As noted last week here on the Kobold Quarterly blog, we’re continuing to look at an interesting option for presenting weapons and armor in your game. If you missed the first installment of this series, you can read the first part here.

The following keywords are designed to substitute the numeric bonuses applied to armor, shields, and bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing weapons. Using these keywords breaks away a layer of metagame language and makes a world of difference to the player characters (and their players). Now the fighter can walk into the weapon shop and ask for a sword of carving, confident that the shopkeeper will know exactly what he is looking for.

Piercing Weapons

“Trust me friend, you’ll laugh less when you discover what makes the tip of my rapier boring.”

—Angelica the Divine Duelist

Piercing weapons are subtle, elegant, and precise. To embody the idiom “he did not know what hit him” and to reflect the sophistication of the design of piercing weapons, I suggest naming them as follows.

Pinpoint: A pinpoint weapon provides a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Thrusting: A weapon of thrusting provides a +2 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Penetrating: A penetrating weapon provides a +3 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Boring: A weapon of boring provides a +4 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Perforating: A perforating weapon provides a +5 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Slashing Weapons

“As a weapon, a sword is inferior only to a magic sword.”

—Sergei, weaponsmith.

Artistically expressive edges and hilts make slashing weapons excellent display pieces. Often jewel-encrusted and forged in multiple hues of silver, a well-made slashing weapon is a work of art. However, on the battlefield and in violent hands, their true purpose is revealed. The names of the magical properties of slashing weapons reflect their deadliness, not their beauty.

Gashing: A gashing weapon provides a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Carving: A carving weapon provides a +2 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Incising: An incising weapon provides a +3 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Hacking: A hacking weapon provides a +4 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

Dissevering: A dissevering weapon provides a +5 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

If you want to see more blog posts about optional naming systems such as the one presented above, please do comment below!