What are some ways to make bronze armor and weapons viable to use?

Iron without steel tech is actually worse than weapon-grade bronze. Only once steel became wider spread did it become more cost efficient to use steel, since you only need Iron ore for Steel, whereas you need copper and tin for bronze. So it was easier to make steel weapons, but only once the technique had been worked out and "hammered out"

Bronze can kill you just as good as iron. But if the other guy has iron armor you're shit out of luck.

Steel. Not iron. True it only takes about 2% carbon to be better, but before that, I'll take high tin bronze over iron any day of the week

You can't get your furnaces hot enough to smelt iron, or else bronze interacts with supernatural stuff in a useful way. Maybe iron and steel block magic in a way bronze doesn't, so bronze is the metal of choice for warrior-mages to channel blade-spells through.

or you know, bronze and shitty iron.

Iron is hard to get, this can be for a number of reasons.
There just isn't much in the specific part of the world where your setting plays.
It's too early for steel weaponry.
There is just that much copper and tin around.
Gods hate iron.
Humans are actually fae and it hurts them.
Glorantha went with the idea that a race invented iron (yes invented) to fuck up trolls and elves, and they don't like sharing.
Enchanting reacts magically with bronze and makes it as strong as steel.

Here have a bunch.
Sole are mystical
Some are technical
Some are sorta bullshit.
Hope you find what you need.

There's not really much of an appreciable difference between iron weapons and armor and bronze ones, save that iron is easier to get ahold of. Bronze doesn't rust and is trivial to rework when damaged. Iron (and steel), not so much.

Steel is outright better for weapons and armor than bronze, but that wouldn't make it less lethal. You don't attack armor strong points directly, anyway.

Play in glorantha

While I too love glorantha, you should elaborate more.
Otherwise you just look like the people that throw GURPS into any context without explanation.
Do you want to look like those?

Glorantha has two-three-ish ways in which it makes bronze it's metal of choice.
Iron is rare and blocks magic when it's not enchanted, which is bad because everybody is a wizard of sorts. But it's notable stronger than bronze.

Bronze is easier to work, more common and most of the setting is in the bronze age, so cities are basically a hip and cool new thing that youngsters like.

Also most books state that gloranthas metals are analogous to earth metals. So they are similar but not quite the same thing.

I unfortunately have the curse of making things I like sound lame when I explain them, so I post in the hopes that someone like yourself who is more eloquent and also likes the thing will be encouraged to post.

Well, what can I say, it worked.
Also I feel used.

You make bronze cannons.

Bronze cannons > Iron Cannons.

Bronze it's just so pretty.
Anything made out of iron can be made out of bronze and it will at least look 15% more sexy, that is science.

Does lead have any special effects in Glorantha? ages ago I played this scenario and the dm made us equip lead weapons to fight a group of spirits but I dunno if he was making things up

Most books I've read have lead as lead.
But enchanted lead doesn't reflect light, didn't make a sound and is usually as strong as bronze.
That's the metal of darkness for you.

Bronze it's the metal of wind.

It's the darkness metal. When enchanted it doesn't glint in the light or clank. I don't believe it has any innate bonus against magic creatures though.

Go with the late bronze age as your setting. Iron weapons and tools exist, but no one has quite figured out how to work the metal the same way they do bronze because the two metals have different melting points and behave differently when worked.

For example, you can melt copper and tin together with a kiln and heat it up by blowing into it enough, but melting iron requires a more extensive billows, charcoal, and various other things to do more than heat up meteorite chunks and hammer them into shape.

Bronze was good for cannons because it was stronger when cast than pig iron, allowing them to use less metal and making the end result much lighter. This stopped being a concern later on when more advanced heat treating methods were discovered, but that wasn't until the late 19th century.

Or else a spell can only latch onto whole solid objects--the folding of steel to give it a proper edge disperses magic. While Bronze can be die cast at low tech levels.

In fantasy? Simpliest way (if you want to keep more advanced tech level) would be that iron mess with magic and can't be enchanted.

You'll have common soldiers using iron and steel weapon, but heroes will want to stick to magical (and pretty!) bronze equipment.

The distinction between 'iron' and 'steel' in this thread is dubious, but it's true that many bronzes are better than many steels (I'm going to just call all iron alloys 'steels', to be clear) for many applications. They can hold an edge of comparable sharpness and are generally as resistant to breakage, but good steels (which became more common as technology advanced through the medieval period) can be harder than bronze and eventually steel became better in basically every way. That was a long time after bronze fell out of favour though; the decisive advantage that steel had was that it was cheap. Set your game somewhere where tin is mined (or tin and copper together, possibly with arsenic and other elements which make naturally good bronze) and the local price of bronze may fall enough to be competitive.

Apart from that:
Bronze looks good and is easy to cast into fancy shapes. This, combined with it's high cost, makes it an excellent status symbol, so bronze gear might be favoured among the wealthy just because of that (meaning that a lot of good gear is bronze).
Bronze is ductile, meaning it tends to bend and stretch rather than shattering. It can be formed into large solid plates more easily than steel, which means single-piece helmets and breastplates in the iron age had to be bronze. Single piece stuff saves a bit of weight and avoids weak points, which is good. Have the sliding rivet and other little details which make late plate armour so good invented a bit early and they will only be able to make it in bronze.
Bronze is very resistant to corrosion (it's also non-magnetic, is more hygienic and doesn't spark, although that seems less helpful for weapons and armour). Anyone working around salt water will prefer bronze tools and if there are things like acid-spitting monsters about, bronze might be better.

They’re enchanted

the same reason it was used in the real world
>steel not invented yet

tin and copper typically don't appear in the same rock formations, so you need a developed trade network or a massive empire to use it properly. a big muh evil empire with bronze while everyone else has copper and shitty iron could be a fun setting

>everybody is a wizard

Steel never became popular because wild magic that rusts iron means bronze became the go-to for good. It had other vulnerabilities, but rust wasn't one of them.

It's more like everyone is a cleric

Iron caught on because it was cheaper/more common. Just make it rarer and no one will bother with it on any meaningful scale.

cold iron is anathema to magic though, thats why you use it to kill fey

Ultimatley bronze was harder to find (on earth iron is far more common) but easier to work, so we mastered it earlier. That is an earth-specific thing.

In a fantasy setting one could say "iron on the surface, copper and tin in the depths" (as an examples) so dwarfs and drow or whatever use predominantly bronze and humans use mostly iron.

>more hygienic
Isn't one of the side minerals found with either copper or tin arsenic? What are you referring to? The corrosion? Rust in wounds?

nayrt
Copper (and copper alloy) is anti-microbial.

I'll be damned. Learned something new today.

Going to replace all my silverware and appliances with copper now!

Armor and weapons for amphibians that won't rust.

Don't rush, silver is antimicrobial tol

Let's add the fact that silver react to a lot of ancient poisons, so a cup made in that matter can be a life-saver

>of sorts.

Basically anybody can use some easy peasy form of magic known as folk magic.
That's small time stuff like doing the thing your dad showed you so your axe cuts a little better.
Make bruises go away like your mom showed you.
Or do some fancy tricks with some leaves like your buddy rob showed you when you guys where drunk.
As i said, small time stuff that makes live a little bit easier in a world that is already a unforgiving bitch.

Then we got Shamanism, Divine magic and Sorcery, which all work pretty differently from each other and need alot of dedicated training.

Threads like this make me realize why I started browsing, aside from getting into the hobby of P&P itself. Not even the OP, but thank you.

Sounds like a lame strategy tb h

Bronze channels magical energy way better than iron or steel. Enchanted bronze is far less durable than enchanted steel, but can hold stronger enchantments and for far longer.