Javelin of Lightning


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hong said:


The cost would be a slightly reduced likelihood of being the butt of jokes about having a golfbag of weapons, or being careful not to bend over, or not running too fast. It would be a tragedy.

Hong, that's terrible. Funny, but oh so bad. This poor guy trying to get an honest answer to a question and this is what he gets. If it wasn't so funny, I might try to help him......:D

I'd suggest making a magical Javein and then just applying the enchanments you want and see what the cost is then. I imagine turning into a 5d6 lightning bolt that does not consume the weapon would be the equivilant of +3.
 

I wouldn't allow this weapon to be created under the normal item creation rules. It breaks too many of them to be applicable.

Why? Well, a Javelin of Lightning transforms into a lightning bolt as per the arcane spell. This allows it to hit multiple enemies, (up to 20 if they're all standing in a straight line). While it grants a reflex save for half, this would still amount to a very powerful weapon. Assuming all targets make their saves, this weapon would still always hit and deal 2.5d6 damage to 1-20 enemies per attack. That sounds quite over-the-top to me.

The reason the item works is because it's a single-use item that costs a decent amount of money to use. A high-level character could stock up on them and start chucking away if he so desired. But he'd be paying a price for it. Allowing a normal weapon to have the properties of a Javelin of Lightning is akin to giving the PC the ability to cast lightning bolt as a 5th-level sorcerer at will. Even better, because with a set of these and Quick Draw, he could fire off (at 20th-level, assuming a fighter-type character) four lightning bolts per round.

The +3 weapon ability cost doesn't strike me as right either. Consider that currently the best you can do with a +3 ability cost is +3d6 (by adding three energy types). This ability is far greater than that, because it allows the weapon to affect many more targets, and (except for characters with evasion or improved evasion,) always hits for damage.

I might allow this kind of weapon in my game as a minor artifact, but not as a weapon that could be bought or created. If a player in my game wanted a similar weapon, I'd suggest they start saving their money for a Returning Javelin of Shocking Burst.
 
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Probably the "faires" version of such a Javelin of Lightning would be to make a +1 javelin, that has the shocking enhancement 4 times on it. Without the Returning Enhancement, that would be a +5 weapon, with it, it is a +6 (Returning is a +1 Enhacement, isn`t it?). (So, it would cost at least 50.000 pieces of gold)
1d6 of the damage would be the damage of a standard javelin, the rest would be shock damage. (Normally, you can`t take the same energy enhancement multiple times, I believe, so this would be the "only" stretch from the standard rules)

Mustrum Ridcully
 

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Probably the "faires" version of such a Javelin of Lightning would be to make a +1 javelin, that has the shocking enhancement 4 times on it. Without the Returning Enhancement, that would be a +5 weapon, with it, it is a +6 (Returning is a +1 Enhacement, isn`t it?). (So, it would cost at least 50.000 pieces of gold)

This I would allow without a second thought. Throw Shocking Burst on top of that, and you have a nasty electricity weapon that fits in well with the weapon creation rules. :)
 

If you can put multiple enhancments on the same weapon, you have made a very happy person. A little side thing about shurikens, I know that sneak attack damage only applies once per "attack"(group of three) but what about shocking and the like?
 


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