Masterwork Weapon Availability

I'm looking for players' opinions on how Masterwork Weapons should become available during a campaign. This is in regards to a full adventure mod I am slowly developing.

I want to try to avoid the situation where every masterwork weapon is available for sale in the "town", and you can (for example) just open trade with the cabinetmaker for a full selection of any and every variety of masterwork bows and shields. I find it much more fun and exiting to run across them sporadically during the course of an adventure; usually from loot or maybe popping up at a merchant unexpectedly. I know this sounds frustrating to some. You just want to know you can find the Masterwork weapon you have specialized in without hunting around and hoping one will pop up, so you can hand it to the crafter and get back to the dungeon.

So, I have two questions:

1) Would you rather have to adventure or at least hunt around for each of your Masterwork Weapons and Armor, or just have them all available in one fell swoop?

2) What ideas might you have for getting them, without it being too frustrating?

Here are a few ideas I am tossing around right now to limit availability:

- The respective dealer (metal, wood, leather, cloth) will have a small limited selection that will be randomized at the start, and will only refresh upon a major game state (roughly every 4 levels) so you can Not just step outside and rest for 7 days and then walk back in until you get the item you want.

- A special quest for each weapon you would get. Something like "Kill the Deklo spiders and the woodsman will pay to have a bowyer take a week to make you a Masterwork Composite Bow"

- Ocassional encounters with traveling caravans with a merchant who might have one for sale.

- Randomly found as loot on defeated creatures, of course.
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My goal here is not to try to make it a total pain in the ass to find them, but to try to find a middle ground where getting them is more fun, adventurous and rewarding.

Any input will be very helpful, Thanks.

 

I would like a special quest to get them or to have to fight and defeat a challenging enemy boss.

 

Limiting access to Masterwork equipment is only meaningful if magical equipment is not available yet, because why use a Masterwork Longsword if a Longsword +1 is available and affordable?
That would not only require to have no magic shop freely available at the start of your planned adventure but no enemies or random encounters that drop magic either. It would feel like a Birthright campaign ^^

Characters are expected to own a certain amount of wealth by level according to the DMG, e.g. 2700 gold by 3rd level to be able to take on the expected Challenge Rating of opponents. If they don´t have access to that equipment the adventure needs to adjust the CR of opponents accordingly.
But if it´s not magic weapons and armour and not masterwork weapons and armour what is their useful wealth made up from?

Ideally I like the idea of having to do a quest for every non-mundane weapon - what would Nagelring, Balmung or Eckesachs be without the story how they were obtained?

 

have each item made to order- the craftsman tells the player what he needs in order to make it and suggest where they might get the need ingredients. After that it's just a matter of time and money spent to craft it...

 

Is there anyway to edit the moon ivy armor so that it is masterwork and can be enchanted?

 

You could edit the proto easily enough if you wanted to add "masterwork" to the item. I believe at one point there was a masterwork variety, but it was removed. To quote Gaear: "There is no masterwork variety, as I see no indication anywhere that it should be craftable. It appears to simply be an exotic armor."

I don't think a masterwork moon-ivy armor is possible conceptually, since it's just a wreath that takes 8 hours to grow overnight. It's kind of unspecific if it is actually forged, or magical, or brought to form by Faeries or Druids or some other entity. It appears to be one of those things that just exisits.

 

Ok, let's say MW moon ivy armor is not possible. Is there anyway to make it enchantable then?

 

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I'll go with mostly with the chain suggested by Ted:

Start with a few randomly inserted MW items in the merchants inventories, then...

An individual quest for each of the metal/wood/leather/cloth dealers to activate the MW selection for that particular guy (ie: Giant's Head / Decklo / Bing). I was thinking of having three-part quest chain for each, to turn on the inventory in stages. Example using Hommlet:

Stage 1: Kill the Deklo spiders, which will make a fair selection of Masterwork bows and shields available.

Stage 2: Arrange for a regular patrol to keep the spiders at bay, which will make top-line MW Composite Bows available.

Stage 3: Root out the evil scheming 3rd party in a feud between the "town" and the elves, which will make Elven and Darkwood items available, and a careful selection Magic Elven items from the Elves.
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I'll toss in travelling merchants and "strange fellows in alleys" for some more interesting exotic stuff.

 

There are a couple issues here: (1) How to improve gameplay and (2) how to more closely resemble D&D.

For #2, characters can craft their own masterwork items in D&D. Yes, it takes time, but so does crafting magic items (which has been eliminated in this game) and there are no plot-related time limits so we can basically ignore the time requirements for crafting. That means, the characters should be able to create any masterwork item without the need for merchants, quests, etc. This includes things like Strength 26 Composite Longbows (which aren't available in-game, but should be - considering the PCs should be able to make them on their own).

As for #1, I do much prefer finding items than buying them from a merchant. Ideally, there would be more variety of weapons and armor for all the opponents so that you could find whatever you want instead of buying it.

 

There would be at least the need for the tools for the job (e.g. artisan tools) and a place to create them. Forging Masterwork Swords or Armour without a forge in the middle of the forest?

What would be the sense of limiting access to Masterwork items to buy or find when you can freely create them yourself?
And PC´s should only be able to create Masterwork items themselves if they spend skillpoints on a specific Craft skill, e.g. Craft (Bowmaking) for the Longbows you mentioned, and a lot of skillpoints as the PHB has a DC of 15+(2Xrating) for Composite Longbows with high strength rating which would result in a really high DC for the Composite Longbow (STR 26) you mentioned.

 

This is completely what I am doing, I'm glad it will be appreciated. Most treasure will be randomized so you could potentially get anything from any lair, or from any defeated creature you loot. High NPC's and special encounters will have some items sensibly standardized, but for the most part "you never know what you're gonna get". It will all be balanced by the CR of the encounter, so balance won't be disrupted too much.

One part of the game that drags me down as I replay it, is knowing what the treasure will be after each encounter... +1 Shield in the giant lizard, potions of the bugbears, +1 breastplate and club of striking from Lareth, onwards through the whole game. Unfortunately, all the intense modding that has been done for new arms/weapons/magic items don't show up as random treasure, but only as items for sale in the Verbobonc shops.

 

I don't think he was implying it could be done "freely".

Like you said mostly, you would have to invest in a shop, tools, get the appropriate skills, spend the money on raw materials. None of this has ever been modded in, and would take a lot of time to do it right.

I suppose a simplified version could be undertaken, with just a skill added (like KOTB added alchemy, or climbing), and then you find a shop you can buy, click on the anvil or whatever and the crafting process is done thru dialog.

But I have an old school mentality (having grown up on first edition) where adventurers don't bother with the mundane stuff of making weapons and armor; I'm still not really comfortable with crafting stuff over finding it from defeated enemies.

 

Yes, but presumably similar requirements exist for crafting magic items (specific materials are purchased for the gold spent in crafting the items) but this game simplifies all that by converting material requirements into a gold cost. If that's how crafting magic items works it makes sense that the same would be done for crafting masterwork items. So presumably you could only craft masterwork equipment while in a 'safe place' just like with magic items.

I was trying to point out that improving gameplay is in conflict with making the game more consistent with D&D. Making the game consistent with 3.5 D&D would mean allowing PCs to craft their own masterwork items. However, I was simply admitting that having characters create their own masterwork items and/or buy them (both of which are allowed in D&D) would be less fun (for me) than having to find them (as long as it wasn't TOO difficult to find what I wanted for my character).

As long as you have more than 2 characters in your party, one of your characters should have nothing better to spend their skill points on. And a DC 31 check doesn't require THAT many skill points. Presumably your 20+ Int wizard would be the crafter, so 6 ranks [3rd level] would be enough to craft a Str 26 Bow (it would just require more time and money with so few ranks - but again, time is ignored in this game).