Monks and magic weapons

[Hypersmurf]

Strictly, there is no contradiction between the PHB and DMG on the matter of immunity to damage. There is one rule that says "Immune to weapons of lesser enhancement", and no rule that disputes this.

There is a contradiction on the hardness and hit points matter.

The Sage has suggested that the entirety of the DMG entry - including the immunity to damage sentence - is in error. But this has yet to make it into an official publication - FAQ, errata, etc.

Oh, here's another nice conundrum: what would the hardness and hit points be of a +5 small steel shield with +2 shield spikes in your in interpretation of the rules?

You don't have a +5 light shield with +2 shield spikes.

You have a +5 spiked light shield, that is also built to act as a +2 magic weapon.

Spikes are not separate from the shield. They change "a shield" into "a spiked shield". It is not "the spikes" that are a weapon; it is "the spiked shield".

You can do the same thing with no spikes; a +5 light shield, that is also built to act as a +2 magic weapon. It does bludgeoning damage instead of piercing damage, with a smaller die, but it's otherwise the same concept.

-Hyp.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Remember, the Monk doesn't fight with his hands, he fights with his whole body.

It'd've been nice if the Kensai PrC remembered that. But that's a whole separate gripe.

Brad

 

[Gwarok]

Dragons don't have different stats with regards to fire. They are not affected by it. Now if a 300 hp dragon had 2000 hp with regards to fire, that would be a different stat. So what if your magic weapon takes 10 pts worth of damage. Which pool of hit points does it come out of?

 

[Particle_Man]

Dragons don't have different stats with regards to fire. They are not affected by it. Now if a 300 hp dragon had 2000 hp with regards to fire, that would be a different stat. So what if your magic weapon takes 10 pts worth of damage. Which pool of hit points does it come out of?

And magic weapons don't have different stats with regards to weapons of lesser plusses. They are just immune to weapons of lesser plusses, like dragons are immune to fire.

The differences in calculating hardness and hit points on p.217 and 222 of the DMG is a separate matter. I'd say use the p.222 one for weapons only and the p.217 one for shields only, but that is just me. I could agree with an official ruling going either way on how to calculate hardness and hp, but in either case, as it is written a +3 weapon or +3 shield cannot ever be harmed by a +2 weapon, no matter how one calculates a +3 weapon's or +3 shield's hardness and hit points vs. a +4 weapon.

See how simple it becomes? If a weapon is not immune, it takes damage out of its one and only pool of hp. If a weapon is immune because it is being hit by an inferior weapon, it takes no damage at all. How one calculates the one and only pool of hp is separate from whether or not a weapon takes damage at all from inferior weapons.

 

[Particle_Man]

The Sage has suggested that the entirety of the DMG entry - including the immunity to damage sentence - is in error. But this has yet to make it into an official publication - FAQ, errata, etc.

You don't have a +5 light shield with +2 shield spikes.

You have a +5 spiked light shield, that is also built to act as a +2 magic weapon.

You can do the same thing with no spikes; a +5 light shield, that is also built to act as a +2 magic weapon. It does bludgeoning damage instead of piercing damage, with a smaller die, but it's otherwise the same concept.

-Hyp.

Hmmm...I do tend to give weight to what the Sage says. I mean, he is not infallible, but he shouldn't simply be discounted. This gives me pause...I will be eager to hear the final errata'd judgement.

Thanks for correcting me on the spiked shield issue. In that case, calculation of hit points and hardness would simply be based on the higher of the two plusses (I would assume that they would overlap, instead of stacking).

 

[Joachim Pieper]

So why give the monk an improved sunder feat as an option when he can only break non-magical weapons? Also, what about the nightwalker - supposed to be able to crush weapons with its hands, but by the lower plus rationale, it is impossible for it (a CR 16 gribbly, I think) to destroy even a +1 weapon.

At least under the old rules the monk could sunder +3 weapons, is this, then, a deliberate weakening of the monk's ability?


Cheers.

 

[Particle_Man]

Well, given that not every opponent the monk will face will have magic weapons, and given my previous belief that wotc folk don't want the bad guys (including the npc monks) destroying the pc's toys to easily, I'd say that this could well be a deliberate weakening of the monk's ability to destroy magical weapons.

Y'know, this is actually quite entertaining. I swear I am not doing it to be perverse. I just don't see why my beliefs are automatically wrong (well, barring the Sage, and future errata, of course).

 

[Camarath]

Also, what about the nightwalker - supposed to be able to crush weapons with its hands, but by the lower plus rationale, it is impossible for it (a CR 16 gribbly, I think) to destroy even a +1 weapon.

Actually, the Nightwalker's supernatural ability would still function as it is written because while the rule section in question prevents damage to a magic weapon unless the attackers own weapon has as least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck it does, it does not prevent effects that do not deal damage but rather merely destroy the weapon (such as the Nightwalker's ability) from functioning.

 

[Philip]

Why do red dragons have a different set of stats for when they are attacked by fire? Is that just silly, too?

They don't. With your interpretation of the rules you have to recalculate the hit points if the weapon in question was first damage by another magic weapon and subsequently by some other attack (spell, for example).

 

[Philip]

Y'know, this is actually quite entertaining. I swear I am not doing it to be perverse. I just don't see why my beliefs are automatically wrong (well, barring the Sage, and future errata, of course).

It is, and you're not wrong, not by a long shot. You are making a quite plausible intepretation of the rules. I was just trying to argue there is an even more plausible interpretation possible.