Blessed weapons

[gpetruc]

Many evil outsiders take normal damage only from holy or blessed weapons.
Now: the olnly way to have a holy or blessed weapon is, by core rules, to cast magic weapon, greater magic weapon, bless weapon or holy sword on the weapon, or to make it holy (at the cost of a +2).
I wanted to add a little more flavour to this and also to make blessed weapons more easy to acquire.

I found some options:
1) a weapon of at least masterwork quality can be blessed in a semi-permanent way (lasting one year, for example, or until the wearer makes an evil action) through some sort of ritual that requires, for example, the presence of a Celestial of the appropriate allineament

2) a weapon (of at least masterwork quality) can be blessed with an appropriate Item Creation Feat that requires "Ability to channel positive energy". It has a market price of +500gp in addition to the normal price.
The blessing is permanent.

3) any magical weapon created by a good aligned caster is blessed. If an arcane caster wants to create a blessed weapon he needs the help of a cleric, paladin or celestial of at least lvl 5.

The last two options tend to be mutually exclusive and I'm not sure on which is better.
The first seems interesting (at least for now I made a order of paladins have their weapons permanently blessed through a ritual)

Anyone has other ideas about all this ?

 

[GuardianLurker]

2) a weapon (of at least masterwork quality) can be blessed with an appropriate Item Creation Feat that requires "Ability to channel positive energy". It has a market price of +500gp in addition to the normal price.
The blessing is permanent.

Anyone has other ideas about all this ?

I vote for Option 2; with the caveat that "blessed" weapons from this feat do not offer any enhancement bonuses, add bonus damage, etc., but only bypass the critter's DR.

I'd also count it as a +1 enhancement for the purposes of determining how many other weapon qualities may be stacked upon it. E.g. A +3 blessed keen longsword would cost the equivalent of a +4 longsword (+500 gp), but could only receive a total of another +5 worth of enhancements, not +6.

You also have to account for evil clerics with this feat (unless you're just giving the ability to good-aligned clerics), so you may want to limit it to "foes of the church" instead of "evil outsiders". Remember: good outsiders are subject to "unholy" weapons.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I've assumed until now that option 3 was correct. Rethinking the rules, however, I don't believe that this is necessarily the case (although it's a reasonable house rule).

As they're written, I like option 1.

Option 2 seems dramatically underpowered for an item creation feat (let's see, the ability to bless weapons or the ability to enchant weapons, and armor with bonusses that effect all creatures including Holy which effects evil outsiders too--it doesn't seem like much of a comparison). Option 2 would be better if you modified craft magic arms and armor so that if positive energy were channelled into a weapon during its creation, (a process which requires special materials to channel the energy into the weapon and holy water to quench the weapon after it is heated in the forge, etc. totalling 500 gp), the weapon would also be considered blessed. This would have the added benefit that it would be accessable to everyone it should be accessable to (ie. Sacred Exorcist Wizards with Craft Arms and Armor could also make blessed weapons). Done that way, I think that option 2 might be the best way to do it.

Option 3 is a quick way to make blessed weapons available but it's mostly a way to not have the issue come up in game rather than a nift way of dealing with the conundrum.

 

[isoChron]

The blessed billiard cue of "Dogma", the film comes to my mind ...

 

[trentonjoe]

I also like option 1. Youcould make it as easy or difficult as you like and have varying duration.

 

[GuardianLurker]

The problem with the other options...

Option 3 would dramatically decrease the power of Magic Weapon, etc.

Option 1 is essentially a *much* longer duration of the same spells, but with out the spell cost.

Both essentially boil down to "making a magic item without an item creation feat".

As someone pointed out in another thread, you never want *any* house rule advantage to be a no-braniner to choose (or as a friend of mine says, "Neat stuff is almost always broken.").

I can understand the objection to spending a full feat on this, though. Perhaps a better solution would be to make it just another weapon quality (which seemed to be the intent of the poster in the first place). If so, the new quality must be strictly worse than "holy/unholy", and no better than any of the +1 equiv weapon qualities (since this is essentially a +0 quality).

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The only problem with making "blessed" a minor weapon quality is that it isn't worth a +1 bonus.

Blessed makes a difference against Rakshassa and certain evil outsiders--a very small group of creatures.

Blessed would also not add either damage or attack bonus to the weapon. For reference, some other common +1 equivalent abilities are:
Flaming, Shock, Frost, Keen, Mighty Cleaving. The blessed category wouldn't hold a candle to these.

For a different point reference, consider Bane. Many people on these boards don't think it's worth a +2 equivalent bonus but Bane gives +2 to hit and damage, and +2d6 bonus damage against a category of creatures that is at least twice as large (evil outsiders is a legitimate bane choice and only about half of evil outsiders have regeneration) as the bonusses blessed would give.

Blessed might be a worthwhile ability as a +1 equivalent bonus that added 1d6 holy damage against evil creatures as well (making it a "Lesser Holy" weapon). This, naturally, would not stack with the 2d6 from a holy weapon. As a weapon quality with no bonusses attached (except the ability to penetrate the regeneration of certain fiends), it is far too weak for a +1.

 

[gpetruc]

Maybe I'll take two different routes:

1) add Minor Holy (and all the other similar effects) to the weapon proprieties like suggested by Elder-Basilisk
cost : +1 bonus
effect: +1d6 damage against opposing allineament; the weapon is considered blessed (or similar)

2) Still have the "long duration blessing" in some cases. The ritual, anyway, cannot be normally performed by the PC.
They can receive this blessing as a result of a quest or similar deeds: in my world this is granted by those who are members of some paladin orders (note: I have no PrC).

 

[GuardianLurker]

The only problem with making "blessed" a minor weapon quality is that it isn't worth a +1 bonus.
<snip>
Blessed would also not add either damage or attack bonus to the weapon. For reference, some other common +1 equivalent abilities are:
Flaming, Shock, Frost, Keen, Mighty Cleaving. The blessed category wouldn't hold a candle to these.

Agreed; that's why I called it a +0 bonus.

Before I begin the rest of my response, I'll say that "bumping" the proposed power to the full +1 value is probably the best solution, one of the few rare cases where this is probably true.

Having said that, the remaining problem is this: on the enhancement "stack" how much space does a +0 enhancement take? By extension, a +0 enhancement should take one-half the slot or a +1 and cost half as much. The problem is : what do you do when you only have one (or any odd number of) +0 enhancements on the weapon. Exactly how many more enhancements can you place on the weapon?

Barring other +0 enhancements, you'll never be able to use that last +1/2 equivalent, so that +4.5 equivalent longsword mentioned above is (for all practical enhancement purposes) a +5 equivalent.

The entire concept of +0 enhancements opens a whole set of other issues however. Not the least of which is creating and balancing the other +0 qualities. It'd add a layer of complexity that's probably best avoided.

I'm finding the idea hard to resist, however, so:

Weapon Bonus: +0 (magical)
Base Price: 1,000 gp.

.....................Market Price Modifier
Blessed.........+0 bonus*
Hard-Hitting..+0 bonus*
Lesser Flaming...+0 bonus*
Lesser Frost.......+0 bonus*
Lesser Shock......+0 bonus*

*A +0 bonus raises the market price by one-half the remaining cost to the next higher bonus (E.g. a +3 weapon with a single +0 bonus quality would have a market price of 25,000 gp = 18,000 + ((32,000 - 18,000)/2). Two +0 bonus qualities raise the market price to the next higher bonus.

Blessed: A blessed weapon is able to bypass the DR of monsters specifically affected by blessed or (un)holy weapons, but confers not other benefit to bonus or damage.

Hard-Hitting: A hard-hitting weapon adds any damage bonuses as extra damage on a critical strike. (E.g. A warrior with Str 16 weilding a +3 Hard-hitting longsword would inflict ((1d8+6)*2 )+6 on a critical hit.)

Lesser Flame, Frost, Shock, etc.:
Weapons of this type add +1d4 points of [type] damage on a critical hit.

There. Now that's out of my system. Still like the +1 bump-up better.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I'm not certain that I like adding more increments to the weapon bonus stacks. +0 (although it really looks like +1/2) bonusses seem like they'd add a new level of complexity to an already complex system.

One idea that might be worthwhile would be combining your "lesser energy" enhancements with blessed. So you would have a +1 "blessed frost" longsword dealing 1d8+1+(1d4 cold) damage for the cost of a +2 weapon. That way, you'd avoid adding a new increment to the system.

BTW: The lesser flame, lesser shock, etc abilities look a bit powerful for +1/2 since a character could have a +1 lesser flame, lesser shock weapon for the same cost as a +1 flaming weapon but gain 2d4 rather than 1d6 points of damage. They would probably be better if they did 1d3 points of damage rather than 1d4.