Magic Weapons - 2 specific questions

[skelso]

1: Are there limitations in the way that abilities can be added to weapons?
For example, can you create a +1 longsword with Flaming, Frosting, Shocking and Acid as special abilities?

I know that a weapon cannot have more than a total of +10 worth of bonus and abilities, unless it's epic. I know the DMG says you cannot put conflicting enchantments on a weapon. I took that to mean that a weapon could not be both Holy and Unholy. Does that also mean a weapon cannot be both Flaming and Frosting? I've looked through the DMG quite a bit to determine if there's a more specific rule on that, with no luck. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

2: How does bonus damage from effects like Flaming and Frosting effect a golem?

I know that the Golem's "Immunity to magic" means that it is not affected by spells that allow spell resistance. Does this also indicate immunity to extra magic damage from weapon abilities. If it is affected, does it only work when the weapon actually scores some regular damage on the Golem? If the golem has DR10/Adamantine and a flaming sword does 11 regular and 4 fire, that's 5 damage. Then, next round, the flaming sword does 9 regular and 6 fire. That scores no regular damage, so the fire has no effect. A clear explanation would be exceedingly helpful.

Thanks for your help.

[Delta]

1. I believe the Official FAQ says you can put both Flame & Frost on the same sword. I don't think I'd allow it as DM, though... it does seem to contradict that language in the DMG.

2. My interpretation would be that Flame/Frost would not affect a magic-immune golem. DMG says magic item abilities are "spell-like abilities", so that would seem to be nixed by the magic-immunity.

That's off the top of my head.

[Runestar]

I know that a weapon cannot have more than a total of +10 worth of bonus and abilities, unless it's epic. I know the DMG says you cannot put conflicting enchantments on a weapon.

Where are you getting this? I for one know that it is very well possible to have a holy, unholy weapon. Nor do I see anything wrong with allowing a flaming, frost weapon? How is it possible? Magic.

2: How does bonus damage from effects like Flaming and Frosting effect a golem?

No effect, they affect magic resistant/immune foes just fine, since they are not treated as spells for purposes of interacting with enemies. Just bear in mind that some golems have benefits/weaknesses against certain elements (a shocking weapon would slow an iron golem, for instance, while a flaming weapon would break any slow effect on it).

[Delta]

Tonight I'll change my answer to #2, in the context of the 3.5 rules. The FAQ has a few entries ruling that golems are affected by dragon breath or alchemical acid, based on that "spell resistance" language inserted in 3.5.

Usually I run by 3.0 rules, that don't have that same language. So in my games golems would be immune to that stuff, which makes more sense to me anyway.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I wouldn't allow an item to have conflicting alignment special properties, but yeah. Nothing wrong with an Icy-Hot sword.

Far as golems go, the energy damage doesn't allow for SR, so it works as normal.

[FEADIN]

As you can't be good and evil (unless a very specific event gives you both auras) at the same time a weapon can't be either.
Same for chaotic and lawful, for the elements the opposition is less clear, but cold/fire is no way for me.

[akbearfoot]

I suppose technically, you could have a good aligned crafter enchant a weapon to be holy, and then an evil aligned crafter add unholy later on...However I imagine it would be extremely difficult to find a crafter who would be willing to handle something that gave him a negative level for a couple weeks. Certainly not something that should be hand-waived or found in the 'magic shop'.

The exception being a double weapon. Each side could have opposed enchantments.


Seems fine to me to allow fire/frost on an item. It's magic, and it doesent really add that much damage....Many many things are resistant or immune to both types of energy...really the burst enchantments or holy or elemental aura are all better IMO. It won't even help them chop down doors any faster since ice deals 1/4 damage to objects and fire deals 1/2 and hardness still applies.

Then how about shock/acidic on 1 weapon? most people would think that seems fine, even though earth is dimetrically opposed to air.

[Shin Okada]

IIRC Mephistopheles has a flaming/frost weapon.

[skelso]

Thanks for all the responses. Part of the reason for my question, though is the resulting unbelievable outputs of damage. I'm kind of searching for some way to mitigate it.

In my current game, I have a party of 15th level characters. We've been playing since level 1 and things have been mostly good and fairly well balanced. Since then they've begun pouring their money mostly into their weapons.

The Fighter has a +1 Flaming, Acidic, Holy, Magebane, Undead Bane Bastard Sword.

The Barbarian has a +1 Flaming, Frosting, Holy Greatsword

The Ranger has a +1 Flaming, Frosting, Shocking, Holy Composite Longbow.

The one round damage output is unbelievable. Even though none of them are using adamantine weapons, they can take down a 300hp Greater Stone Golem in 2 rounds. Granted the Holy generally won't work against a golem, but if I'm reading the rules right, it really doesn't make a huge difference that they aren't using adamantine.

[Arkhandus]

Well, normally the mitigating factor is just that a lot of monsters, especially high-CR monsters, have energy resistances. Practically every Outsider and his brother has a handful of energy resistances or immunities, plus the energy immunities of many Dragons and Elementals, some Aberrations, Oozes, Magical Beasts, etc.

Note also that it takes a Command Word to activate these properties, like Flaming/Frost/Shock. Command Word activation is a standard action for each individual item.

The rules themselves (I dunno if Rules Compendium changes it, though) don't say you can't have a holy and unholy weapon or a flaming and frost weapon (though the creator of a holy weapon must be good, and the creator of an unholy weapon must be evil, so you'd have to somehow get a good or evil cleric to enchant the weapon after its initial creation, and I don't think you'll find any such cleric who would even touch a weapon of the opposite alignment).

[akbearfoot]

I am surprised your concerned about flaming/frost....you have 3 characters that all took holy, and you actually allowed someone to take magebane(aka Almost everything bane). Magebane is horrendously unbalanced and underprices....it would be worth the cost of a +3 ability but somehow ended up as +1.



You've got 3 martial oriented classes.....your simplest solution is to grapple them...none of those weapons can be used in a grapple. The other solution is to attack them from above with aerial attackers.

Attack them with Modrons...

practically everything they fight should be immune to half of those enhancments....golems are unalligned, as are oozes and a many outsiders. High level undead have all sorts of immunities and cant be Crit hit. Demons and devils are usually immune/resistant to acid/fire/cold. Plus they get damage reduction against all those hits. That should be especially hard on the archer character.

Advanced Mind flayers come to mind as logical opponents.....psionic levitating in the air raining down mind blasts and other nasty psionic powers.

[Runestar]

Note also that it takes a Command Word to activate these properties, like Flaming/Frost/Shock. Command Word activation is a standard action for each individual item.

Aren't you allowed to give them all the same activation phrase? To be honest, I never really bothered enforcing it...

[washout]

I think the real answer is that you have 15th level characters and characters at that level have a high damage output. Imagine the damage output if none of them were melee characters with big magical weapons, and were instead a bunch of mages/druids/clerics casting 10 all day buffs per day etc..

Many people have seen that the CR system does not hold up well past level 10 so maybe it's time to up the CR by 2 or 3 on every encounter but don't give them the additional experience for it, or simply allocate experience independent of that system alltogether.

It could be that they have too much gold or magic for their level so they may just be acting as characters that are really a few levels higher than they look.

[Shin Okada]

Originally Posted by Runestar

Aren't you allowed to give them all the same activation phrase? To be honest, I never really bothered enforcing it...

Energies from weapons never harm the user and his equipments. So you can let it be active 24h/day or at least make it always on while you are awake. And people usually do so.

Sometimes, it is useful that those functions can be "off", though. Say, when fighting against flesh golems, shocking property should better be "off".

[skelso]

Originally Posted by akbearfoot

I am surprised your concerned about flaming/frost....you have 3 characters that all took holy, and you actually allowed someone to take magebane(aka Almost everything bane). Magebane is horrendously unbalanced and underprices....it would be worth the cost of a +3 ability but somehow ended up as +1.

You've got 3 martial oriented classes.....your simplest solution is to grapple them...none of those weapons can be used in a grapple. The other solution is to attack them from above with aerial attackers.

Attack them with Modrons...

practically everything they fight should be immune to half of those enhancments....golems are unalligned, as are oozes and a many outsiders. High level undead have all sorts of immunities and cant be Crit hit. Demons and devils are usually immune/resistant to acid/fire/cold. Plus they get damage reduction against all those hits. That should be especially hard on the archer character.

Advanced Mind flayers come to mind as logical opponents.....psionic levitating in the air raining down mind blasts and other nasty psionic powers.

Well, I'm running a Pathfinder campaign rather than writing my own. Most of the time, everything is fine. Occasionally, a fight that's supposed to be hard is a little too easy. The campaign I'm running uses a lot of advanced hit-die monsters and npcs with class levels rather than just straight-from-the-book monsters of an appropriate CR. I don't want it to sound like the game is just totally broken. I'm mostly just curious if I've been running magic weapons correctly.

I was concerned about magebane at first, but so far it hasn't been bad. It's at the high end of a +1 ability, but definitely not to +3. I'm fairly strict about what he can use it on. The monster has to either be an actual arcane spell-caster, or the spell-like abilities have to be clearly arcane. If a creature has abilities that seem to be a mix of arcane and divine and doesn't clearly specify what sort of magic it's using, I usually declare it to be divine unless the abilities are mostly sorceror/wizard spells.

I do like to squeeze in demons and devils whenever possible, though the adventure path doesn't make very frequent use of them.

Hmm, Modrons would be good. Not evil, immune to criticals, lots of resistances, divine spell-like abilities. Most of them can fly...

[skelso]

Also, I don't think anyone has answered the question about having to overcome damage reduction for the special abilities to work.

For example: Flaming Longsword. You hit a creature with DR 10. You roll 7 regular damage and 4 fire damage. Does the creature get the 4 fire damage, or does the fact that you failed to do any regular damage make the creature also immune to any extra damage from special abilites?

There is some precedent for this. It is my understanding that if you fail to injure a creature due to DR, any poison on the weapon will fail to affect it as well.

[Shin Okada]

Magebane ability was re-written in more clear way in Magic Item Compendium. Now it states that either arcane spells or invocations. It is not a true rule change, because amongst spell-like abilities only invocations have been mentioned as arcane from the beginning.

Regarding flaming/frost or holy weapons, in my experience they are not too strong in 3.5e. With the same cost, you can have +2 better enhancement bonus. That is +2 hit and +2 damage. Two-handed weapon wielder with Power Attack feat can convert that +2 bonus to +4 damages. The result is +6 damages which affects on everything.

[Starbuck_II]

Originally Posted by skelso

Also, I don't think anyone has answered the question about having to overcome damage reduction for the special abilities to work.

For example: Flaming Longsword. You hit a creature with DR 10. You roll 7 regular damage and 4 fire damage. Does the creature get the 4 fire damage, or does the fact that you failed to do any regular damage make the creature also immune to any extra damage from special abilites?

There is some precedent for this. It is my understanding that if you fail to injure a creature due to DR, any poison on the weapon will fail to affect it as well.

DR never blocks energy damage:
DR only works against manufactored and natural weapons. neither is energy damage so that bypasses DR.

Yes, that means falling damage bypasses DR too.

In your example, you'd deal 4 fire and no non-fire damage.

Poison specifically says it only works then.

[FEADIN]

From the SRD:

Damage Reduction

A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below......
.....
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.

Energy damage is ok even if the DR negates the weapon damage itself.

[akbearfoot]

I wasnt aware that magebane got changed...it used to apply to basically everything high level that you encountered.

PCs usually have an easy time dealing with classed NPCs, especially ones that can't cast spells....Since the bulk of most PCs power comes from their magic items and NPC humanoids get substantially less gear than PCs.