Kensai's Weapon

[zlorf]

As you may or may not know Kensai can add bonus to their weapon upto +10.

Some weapon abilities ie Holy, say that the creator must be good.

Does a Kensai's alignment prevent him from adding the special weapon ability if his alignment is different? ie Lawful Neutral

In saying that, the last paragraph of each of the weapon special abilities is clearly for
someone who want to create weapon by crafting and probably wasn't thought about when they created the Kensai class.

As a DM, should it be something you would consider using?

Cheers
Z

 

[moritheil]

It depends on how your DM views the kensai imbuement. I don't think this is a matter that can be definitively addressed without the input of your DM.

 

[KarinsDad]

It does not make sense that a Lawful Neutral Kensai should be able to imbue his signature weapon with Holy energy.

 

[moritheil]

KD, would you also rule that a holy unholy weapon is illegal because it doesn't make sense, even though nothing in RAW specifically forbids it?

 

[KarinsDad]

KD, would you also rule that a holy unholy weapon is illegal because it doesn't make sense, even though nothing in RAW specifically forbids it?

Yes.

A Holy weapon contains holy power. An unholy weapon contains unholy power.

There are plenty of RAW rules concerning good PCs not using evil spells and vice versa to support an interpretation that evil and good (or holy and unholy) do not mix.

 

[moritheil]

Just curious, as I had the issue out with Hyp a while back and we concluded that RAW does not forbid the mix.

 

[shilsen]

Just curious, as I had the issue out with Hyp a while back and we concluded that RAW does not forbid the mix.

I don't think KD was saying the RAW forbids it (esp. since, if he did, he'd be wrong), but rather than he thinks it doesn't make sense, though the RAW doesn't forbid it, because he's extrapolating from alignment-related flavor in the RAW.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't think KD was saying the RAW forbids it (esp. since, if he did, he'd be wrong), but rather than he thinks it doesn't make sense, though the RAW doesn't forbid it, because he's extrapolating from alignment-related flavor in the RAW.

It depends on your POV.

If you do normal crafting of a Holy Unholy Weapon, you would need the creator to be both good and evil. Sure, you could weasel this and have Holy be added at one point in time and Unholy added at a different point in time and since the weapons only add a negative level to wielders of the incorrect alignment, it might be ruled that they do no harm to the creator.

But, it seems reasonable that the intent is for Holy Weapons to be Good and Unholy Weapons to be Evil since the creator must be good or evil. Hence, although someone might be able to manage it within literal RAW, I think the intent of good versus evil is pretty clear and the two should not be allowed together. Course, that's just my opinion.

 

[moritheil]

It depends on your POV.

If you do normal crafting of a Holy Unholy Weapon, you would need the creator to be both good and evil. Sure, you could weasel this and have Holy be added at one point in time and Unholy added at a different point in time and since the weapons only add a negative level to wielders of the incorrect alignment, it might be ruled that they do no harm to the creator.

But, it seems reasonable that the intent is for Holy Weapons to be Good and Unholy Weapons to be Evil since the creator must be good or evil. Hence, although someone might be able to manage it within literal RAW, I think the intent of good versus evil is pretty clear and the two should not be allowed together. Course, that's just my opinion.

I understand your opinion overall, but I don't follow your emphasis on harm to the creator - if a weapon harms you, you can't create it?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Just curious, as I had the issue out with Hyp a while back and we concluded that RAW does not forbid the mix.

Did we?

I've generally taken the opposite view. A Holy weapon is "good-aligned". An Unholy weapon is "evil-aligned". The Align Weapon spell implies that a weapon that is aligned has an alignment, since it cannot be cast on a weapon that has an alignment; if a Holy weapon is not a weapon that has an alignment, then Align Weapon can be cast on it, but it seems that this is exactly what the clause was intended to prevent.

So I'd read it that a good-aligned weapon has an alignment that is good, and an evil-aligned weapon has an alignment that is evil, and a Holy Unholy weapon would have an alignment that is evil and good, of which there are none, so the combination is impossible.

After all, the 'incompatible abilities' footnote has to refer to something, right?

-Hyp.