Magic Weapons and Keyword Inheritance

[the_redbeard]

Ok. I'm having trouble with pg 226 as well, but I have a feeling I know what was intended.

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This is also pretty well supported by common sense. Otherwise you end up with the weird situation like allowing someone to cast a Ray of Frost with the Fire keyword, simply because he's using a wand of scorching blast to cast it. That seems... patently odd.

You are sending the magic through an item of cold magic?
It's all patently odd, really.

I asked CS.

According to the PHB on page 226,
"Like racial powers and class powers, magic item
powers often have keywords that indicate their
damage or effect types. When you use a magic item as
part of a racial power or a class power, the keywords
of the item’s power and the other power all apply. For
instance, if a paladin uses a flaming sword to attack
with a power that deals radiant damage, the power
deals both fire damage and radiant damage."

To be clear, another example:

The Wand of Witchfire (page 244) has a power with the Fire keyword.
If a warlock uses that wand as an implement with a class power, does the fire keyword get applied to the spell? And does the spell then do fire damage as well?
So if that was a tiefling warlock with the hellfire feat, the spell would also get a +1 to hit and damage feat bonus?

And the CSR replied

Yes, yes and yes to all three of your questions. The rule you quotes states that this is what happens.

 

[Tonester]

I seriously don't understand the confusion. There are a few pages which mention this topic:

P.55

"other keywords define the fundamental effects of a power"

"Keywords help to determine how, or if, a power works when the target has resistance, vulnerability, or immunity... or if the power interacts with existing effects."

"When damage of a power is described as more than one type, divide the damage evenly between the types"

"If a power allows you to choose the damage type, the power then has that keyword for feats, resistances, and any other information that applies."

P. 226

"Like racial powers and class powers, magic item powers often have keywords that indicate their damage or effect types. When you use a magic item as part of a racial power or class power, the keywords of the item's power and the other power all apply."

They then give an example of a paladin using a fire keyword weapon as the implement/accessory of a paladin power that deals radiant damage. In this case, the damage would be evenly radiant and fire.


P.276

"In addition to normal damage, such as the damage a weapon or a monster's claws deal, powers and other effects can deal specific types of damage."

"When a power deals a specific type of damage, the power description specifies the type before the word "damage." A fireball does 3d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage, for example. All the damage it deals is fire damage. If a power doesn't specify a damage type, the damage has no type."

Now, to answer the questions:

Alright... So I have a Frost weapon. At-will it has a power with the Cold keyword that makes all damage dealt by the weapon Cold damage.

The at-will allows you to turn on/off the weapon's ability to deal Cold damage. While the book doesn't specifically indicate whether this overwrites all damage types, I'm pretty sure it does not. It simply means that the weapon doesn't always deal cold damage (i.e. you attack something that is healed by cold damage, thus making your weapon worthless) If a Paladin power is used that deals radiant damage with this weapon while the cold keyword is turned on, the power will evenly deal cold and radiant damage. Or, if the player prefers, the power can deal radiant only.

However, if a critical hit is scored, then the extra Critial damage done for being a frost or flame weapon will always be fire or cold. Additionally, the Daily power that deals an extra amount of damage on a hit will always be cold/fire.

If you had feats that gave +1 to radiant and andother that gave +1 to cold as feat bonuses, then you would just pick one since they would not stack. For example, if fighting something that is resistant to radiant damage, you might opt to pick the cold or fire feat bonus instead, but never both.

Let's say I'm a fighter. I make an attack - basic or not, doesn't matter - and have the Wintertouched feat.

Does my attack inherit the Cold keyword for the purposes of the feat? Or is it just explicitly as the weapon's power reads - that is, the damage dealt is cold, but my attack does not gain the Cold keyword?

Based on what is printed in the PHB, I would say yes - you gain combat advantage while using a Frost Weapon and having the Wintertouched feat. However, I think this is due to an oversite on their part.

Wintertouched specifically states:

... you gain combat advantage when you use a power than has the cold keyword.

It clearly does not state "When dealing cold damage." It states very clearly that whenever any power is used that has a keyword of "Cold." However, the book also states equally clearly, "When you use a magic item as part of a racial power or class power, the keywords of the item's power and the other power all apply." In this case, if you choose to do so, all attacks made with a Frost or Flame weapon can have the Fire or Cold keyword. This also means that any powers that use Weapon as the accessory/implement would benefit from this keyword as well... including Basic Attacks.

Now onto the issue of Reliable. This doesn't work.

Powers have "accessories." This is a weapon or an implement (Holy Symbol, Rod, Orb, Staff, Want, etc). Class powers inherit the benefits from accessories when the accessories are used to channel or deliver the power. It doesn't say anywhere in the PHB, to my knowlege, that the reverse is true. Furthermore, most of the wording deals with damage keywords and not effect keywords... Reliable is an Effect keyword.

A Fighter Class power with the Reliable Keyword would also have the Fire keyword if the attack/power was made with a Flaming Weapon. Why? Because the Accessory Keyword of the Power is Weapon. Therefore, the Power inherits the benefits of that Accessory when using the power, but the reverse is not true. I can't even imagine a scenario (mechanically, not realistically) where this is possible in the game since not a single item that I can see actually "makes an attack" as part of its power. Weapons don't make attacks in 4e. They are accessories/implements to powers that do.

Powers inherit the benefits/keywords of their Accessories/Implements.

As a quick followup, this is also why many of the character generators you see out there screw up Paladin stuff - because they aren't coded correctly to handle Powers with the Weapon keyword.

They tend to hardcode weapon ToHit based upon either Str or Dex depending on whether the weapon is Melee or Ranged. However, they should never hardcode abil modifiers to a weapon since weapons don't benefit from abilities.... ever. Only powers do. They should be adding the Prof bonus however.

Weapon is just an implement for martial powers. I don't understand why this is so hard to comprehend. heh

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

First,

The at-will allows you to turn on/off the weapon's ability to deal Cold damage. While the book doesn't specifically indicate whether this overwrites all damage types, I'm pretty sure it does not. It simply means that the weapon doesn't always deal cold damage (i.e. you attack something that is healed by cold damage, thus making your weapon worthless) If a Paladin power is used that deals radiant damage with this weapon while the cold keyword is turned on, the power will evenly deal cold and radiant damage. Or, if the player prefers, the power can deal radiant only.

This is not accurate.

Page 234, under frost weapon states

Power(At-Will,Cold):Free action. All damage dealt by this weapon is cold damage. Another free action returns the damage to normal.

Emphasis mine.

All damage means that none of the damage is anything but cold, and normal means that the damage is handled in the manor outlined on page 55, where it states

Resistance or immunity to one keyword of a power does not protect a target from the power’s other effects. When damage of a power is described as more than one type, divide the damage evenly between the damage types (round up for the first damage type, round down for all others). For example, a power that deals 25 fire and thunder damage deals 13 fire damage and 12 thunder damage.

The ability of a frost weapon is not turned off or on, it is maximized or minimized. It will deal all cold damage or part cold damage, but never no cold damage.

Second, I have submitted this problem to custserve. This was my question.

For clarification, a previous question to CustServe was answered this way.

Original Question Posed to CustServe was "According to the PHB on page 226,
"Like racial powers and class powers, magic item
powers often have keywords that indicate their
damage or effect types. When you use a magic item as
part of a racial power or a class power, the keywords
of the item’s power and the other power all apply. For
instance, if a paladin uses a flaming sword to attack
with a power that deals radiant damage, the power
deals both fire damage and radiant damage."

To be clear, another example:

The Wand of Witchfire (page 244) has a power with the Fire keyword.
If a warlock uses that wand as an implement with a class power, does the fire keyword get applied to the spell? And does the spell then do fire damage as well?
So if that was a tiefling warlock with the hellfire feat, the spell would also get a +1 to hit and damage feat bonus?"

The reply by Joe the WoTC CSR was "Yes, yes and yes to all three of your questions. The rule you quotes states that this is what happens."

Further, on page 55 it states
"The first keyword indicates whether a power is an at-will, encounter, or daily power."

Does the first line of the quoted text from page 226 limit the keyword inheritance to just damage and effect types? If not then this seems to indicate that the status of a power as an at-will, encounter, or daily is indicated by a keyword and combining this with the inheritance of magic item power keywords for class or racial powers would seem to give the class or racial power the at-will, encounter, or daily keyword of the magic item power when used with the magic item in question.

My interpretation would be that when using a magic item as part of a class or racial power, the class or racial power gains the effect and damage keywords of the magic item power.

For example, when using a frost longsword with the Martyr's Retribution paladin daily class power, the Martyr's retribution would gain the Cold keyword from the At-Will or Daily power of the frost longsword, but not the At-Will keyword from the At-Will power of the frost longsword.

Is this interpretation correct? Are the keywords that are inherited from a magic item limited to the effect and damage keywords? What is the correct interpretation of these rules with regard to keyword inheritance from magic items?

Thank you for helping to clear this area of the rules up.

I hope that this should clear this up for us.

 

[DracoSuave]

However, despite what customer service is saying, there are three keywords items do get that -break the game- if keyword inheritance is permitted.

At-Will.
Encounter.
Daily.

Yes, these are -defined- as keywords on page 55.

According to customer service's logic, that means therefore, that the at-will keyword is inherited by all powers using a frost weapon.

Let that sink in for a bit.

ALL POWERS USED WITH A FROST WEAPON ARE NOW AT-WILL.

Second:

ALL POWERS USED WITH A FROST WEAPON ARE NOW DAILY.



This cannot possibly be. This is an impossible situation that breaks the game, ergo, the situation -cannot- be the correct interpretation.


Let's get even more rediculous with this. If power inheritance worked like that, then item powers would also inherit the key-words of class powers used with it.

Let's say I use Unyielding Avalanche.

This is a power with the keywords Daily, Healing, Martial, Stance, and Weapon.

Setting Daily aside, this means that item powers used with it inherit the keywords Stance and Weapon. So, let's say I use it with a frost weapon's Daily. Now the Frost Weapon's Daily power has the Keywords Healing, Martial, Stance, and Weapon.

This applies the following rules baggage to it:

The effect lasts for five minutes or one encounter, and a weapon is required to use it.

Well the last bit's sort of 'duh, it's the weapon.' But the Stance keyword applies a persistant rule on the Frost Weapon's power. Now it's -on- and remains on.... so it continues to keep the keywords Healing, Martial, Stance, Cold, and Weapon.

Now I Brute Strike. The Brute Strike inherits the keywords Healing, Stance, Cold. Now that Brute Strike stays in play all encounter....

...And now the original item power inherits Reliable.

So now, the frost weapon's power is a Daily Cold Healing Martial Reliable Stance Weapon...

...And now any power I use is a Reliable Cold Stance of Healing Weapons.

And Daily.

Can you not see how this interpretation, when applied... becomes REDICULOUS?



This is counter-intuitive. Foolish. Wrong.


The grokable interpretation is this:

You use a power to change the keyword of the -damage-, and the damage's keyword changes. That's what it -says- it does, that's what the example says in the book, and it -makes sense-, and it does not BREAK the game to do so.

Powers that were Daily don't become At-Will just because you used a Frost Weapon, and all your At-Will abilities didn't just suddenly become Daily just because you used a wand.

Like racial powers and class powers, magic item powers often have keywords that indicate their damage or effect types. When you use a magic item as part of a racial power or a class power, the keywords of the item’s power and the other power all apply. For instance, if a paladin uses a flaming sword to attack with a power that deals radiant damage, the power deals both fire damage and radiant damage.


Can someone please tell me where in this paragraph it suddenly stopped talking about damage and effect types of item powers and mentions that the powers themselves are inheriting keywords? Reading the entire paragraph it should be obvious that it's talking about damage/effect types.

 

[Ginnel]

wrote a lot of stuff which made sense with great examples on page 1 of this thread

This interpretation makes sense to me.

 

[DracoSuave]

There is no such thing as tacking the poison keyword onto a damageing effect and not dealing poison damage. There is no dealing fire damage with only the frost keyword. If it is fire and frost damage, then the fire and frost keywords apply and vice verse. You can't seperate the keywords and the effect.

Can you apply the poison keyword without triggering vulnerability? Sure. Any non-damaging poison effect dodges vulnerability because as you say damage triggers it.

There IS such a thing as having a poison keyworded power, however, and not dealing poison damage. Straight from D&DI:

Prismatic Spray


Wizard Attack 25

A dazzling spray of multicolored light springs from your hands, enveloping your enemies.
Daily - Arcane, Fear, Fire, Implement, Poison
Standard Action Close burst 5
Target: Each enemy in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Fortitude, Reflex, Will
Hit (Fortitude): If the attack hits the target’s Fortitude defense, the target takes 3d6 + Intelligence modifier poison damage and is slowed (save ends).
Hit (Reflex): If the attack hits the target’s Reflex defense, the target takes 3d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage, and ongoing 15 fire damage (save ends).
Hit (Will): If the attack hits the target’s Will defense, the target is stunned (save ends).
Special: You make only one attack per target, but compare that attack result against all three defenses. A target might be subject to any, all, or none of the effects depending on how many of its defenses were hit. The target must make a saving throw against each ongoing effect separately.


If a power's keywords automaticly assigned that keyword to all damage, then hitting their fortitude would deal fire damage, hitting their reflex would deal poison damage.

This proves, then, that damage keywords are not automaticly the same as power keywords.

The example provided in items mentions -specifically- the keywords on damage and effects, then says that all powers contributing to that damage or effect apply.

Apply to what?

Why, the very thing the paragraph is talking about! Damage and effects!

I -really- don't understand how this isn't clear. I -really- can't get how it suddenly changes gears to something else, then changes back. It does not give the power keywords. It -might- give the -damage- keywords, which is a lot different.

If I use a torch as a weapon in a basic melee attack, it deals fire damage. However the power I use with it is not granted the fire keyword, because the -power- does not invoke fire. Astral Fire does not enhance my ability to swing torches for damage. The item modifies the -effect- but not the keywords of the -power-.

If I used Astral Fire with Prismatic Ray, however, and only hit the Fortitude defense, I'd still get the bonus damage, because Astral Fire checks for using a power with the fire keyword, not for the damage type of the power.

If I use a flaming staff for a power with the keywords cold and impliment, for example, the implement can't change the cold damage to fire damage. This is because it's not being used as a weapon, and does not deal damage. I'd get the fire critical damage tho, because that's not a property mentioning being used as a weapon. But it doesn't change the power I use to a Fire power, because the power is not channeling fire. Astral Fire won't buff it, just as the power doesn't gain At-Will, just cause one of the powers of the item has it.

This is -really- intuitive. The effect of such items is to change or add or modify the damage, so that's what gets modified. They aren't modifying the power, are they? No. They are simply changing an effect as it occurs. It's the same as if you use Shield on an attack against you. The attack against you doesn't suddenly become Arcane. If you use Elven Precision on a failed attack, that failed attack doesn't suddenly become a Racial Power.
This uses the same logic.

If I have Astral Fire, and a flaming sword, and I use a thunder weapon power with it's daily ability... the thunder weapon power does NOT get the Astral Fire bonus. The daily power of the item -does- because it -has- the Fire keyword.

And the keywords of the item don't auto-add to its damage, otherwise if I hit ya with a power through a wand of some fear spell, you'd take fear damage, and that's not a damage type.

There's too many counterexamples that make power-keyword inheritance impossible, unwieldy, or overpowered that it cannot be the case.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Interesting stuff... now one has to think how to get the "Reliable" and "Stance" keywords into an item...

Cheers, LT.

 

[DracoSuave]

Easy. Make a Reliable arcane power.

Now you have a wand of reliable.

(I know it's a fighter schtick)

Make an arcane power a stance.

Now you have a wand of stance.


Now... what sort of character could be both arcane... and have a stance... perhaps some form of.... Arcane Defender.....?

Swordmage, perhaps?

 

[Bagpuss]

Can you cite any text to back that up? Read page 226 again, it says it quite clearly, IMO. I don't see how it can really be interpreted in any other way...

Look at page 234 though, a Flaming Weapon doesn't have the fire keyword, unless you use the (at-will * Fire) or (daily * Fire) ability. It does do an extra +1d6 fire damage, but doesn't have the Fire keyword in it's description except for the powers.

Look at the property of the Holy Avenger, if doing an extra +1d6 radiant damage was enough to add the Radiant Keyword, then it's Property would trigger all the time.

 

[GoLu]

For added kicks, look at the symbol of radiance (page 237). It does radiant damage without having the radiant keyword, but does happen to have the healing keyword.

Lightning serpent (page 163) is another weird one. It has the lightning and poison keywords, and the spell does lightning damage and ongoing poison damage. It seems like the two different keywords are there to indicate the spell contains both a lightning and a poison component, but that they are intended to remain separate.

Or what about, say, Lion of Battle (page 88). It's a physical attack, half damage on a miss. If you drop the target to 0 hp, you make a secondary attack against will that makes people run away from you. It has the fear keyword, and it seems reasonable from the fluff to assume that the fear effect is intended to be only the secondary attack and not also the primary attack. Reasonable, but not mentioned anywhere in the rules.

Now, page 55 does mention that immunity to one keyword doesn't protect against other effects from other keywords, but (aside from typed damage) it doesn't explain how to figure out what's part of a given keyword and what isn't. And page 276 is also pretty specific about how damage types work, implying that the keywords of a power don't necessarily correlate with the damage the power does (which has its own keywords).