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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uzagi_akimbo" data-source="post: 1881505" data-attributes="member: 15945">Among a lot of great and some not so great stuff, "Complete Arcane" lists two new weapon enchanments which make me rather nervous.." Magebane " - this adds the normal "bane" ability onto the weapon with a twist - instead of a specific race, now anyone "with arcane spell's currently prepared or spell slots available to cast arcane spells without preparation, or against creatrues with the ability to use arcane spell-like abilities...." is a target of the +2 enhancement and +2D6 Damage/hit.Now this would include not only all sorcerer, wizards, warlocks, hexblades, bards etc. (which might be the intention - but it really makes some multiclass builds rather dangerous ), but also a shockful of other things. BTW, it is not even stated that the spell-like ability must be innate, so someone with an item-bound spell-like ability may just be fair game, too.- almost every non-elemental outsider (and many elementals, too )- most dragons- many magical beats- almost all feys- many (most of the really dangerous ones) aberrations- several constructs and golems- many (mostly the more capable ones ) undead- several giants - a vast number of races, such as drow, duergar, gnomes (even the standard PHB ones), most other underdark races, all plane-touched races, giths......... all with the same single enhancement... so for a 8000gp investement I can get myself the swiss army knife of "slaying" weapons - "one sword to chop them all" ? Or have it made by the party's cleric/enchanter... for half that ? After all, the spell prequsite for crafting this is merely "Dispel magic"... and CL 8 .....Now, this seems excessively powerful to me, as it is far more extensive then a simple "racial/category" bane. To add insult to bewilderment, this power is also cheaper than a normal "bane", being listed (twice) as only a "+1" enchantment. I mean who is going to have a "Sword of Demon-/Dragon-/Feybane" made for himself, if he can get a far more universally applicable and cheaper to boot "magebane" weapon ? While I like the power as an idea (aka " a weapon deadly to arcane casters" ), this is so broken it physically hurts.Or am I missing something major here ?The second troublesome weapon ability is "Clouting", a +3 enchantment.Any succesful hit with such a weapon forces the target to make a Fort DC 19 check or be knocked 10' backwards. If such movement is impossible he falls prone if the save is failed. For one, this does basically the same as "Knockback", a +3 enchantment from CW, but "knockback" only causes a Bull Rush check (which is more complicated, yet fairer on many large and massive creatures - I mean large and even huge zombies with tremendous mass don't have all that great Fort save...) and can only be applied to missile weapons. For one, this solves the obvious question if the weapon's wielder actually gets an AoO if he knocks an opponent 10' away, hence causing him to leave a threatened square or what happens if another creature/character blocks the path to the target square...So with clouting we have an equally priced, very similar weapon ability which is both broader in scope (can be applied to any weapon ) and is generally more powerful against most opponents, especially those with good Str and mass, but weak Fort save (like, say some golems, undeads... ). To me this looks just like another clear "must buy"  over its direct rules-equivalent. Again, am I missing something inthe rules here taht actually balances thses two abilities ?Just where the heck was, if it even exists (after looking at the Warlock core-class I severly doubt such a position exists at WotC anyway ) the rules-balance, editing and testing on this one ? Do they check if something they publish hasn't already been published for the same edition with different, yet functional rules ? I mean, after all CW was published roughly within a year of CA, same edition, non-setting specific.... same series of books even !</blockquote>

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