Masterwork and Magic Items

One of the great advantages of codifying up the benefits and drawbacks of weapons is that it opens up a possibility that wasn't previously present: instead of a masterwork item giving a flat +1 bonus to hit, why not have it either give the weapon one additional benefit or remove one of the drawbacks? For example, perhaps a masterwork light crossbow could be crafted so it doesn't require a move action to reload? Or a masterwork throwing dagger could be balanced to fly further?

At the moment, that's not moved beyond the 'noodling' stage, as I'm a bit concerned that it might be more hassle than it's worth - a flat 1-step improvement in damage may be the best option for all weapons.

However, one thing that I am quite certain of - the bonuses that a character applies to his attack rolls, skill checks, and defences (and anything else I've forgotten) should come from the character and not from his equipment (armour being the one and only exception).

This means, in particular, that the long sword +1 may exist, but if so it will give a bonus to damage only, and not on attack rolls. (Even there, my inclination is for such a weapon to grant a step increase in damage, or add extra damage dice, rather than give a flat bonus.)

(The reason for this is to do with bonus escalation - it's much easier to rebalance for a weapon that does extra damage, even lots of extra damage, rather than one that hits more often. In the latter case, you quickly reach a point where characters must have such items or they can't tackle 'appropriate' monsters. And that's no fun for anyone, no matter how you slice it.)

I'm also inclined to think that the 3e DMG missed out two crucial rules, that would have made the game much more interesting:

1. Magic weapons with special properties must balance the property with the raw plus, when initially created. If desired, the plus can then be increased.
2. Magic weapons can only ever have one special property. In some cases, it's possible to upgrade from one property to a related, better version, but otherwise the weapon remains as it was when first created.

This would, of course, eliminate that dreaded +1 flaming holy longsword, bane vs evil outsiders that I've mentioned before, since it has three distinct properties. It would also constrain the upgrade path - in order to create a holy sword, you would first need to make a sword +1, then a sword +2, then a holy sword +2, and then you could apply further upgrades to the plus as desired.

The Nutshell equivalent of this would be to have various weapon qualities: Damaging (the 'raw plus'), Flaming, Frost, Keen, etc. Weapons could then have up to two of these - Damaging plus one other, and would be required to keep the two in balance as far as possible.

But to a large extent, that's still very much up in the air. Magic items are tied very tightly to Artifice (and the related Signature Items), which is an area I've thought about but not yet had any good ideas about.