Actually, quite a large number of the +1, +2, +3 vanilla weapons and armours do have thier own flavour text and names if you right click on them. An example from bg1 would be the halberd +2, but if you go to the adventurers mart in bg2 you can right click on all the items, and see that even if the names are all the same, a lot of them have different histories, etc.
A +1 weapon is special. You've been spoiled by high level campaigns.
If it's special then it should feel special. It should have a unique name and lore, and it should be rare. We should not be swimming in generic +1 weapons at level 3. Nobody is talking about increasing power of weapons, just lore (in fact my suggestion would decrease power levels slightly)
A +1 weapon is special. You've been spoiled by high level campaigns.
If it's special then it should feel special. It should have a unique name and lore, and it should be rare. We should not be swimming in generic +1 weapons at level 3. Nobody is talking about increasing power of weapons, just lore (in fact my suggestion would decrease power levels slightly)
As far as having a surplus of generic magical weapons being boring, well, I think that it should be considered that one of the reasons causing them to be boring is the number of them; and so adding some unique name and history to every short sword carried by every kobold and every haldberd being lugged around by every gnoll across the Sword Coast will lead to the character swimming in a bunch of items with wildly different names and stories clogging up their inventory despite being the exact same thing, and this will cause "generic" (standardized abilities, non-unique) weapons to still be boring but also annoying as it seems extremely forced that they all have some story. It makes sense that weapons would be mass produced, and each one wouldn't necessarily have some epic story attached to it. I do like the idea of distinguishing between masterwork, fine, excellent, etc., but that's just a distinction of quality of non-magical weapons.
Adding a couple of weapons (once again, even when the items are unique, it's important not to overdo it) that had something slightly different about them (to hit increase with a damage decrease, things like this) and giving them unique names and stories is fine, but I think it would hurt the game to give all the generic weapons backstories and unique names.
What I'd do is make the whole game extremely poor. Finishing BG1 with mere +1 weapons (received somewhere near the end of the game) and searching for every bit of money, where having 200gp makes you a rich man. That's what I'd make this game look like (and I'm pretty honest about it).
I always wanted some more special items for the less used weapon types (like something better/more special than a random +1 flail for example). Three types of longswords (ordinary, +1 and +2 special) is not an abundance of magic. I scramble like a beggar to get me + items for half of my party, but maybe that's just me. I like the suggestion in this thread. A handful of more special abilities and names for magic weapons would be awesome! But as stated, don't overdo it.
I really can't find +1 weapons powerful. Although they are special, they seem weak to me.
What I would like for magical weapons is to have some of the FR- themed weapons, armor, miscellaneous magic items and spells (from things like Pages from the Mages from Dragon Magazine or FR4, the Magister) be available as weapons in the game. So you could find Ilbratha, The Singing Sword, Laeral's Storm Armor, etc. in treasure.
Comments
Adding a couple of weapons (once again, even when the items are unique, it's important not to overdo it) that had something slightly different about them (to hit increase with a damage decrease, things like this) and giving them unique names and stories is fine, but I think it would hurt the game to give all the generic weapons backstories and unique names.
I really can't find +1 weapons powerful. Although they are special, they seem weak to me.