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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 297637" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'm going to vote with the majority on this one as well.  Take the +2 bonus over keen.  I'm going to go a little further out on the limb and say take the +2 bonus over flaming (for sure), shock, or frost.  As has already been adequately shown, keen adds (usually) less than +1 avg. damage to your attacks.  It is also useless against a wide range of opponents.  The only reason to take Keen (IMO) is if you already have a high enough bonus that you overcome most (non-epic) damage resistances, OR (maybe) if you stand a reasonable chance of doing more than 50 points of damage with every critical.  For example, I'd probably take a +3 keen rapier over a +4 rapier.  I'd also consider a +2 keen greataxe over a +3 greataxe if my damage bonus was already +11 or better - if only for the coolness factor of provoking the occasional massive damage save.There are several likely choices for DR ##/+2 at your CR: Kytons and any infernal creature with 12+ HD come to mind.  Sooner or latter the DM is going to want to throw a Clay Golem your way.  If he is anything like me, he is going to throw a mix of creatures at you.  Against some of them keen might provide a slight advantage, but there are far more where +2 provides an absolute advantage.There are a variaty of problems with energy weapons.  Flaming is the worst of them (for a rouge), both because alot of things that you run into are going to have fire resistance or be of the fire subtype and flaming is going to do nothing for you, and because the DM is going to almost certainly rule carrying around a 'torch' is hazardous to your stealth.   Also, activating the flaming ability on a weapon is a standard action, so if you are in a campaign were blades stay sheathed (to avoid unsettling the natives) or need to be sheathed (so you can disable a trap etc.) flaming is probably a bad choice.  The fact that you won't be able to attack in the first round will greatly outweigh the increased damage you do in latter rounds in a large number of situations.  If you must take an energy weapon, I'd take shocking, but NOT before I got a +3 weapon.  A +3 keen shocking rapier would be an excellent weapon.On the other hand, if you aren't sneaky to begin with, flaming is nice because _you are carrying a torch_, and fire has nearly infinite uses. Energy weapons are good choices for missile weapons such as bows since the effect only comes into effect when the missile is fired (in any ruling I'm familiar with), and thus the limitation on activation is not really a problem (since you can easily keep them always active).Please no one claim that you can keep an active flaming weapon in a scabbard.  We've been there already.</blockquote>

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