BoED - Blessed weapons

[Epinephrine]

Hi all. Long-time lurker, first-time poster here.

What do you all think about the blessed weapon special ability from the Book of Exalted Deeds (p.113)? Essentially it's a +1 bonus-equivalent ability that gives a weapon a permanent bless weapon spell, as the PHB paladin spell: it counts as good for DR purposes and automatically confirms any critical threats.

Mathematically, ignoring the counting as good part, automatic confirmation seems to work out to better than a doubled threat range when you can make iterative attacks, and worse when you can't (assuming the lowest you can roll and still hit is less than 11). So this seems okay, especially since it states that it doesn't stack with weapons that have magical effects related to critical hits.

But it seems like it should stack with the Improved Critical feat, since that only says it doesn't stack with other keen-like effects, it's not a weapon-based magical effect, and it works with things like icy burst. Which seems a little strong - a mid-level fighter with two iterative attacks and improved critical (rapier), assuming he hits on an 10, has more than a 50% chance to critical per round. And then you have free reign to improve the doubled damage with weapon plusses (since blessed is only +1-equivalent), power attack and a falchion, and so forth. A high-Int swashbuckler/dervish with two blessed scimitars would also get pretty funny.

So what do you think? Does it stack with Improved Critical by the rules? If so, is it still balanced, or should I rule that it doesn't for balance reasons, or something else (only +4 to threat rolls instead, make it +2-equivalent, etc)? What about the paladin spell - are oils of bless weapon for high threat-range or multiplier weapons worth carrying around, wands if you have a paladin cohort for some reason, and so on?

Oh, and while I'm at it, is the minimum caster level for paladin, ranger, and bard spells the level at which they first get 0 spells of its level, or 1 spell? That is, would a standard scroll of bless weapon last 2 minutes (paladin level 4) or 3 (paladin 6)?

 

[Caliban]

Well, if it's exactly like the bless weapon spell, it only auto-crits against evil creatures. It won't auto-crit on good or neutral opponents.

And it would stack with the Improved Crit feat, since the ability doesn't expand the threat range of the weapon, and the feat is nonmagical.

 

[Pax]

But it seems like it should stack with the Improved Critical feat, since that only says it doesn't stack with other keen-like effects, it's not a weapon-based magical effect, and it works with things like icy burst. Which seems a little strong - a mid-level fighter with two iterative attacks and improved critical (rapier), assuming he hits on an 10, has more than a 50% chance to critical per round. And then you have free reign to improve the doubled damage with weapon plusses (since blessed is only +1-equivalent), power attack and a falchion, and so forth. A high-Int swashbuckler/dervish with two blessed scimitars would also get pretty funny.

Actually, your math is very slightly off. With a Threat Range of 18-20, you go to 15-20 with Improved Critical. That's a flat 30% chance with each swing to get a threat.

The trick is, when counting two swings together ... you don't simply add 30% and 30% to get 50%.. Instead, you have to measure yoru chance to score no threats at all, over the course of two attempts.

Your chance there is 70% per swing. To measure proability over two attempts, you multipy the chance times itself ... .70 x .70. So, you have a 49% chance to score no threats (including not hitting at all, of course).

You have a (.30 x .30) 9% chance to score two threats, and thus, what is left -- 42% -- is your chance to score one and only one threat.

But ... this is all just counting THREATS. Your chance to CONFIRM, and get actual critical hits, is dependant on too many variables to easily account for: the actual AC of your opponent and resultant number you have to roll to hit; wether or not the opponent is incorporeal vs wether or not you have a ghost touch weapon; wether or not your opponent has some level of fortification; wether or not your opponent has some level of concealment vs your ability to counter that concealment.

And a bunch of other, less-probable factors. In the case of bless weapon, of course, alignment replaces AC-to-confirm as a factor in wether or not the critical happens or not.

So what do you think? Does it stack with Improved Critical by the rules? If so, is it still balanced, or should I rule that it doesn't for balance reasons, or something else (only +4 to threat rolls instead, make it +2-equivalent, etc)? What about the paladin spell - are oils of bless weapon for high threat-range or multiplier weapons worth carrying around, wands if you have a paladin cohort for some reason, and so on?

Absolutely, on all counts. Heck, oils of bless weapon are worth carrying around just for the "ignore all DR" benefit ... especially in 3.5, and regardless of threat range!

Oh, and while I'm at it, is the minimum caster level for paladin, ranger, and bard spells the level at which they first get 0 spells of its level, or 1 spell? That is, would a standard scroll of bless weapon last 2 minutes (paladin level 4) or 3 (paladin 6)?

0 spells of that level. A paladin who gets 0 base spells of a given level, DOES get bonus spells. If that Paladin(4) had a bonus spell of bless weapon's level, would he still be unable to cast it ... ? Of course not. ^_^

 

[Nightfall]

Also Cal is right, this would only be effective against evil creatures. Against something like an elemental, be almost useless.

 

[Caliban]

Absolutely, on all counts. Heck, oils of bless weapon are worth carrying around just for the "ignore all DR" benefit ... especially in 3.5, and regardless of threat range!

Bless Weapon does not allow you to "ignore all DR", it only lets the weapon count as a +1 magic weapon when overcoming the DR of evil creatures or hitting evil incorporeal creatures.



The spell is perfectly clear on this in 3.5, but in 3.0 the benefit was worded ambiguously, and some people chose to interpret it as bypassing all DR for evil creatures, instead of only DR/+1 on evil creatures.

 

[Caliban]

Well, elementals are immune to crits anyway.

 

[FireLance]

I think Blessed is a great weapon enhancement, perhaps on the strong side for +1, but not enough to justify a +2. I would say it stacks with Improved Critical, but I would not allow it to function with a Vorpal enhancement or one of the Burst enhancements as I would also interpret them as magical effects related to critical hits. Blessed is great with x3 or x4 weapons since every 20 you roll against evil creatures is automatically a critical hit - no confirmation necessary. And the minimum caster level for a Bless Weapon scroll is 2nd (4th level paladin).

 

[Epinephrine]

Thanks for the replies. I guess seeing it as a weaker but easier to achieve sneak attack helps balance it out to me. Elementals, plants, animals, undead, nonevil magical beasts, constructs, fortification armor, nonevil humanoids... there's enough exceptions there so that it doesn't work all the time.

Actually, your math is very slightly off...

You're absolutely right about that only being the chance to threaten. I'd forgotten about fortification and other similar effects. But I still maintain that he has more than a 50% chance to threaten every round - the phrasing (and certainly my intention, but the phrasing also supports it) implies "one or more threats", rather than "exactly one threat". So you get 42% (exactly one) + 9% (exactly two) = 51% chance to threaten.

 

[hong]

Personally, I would say that the ability to bypass DR /good is worth +1 all by itself, not including the auto-crit bit.