Magic weapons with no "bonus"

[Rath the Brown]

In terms of passing thru DR, a magic weapon is a magic weapon as far as I'm concerned. The technicality of whether or not the weapon gives you a bonus to hit or damage is pretty meaningless - it's either magical or it's not.

Now, if you are using 3.0 DR, with different levels of magic passing through a given DR, I think this becomes more of an issue. 3.5 DR is boolean - you either have the right 'effect' to get thru the DR or you don't. So whether a magic weapon has a bonus to hit or not doesn't seem to matter any more, since the bonus itself doesn't matter.

Actually, according to the RAW in 3.5, whether a magic weapon has a bonus to hit or not DOES matter in bypassing damage reduction.


From the SRD:

Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of these monsters.

 

[Li Shenron]

The DMG specifically mentions that a magic weapon must have a minimum +1 bonus before you can apply special magic abilities. It would probably work to allow +0 weapons as well however, characters may still want to have a +1 for the mentioned DR.

 

[Insight]

Or you could house rule it to say that the weapon needs only to be 'magical' and that the bonus if any is irrelevant.

 

[Lasher Dragon]

A sort of round-about way of getting let's say a flaming weapon without the plus to hit or damage would be to have the weapon made from primitive materials. I have a character who has a +1 ghost touch undead-bane stone maul. Since it is made of stone, I take IIRC -2 to hit and -1 to damage - it being made of primitive material. It is however MW and +1, so that brings it to -1 to hit and normal (no +/-'s) damage.

I think I have the numbers wrong, but like I said in a round-about way that does it hehe

Oh yeah I remember I got the rules for primitive materials out of the Arms & Equipment guide