Weapon Crafting

So in my world, these weapons are forged to include veins of rune ore throughout the weapons. This is an ancient technology that is just now coming back to the ‘modern’ world and is expensive equipment that my players can spend their hard earned income on.

They are designed to give the players an ability to create the right tool for the job. Some players really like the idea of wielding a huge blade of fire like the Flame Tongue… but that’s a problem for them if they end up having to fight a Red Dragon. With these Runic Weapons (ØW), they can swap out their Flaming Rune (Ø) and put in a Frost Rune (Ø). This is great news for those that only want to carry around a single sword… for whatever reason.

The Weapons

What makes these weapons innately more interesting than a regular +1 weapon is that they have slots in them. Anywhere from 1 to 3 Ø slots that will allow you to put in a number of Runes Ø. Though, once a weapon is crafted, you can not increase the number of Ø slots, this is so I can sprinkle in a few of these weapons in the early levels with a few of the lower powered runes so that the players can have some cool weapons in the beginning.

Another key thing about these weapons is that they are not considered magical for overcoming resistances or immunities. This does put a few limits on their usefulness in the eyes of some players, but the fact that you can add a bunch of different effects more than makes up for it. I wanted to challenge my players. Do they want the same small, magical bonus to their hit and attack rolls like they always get, or do they want a weapon they can customize to their heart’s content?

With them not being considered magical, it puts a greater focus on how to load out their weapons. Before they go off adventuring to the Abyss they’ll swap out their Flaming Ø and grab a Holy Light Ø, or maybe they are about to go into a dark cave and they’ll grab a Light Ø. Being able to prep your weapon for the upcoming encounter or session is a great way for the players to be involved in the game when the spotlight is on them.

I will also add that I have variant rules at the bottom of this article that addresses how long it takes to swap out runes. Maybe for your world these runes take a long rest to ‘charge’ up in the weapon, maybe it only takes an hour. Having the runes be something that can be swapped out easily is definitely a conscious design decision for my higher magic world. For those in mid-magic campaigns, consider having a rune swap take a long rest to charge, and for those in low-magic campaigns, have the rune become permanent once you apply them to your weapon.

Runes Ø

Now let’s talk about the runes. I mentioned earlier I drew inspiration from Fable, but that was only for the idea of them. I wasn’t sure how I wanted it to work mechanically until I was reading through the new Pathfinder 2.0 magical items. I like the idea of runes that can be swapped out, though Pathfinder made it so it took about a day to do that. I wanted something faster… 1 action to take out, 2nd action to put in a different rune. I wanted something that could be done quickly, something a little bit faster than just waiting for an hour (Read: Short Rest) to move things around. Now, this does make it very costly during combat, but that’s fine... It rewards the players to have their weapons properly prepared before they take on a creature.

The runes themselves were created from inspiration found in Pathfinder runes, from spells, magical items and from just random musings in my head. I wanted to create an assortment of items that could be used in a variety of locations and had more than just combat focus to them. I wanted utility in my weapon runes. If I was a player, I would want my weapon to do more than just hit things really well.

Unfortunately, that means certain runes may require more Ø slots than other runes, but I think that that is a sacrifice worth making. Besides, you can always switch out your runes quickly!

One last note on the runes, they are priced based off of the Sane Magical Prices guide.

Putting It All Together

So there we have it, a system for modular weapons with a lot of utility and creative problem solving when it comes to fighting monsters. It’s a method to replace the normal, dare I say, boring +1 magical weapons you will inevitably hand out to your players. There are a lot of rules you could change for your own system so I’ll go ahead and add some variant rules that might fit better for your table: