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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1404544" data-attributes="member: 3051">I'd like to jump in on the BE discussion.In 3E, a +1 BE weapon was severely inferior to a +5 weapon primarily because of its DR problems and because you'd need to Power Attack for 4 just to make up the lost damage.  So, the break-even point was at least a +8 Armor AC.  How many people have an 8 or higher for armor?  Those with heavy armor, or those that used shields.  As it was, this was a minority, even among humanoid opponents.  So, there were only a few cases where BE would be better than straight enhancement, and these were easily countered by the fact that the weapon became useless against Undead or Constructs.(Our DM gave a BE weapon as loot one time, intended for one player who really needed a new weapon.  It sucked so hard that we ended up rewriting the BE rules altogether.)In 3.5E, shields now give a different bonus, a Shield AC bonus, so as written, Brilliant Energy no longer bypasses shields.  This means that the only way BE is better than 4 more Enhancement is if the target is wearing heavy armor or a lighter armor with a large enhancement bonus.  (Note: if you house-rule BE to bypass shields, then it's actually slightly better than it was in 3E thanks to the DR/magic change and the new 2-for-1 Power Attack)That being said, allowing it to bypass Natural Armor entirely would be way too good, IMO.  My last character was a Psychic Warrior with the Deep Impact feat (for 5 power points, one weapon attack became a touch attack; she had about 50 pp per day), and I can tell you right now, even having one or two touch attacks per day makes a huge difference.  Against most enemies, no big deal, but there's always some sort of Boss monster out there with a huge AC.  Being able to automatically hit with one or two single attacks was critical in some of our fights.  And yes, it IS basically an auto-hit; no real amount of Deflection or DEX AC can cause me to miss a Dragon with a touch attack, if I'm the right level to be fighting it.  I'd price a BE-like ability that included Natural AC at more like a +6 ability (requiring Epic rules).Long ago, though, IMC we changed BE to just cut Armor and Natural Armor AC in half, so it's not quite a touch attack, and have the base weapon still work against undead and constructs.</blockquote>

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