Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

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Desdan_Mervolam
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Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

I'm currently playing an inventor in a D&D campaign from a region of the (homebrew) world where firearms are available. Considering the amount of time required to reload a pistol (One full-round action, which is a long time in the average skirmish a D&D party faces), so far my pistol has only really ever been used once per encounter, after which I switch to my rapier or one of a variety of alchemical items I carry.

So far, my main pistol is simply a Pistol +1, but I will eventually be enchanting it further. I've seen the math saying that numerical bonuses are superior to most if not all weapon enchantments, but as I recall that math was based on the presumption that you're using that weapon at least once every round. Am I still better off gunning for a +5 enhancement(no pun intended) for this weapon considering it's frequency of use, or would I be better off going for elemental or miscellancous enchantments?

One tactic I'm thinking about doing is seeing if I can get my grubby mitts on a Vibrant Purple Ioun Stone and get it filled with True Strikes. If that's possible, it seems to me loading up on elemental enchantments would be the best bet.

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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Username17 »

Your best bet is the "Spell Storing" enhancement.

Slap it with a Vampiric Touch cast by your friendly 10th level wizard and watch the hillarity. That's a crap tonne more damage than any measily +1 to-hit. Heck, even a spell-stored Shocking Grasp deals out a +3 to-hit and either 14.5 or 17.5 damage depending upon whether you use the 3rd edition or 3.5 version.

That's a lot better than any +1 enhancement bonus could ever dream of being.

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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Huh, Thanks Frank. I'll have to remember that. The only downside to that versus the VPIS is that I'd have to get it refilled alot more regularly than twice per character level. It's certainly a good idea, though. But, can I really cast a touch-ranged spell through a ranged weapon?

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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Username17 »

But, can I really cast a touch-ranged spell through a ranged weapon?


Yes. Any targetted spell can be put in, and it automatically affects the target of the attack.

So when you put a blindness spell on a spell storing sword, its range is reduced to touch. If you put a shocking grasp on a spell storing bow, its range is increased to that of the bow.

If you put a vampiric touch on each of a pile of spell storing arrows - it's all hillarious all the time.

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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

There's a lot of debate re whether the RAW allow spell storing ranged weapons. But all sorts of bad happens if you allow it, so it'd probably be best not to.
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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Username17 »

The debate is "I don't think spell storing ranged weapons should be allowed so they are not." vs. "But the rules for what you can make and what you can't are right there, and a Spell Storing Bow is in the first category."

The "no spell-storing bows" camp is not actually based on any rules information, it's based solely upon an opinion on what is and is not game balanced. The only "evidence" that you couldn't make a Spell Storing Bow is that you can't randomly generate them on the table in the DMG. However, this is entirely meaningless, as the table also can't generate a Shatterspike Sword, a belt of many pockets, or even 34 +2 arrows.

At no time do you roll randomly on treasure charts when making magic items, so the argument "it isn't on the chart!" means precisely dick. All of the abilities on all of the charts can be applied to "weapons", of which a bow is one. Those weapons which can only be applied to a melee weapon or ranged weapon are listed as such in their descriptions - for example the Throwing Enhancement, which says "This ability can only be placed on a melee weapon"; or the Distance Enhancement, which says "This ability can only be placed on a ranged weapon". Abiliities which are silent on the matter can be applied to either type of weapon - even Keen, which does not appear on the Ranged Chart but does appear on arrows in multiple adventures, supplements, and source materials.

This is not up for serious RAW debate. Some whiners have gone off and claimed that there is some kind of precedent for limiting the Spell Storing Ranged Weapon (and only the Spell Storing Ranged Weapon) by its chart. It's fine if you don't allow them for whatever reason, but there is absolutely no precedent at all under any circumstances for an inability to match a weapon to a special ability because the chart can't randomly generate one.

"Sorry, you can't enchant your Khopesh, it's not on the Weapon list in the DMG."

I don't think so.

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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

Do you think it's that cut and dried? I'm not one of the spell storing whiners, but I think that none of the melee-only chart enchantments can be used on ranged weapons. The melee-only (per the chart) weapons generally make no sense as ranged weapons. It's at best ambiguous

Dancing is an enchantment that doesn't say in the description that it is limited to melee weapons. But it appears only in the melee weapon table. By your reasoning, a ranged weapon can be enchanted with it.

Do you really think you can have a dancing crossbow? Dancing bolts? The description clearly says that the weapon "fights." How exactly does it reload itself? Can it reload itself if your bolts are on another plane? How do Dancing Shuriken work?

I just don't see it.

It's pretty obvious that in the DMG, the tables are supposed to determine whether something is a ranged or melee or both enchantment. An oversight, maybe. Course, they didn't correct it, so you can argue from that if you want.
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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Username17 »

Do you think it's that cut and dried?


Yes.

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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

So how exactly does a Dancing crossbow work?
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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Username17 »

So how exactly does a Dancing crossbow work?


It attacks adjacent foes on your action with an attack bonus equal to your BAB plus its own enhancement bonus.

It sucks, but all Dancing Weapons suck. They don't have a strength or dexterity bonus to attack or damage - so they can't hit creatures of your CR and don't do meaningful damage. The fact that Dancing Crossbows are terrible does not in fact make any point at all - because the Dancing Weapon was imported wholesale from a bygone era in which strength and con bonuses were small so the prospect of a bonus weapon which attacked at your BAB +2 and did a d8 + 2 damage was actually pretty sexy.

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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

You're missing my point. Most of the abilities that are melee-only on the DMG table, but not limited in the enhancement description, simply don't work when used as a ranged weapon. Spell storing isn't bad if limited to ranged spells, but touch spells get all goofy. VT in particular gets wonky as a stored spell. Didn't we discuss this on the Enworld boards a while ago? Can't remember.

Which makes Dancing Crossbows awesome. The Dancing ability gives a ranged weapon all sorts of bad. It attacks at your BAB. Iteratively? Yes for melee, so yes for ranged. That means Dancing Crossbows attack up to 6/round. How do they reload? Magically. You don't even have to have ammunition anywhere near you. I doubt that's the actual rule.

Wounding, Ghost Touch, Vorpal, those all seem fine IMO as ranged weapons. But Defending? That's all sorts of stupid as a ranged weapon. Ki Focus is just kind of silly as a ranged weapon, but doesn't have any real problems.

As a whole, it seems pretty clear that TAbles 7-14 and -15 are meant to govern what types of weaopns can bear the enchantments. The ability descriptions only get into it if special rules beyond "no ranged" or "no melee" apply.

Although it would have been nice if, since there was an errata and all, if they would have addressed it.
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Re: Best "One-Shot" Weapon Enchantment?

Post by Username17 »

Most of the abilities that are melee-only on the DMG table, but not limited in the enhancement description, simply don't work when used as a ranged weapon.


What exactly are these "most" that get wonky? This is a very bold assertion - let's look at it:

The things not on the ranged weapon random generation chart are:
Defending: I honestly can't see how this could have a problem game mechanically. You give up non-specific attack bonus for non-specific defense bonus. This functions exactly the same in melee and at range. A defending hammer can still be activated when thrown, and it functions exactly the same as when used as a melee weapon.
Ghost Touch: There are Ghost Touch Arrows in Source Books.
Keen There are Keen Arrows in Source Books.
Ki Focus: This wouldn't work on a ranged weapon, but it also says that it only goes on melee weapons.
Mighty Cleaving: There's no restriction on this to not be placed on a ranged weapon - although it doesn't actually do anything on a ranged weapon because the benefit only triggers after a successful melee attack.
Spell Storing: This effect works fine game mechanically on a ranged weapon. The effect triggers on a successful attack, not a successful melee attack. Then the spell effects the target of the attack. There's no problem here.
Throwing: This wouldn't really work on a ranged weapon, but it also says that it only goes on melee weapons.
Wounding: There are Wounding Arrows in Source Books.
Dancing: This effect is not barred to ranged weapons - but it sucks, and sucks on all weapons. Its most noticable on the Ranged Weapons who feel the restriction on attacking adjacent targets more than normal weapons - but since neither use strength this enhancement "functions" exactly the same on a crossbow as it does on a long sword.
Vorpal: This effect works fine on ranged weapons - except that it is restricted to only slashing weapons. In the DMG, there are no ranged slashing weapons, and thus no possible reason for having it on the ranged chart. If you use expansion stuff - such as Chakra or whatever, then obviously they could be made Vorpal if that's what you really wanted to do.

So what was this about "most" of them not working? There's only one enhancement that gets at all wonky which are on the melee weapon random generator and not on the ranged weapon random generator and don't have an actual restriction to be placed on melee weapons. That's mighty cleaving and mighty cleaving alone. And even then, all it does is nothing - which is scarcely differentiable from what it does on a melee weapon.

As to the others, I can recall specifically seeing examples of at least 3 of the others being used on arrows in examples in WotC source books, and all the others work fine from a game mechanical point of view.

VT in particular gets wonky as a stored spell. Didn't we discuss this on the Enworld boards a while ago?


VT in no way gets wonky at all. The arguments used on EN World, and honestly one of the major driving forces for me to leave those boards forever was this:

"I conceive of Vampiric Touch as drawing the blood of the victim directly into the caster, so it seems impractical for VT to function at range. Therefore, you can't use VT in a ranged spell storing device as per the RAW."

:rolleyes:

Or to break that argument down:

P1: I just made up some flavor text for VT which is not actually in the books, but I think it's wicked awesome.
P2: Using Ranged VT conflicts with P1.
.: C1: You cannot use VT in a ranged spell storing device.

Right. The fact that such an argument was even considered on that board made me frothingly angry - and the fact that people were allowed a free hand to flame people for being "n00bs" for disagreeing with it made me pack up and leave. Your argument may as well be:

P1: Flying Hippos will kick your sorry ass if you don't do things my way.
.: C1: You had better do things my way.

The game mechanics of Vampiric Touch are that the target takes damage and you gain temporary hit points. That's it. It doesn't require that you be touching for that to happen, it works just fine when cast as a reach spell or even through a spectral hand. There's no little vampire teeth in your hand, no special requirement of being in man love distance, nothing.

There's a whole different argument as to whether the activator of a spell storing weapon counts as "you" for the purposes of any spell storing weapon - but since you count as "you" for the purposes of every single other activated magic item in the entire frickin game, that's not much of an open question either.


As a whole, it seems pretty clear that TAbles 7-14 and -15 are meant to govern what types of weaopns can bear the enchantments. The ability descriptions only get into it if special rules beyond "no ranged" or "no melee" apply.


Hand waving. Show us why its so fricking clear to you.

Which makes Dancing Crossbows awesome.


Are you high? They can only target adjacent foes - they do the same crappy damage as long swords, have the same threat range as longswords, have the same crappy attack bonus as a dancing longsword, and most importantly of all have the same choice of targets as a dancing longsword, the only difference is the use of one bolt per shot - which is not a big concern granted, but is strictly inferior to a longsword.
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Re: Arguing from the gaps

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Well, the Spell-Storing ability descript is missing the "This property can only be applied to melee weapons, thrown weapons and ammuntion" clause found in the Brilliant Energy ability description. But it's also missing that "X bows, crossbows and slings bestow the X quality upon their ammunition" clause found in most the elemental damage enhancement ability description.

Take that as you will.
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Re: Arguing from the gaps

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Looks to me like the RAW backs Frank on this one. I've been looking and there's nothing that bans Spell Storing from funcioning normally on ranged weaponry in the RAW.

I don't think it would be unreasonable for a DM to rule that Spell Storing can only be cast on ammuniton, or even cannot apply to ranged attacks at all, but at that point you're not dealing with the RAW. I intend to talk to my DM before pursuing the enchantment.

If for some reason he were to refuse to let me have Spell Storing put on my pistol, what would be my next best bet?

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