon made of .”

This seems to dovetail with the “exceptional items cost x2 or x3 more than the base”, so I’m good. When WH2’s sales are good enough that you throw out the obligatory “Arms and Equipment” supplement, THEN I’ll expect a full treatment on strange compounds and alloys.

So in past years my (real) primary profession was as a knifemaker, I learned some really interesting things about metals. and some really common tropes have always bothered me, “silver” or “silvered” weapons and “Cold Iron”

This is partially the reason I went looking around as opposed to just shrugging and throwing out a random price multiplier. Not that I’m going for abject realism in my game (I’m happy with BtVS/Supernatural cinematic realism), but I wanted something a bit deeper than adding a simple quality.

Going through your description, this is how I envision this working:
Weaponsmith takes existing weapon and adds decorative flourish and channels to the blade. This is delicate work so as not to diminish the integrity of the blade. To be effective against a creature sensitive to silver, there has to be at least 75% coverage across the face of the blade, especially for a slashing weapon. Once this work is complete, the blade is sent to a silversmith who fills these channels with molten silver.

Now, I considered adding a degradation component, but that’s one more thing I have to worry about. What could work, however is this: after each combat, the wielder rolls a number of dice equal to the item’s Toughness. If the roll achieves no successes and at least a single complication (1), the silver work has degraded and must be repaired. This costs X RP.

The problem I see here is as you start leaning more on the resources of the characters, the more important acquiring money becomes to them. But it could work. What do you think?

Tom

And it is not my job to inform the player of that.

If he wants to spend his RP on a silvered scimitar, my job is to tell him how and how much. By the same token, I don’t consider myself such a jerk of a GM to never let him encounter another werewolf vulnerable to silver again.

Tom

Tom,

By the same token, I don’t consider myself such a jerk of a GM to never let him encounter another werewolf vulnerable to silver again.

Actually, maybe that’s exactly what you should do.

Obviously, you play the game as you like, but the diea of noy having to worry about money is that it should be irrelevant to the game. Perhaps by letting the player spend a ridiculous amount on a “one use item” may make him/her and the other s say, “Hmmm…maybe that wasn’t such a smart idea, after all. I guess I should stop sharpening stakes and gathering garlic, all the time.”

That’s what I would do, so I guess that makes me a jerk GM.

Tom, I like the mechanics behind the rules that you proposed and the update ( and I apologize for not saying that in my first response) I saw someone that just had the players roll a D6 and on a 1 the silvering was ruined, but I like your solution better.

Yeah, this was something I saw come up a lot on various DnD/d20 threads about silvered weapons. No one liked the idea of the weapon becoming useless right in the middle of a fight. I know myself well enough to know I would NEVER remember to ask for a roll like that in the thick of combat, so making one roll after the dust has settled seems like a win for everyone. Plus, it keeps the silvered weapon from being a resource soak. That’s great for fantasy RPGs where GMs need excuses to strip players of their wealth. Not so much for WH.

Actually, maybe that’s exactly what you should do.

Obviously, you play the game as you like, but the diea of noy having to worry about money is that it should be irrelevant to the game. Perhaps by letting the player spend a ridiculous amount on a “one use item” may make him/her and the other s say, “Hmmm…maybe that wasn’t such a smart idea, after all. I guess I should stop sharpening stakes and gathering garlic, all the time.”

That’s what I would do, so I guess that makes me a jerk GM.

If the whole focus of the campaign was hunting werewolves in eastern France, I’d probably be a lot more resistant to the idea of doling out silvered weapons. And the result of putting the cadre up against a group of three stripped down werewolf thralls has convinced me that 1 or 2 manwolves at this point could easily be a slaughter.

But since werewolves (or specifically, manwolves) really aren’t front and center in my plans, I don’t see it being a problem. Really, its more of a background thing for the PC:
– member of the stalkers
– mentor killed by werewolf they were hunting
– PC vowed to kill the beast and has hunted him clear across South Western Europe.

It may be a fine point, but I don’t see it being a jerk move to charge a player an arm and a leg for a weapon that may not get much use. I’m not as keen with “congrats, you’ve killed the only werewolf vulnerable to silver in the WORLD. This one here? He’s vulnerable to TIN, sucka!!!”

Likewise, it only costs him RP at this point. They don’t have to quest half way across Asia to find some fabled weapon only to find it only works against 10% of the monster population. THAT would be a jerk move!

Tom

But what about other weapons? a Mace, for example. I could certainly see silver “spikes” screwed into a sturdy wooden ball at the end of a stick or chain. Now you have a fairly sturdy silver mace or morning star. Or just about any bludgeoning weapon could be tipped or capped in a silver sheath. Durability would vary, but would almost certainly be better than on a sword. (Whether or not a bludgeoning silver weapon would have any additional effect on a traditional werewolf is for another discussion.) Also, silver arrowheads or bullets would work, since they only need to be used once.

Actually, I think the basic foundation works fine for all of these. That is, x3 base weapon cost, 1 week to construct.

I think you could also apply the Flaws to a mace, morningstar, or flail. Because the underlying issue is the structure of the weapon is flawed somehow. The 1 pt drop in Toughness is not meant to dissuade buyers. You can paint the scene however you choose. And I wouldn’t worry about it for arrows (unless it becomes an issue for recovery).

So there’s something else to think about. In a nutshell, I’d make each weapon unique, so to speak. “Your silver weapon has these qualities and your silver weapon has these. Why are they different? Well, they’re different weapons made by different silver/weapon smiths. Sometimes you get what you pay for and sometimes you get less that you anticipated.” I think that not knowing when your custom weapon might break down might just add to the suspense if done properly.

You could easily do this too. The crux of the idea here is that these weapons are NOT readily available. They have to be commissioned. No doubt, some players may want to seek out superior, named craftsmen to do the work. That adds flavor to the game that I’m all in favor of. In fact, I may just draw up a few names to add to my Strasbourg file in case that becomes an issues. Better craftsmanship = higher cost and vice versa. But how much detail do any of us really need on this topic? I started out just trying to get an idea of price and how long it should take to make the thing. Everything else is gravy.

Tom