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Adamantine Defending Sword.
- Thread starter iwatt
- Start date
green slime
First Post
Darklone said:
green slime said:
Call it an Interpretation of the rules, a house rule, or a garden gnome if you like, but this is MHO on this matter.
To me it seems preety cut and dry.
Defending lets you TRANSFER these bonuses from the "enhancement" department to the "special AC" department.
In the enhancement department, the bonuses are hard at work, making sure your weapon can hit easier, deal more damage, penetrate that DR, and take the abuse of other magical weapons.
But it tuesday, and the bonuses are moving to a new department. They now work tirelessly, making sure there weilder doesn't get harmed by all sorts of attacks. But as efficient as they are, they can't work in two departments.
So now the enhancement department is understaffed (in fact no one is working), so no easier hitting, no more damage, just nothing doing.
The boss gets a little tired of this, thinking while the new bonuses are nice, he'd like to have some hitters in his enhancement department. But wait he thinks, the B team!!
Those adamantite boys from the southern department have been sitting on their butts for too long. Sure they've always been good workers, except in the damage reduction sector, never too good with the paperwork, but always crackin with the extra hitting and damage dealing. the boss had been wanting to bring them in, but the enhancement department can only handle so many, so they've been on the sidelines.
But hey, now that the old squad was transfered, perhaps its time to bring in these other guys and let them have a go.
Personally, part of this is crystal clear. +2 defending adamantite longsword can transfer +1 to the AC, and will still have the adamantite's bonus (which being +2, will overlap with the +1 magical bonus, leaving a +2 bonus). It won't help against DR, but for everything else it works just fine. I haven't seen a good argument to counter this.
Now the things that are tricky.
Can you transfer all of the magical bonus? According to the defending description you can, but as others have said that would take out the special enhancements including defending. I propose three alternate ways of looking at it.
1) Defending is special, and doesn't need the enhancement bonuses to remain to still apply. However others, like flaming, etc. do and fade away.
2) A sword has to have an enhancement bonus to get a special ability, not to keep it. So all special abilities still apply.
3) You just can't. The description is slightly in error, and you have to keep the +1 at least.
Who said I had to transfer the magical bonus?
As far as defending is concerned, the adamantite enhancement is just as good as the magical ones. Why can't I transfer the +2 from the adamantite, and just have a +1 or +2 magical weapon? Can't see any thing in the books to say you can't. For those who need some realism to see it, think of adamantite as just having an inner, different type of magic than normal magic that gives it its special hardness and enhancement, that can be transfered all the same.
If I transfer the bonus from a magic weapon, do I still get the +1 to attack for it being masterwork?
If you believe my argument above, the answer is yes. I had never thought about it before, but looking at it I agree, you still get the bonus.
Defending lets you TRANSFER these bonuses from the "enhancement" department to the "special AC" department.
In the enhancement department, the bonuses are hard at work, making sure your weapon can hit easier, deal more damage, penetrate that DR, and take the abuse of other magical weapons.
But it tuesday, and the bonuses are moving to a new department. They now work tirelessly, making sure there weilder doesn't get harmed by all sorts of attacks. But as efficient as they are, they can't work in two departments.
So now the enhancement department is understaffed (in fact no one is working), so no easier hitting, no more damage, just nothing doing.
The boss gets a little tired of this, thinking while the new bonuses are nice, he'd like to have some hitters in his enhancement department. But wait he thinks, the B team!!
Those adamantite boys from the southern department have been sitting on their butts for too long. Sure they've always been good workers, except in the damage reduction sector, never too good with the paperwork, but always crackin with the extra hitting and damage dealing. the boss had been wanting to bring them in, but the enhancement department can only handle so many, so they've been on the sidelines.
But hey, now that the old squad was transfered, perhaps its time to bring in these other guys and let them have a go.
Personally, part of this is crystal clear. +2 defending adamantite longsword can transfer +1 to the AC, and will still have the adamantite's bonus (which being +2, will overlap with the +1 magical bonus, leaving a +2 bonus). It won't help against DR, but for everything else it works just fine. I haven't seen a good argument to counter this.
Now the things that are tricky.
Can you transfer all of the magical bonus? According to the defending description you can, but as others have said that would take out the special enhancements including defending. I propose three alternate ways of looking at it.
1) Defending is special, and doesn't need the enhancement bonuses to remain to still apply. However others, like flaming, etc. do and fade away.
2) A sword has to have an enhancement bonus to get a special ability, not to keep it. So all special abilities still apply.
3) You just can't. The description is slightly in error, and you have to keep the +1 at least.
Who said I had to transfer the magical bonus?
As far as defending is concerned, the adamantite enhancement is just as good as the magical ones. Why can't I transfer the +2 from the adamantite, and just have a +1 or +2 magical weapon? Can't see any thing in the books to say you can't. For those who need some realism to see it, think of adamantite as just having an inner, different type of magic than normal magic that gives it its special hardness and enhancement, that can be transfered all the same.
If I transfer the bonus from a magic weapon, do I still get the +1 to attack for it being masterwork?
If you believe my argument above, the answer is yes. I had never thought about it before, but looking at it I agree, you still get the bonus.
Judas
First Post
While I understand every point you are trying to make JDowling, I just don't agree with them. While it is stated that weapon and armor needs that +1 min for being enchanted, nowhere does it state that if the plus value drops to 0 or below, all enchanments are gone. That sorta doesn't work with a -5 cursed sword, now does it?
Here's how I pretty much house rule it, and it's worked fine so far.
Here's how I pretty much house rule it, and it's worked fine so far.
- Bonus/penalty types are in "Layers", like working with a photo in photoshop (Or any adobe product for that matter). Effects don't cross layers unless specifially designed too.
- The "Base" layer is the physical item. Masterworked, Adamantine, Mithril, and other materials fall in the base layer.
- The "Item enhancement" layer is the permanent enchantments placed upon the item, such as defending, bursting, vorpal, etc..
- The "Modified" layer is where temporary enchantments are placed (Spells, SU effects).
- Items with a +0 bonus are valid.
The defending ability can only use pluses from the Item Enhancement layer. GMW does not supply defending with more pluses to use for ac, nor can defending use the natural pluses from the base layer if the material provides such pluses.
Cloudgatherer
First Post
Wasn't there some sage advice about defending swords in regards to DR in 3.0?
IIRC, if you transfer all of your +X to defending, and the monster has DR 20/+2 (for example), then the defending sword does not count for bypassing DR (as it is used by the defending ability).
If this is the case, then I'd say the adamantine weapon should still have it's +2, at least for the purposes of penetrating DR (if not for + to hit and damage). I'd be inclined to allow the + to hit and damage, since the only other benefit of having an enchanted adamantine weapon is in an antimagic field.
Later.
IIRC, if you transfer all of your +X to defending, and the monster has DR 20/+2 (for example), then the defending sword does not count for bypassing DR (as it is used by the defending ability).
If this is the case, then I'd say the adamantine weapon should still have it's +2, at least for the purposes of penetrating DR (if not for + to hit and damage). I'd be inclined to allow the + to hit and damage, since the only other benefit of having an enchanted adamantine weapon is in an antimagic field.
Later.
Hi everybody,
here's just my 2 cents:
I like the idea about the layers, but the magical layer shouldn't be seperate from the enhancement layer, just because it's magic that gives the enhancements (in fact you use the spell GMW to create a magic weapon in the first place with a bonus above +1) so a GMW cast later on the same weapon should for all properties on the enhancement layer count as the newly enhanced version (thus making the full +5 from GMW useful for the defending property).
The base layer with the adamantite bonus shouldn't be touched by this.
And in the stacking rules it says "like named bonuses dont stack if they effect the same thing". So the adamantite bonus is always to attack and damage while the magical bonus may shift to armor class, thus no more overlapping with the adamantite bonus. You sure can have many different enhancement boni in effect at the same time as long as they effect not the same "function" (i.e. attack, damage, strength, dexterity etc.).
One point against this reasoning would be if you could use the enhancement bonus from adamantite for the defending ability (e.g. a +1 adamantite defending longsword is used for a +2 bonus to ac), but I think that wouldn't be possible.
Greetings
Firzair
here's just my 2 cents:
I like the idea about the layers, but the magical layer shouldn't be seperate from the enhancement layer, just because it's magic that gives the enhancements (in fact you use the spell GMW to create a magic weapon in the first place with a bonus above +1) so a GMW cast later on the same weapon should for all properties on the enhancement layer count as the newly enhanced version (thus making the full +5 from GMW useful for the defending property).
The base layer with the adamantite bonus shouldn't be touched by this.
And in the stacking rules it says "like named bonuses dont stack if they effect the same thing". So the adamantite bonus is always to attack and damage while the magical bonus may shift to armor class, thus no more overlapping with the adamantite bonus. You sure can have many different enhancement boni in effect at the same time as long as they effect not the same "function" (i.e. attack, damage, strength, dexterity etc.).
One point against this reasoning would be if you could use the enhancement bonus from adamantite for the defending ability (e.g. a +1 adamantite defending longsword is used for a +2 bonus to ac), but I think that wouldn't be possible.
Greetings
Firzair
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
No, you don't.
You use the Craft Arms and Armor feat.
A Druid, Paladin, or Ranger with the Craft Arms and Armor feat can make a +3 sword, as long as their Caster Level is at least 9. They don't have access to the GMW spell, but it's not used in crafting a magic sword, so it doesn't matter.
-Hyp.
green slime
First Post
Hypersmurf said:
Holy mackarel Hypersmurf! What have I told you about READING the rules! We'll have none of that here thank you!
