Can you stack Flaming and Frost weapon enhancements?


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3.5 FAQ said:
The new descriptions for the flaming, frost, and shock
weapon special abilities say that these weapons’ energy
effects work only on command. Why was this changed in
the revision? Does that mean that their wielders must use a
standard action to activate them for each attack? Or do the
energy effects last awhile? If so, how long do they last?
What’s the chance that you burn (or freeze or shock)
yourself when holding onto an activated weapon? Can you
put away an activated weapon without damaging the
scabbard where you store it? What happens if you have
ammunition with these effects? Do you have to activate
each piece of ammunition separately? What happens if you
have a flaming, frost, and shock weapon? Logically, such a
weapon couldn’t exist, but what if it did? Would you have
to activate each property separately?
Finally, how does all
this affect flaming burst, icy burst, and shocking burst
weapons? Do these weapons’ flame, frost, and shock
properties have to be activated for the burst powers to
work?

The flaming, frost, and shock weapon special abilities
always have been command activated; the revision just
clarified that.
Activating an energy power requires a standard action, but
once you activate energy power, the power works until you use
another action to deactivate it. You can activate or deactivate
one of these powers on up to 50 pieces of ammunition at the
same time, provided that all the ammunition is in your
possession, all the ammunition is the same kind, and all the
ammunition has the same power.
Any attack you make with an activated weapon deals
energy damage to your foe if you hit—you don’t have to do
anything special to deal energy damage with an activated
weapon.
A burst weapon’s burst power is use activated and it works
even when the weapon’s energy power is not activated (see the
last sentence in each power’s description).
The energy from a flaming, frost, shock, flaming burst, icy
burst, or shocking burst weapon never harms you while you’re
wielding or carrying the activated weapon (see the power
descriptions), and it will not harm your equipment. If you lose
or set down an activated weapon, the energy it produces will
harm other objects it touches, so it is best to deactivate it first.
There’s nothing illogical about a flaming, frost, shock
weapon (at least not within any framework that allows weapons
to generate energy in the first place), and there’s no rule against
such weapons (think of the weapon as having fiery, frosty,
shocking flames). The character creating such a weapon
decides how it can be activated. Most such weapons probably
are made so that the wielders can activate all three powers
simultaneously, or activate them one at a time, as desired.
 



Goolpsy said:
So a +2 flameburst, frostburst, acidicburst, shockingburst Scythe deals
8d4 + 12d10 + 4d6 damage ? or 8d4 + 12d10..?
There's no "acidicburst" property in the SRD, so that must be coming from somewhere else. Even so, the damage is 2d4 + 4d6 + 2 (not counting strength or feats or other bonuses) on a non-critical and 8d4 + 4d6 + 12d10 + 8 (not counting strength or feats or other bonuses) on a critical (assuming the target can be critical-ed). If the target cannot be critical-ed, it does 2d4 + 4d6 + 12d10 + 2 on a "critical".
 
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A scythe deals 2d4.

All of the burst enhancements grant (when active) 1d6 damage of the appropriate type on a normal hit and 3d10 of the appropriate type on a critical hit.

On a normal hit, then, you'd do 2d4 + 2 + 1d6 [Fire] + 1d6 [Cold] + 1d6 [Lightning] + 1d6 [Acid] (even there's no such thing as acidburst).

On a critical hit, you'd do 8d4 + 8 + 1d6 [Fire] + 1d6 [Cold] + 1d6 [Lightning] + 1d6 [Acid] + 3d10 [Fire] + 3d10 [Cold] + 3d10 [Lightning] + 3d10 [Acid].
 

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
(even there's no such thing as acidburst)


Maybe there SHOULD be.



By the way, wasn't there an adventure once where a giant had like a Flaming Flaming Greatsword or something, which essentially was priced as having the flaming ability multiple times, and did coresponding more damage? Can that be done by the rules? If not normally, does it make a reasonable house rule to allow it?
 

Corsair said:
Maybe there SHOULD be.
Acid and sonic are left out for a reason. What that reason is, I couldn't tell you. On the other hand, isn't sonic (at least) in another book, doing 1d4 damage?

Corsair said:
By the way, wasn't there an adventure once where a giant had like a Flaming Flaming Greatsword or something, which essentially was priced as having the flaming ability multiple times, and did coresponding more damage? Can that be done by the rules? If not normally, does it make a reasonable house rule to allow it?
It can be done by the rules, no problem.
 

The weapon abilities never harm you or your equipment.. who says you ever have to turn the abilities off when sheathing it?

I've always assumed they're always on unless someone wanted to turn them off for some reason.
 

SidusLupus said:
The weapon abilities never harm you or your equipment.. who says you ever have to turn the abilities off when sheathing it?
They never harm the "wielder". You'd be hardpressed to prove that while sheathed you are wielding them. You possess them in that case, you don't wield them. If you sheathe a flaming sword, you better have fire resistance active. :)

SidusLupus said:
I've always assumed they're always on unless someone wanted to turn them off for some reason.
The better idea to this IMO would be to just let them be use-activated when drawn and automatically off when sheathed. The flavor for this will be a little different for weapons without actual sheathes, but the rules should still apply.
 

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