Shock enhancement question.

[Jesus_marley]

This might belong in house rules... if it does, feel free to move it. (like you wouldn't anyhow...<

I was thinking of making a +1 shock weapon that was capable of firing off a lightning bolt for 3d6 damage. The catch is that the weapon would lose the shock enhancement for a number rounds (possibly 1d4) after doing so.

Would the lightning bolt aspect be considered a seperate enhancement to the weapon or would the loss of shocking to use it cancel out?

any ideas?

 

[Scion]

single target, touch attack, close range, no save, SR applies (based on weapons caster level), makes the shocking ability unuseable for a duration in rounds equal to the amount of damage done.

I think that could work for no real extra cost, if anything maybe a couple of hundred gp to modify the weapon slightly.

 

[azmodean]

This definitely needs an extra cost above shocking, the weapon going inactive does not balance the ability at all, as the user can simply switch to another weapon (in fact, if it is a standard action to fire the bolt, they can drop the weapon for free and draw a new weapon in the same round) If I had such a weapon, I'd use it's special ability at the beginning of combat and then switch to a different weapon, possibly grabbing and using the bolt weapon again if the combat lasts long enough for it to recharge.

One way you could make it "cancel out" would be to have the user suppress the shocking ability for a number of rounds, and then they can fire a bolt that does damage proportional to the number of rounds it has spent "charging". Also "charging" can only occur during combat.

Crunchy bits: damage cap, cost of ability, range of bolt, number of rounds/die of damage.

Another idea would be that the bolt charges a certain amount each time the user hits something.

 

[Scion]

you would pay at least 8k for a once per battle possible 3d6 to someone who is within chargeing range?

That sounds like a pretty hefty price to pay for not a huge benefit.

 

[kyloss]

I have been working on something like this as a general weapon quality

+2 enhancement cost- energy bolt

as a full attack action you can fire off a bolt of energy from your weapon, fires off whatever type of energy you have on the sword already with a close range and adds 1 d6 to the amount so if you have a fire sword that does +1d6 fire then the bolt would be 2d6, if you have a holy then the bolt would do 3d6 holy damge and if you dont have any it is just 1d6- physical blast-so would be affected by standard dr(or possibly choose 1 type of energy at time of creation)

I havent had a chance to test this in play and am considering either droping to plus one or extending range or making it a standard action to use. Sugestions?