Crafting Weapons & Armor

Source: The Arcane Forge, p. 3

“Humans hold such pride in the might of their armies. But the mightiest host of men could not hope to defeat even a single one of our warriors wielding a sword of the purest mithral, worked to perfection by hands of our enchanters.”

• Virsandroal, Master of the Order of Insight

The right weapon or armor can elevate a character’s abilities far beyond anything they could achieve without them. And when you’re the one crafting the item, making sure it’s the right one is entirely up to you.

Enchanting Magic Items

As part of the creation of a magic item, you may choose to imbue it with an enchantment. Any weapon or armor can be enchanted, but doing so bears a considerable time and gold investment. Enchanting a magic item follows the same time and cost rules as laid out in the Crafting Magic Items chapter at the beginning of this document. Refer to the tables below for the rarity of each enchantment.

Enchantment Limitations

Magic items with multiple enchantments have the following limitations:

Three Enchantments

No magic item can hold more than three enchantments. When you put a fourth enchantment on an item, you must chose which other enchantment you’re removing from the item.

No Stacking

You cannot put the multiple instances of the same enchantment on an item.

Attunement

If any property of a magic item requires attunement, then the item as a whole requires attunement. Without becoming attuned to an item that requires attunement, you gain only its nonmagical benefits unless its description states otherwise.

When you enchant ammunition, it doesn’t require attunement even if the enchantment normally requires attunement.

Universal Enchantments

You can add the following enchantments on anything, be it an existing wondrous item, magic weapon, magic armor, or a mundane item.

dice: d10	Enchantment	Rarity	Attunement?
1	Damage Resistance	Rare	Yes
2	Darkvision	Uncommon	No
3	Ego	Rare	Yes
4	Expert	Rare	Yes
5	Glowing	Uncommon	No
6	Invisibility	Legendary	Yes
7	Lucky	Very Rare	Yes
8	Returning	Uncommon	Yes
9	Spell Resistance	Rare	Yes
10	True Seeing	Legendary	Yes
^enchantment-rarity-attunement

Weapon Enchantments

You can enchant weapons with a property from the list below. Or a GM can roll on the table to create random loot.

dice: d100	Enchantment	Rarity	Attunement?
01–05	Binding Chains	Uncommon	No
06–10	Cruel	Uncommon	No
11–15	Marking	Uncommon	Yes
16–20	Maneuvering	Uncommon	Yes
21–25	Primordial	Uncommon	No
26–30	Stalking	Uncommon	No
31–35	Throwing	Uncommon	Yes
36–40	Transforming	Uncommon	Yes
41–44	Warning	Uncommon	Yes
45–47	Cursing	Rare	Yes
48–50	Dueling	Rare	Yes
51–52	Explosive	Rare	No
53–54	Flame Tongue	Rare	Yes
55–57	Life Stealing	Rare	Yes
58–60	Mind Breaker	Rare	Yes
61–62	Repulsive	Rare	No
63–64	Planebound	Rare	No
65–66	Skin Melter	Rare	Yes
67–69	Spellbreaker	Rare	No
70–72	Venom	Rare	No
73–75	Vicious	Rare	No
76–78	Withering	Rare	Yes
79–80	Swatting	Rare	No
81–82	Wounding	Rare	Yes
83–84	Dancing	Very Rare	Yes
85–86	Frost Brand	Very Rare	Yes
87–88	Maddening	Very Rare	No
89	Magi	Very Rare	Yes
90	Mighty Cleaving	Very Rare	No
91	Oathsworn	Very Rare	Yes
92	Parrying	Very Rare	Yes
93	Quickness	Very Rare	Yes
94	Ruin	Very Rare	Yes
95	Sharpness	Very Rare	Yes
96	Slaying	Very Rare	Yes
97	Striking	Very Rare	Yes
98	Holy Avenger	Legendary	Yes
99	Thunderbolt	Legendary	Yes
100	Vorpal	Legendary	Yes
^enchantment-rarity-attunement

Armor Enchantments

You can enchant weapons with a property from the list below. Or a GM can roll on the table to create random loot.

dice: d100	Enchantment	Rarity	Attunement?
01–05	Acrobat’s Agility	Uncommon	Yes
06–10	Beastly Senses	Uncommon	Yes
11–15	Draconic Mind	Uncommon	Yes
16–20	Fish Flippers	Uncommon	Yes
21–25	Giant Endurance	Uncommon	Yes
26–30	Implacable	Uncommon	Yes
31–35	Instant Armor	Uncommon	No
36–40	Monkey’s Grip	Uncommon	Yes
41–45	Noble Speech	Uncommon	Yes
46–50	Ogre Power	Uncommon	Yes
51–55	Quiet	Uncommon	Yes
56–60	Rejuvenate	Uncommon	Yes
61–65	Water Breathing	Uncommon	No
66–68	Ambusher	Rare	Yes
69–71	Antimage	Rare	Yes
72–74	Beastform	Rare	No
75–77	Elven Make	Rare	Yes
78–80	Feathered Wings	Rare	No
81–85	Fey Step	Rare	Yes
86–90	Regenerative	Rare	Yes
91–93	Speed	Very Rare	Yes
94–95	Vengeful	Very Rare	No
96–98	Ramming	Very Rare	No
99	Thunderbolt	Legendary	Yes
100	Invulnerability	Legendary	Yes
^enchantment-rarity-attunement

Rare Metal Forging

The first step in creating a magic weapon or armor is determining the material it’s made of. There are many types of rare metals, each of which confers powerful benefits to the item it’s used to create.

Crafting an item out of a rare metal, the cost and time required is determined by adding together the cost and time of the mundane item you’re making and the rarity of the magic metal by consulting the Time and Cost table above. Consult the Rare Metal table below to determine the rarity. Alternatively, the GM can roll on the table to randomly determine an item’s material.

dice: 2d8	Rare Metal	Cost per Ingot	Rarity
2	Vertsteel	10.000 gp	Legendary
3	Imixium	5.000 gp	Very Rare
4	Adamantine	2.500 gp	Very Rare
5	Cold Iron	1.000 gp	Rare
6	Whiteforged	500 gp	Rare
7	Silver	100 gp	Uncommon
8-10	Masterwork	N/A	Common
11	Orichalcum	100 gp	Uncommon
12	Blacksteel	500 gp	Rare
13	Zarinthic	1.000 gp	Rare
14	Mithral	2.500 gp	Very Rare
15	Bloodmetal	5.000 gp	Very Rare
16	Sunmetal	10.000 gp	Legendary
^2-rare-metal-cost-per-ingot-rarity

Rare Metal Ingots

To create weapons or armor from rare metal, you need ingots of that metal. The cost and rarity of each type of ingot are listed on the table above, and the number of ingots required is listed below.

Item Being Crafted	Ingots Required
Light Weapon	1
Weapon or Light Armor	2
Heavy Weapon or Shield	3
Medium Armor	4
Heavy Armor (except Plate)	5
Plate Armor	6
^item-being-crafted-ingots-required

As a rule of thumb, rare metal ingots are at their best when they’re treated as rewards to be discovered rather than as materials to be purchased. The party could find stacks of adamantine in a dwarven ruin, or a single bar of mithral preserved in an old elvish vault. In this case, the cost of the ingot listed above is irrelevant.

Finding an Arcane Forge

To create weapons or armor out of rare metals, you must be working the metal at an arcane forge. Where you can find such a forge is up to the GM. Perhaps it’s found in a vast metropolis where magic items are more common, and access to the forge carefully controlled. Or maybe it’s deep within a dungeon where it lies dormant, waiting to be rediscovered and for its flames to be kindled once more.

Wherever it may be found, getting access to an arcane forge can be an excellent reward for players around level 5, especially in a game where crafting and downtime are a major factor.

Rare Metal Alloy

When creating a new magic weapon or armor with a rare metal, you can attempt to combine the two metals into a powerful alloy. When you do the you use the more powerful Magic Weapon or Magic Armor property and add all the properties of both metals on the weapon.