Flaming whip

Coredump · Jul 5, 2005

A whip does no damage to someone that has any armor bonus to AC.

What if it were a flaming whip, would the 1d6 still do damage?

What about flaming burst, if it can't do damage, can it crit?

There is a listing for a bullwhip that does slashing and bludgeoning, so it can have vorpal. If it does no damage, can the vorpal effect still work?

Etc for

acidic
frost
disruption
brilint enrgey
enegy drain
life steeling

Infiniti2000 · Jul 5, 2005

Coredump said:
What if it were a flaming whip, would the 1d6 still do damage?

Yes.

Coredump said:
What about flaming burst, if it can't do damage, can it crit?

Yes.

Coredump said:
There is a listing for a bullwhip that does slashing and bludgeoning, so it can have vorpal. If it does no damage, can the vorpal effect still work?

IMO, no. For vorpal it must strictly be a 'slashing' weapon, not a 'slashing and bludgeoning' weapon.

frankthedm · Jul 5, 2005

Coredump said:
A whip does no damage to someone that has any armor bonus to AC.

What if it were a flaming whip, would the 1d6 still do damage?

I do belive an attack has to do damage for any special effect to be applied. I am looking for the relevant text at the moment. Poison, fire damage, disrupting etc.

Now, I'll agree the fire should apply, but the rules might not suport it.

Infiniti2000 · Jul 5, 2005

frank, you're thinking of attacks like poison. The reason that occurs is because it specifically says "When a character takes damage..." In the case of flaming, there's no such restriction that you must take damage first.

frankthedm · Jul 5, 2005

Infiniti2000 said:
frank, you're thinking of attacks like poison. The reason that occurs is because it specifically says "When a character takes damage..." In the case of flaming, there's no such restriction that you must take damage first.

This is true.

However the whip does say it deals no damage to any creature with an armor bonus of +1 or higher or a natural armor bonus of +3 or higher. Flaming [most other enchants as well] is expressed as extra damage which doesn't apply since the weapon deals none.

Whip: A whip deals nonlethal damage. It deals no damage to any creature with an armor bonus of +1 or higher or a natural armor bonus of +3 or higher. The whip is treated as a melee weapon with 15-foot reach, though you don’t threaten the area into which you can make an attack. In addition, unlike most other weapons with reach, you can use it against foes anywhere within your reach (including adjacent foes).
Using a whip provokes an attack of opportunity, just as if you had used a ranged weapon.
You can make trip attacks with a whip. If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the whip to avoid being tripped.
When using a whip, you get a +2 bonus on opposed attack rolls made to disarm an opponent (including the roll to keep from being disarmed if the attack fails).
You can use the Weapon Finesse feat to apply your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to attack rolls with a whip sized for you, even though it isn’t a light weapon for you.

Delemental · Jul 5, 2005

I think the text that frank might be thinking about is this:

SRD said:
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.

Now, this only dealing with damage reduction, not a weapon that deals no damage. But as you can see, it doesn't affect energy damage or energy drains. I'd say disruption works because it says the effect happens "when the undead is struck" not "when the undead takes damage".

Brilliant energy might be more a DM's call, but one interpretation could be it would allow the whip to do damage even against creatures with armor, since it would ignore that armor.

AS for vorpal... well, the description I see of the whip just says "slashing", not "slashing and bludgeoning" so technically it would qualify.

Infiniti2000 · Jul 5, 2005

Delemental said:
AS for vorpal... well, the description I see of the whip just says "slashing", not "slashing and bludgeoning" so technically it would qualify.

I didn't even check, thanks for pointing that out. It's slashing in both 3.0 and 3.5 SRDs. It would be odd for the PH's to have a difference like that. As slashing only, there's no reason why it couldn't be vorpal.

interwyrm · Jul 5, 2005

Related question

As I can't post new threads and this seems related enough... can you add a flaming or shocking property to a net?
If you can, does it apply damage every round someone is caught in it?

Coredump · Jul 5, 2005

Wow... what an evil, evil, thought....

I LIKE it!!

Delemental · Jul 5, 2005

interwyrm said:
As I can't post new threads and this seems related enough... can you add a flaming or shocking property to a net?
If you can, does it apply damage every round someone is caught in it?

I don't see any reason who you couldn't add those properties to a net - it is a weapon.

I'd say the extra damage only applies on the initial hit, though - it's not entirely logical, but the description of the abilities say they deal damage on a "successful hit".

Flaming whip

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