Talk:Weapon, Red Iron (5e Equipment)

How does the item make a Constitution saving throw? Objects do not have Constitution scores. What is an "imbuement" in gameplay terms? Marasmusine (talk) 15:18, 26 March 2020 (MDT)

Lemme just split those two points up into bullets to tackle them easier... there we go.

• Constitution scores for items.

Yeah, most objects don't have Constitution scores, with the exception of things like ships. Apparently objects can have AC and hit points, though? I'm not very well versed in that aspect, because it hardly ever comes up often, and it also seems a bit at a dysjunction when it comes to other ways items and equipment can be damaged. I'll be honest, it's a bit of a mess, between things like disintegrate and rust monsters and object HP and AC. Anyway, when I wrote that it's allowed to make a Constitution saving throw, it's the assumption that it would have a modifier of +0, or +1, +2, +3 at the higher tiers for the item, respectively. I guess I'm now aware that this is somewhat of a very atypical way to go about this, so I'm really open if you have any suggestions to how I could write it better to better represent red iron's properties in the context of D&D 5e mechanics.

• "Imbuement."

Coming from a Minecraft or more general fantasy perspective, I'd call it an enchantment. Unfortunately, that term is already in-use in D&D 5e as being a school of magic. So the closest thing I can get is from the Artificer class, which is allowed to "imbue" or "infuse" items with magic as per one of their abilities. Red iron actively resists any such forms of such a thing. You cannot make a magical item out of red iron. Like said above, if there's any way I could rewrite this to better represent it mechanically, I would be very appreciative to hear some ways about it.

The whole idea of red iron was inspired by the good old mythical properties of iron, how fey creatures were aversive to it and such. So I amped up the idea and created an antimagical steel. Unfortunately, you'd think in a fantasy setting and system, the whole "innate antimagic" and "harmful to magical creatures" properties would be pretty cut and dry, but not quite :/

--ZarHakkar (talk) 08:06, 27 March 2020 (MDT)