Specific magical weapons and armor

[Anastasia]

I'm talking about these: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#specificWeapons and these: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicArmor.htm#specificArmors .

I've been fiddling with these off and on since Amaryl got her Sun Blade. I'm not satisfied with how these stack up RAW; they range from weak and boring items to pieces that should be minor artifacts. These items have prices are a complete scattershot that often make little sense and eschew balance, too. All in all they're a fiasco and I'd like to do something better with them. I'm thinking about breaking these up into two tables; normal items that can be purchased and things that are off the table. The former category can have price readjustments if needed, the latter category removes the price problem and I'm planning to turn some of those into minor artifacts.

Here's a rough sketch of where I see things falling. This is for my benefit as well as to let you guys see what I'm thinking.

Normal armors and shields:

Mithral shirt
Dragonhide armor
Elven chain
Rhino hide
Adamantine breastplate
Dwarven plate
Banded Mail of Luck - Probably will increase the price a smidge
Plate Armor of the Deep - In an aquatic campaign this would be in special, but since you guys aren't underwater much and freedom of movement exists it's not a big deal.
Breastplate of Command
Mithral Plate of Speed - The math on these more or less checks out. Who'da thunk it?
Demon Armor - The price is more or less right and kind of a guesstimate anyway.
Darkwood buckler
Darkwood shield
Mithral heavy shield
Caster's shield - It may have some slightly exploit-y uses with the raw material cost, but it's not an active concern.
Spined Shield
Winged Shield

Special armors and shields:

Celestial Armor: I'm inclined to make sets of these minor artifacts from the Heavens. They're insanely good.
Lion's Shield: The way it's written indicates that the bite gets multiple attacks and it's probably underpriced even without that.
Absorbing Shield: Disintegrate is messy and this item is a mess.

Normal weapons:

Sleep arrow
Screaming bolt
Masterwork silver dagger
Cold iron longsword - Really, did they need to include nonmagical items made of quasi-mundane materials?
Javelin of Lightning
Adamantine dagger
Adamantine battleaxe
Shatterspike
Dagger of Venom
Assassin's dagger
Shifter's Sorrow - Possibly underpriced with the polymorph ban in place, but eh, there's also trap outsiders.
Trident of Fish Command - Two tridents in core? Really guys?
Flame Tongue - Fine, perhaps even overvalued since fire resist is so damned common.
Sword of the Planes - Hugely variant on the campaign, but not terribly offensive in any case.
Sword of Life Stealing - Underwhelming.
Oathbow - Sucks.
Mace of Terror - May be overpriced, haven't done the math, but it's not objectionable anyway.
Sylvan Scimitar - I'm not a fan of buying feats, though I admit this one's pretty non offensive to the point of being overpriced.
Frost Brand - Proving that ice>>>fire. Poor flame tongue.
Dwarven Thrower

Special weapons:

Slaying arrow - More like being banned since Balmuria lacks save or dies, but whatever.
Greater slaying arrow
Trident of warning - Not horrifically broken by itself due to it's niche status, but it's insanely good within it's niche. Underpriced too.
Luck Blade - Should really be a minor artifact if it's going to throw wishes around.
Sword of Subtlety - Sets a really bad example with how it justifies it's cost. Not insanely broken, just something I don't want purchased.
Nine Lives Stealer - I threw a nerfed version of this out, but yeah, the RAW version is outta the question.
Life Stealer - Even with the drawback it's good and there are easy work arounds. That level of per hit energy drain shouldn't be that easy to get. Probably better suited as an artifact.
Rapier of Puncturing: Touch attack, no save con damage? Remember wraithstrike? Is it such a good idea to couple that with 1d6 con damage? Really?
Sun Blade: Reads and acts like a minor artifact, so I'm of the opinion that it should be.
Mace of Smiting - How do constructs and outsiders relate to each other? The ID element aside, the item's a mess and I'm not sure about the price.
Holy Avenger - Iconic paladin item, should be an artifact. It could also use a slight re-write for clarity, but whatever.

What do you guys think?

[Ebiris]

Honestly, none of the specific weapons/armour appeal to me, so I don't really care. I do agree that they range from pointless to crazy unbalanced, and the prices are occassionally nonsensical, which only heightens my lack of caring. Best to just ignore them, as far as I'm concerned.

[Anastasia]

Honestly, none of the specific weapons/armour appeal to me, so I don't really care. I do agree that they range from pointless to crazy unbalanced, and the prices are occasionally nonsensical, which only heightens my lack of caring. Best to just ignore them, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah. I'm going to the effort so you guys know what may be out of bounds ahead of time. There's a few cool items(Holy Avenger, Lion's Shield), but the majority is a mess.

[Corwin]

The really cool stuff that interests me isn't on the list as is.  >_>

[Anastasia]

The really cool stuff that interests me isn't on the list as is.  >_>

There's stuff scattered across splatbooks and the pile of epic items, but like hell I'm touching those now. (I may do epic a little later.)