Stacking fire and ice magical effects for weapons.

[Ferret]

"So cold ity burns"

plus Icefire sounds cool.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm curious Hypersmurf, why would you require that they each be activated? Why not have one command word turn the who shebang on?

Because it's two abilities.

I wouldn't let a wizard cast Shield, Mage Armor, and Cat's Grace with one Cast a Spell action. I wouldn't let a fighter activate multiple command word abilities with one Activate Magic Item action.

-Hyp.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Because it's two abilities.

I wouldn't let a wizard cast Shield, Mage Armor, and Cat's Grace with one Cast a Spell action. I wouldn't let a fighter activate multiple command word abilities with one Activate Magic Item action.

-Hyp.

But it's not two abilities. It's two parts of the one item. Why should someone with a flame/frost sword be penalized when someone with a vorpal/keen weapon isn't? Especially since they have to use an action, anyway?

Your game, your rules -- but you're still wrong, man.

 

[Aristotle]

I'm practically (bot not quite!) speechless at the number of people who claim that its silly, unbelievable, or whatever to let these energy types stack. I know this has been said already, but: It's Magic! Sure heat and cold can't coexist (for long) in the real world, but why should real world physics apply to magic? I don't get that.

Here is a quick experiment for you. Go get a piece of dry ice. Place it in your exposed palm. Hurts don't it? Okay, now get a propane torch and place the flame over the ice and on your skin. That hurts to! Okay, now the two forces (fire and ice) will both exist for a moment in time, and during that moment you will be being hurt by BOTH of them.

Now the fire has a source (the propane) and the ice does not, so the fire is going to win. The ice is going to melt and, if you still had the two items on your skin, you would then only be taking fire damage. But... what if the ice had a constant source as well (an equal one)? You'd be getting hurt by both indefinately. They would be in constant conflict with each other, but so long as they both existed they would both harm whatever they come into contact with.

The rest is up to flavor. I love the idea of a sword that contains opposing forces. The sword, a symbol for conflict, itself housing an eternal conflict. Heck yes I'd let them stack!

 

[nameless]

Because it's two abilities.

I wouldn't let a wizard cast Shield, Mage Armor, and Cat's Grace with one Cast a Spell action. I wouldn't let a fighter activate multiple command word abilities with one Activate Magic Item action.

-Hyp.

That's a good point, but if the wizard who crafted the flaming, frost longsword knew that it required a "command word" action to activate, wouldn't he probably make a single command activate the entire item instead of just one ability? i.e. make it one "flaming, frost" ability that adds all the elemental damage to the sword.

There's no strict limit on how long the elemental enchantments last once activated, so it could be assumed that they last until deactivated. According to the rules, they only inflict their elemental damage when the weapon does, so it could also stand to reason that the weapons can be sheathed/stowed while active and not require command words at all once they are turned on once.

The second scenario is far more distasteful (to me, at least) than the first one. Saying that they are the only two is a false dichotomy, of course, but it seems reasonable on my end to consider all the elemental enhancements to a weapon as a single ability, more justified from an in-character perspective than from a rules one.

 

[BSF]

Because it's two abilities.

I wouldn't let a wizard cast Shield, Mage Armor, and Cat's Grace with one Cast a Spell action. I wouldn't let a fighter activate multiple command word abilities with one Activate Magic Item action.

-Hyp.

I'm just not sure I entirely agree. It doesn't seem like it is that big an issue to activate all the elemental affects with one standard action. If you have a character with a dual weapon, does it require two standard actions to spark up the flames on both sides?

I'm more looking for the balance implications of forcing multiple standard actions to activate multiple elemental affects. Does it provide too big an advantage to a PC?

 

[Epametheus]

I'm just not sure I entirely agree. It doesn't seem like it is that big an issue to activate all the elemental affects with one standard action. If you have a character with a dual weapon, does it require two standard actions to spark up the flames on both sides?

I'm more looking for the balance implications of forcing multiple standard actions to activate multiple elemental affects. Does it provide too big an advantage to a PC?

Each head of a douple weapon is enchanted seperately, so they'd have to be activated seperately.

That being said, I can't remember a single session I've played in the past few years where we (with we being the players and the DM) actually remembered that elemental weapons require an action to activate.

I understand the reasoning for it, though. A shocking, flaming greatsword deals literally twice as much damage as a regular greatsword, and is superior to a greatsword +3 (especially with the DR changes). The activation time is there to weaken the elemental weapons.

Personally, I've found the rapidly rising cost of magical weapons to be a sufficient deterent to a weapon having 3 or 4 elemental enchantments on it. At the higher levels, where this can actually be done, upgrading a weapon requires time that the party might not have, and commisioning a superior weapon from scratch is bloody expensive.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

In theory I can understand the reason for requiring multiple actions to activate a multiply-enchanted elemental weapon. A wizard has to spend more resources or more time to summon multiple monsters. A fighter should have to spend more to get more bang for his buck.

Even so, though, I've yet to play in a game where even 1 standard action has been required for elemental weapons. I guess it just feels right, and more heroic, for the fighter to draw his blade and have it burst into flames as he's drawing it.

 

[shilsen]

Here are a few comments from the 3.5 FAQ on the subject(s) being discussed here:

Activating an energy power requires a standard action, but once you activate energy power, the power works until you use another action to deactivate it. You can activate or deactivate one of these powers on up to 50 pieces of ammunition at the
same time, provided that all the ammunition is in your possession, all the ammunition is the same kind, and all the ammunition has the same power.

A burst weapon’s burst power is use activated and it works even when the weapon’s energy power is not activated (see the last sentence in each power’s description).
The energy from a flaming, frost, shock, flaming burst, icy burst, or shocking burst weapon never harms you while you’re wielding or carrying the activated weapon (see the power descriptions), and it will not harm your equipment. If you lose or set down an activated weapon, the energy it produces will harm other objects it touches, so it is best to deactivate it first.

There’s nothing illogical about a flaming, frost, shock weapon (at least not within any framework that allows weapons to generate energy in the first place), and there’s no rule against such weapons (think of the weapon as having fiery, frosty, shocking flames). The character creating such a weapon decides how it can be activated. Most such weapons probably are made so that the wielders can activate all three powers
simultaneously, or activate them one at a time, as desired.

 

[Gort]

This is a house rule of mine:

"No."