Ah, but I didn't want it to be one-of-a-kind, just not one of the three RP-inappropriate ones available. Was hoping the design might be made more generally available. But yes, that was a detour from the thread topic, for which I'm sorry.

I do now have swords worthy of, and bearing, the runes I bought. Someday I'll wish I could upgrade those runes, though.

I'm wondering if I bought runes poorly... my weapons naturally added up to 462 and were only different by 1-3 points in each stat, making them neearly twins... was that the wrong way to go about it?

Somehow, the whole custom weapons and or runes thing confuses me. I'd almost rather buy a premade arti weapon. Though, from what you're all saying, they're quite a bit cheaper?

tons cheaper

The premade artifact weapons come in a very finite selection. You can only have whatever stats are offered. If you want something faster but with less damage than what is offered, you are out of luck. Plus they all have the same description.

With the runes, you first find a weapon with the stats that you. (Note that using the temper skill to tweak things helps facilitate this task.) And ideally with the description you want. Then you attach your rune and it resets to your inventory, just like an artifact weapon does. Except that it costs less and has the stats you wanted. Think of the runes as transforming a normal sword into an artifact sword.

Ah, makes sense. You can shave off stats and add runes to have, say, a 400 damage weapon, with little speed or to hit? Pretty much anything you want, when combined with customization?

I'm getting that artifact Draest Carthan had. *glee*

Aye, runing the swords you already have is way better than artifact weapons. Not only because of what Roark said but also because you can mix-and-match runes from three categories together on one weapon, so the possibilities are almost limitless.

And now that we can upgrade runes, it's even better still. Thank you thank you thank you! Pardon me while I go stare at my checkbook until it bleeds.