D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Masterwork Flaming Club

[Tar-Edhel]

Yes, it would appear the wording actually changed. Masterwork weapons now specifically provide a "+1 enchancement bonus on attack rolls". Magic weapons with a special ability "must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus". So I agree the language is now rather unclear. If I merely bought 3.5, without ever owning or knowing anything about 3.0, I believe my conclusion would be that the mastercraft enhancement bonus is sufficient to provide a base for adding a special ability.

How is it unclear? A magical weapon needs an enhancement bonus of +1 to get one of the special abilities.

Is your masterwork club a magical weapon? No. It does respect the enhancement bonus requirement but it is not magical. Hence, no flaming on masterwork.

Seems pretty clear to me.

Let's say you use a wish to make your masterwork club flaming and your DM allows it.

Now you have a magical weapon with an enhancement bonus. In that case, I'd allow you to add shocking (for example).

But it's a bit far-fetched

 

[melkoriii]

Personally like this intentional or unintentional change.

This allows you to make weapons with little powers and not break the bank on it.

 

[Camarath]

How is it unclear? A magical weapon needs an enhancement bonus of +1 to get one of the special abilities.

The rule does not specify that the weapon needs to be magical before you can add special abilities to it.

 

[Spatzimaus]

There's a semantics issue here, that always existed but didn't really annoy people that much until now.

There's an "enhancement bonus to attack rolls", and what's called an "Enhancement Bonus". They're two separate things. The first is a general type of bonus, the second is the name of a specific weapon/armor enchantment.

The generic weapon enchantment called "Enhancement Bonus" grants several effects, including an enhancement bonus to attack rolls, an enhancement bonus to damage rolls, and more. THIS is what you need if you want to put special abilities on an item.

Several other things also provide enhancement bonuses to specific things (masterwork, spells like Magic Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon, etc.) These are not the same as the full Enhancement Bonus above; they only provide a small subset of bonuses that share the same type for stacking purposes. You can't cast GMW on a weapon and then put Flaming on it while it's magical, because you didn't give it an Enhancement Bonus, just an enhancement bonus to attack and damage.

This would all have been so much easier if they had called the base enchantment something else.

 

[Mistwell]

There's a semantics issue here, that always existed but didn't really annoy people that much until now.

There's an "enhancement bonus to attack rolls", and what's called an "Enhancement Bonus". They're two separate things. The first is a general type of bonus, the second is the name of a specific weapon/armor enchantment.

The generic weapon enchantment called "Enhancement Bonus" grants several effects, including an enhancement bonus to attack rolls, an enhancement bonus to damage rolls, and more. THIS is what you need if you want to put special abilities on an item.

Several other things also provide enhancement bonuses to specific things (masterwork, spells like Magic Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon, etc.) These are not the same as the full Enhancement Bonus above; they only provide a small subset of bonuses that share the same type for stacking purposes. You can't cast GMW on a weapon and then put Flaming on it while it's magical, because you didn't give it an Enhancement Bonus, just an enhancement bonus to attack and damage.

This would all have been so much easier if they had called the base enchantment something else.

You would be correct if "[E/e]nhancement" is sometimes capitalized in the books, and sometimes not, and the difference is intentional. As far as I can tell, there is no difference in capitalization of this word in the books. Indeed, when they say "enhancement bonuses do not stack" they mean both nonmagical and magical enhancement bonuses. It is listed as one type of bonus, not two, in both sections where they list all types of bonuses (pgs 172 and 308).

Furthermore, if your theory were correct and "enchancement bonuses" are a different type of bonus than "Enhancement bonuses" (capital "E"), then based on the "different types of bonuses stack" rule, the bonus from the masterwork weapon now stacks with the bonus from a +1 Enhancement bonus of a magic weapon, making a +1 club actually +2 to attack, and +1 damage. I really do not think that is the intent of Wizards either.

 

[Mistwell]

One more wrinkle to this issue...

The DMG sometimes uses the term "magical enhancement". For example, the description of Cold Iron includes this statement "Also, any magical enhancements cost an additional 2000 gp", (DMG pg. 284, emphasis added). Yet, a page and a half later, there is the statement that you need an enhancement bonus (no mention of magical enhancement) to add a special ability to a weapon.

 

[Spatzimaus]

You would be correct if "[E/e]nhancement" is sometimes capitalized in the books, and sometimes not, and the difference is intentional.

The capitalization was mine, I wasn't making a direct quote. The point was, there's a difference between what's generically called "an enhancement bonus" and the more specific "enhancement bonus to XXX".

DMG, p. 183: "Magic weapons have enhancement bonuses ranging from +1 to +5. They apply these bonuses to both attack and damage rolls when used in combat."
Later on the same page: "A weapon with a special ability must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus." (Note: it doesn't specify attack vs. damage)

That first sentence implies, to me, that each weapon gets a single bonus, the "enhancement bonus", with a value from +1 to +5, which then gives two separate bonuses of type "enhancement", one to attack rolls and one to damage. If there wasn't this separation, the first part would be grammatically awkward (the use of the word "both" implies that the pluralization of "bonus" is because of the pluralization of "weapon" in the first sentence, not because each weapon would have multiple bonuses itself).

If you don't make this separation, then all enhancement bonuses are created equal. A masterwork weapon can have Flaming put on it. Someone can cast Magic Weapon on a non-masterwork item and then enchant it up without any problems. Casting Magic Fang allows you to put permanent enchantments like Flaming on your natural weapons. The point is, it just gets silly.

 

[Mistwell]

The capitalization was mine, I wasn't making a direct quote. The point was, there's a difference between what's generically called "an enhancement bonus" and the more specific "enhancement bonus to XXX".

DMG, p. 183: "Magic weapons have enhancement bonuses ranging from +1 to +5. They apply these bonuses to both attack and damage rolls when used in combat."
Later on the same page: "A weapon with a special ability must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus." (Note: it doesn't specify attack vs. damage)

If it were later in the same paragraph, I might agree. But since it is later in the same page only, gramattically you do not need to borrow the most recently use of the word, particularly when that use is for "Magic weapons", which is my point (that there is such a thing as magical enhancement, and that such a type of enhancement is not required for special abilities). Given than a page and a half before that section in the DMG is the phrase "magical enhancement", which is specifically distinguished in that same paragraph from masterwork, it would seem to me that magical enhancement is a sub-type of enhancement, but that enhancement is a broad category, and any +1 enhancement is necessary for a special ability (since it would appear they choose to not specifically require a magical enhancement, and go out of their way to state that it has to be a masterwork weapon, knowing that masterwork means it has an enhancement bonus on it).

That first sentence implies, to me, that each weapon gets a single bonus, the "enhancement bonus", with a value from +1 to +5, which then gives two separate bonuses of type "enhancement", one to attack rolls and one to damage. If there wasn't this separation, the first part would be grammatically awkward (the use of the word "both" implies that the pluralization of "bonus" is because of the pluralization of "weapon" in the first sentence, not because each weapon would have multiple bonuses itself).

If you don't make this separation, then all enhancement bonuses are created equal. A masterwork weapon can have Flaming put on it. Someone can cast Magic Weapon on a non-masterwork item and then enchant it up without any problems. Casting Magic Fang allows you to put permanent enchantments like Flaming on your natural weapons. The point is, it just gets silly.

Yes, the whole argument here is that masterwork weapons can have flaming put on them.

The rule specifies elsewhere that the item must be masterwork, so magic weapon on a non-masterwork item won't work, nor would magic fang.

 

[The Blue Elf]

Magic Weapon becomes Masterwork when in a Anti-Magic field

 

[Mistwell]

Magic Weapon becomes Masterwork when in a Anti-Magic field

If you can find a way to add a magic special bonus while in an anti-magic field, more power to you. That said, a sword with magic weapon cast on it would not, in my opinion, become masterwork...it would just be a sword, since the spell no longer has any effect.