Why ever make an elemental burst weapon?

[Fieari]

There have been questions before on whether, say, a shocking burst weapon is worth the +2 enhancement it costs. My question however, is how on earth it compares to another +2 equivelent.

A shocking burst weapon deals an extra d10 lightning damage on a critical hit.

On the other hand, a thundering weapon deals an extra d8 SONIC damage, AND makes them save or be deafened. Thundering costs +1, and while it does no extra damage on a normal hit, you can add in the simple shocking property.

Practically nothing has sonic resistance. A d8 is almost as good as a d10. Even high level monsters occasionally roll 1s for saves.

Is a shocking burst (or fire burst or any other burst) really worth it compared to thundering?

 

[Moon-Lancer]

if you have a scyth, thats 4d10 on a crit, not to mention the normal damage.

In 3.0 their is a prc called deepwoodsniper. It adds crits to a bow. you can get a bow to do 5d10 and their are spells that can help you auto crit. Really the enhancement isent for everyone.

 

[Patlin]

A shocking burst weapon functions as a shock weapon that also explodes with electricity upon striking a successful critical hit

This may be obvious to everyone, but the extra d10 is in addition to the d6 from every hit, for 2 to 16 electric damage on a hit. Since it's all one source, that can help to overcome elemental resistance.

The increase in cost from Shock to shocking bust is the same as the cost of thundering. Thundering does seem a bit better, still.

Does your DM consider sonic attacks more likely to be noticed by monsters in other rooms than other kinds of attack? That might offset the advantage considerably.

 

[AuraSeer]

A shocking burst weapon deals an extra d10 lightning damage on a critical hit.

Go back and reread the description of shocking burst. It says the weapon "functions as a shock weapon", plus inflicts burst damage on a critical hit. It's like shocking, only more so.

All the elemental burst abilities include elemental damage on every hit. Thundering applies to criticals only.

 

[nimisgod]

Also, I remember reading somewhere that a burst weapon can activate even against un-crittable creatures. Probably the FAQ, cuz I can't seem to find it in the SRD. It's not much of an advantage but it is one.

 

[Fieari]

Err, yes. A +1 shocking burst weapon deals +1d6 on every hit, and +1d10 on a critical (+more on certain weapons). It is priced as a +3 weapon.

A +1 shocking thundering weapon deals +1d6 on every hit, and +1d8 sonic on a critical hit (+more on certain weapons). It is priced as a +3 weapon.

The second one seems obviously and evidently superior to me.

 

[Christian]

Go back and reread the description of shocking burst. It says the weapon "functions as a shock weapon", plus inflicts burst damage on a critical hit. It's like shocking, only more so.

All the elemental burst abilities include elemental damage on every hit. Thundering applies to criticals only.

I think he understood that-note the part of the original post that reads, "Thundering costs +1, and while it does no extra damage on a normal hit, you can add in the simple shocking property." The point as I understand it: a +1 shocking thundering weapon costs the same as a +1 shocking burst weapon, but is clearly better. Which is true-but bear in mind, we've got pretty limited options for weapon costs. You can't make the burst enhancements cost, say, + 3/4; and +2 for thundering is obviously overpriced. The best you can hope for in this kind of system is that rank-ordering the enhancements by play value doesn't put them out of order by price. As long as a shocking burst weapon is better than any weapon with only a single +1 enhancement, we're doing OK ...

 

[Corsair]

Or instead of shocking burst, you could just get a +1 Shocking Shocking Longsword.

Sure on a critical, you aren't getting that d10, but on every other attack, you're still getting an extra d6.

 

[Plane Sailing]

AFAICS shocking burst etc. is woefully underpowered in most cases compared to the bizzaro mixing of energy types for that same +2.

To my mind holy (2d6 against almost all my enemies all the time!) > flaming shocking (2d6 against most of my enemies all the time unless they have an elemental resistance) > flaming burst (1d6 most of the time unless they have elemental resistance and there is a miniscule chance of an extra 1d10).

The only reason for taking them is style - which can be a good enough reason.

<house rule alert>
I think I remember working out how much damage it 'ought' to do on a critical in order to bring it up to the same average damage over time as the holy option, and it actually works out at about 10d6 damage (!) (10% chance of +35 damage each round == 100% chance of +3.5 damage each round) Thought provoking perhaps!

Cheers

 

[Deset Gled]

<house rule alert>
I think I remember working out how much damage it 'ought' to do on a critical in order to bring it up to the same average damage over time as the holy option, and it actually works out at about 10d6 damage (!) (10% chance of +35 damage each round == 100% chance of +3.5 damage each round) Thought provoking perhaps!

Cheers

I think the 10d6 here is artificially inflated, here. The 3.5 extra damage will not come in to play 100% of the time, but only when the attack succeeds. At best that's 95%, at worst its 5% (when you might also score a critical). And if you're only considering the case where you do hit, the critical will happen more than 10% of the time. You will need to consider actual to hit bonuses and ACs to do this comparison correctly. IIRC, the Burst weapons are worse statistically than other enhancements, but not by so much that they're completely worthless. I would guess that simple doubling the die (2d10 instead of 1d10, etc) would be enough to balance them out (though I haven't done the math).

I think Burst enhancements are much better in some builds than others. A barbarian using the "all Power Attack all the time" strategy is one example that might benefit, a monk with TWF, Rapid Shot, and Flurrying with thrown sais is another. Burst enhancement are also amazingly cool and cinematic to use.