Magic Weapons and Keyword Inheritance

[PrecociousApprentice]

Glak, you are basically right. The rules in the book don't matter as much as the rules that you use. Since every playgroup has both the right and responsibility to decide what rules to use and what rules to throw out, this rule may not apply to any specific campaign.

The best way to handle these rules that we might not like is to address this as a group, preferably before any player decided to advance his character in such a way as to take advantage of any specific rule we might not like playing with.

So the thing is, we have to understand what the rules in the books are, decide which ones we like, and tell all players which rules that are in the book we will be ignoring.

Since this rule is in the book, and it is in the book, and is unambiguous, any responsible DM that does not like this rule should address it with the players. Tell them the house rule they will be using instead. Otherwise, you are punnishing players for being invested enough in the game to learn what the rules are in the book and use them. This creates sore feelings. Bad games. No fun.

 

[DracoSuave]

Thank you WoTC for already providing a power that makes the current rule a bit crazy.

Cut from the Artificer PDF:

Runic resistance Artificer Attack 7
Using your implement, you hurl sigil-scribed ceramic
sphere that blasts your foes and covers your allies in
protective veils.
Encounter ✦ arcane, implement; acid, Cold, Fire,
or lightning
standard action area burst 1 within 10 squares
Target: Each enemy in burst
attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Hit: 2d6 + Intelligence modifier damage of a type you
choose: acid, cold, fire, or lightning.
Effect: Each ally in the burst chooses a damage type—
acid, cold, fire, or lightning—and gains resistance
equal to 5 + your Constitution modifier against that
damage type until the end of your next turn.


Alright. This power is sort of -madness.- The power's got 4 different keywords on it, each determined by a number of different decisions made throughout it.

Let's say you have Burning Blizzard as a feat.

You chose to deal Lightning damage with this power. Not a big deal. The power therefore gets the Lightning Keyword, and we're all aware of that.

And let's say an ally in the burst chooses cold-resistance. The Power then gets the Cold Keyword, and that's cool to. It's now a power with the cold keyword, and thusly, you get to do that extra 2-6 damage from the feat (feat only cares about keywords, not actual damage type dealt)

That's fine.

But it's also an Arcane Encounter ability, so it's on a wand.

That would give the wand a power:

Daily - Arcane, Implement; Acid, Cold, Fire, or Lightning

What keywords does this wand give a power that it is used as an Implement for? All? None? Some?

 

[Danceofmasks]

By the current rulings (which I think is silly), all ... but ... it wouldn't be an issue if Artificers can't use wands.
PHB p242 .. a wand can contain an encounter power of any class capable of using wands.

 

[DracoSuave]

By the current rulings (which I think is silly), all ... but ... it wouldn't be an issue if Artificers can't use wands.
PHB p242 .. a wand can contain an encounter power of any class capable of using wands.

But they can, so it is.

 

[hamishspence]

full pdf dragon: illusions

Now, they have psychic keyword as well as psychic damage, so they can no longer be cited as an example.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

It is good that they changed the illusions to include the psychic keyword. From a design perspective, the divorcing of damage types and keywords was a kick in the nads to any sim gamers. They also edited the illusions to bring them more in line with the rest of the wizards powers. Now there isn't much power creep. That is good.

The fact that they now have the psychic keyword doesn't hurt this argument at all. They were always just an example anyway. They were never a foundation for the argument. All this does is make the PHB less buggy, which actually strangthens the argument for the literal interpretation of the rules on PHB pages 226 and 55. And the proven fallibility of custserve doesn't take mch from the conclusion either because we already knew that anyway. Especially since a recent ruling on the non-inheritance of the lightning and thunder keywords from the staff of storms by magic missile contradicts all the other rulings. The text seems to be the best source for the meaning of the rules after all, and really that is all this argument needs. The text states clearly that inheritance happens, so it does.

As for the new artificer powers, I would say that it goes like this:
1) For Runic Resistance, there is a choice between acid, cold, fire, and lightnong keywords, and it is just that, a choice. It is one of these, not all.
2) If using a wand of Runic Resistance, but not using the item power, there isn't an ally that is subject to runic resistance, so the choice is made only once, by the user of the wand, when useing the wand with the class or racial power.

This may make the wand of runic resistance versatile, but I am not sure it makes it overpowered. There are other powers that have multiple keywords that are inherited all at once. This is one at a time, as a choice between 4 decent ones. This is an addition of versatility at the cost of total effect. Sounds OK to me.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Just for the sake of complete disclosure of all information I know, here is a recent ruling by custserve on the keyword inheritance thing. These guys are a real piece of work.

Here was my dip into CSR:

Question:
Customer (Zoltan Grose) 07/02/2008 12:53 PM
Does a Magic Missile cast by a Wizard using a +1 Staff of Storms as his implement inherit the Lightning and Thunder keywords?

If so, is the damage now typed as force and lightning and thunder? For example, "2d4 + Int mod + 1 (implement bonus) force and lightning and thunder damage." Or is the damage type still typed as force but the keywords Lightning and Thunder apply to the power?

Answer:
Response (Support Agent) 07/02/2008 01:27 PM
Zoltan,

Thank you for writing.

No, Magic Missile would not gain the keywords thunder or lightning. However it would gain the staffs enhancement bonus to damage rolls.

Good Gaming!

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Paul

Like I said, the custserve rulings are not necessary for the argument, and since this is the only dissenter, I think that as a whole, the custserve rulings help the argument that inheritance works. But custserve did just add a little bit of confusion to the debate.

Note that the poster didn't give any context to the question or rules info to help clarify what his question really was. Not sure how it affects the debate. The text still says what it says, which is that inheritance works.

 

[Stalker0]

Alright, let me throw my hand in the ring here:

1) If I use an at-will magic item power with one of my daily power, does it suddenly become at-will?

The answer is no, but not because at-will isn't a keyword. Its because at-will isn't a keyword that "indicate their damage or effect types." This sentence is right before the inheritance sentence and I think its an important clause. Its saying that not all keywords follow the inheritance clause for magic items.

2) If I use a radiant power with a flaming sword's at-will power, does it do 1/2 radiant- 1/2 fire, or all fire? What keywords does it have?

The answer is all fire, but it still has the radiant and fire keywords.

First off, a flaming sword DOES NOT have the fire keyword by default. So if you swing around that flaming sword, you are still doing your radiant damage with a radiant keyword. Now let's activate the power. The power has the fire keyword, so following the rules on pg. 226, my attack power now has the radiant and fire keywords, and so would do 1/2 fire and 1/2 radiant.

BUT WAIT!! Remember our exception based design. The text of the power is the most specific, and therefore trumps anything else. It says that all of the damage the person does is fire damage. So our 1/2 fire - 1/2 radiant damage is converted to all fire damage by the power. However, the power says nothing about converting all of the keywords. Therefore, the power still has the radiant and fire keywords, and can still benefit from feats that rely on those. But if I strike an undead with it, the vulnerability wouldn't kick in, as there's no radiant damage being done. And if I struck a creature resistant to radiant damage, it wouldn't get the resistance, once again no radiant damage is being done.

3) If a use a reliable class power with a daily magic item power, does the daily magic item power become reliable?

The answer is no. The reason is the inheritance clause only works one way. Class powers can gain the keywords of magic item powers....but there is nothing that says a magic item power gains the keywords of class powers.

 

[Regicide]

D&D is about sitting around a big table with the guys that you've known forever. It is about laughter, snacks, the crudely drawn character art, and a good story.

If I play with 3 different groups of people, I sure as heck don't want to have to deal with 3 different sets of rules FOR THE SAME GAME. This is WHY we pay money for the rule books. Ambiguity and mistakes are problems, not some sort of weird benefit.

 

[Regicide]

Alright, let me throw my hand in the ring here:

Ugh, head hurts. If I read the stealth thread again it might just explode. I liked it better when swords did slashing damage.