Flexteel

Name: Flexteel

P/W/C Type: Material

Appearance: A pale white metal, but somewhat dull and faded.

Description of Function: This metal will react to being swung very differently from most materials, in that it will stretch far beyond it’s usual reach. Depending on the weight of the weapon, it will flex 1.5 times as far for heavy weapons such as warhammers up to 3 times for light ones like quarterstaves.

Limitations: Not nearly as durable as most metals, prone to breaking or bending if used for defence. Due to it’s magical nature, flexteel may not be combined with other metals.

I'm not 100% sure where I stand on this, and I'd appreciate other staff's opinions, but at first glance this treasure kind of frazzles me. It feels like something more suited toward a cartoon than anything else, and I don't know how I feel about that.

I guess the best question I can ask for now, though, is what kind of instances are you thinking this would be useful and/or viable to aid the user?

Well, it has plenty of uses. It provides a first strike surprise, a great range advantage, and one awesome thing Raz thought of was using it for a bow to make it flex better, shooting further. Additionally, something like a greathammer would have much higher pounding power.

As far as your bow example... metal... metal doesn't work that way; something like that would only lessen the bow's effectiveness, not increase it. And a hammer like that would have to worry about rebound. Ultimately you thought up something that is highly impractical.

The flex doesn't bounce, so I don't see how it would rebound. It'll only stretch along one axis, so it's not like a rapier will turn into a longsword when stretched or anything. And for weapons like sword, quarterstaves and rapiers, it's a great way to make for a unique and interesting fight.

So, wait, is this "stretch and flobbly" like elastic or a simple extension, like "2 ft long rapier extends to a 4 ft long rapier"?

The latter.

If that's the case, then your hammer and bow examples make even less sense in practicality. Reach for the hammer, sure, but that wouldn't really make it hit harder. This still doesn't look worthy of being a treasure.

My issue is that if the hammer or whatever steel is elongated that much, it's going to be a lot harder to actually hold it. If it's equally weighted all along and you're holding it by the handle but the handle to end part is now really long... it's going to want to tip down, and you're going to have to use a lot of energy just keeping it from dipping.

Thus making it for use by stronger people. Also RD, the lever effect when you swing the weapon does indeed make it hit harder. And it's only elongated for when the attack is being done.

Even if you were strong, it would still be really unwieldy. I can't really see something so awkward as helping someone, except in a few very specific circumstances. I mean, I suppose it depends on how much length you're talking about here.

Look at something like a dagger. Easily concealable, but with a swing, it's now about the length of a standard sword, while not being unwieldy to the point of being impossible to use. At the same time, something like a hammer, when used for the lever effect would be indeed unwieldy, but it would be a pretty devastating weapon, like the skull hammer in WW.

Ultimately, even in the hands of a stronger wielder this is ultimately impractical. Furthermore, it does not really fit the aesthetics of the setting and the Zelda games and as such I'm reluctant to accept this in its current form.

First off, I've already clarified an excellent example. An item that's useful for assassins? I can see great uses for that. Secondly, if I showed you a picture of Scervo or Dreadfuse, would you say those are "Fitting in with the Zelda ascetic"? Zelda encompasses a lot, I'm pretty sure the only thing it hasn't used is cyberpunk.

First off, your "excellent example" was made while I was in the middle of formulating my own post.

Second of all, it falls flat on the fact that the suddenly differing weight and reach would make it unwieldy and impractical for actual combat, on account of the wielder needing to constantly adjust and adapt to the radically differing center of balance with the swings and such. Add in the differing designs for swords and such, and you'd need to adjust even further--certain styles are designed for certain swords, which would be disrupted by the mutating design of the weapon. Ultimately you'd need to make a completely new style of swordsmanship for the weapon itself, which again would need to be changed entirely depending on the weapon used--a longsword style cannot be used for a falchion style, for instance.

Thirdly, as far as assassins go it'd be a poor weapon, as they typically go for quick, clean kills--which, depending on the move used, such as a stab, would complicate things as they'd suddenly have to free their sword from the bowels of their victim--never mind the differing situations the would-be assassin would need to take into account due to the sudden need for a sword on an assassination gig, given reach, publicity, so on and so forth... so no, again, this is an impractical material for combat-oriented metal gear and its current setup is only for combat applications.

Finally, yes it does not fit the aesthetic at this time. If such a weapon came into a Zelda game, then by all means, I'll gladly reconsider this. But right now, it doesn't. And if you want to get really technical the instance you used for that example died out in what would come to be known as Hyrule, and isn't really being used for this site's setting at this time.

Alright, a knife fighter is a better specific example. Secondly, you're very drastically overstating how much change there is in the apparent weight. The only extra weight is from the center of balance shifting, which when the weapon is at most shifting 3 times in length for a light weapon, this isn't going to be the type of force that bowls you over or anything. All things considered, I see nothing wrong with this kind of material in Zelda. When we already have weapons that burst into flames and dispel magic, this isn't a very far stretch.

... Pun wasn't intended.

I feel like we know enough about this treasure now. My initial iffiness was coupled largely with my ignorance about types of applications, but, now that we know enough about this, the staff will talk it over and let you know what we think of it when we reach a conclusion.

Sorry, but this treasure is denied.

Rib's Edit (open) Rib's Edit (close)

Toko's bereft response is indeed what the staff has decided for this. To avoid you feeling the need to PM Quill or another staff over the "why" I am editing in the reasoning for this.

From a practical standpoint, the idea of stretching this would not only make the metal brittle by the laws of physics but it would also completely unbalance the weight. A sword only weighs about 5-7 pounds, but it's incredibly difficult to wield because of the length. The simple fact, though, is that we could argue this probably forever. It's a very... flexible subject.

But the bottom line is that even if we could make this realistic, balanced, and worthwhile to obtain, we ultimately feel like this isn't something that would fit into the canon of the games or the setting of the site. At the end of the day this is a subjective decision we need to ask you to respect, especially when we've included the people we trust most on this matter in the decision making process.