A standard rule in some fantasy role-playing games is that a dagger costs 1 gp but a silver dagger (for killing werewolves and such) costs 10 gp. A 10x markup seems unreasonable to merely plate something in silver. That cost only makes sense if the weapon has to be custom-made of an alloy of silver. Which is… kind of cool….
That feels like a better game rule, because otherwise why not have every weapon plated with silver? Getting a weapon special-made out of an alloy of silver would feel a bit like having a magic item crafted, which would be fun role-playing at low level.
But there’s a reason why games (and legends) specify silver daggers and not silver swords, right? A silver alloy would surely make a poor sword or axe, but a dagger, arrow, and perhaps a spear would work fine (but can never be of fine quality). And if you say the weapon must penetrate and touch blood, then silver maces become moot.
This slots nicely into a weapon grading system that also enhances the game:
On an attack roll of natural 1, a weapon must check difficulty 13. On a success, it’s a normal miss. On a successful recovery roll, the character merely drops the weapon. It breaks only if both rolls are failed.
- Poor weapons are half-price (if available at all) but get disadvantage on breakage checks.
- Standard weapons are normal price and roll the check normally.
- Fine weapons get advantage on the check but cost five times the standard price (or, indeed, as much as you want to spend to impress people).
- Magic items get advantage and their magical bonus on top of it (or +1, if not a weapon). If a magic item breaks, it causes a minor wild magic effect to all in a 10-foot radius.
This gives low-level adventurers some upgrades to spend treasure on. It also allows you as the GM to say they shouldn’t bother hauling goblin or orc weapons back to town to try to sell them, because no one wants that poor-quality junk. And wouldn’t it be fun for an ogre to roll a natural 1 and then fail the check, so his weapon breaks in the middle of combat?
Breakage and Ruination of Other Equipment
You can use a similar system for non-weapons. For example, if a character carrying scrolls in a scroll case ends up submerged in water, the scroll case should have to roll to see if the seal fails, ruining the scrolls. It pays to buy a fine scroll case….
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