Magic Weapons - 2 specific questions

[skelso]

Thank you, FEADIN and Starbuck_II, for the exceedingly useful replies. This is pretty much how I've been running it, but it's good to know for sure.

 

[skelso]

Magebane ability was re-written in more clear way in Magic Item Compendium. Now it states that either arcane spells or invocations. It is not a true rule change, because amongst spell-like abilities only invocations have been mentioned as arcane from the beginning.

Regarding flaming/frost or holy weapons, in my experience they are not too strong in 3.5e. With the same cost, you can have +2 better enhancement bonus. That is +2 hit and +2 damage. Two-handed weapon wielder with Power Attack feat can convert that +2 bonus to +4 damages. The result is +6 damages which affects on everything.

That's an excellent point. I often try to talk people out of Monkeygrip and to take Power Attack instead. When you math it up, Power Attack let's you create all kinds of useful comparisons and is a good way to check for balance.

 

[azhrei_fje]

Arise, my thread! Arise! Behold -- IT IS ALLIIIIIIVE!!

Energies from weapons never harm the user and his equipments. So you can let it be active 24h/day or at least make it always on while you are awake. And people usually do so.

Do you have a quote for that? The SRD says it doesn't affect the wielder, but someone carrying the weapon could be affected, correct? So unless it's being wielded, they're susceptible? (Yeah, being picky, but I'm trying to understand if there's a reason for the frost effect to be worded the way it is.)

If it was supposed to be like that, why make it command word activated? Why not use activated? (It _IS_ applied to a weapon after all.)

The frost effect (or the others) don't say that the wielder's equipment is unaffected. In the case of frost, why couldn't the effect freeze the metal gear of the character? For example, freeze the potions that the character is carrying? Or as stated in the chill metal prereq for "frost", make the wielder's armor so cold as to do damage? In both cases, the frost is not damaging the wielder nor his equipment, in the same way that an invisible creature that summons a monster and tells it to attack doesn't become visible...

Thanks for any help.

 

[Shin Okada]

Do you have a quote for that? The SRD says it doesn't affect the wielder, but someone carrying the weapon could be affected, correct?

Well, strictly speaking, WotC has never truly defined the words "wield" and "carry". Or rather, did not fully described the difference of those two words.

Even if your DM claims that the energies from weapons do harm the equipment of the owner when not in his hand, that will not make much trouble. A Sword Sheath is often made of metal or wood. Thus at least have hardness of 5+. According to PHB, electricity and fire damages are halved against object before applying hardness. In case of Cold damage, it is divided by 4. So, no DMG energy properties inflicts damages to objects made of wood (or something with better hardness).

If it was supposed to be like that, why make it command word activated? Why not use activated? (It _IS_ applied to a weapon after all.)

As I have already stated (in the last year), inflicting certain type of damage is not always a good idea. Some creatures actually be benefited from certain type of energy damages.

Also, when you are sneaking in total darkness and you have Darkvision, you may not like your weapon to be ... burning.

 

[cheshire_grin]

Ah, D&D. Where putting a flaming sword in a wooden sheath is perfectly safe.

 

[azhrei_fje]

Thanks for the reply.

Even if your DM claims that the energies from weapons do harm the equipment of the owner when not in his hand, that will not make much trouble.

The question is more of the "my frost weapon made my equipment so cold that my potions froze!" variety. Not damaging to the equipment per se, but something that makes them unusable in the short-term.

Or perhaps the cold permeates the sheath and starts to makes the fighter's plate armor cold. One of the (possible) prereqs for frost is chill metal which would clearly have an effect on the fighter inside his armor...

A Sword Sheath is often made of metal or wood.

So a weapon with the shocking ability can't harm a metal sheath? What about the person holding the sheath in their hand? Uh... Are you sure? Seems pretty likely to me that they're going to get hurt!

What about weapons that don't have sheaths? Bows, bolas, blowguns, and so forth? (Hmm, lots of B-words there. )

As I have already stated (in the last year), inflicting certain type of damage is not always a good idea. Some creatures actually be benefited from certain type of energy damages.

But then a command word is only needed to turn it off, not turn it on.

I think command word was a huge mistake. They should've just said they were use-activated and the whole problem would go away, although you might lose some of the flavor descriptions.

So let's say I wanted a frost weapon that was use-activated. Should it be the same +1 market price? Or something different?

 

[cheshire_grin]

But then a command word is only needed to turn it off, not turn it on.

But once it's off, you need a command word to turn it back on again... which leaves you right back where we are.

+1 is probably fine for use-activated; you lose the penalty of the standard action activation, but you lose the benefit of being able to turn off the ability as well (as noted, using a Shocking weapon against something that is healed by electrical damage is a bad idea, as is holding a Flaming sword while trying to sneak).

 

[milo]

The one thing I see in common with all of those characters is a low base will save
Mordenkainen's Disjunction