Ranged weapon ability

[ChimericDream]

Here's something that came to mind when I was reading the thread on power attack and ranged weapons. Someone mentioned a weapon or item that transformed your arrows into the size of ballista bolts.... well, here's my variation on that theme.

Expansion

This property can only be placed on a ranged weapon. Projectiles fired from a weapon of expansion are treated as three size categories larger for the purpose of damage dealt.

Original Damage New Damage
1 1d4
1d2 1d6
1d3 1d8
1d4 2d6
1d6 3d6
1d8 3d8
1d10 4d6
1d12 6d6

Moderate transmutation; CL 15th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, polymorph any object; Price +4 bonus.

I think that by the time characters can afford something like this, the ranged fighter will be struggling to do significant amounts of damage, while melee fighters will be wading in with tons of hit points as well as tons of damage-dealing goodness (TM). For those willing to pay premium prices, they can increase the base damage of their projectiles to help compensate for the difference. I still think that fighters will wind up being the primary damage dealers, but now ranged attacks can pack a bit of a punch.

 

[ChimericDream]

No comments? I'm not sure whether that means it's balanced, or people just hate it.

 

[Jeph]

It'll almost always be adding an extra 2d8 points of damage (barring some wierd exotic weapon I'm not aware of, pretty much every archer build uses a longbow). For a +4 bonus, you could get an extra 4d6 points of energy damage instead. I'd say it's a little weak, and probably more appropriate to a +3 bonus.

EDIT: Hmm, I forgot to take criticals into account. The increased damage from this would be multiplied by a crit, while energy damage isn't... A weapon with two burst enchantments would deal +2d6 normally and (for a longbow) another +4d10 on a crit on top of that, while this weapon would deal +2d8 normally and another +4d8 on top of that with a crit. So maybe +4 bonus is spot on.

 

[Goolpsy]

Do also remember that Energy damage is, energy damage. At higher levels monsters often have some resistance to the usual energy types --> weak 1-2d6 point of energy damage of a type is like no damage at all. While this type of damage will go all the way in case of beating the likely damage reduction!

My first through was: wow imbalanced, way to strong, but for a +4 Bonus i think its fair.

 

[Nifft]

1d8 -> 3d8 looks balanced. The lower end of the spectrum looks a bit weak -- perhaps just tripling the die would be best?

For 1, triple damage is close to 1d6.
For d2, triple damage is 1d8.
For d3, triple damage is between to 2d4 and 2d6.

For all the rest, triple damage is easy to calculate.

Yeah, crits are what make this worth +4. It's a nice ability.

Cheers, -- N

 

[ChimericDream]

Thanks, all. I'm glad to see this is receiving positive feedback. I agree that at first glance, the balance of the ability is sketchy... it seems either way overpowered or vastly underpowered. I went through some of the same thoughts as most of you when I was trying to figure out whether to make it a +3 or +4 ability. Once I figured out some of the possibilities for damage reduction and crits with a ranged weapon, it settled into the +4 range.

 

[ChimericDream]

Doh! I just noticed that I had this as a moderate divination! I had copied another ability from the SRD to get the format right, and forgotten to change that one over. Obviously, this should be transmutation.

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