Originally Posted by
donfilibuster
It has always been the prefix, so you mostly use them as boss beaters.
They did not invented a new metal type, they invented a magical weapon property.
The magic transmutes the weapon, it was first labelled transmuting, then changed to metalline to avoid confusion but it can't be helped, the thing is inherently confusing.
You can't talk of realism in fantasy by itself except by the crafting rules.
In DDO the crafting rules are metal, prefix, suffix, enhancement bonus, minimum level, total modifier, etc.
In PnP there's stuff you can add at a cost like the metal or magic you can add at the modifier cost.
From these one can tell if something is not appropiate compared to the existing stuff.
In D&D theres a large amount of special metal types beyond what we have in DDO, all of them are tipically simple, just one kind of advantage to your weapon.
It is usually a small bonus, e.g. the greensteel from baator (not shavarath) was only +1 but being non-magical it couldn't be dispelled, disjoined or affected by antimagic.
Conversely there's a lot more magic weapon properties and being actual magic they have more power to do things like returning, dancing or transmuting, etc.