Weapon enchantments

[Chemlak]

Sorry, Kazaan, but I'll take Sean K Reynolds' word that a +5 flaming shock frost quarterstaff does 1d6+5 +1d6 fire +1d6 electricity + 1d6 cold over your assertion any day of the week.

It means that you can speak another command (not ANY other command) to shut off an energy special ability.

[Durngrun Stonebreaker]

I read that as it is in effect until another command to turn it off. So you could have Flame On to turn on flaming and Flame Off to shut off that ability but activating the frost or shocking property doesn't shut off flaming.

[Gauss]

Kazaan, by your interpretation any command given to any item will shut off the sword. Why? Because it does not state that the command must be given to the sword. If we go with that kind of literal thinking without applying any common sense this game simply cannot function.

The command to turn something off has always been to be 'until told to turn off'. Not, 'until you tell a different property to turn on'. The entire command system is based on commanding items to turn on and off. The text is to indicate that the energy damage properties are active for an unlimited period of time or until told to turn off.

That still leaves the question of if you are activating the sword by the property or all at once or both. I can see some GMs going with individual activations but that really nerfs the weapon unnecessarily. As it is, the weapon is subpar relative to a straight enhancement bonus.

- Gauss

[awp832]

Apologies for the necro, I didn't realize it at the time. I've created a new thread with 3 clear, concise questions that sum up my confusion Please redirect conversation here:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pprn?Using-CommandWord-Items

[Gauss]

Kazaan, hopefully this will satisfy you: SKR's comments on this topic

- Gauss

[Kazaan]

Gauss wrote:

Kazaan, hopefully this will satisfy you: SKR's comments on this topic

- Gauss

That works. If inflection and intent are important (contradicting the RAW clause that saying the word in normal speech can activate the ability) and the clause stating "until another command is given" doesn't necessarily convey the important information of "until the deactivation command is given", then it would work just as SKR says. In essence, it's a situation requiring an Errata for RAW to line up with the RAI that SKR has provided. It's the same as the situation with Sunder including the "... as part of an attack action" line when it wasn't supposed to be there. So I was right in my reading of RAW... RAW was just incorrect.

[Formingsaturn]

Shadow13.com wrote:

I've got 3 questions:

#1) Is it possible to add Flaming, Frost AND Shock abilities to a weapon?
Each is a +1 enhancement, so that would be 3d6 of extra damage for only $6000, which seems too affordable.

The rules say:
A single weapon cannot have a modified bonus higher than +10.
A weapon with a special ability must also have at least a +1 enhancement bonus.
Weapons cannot possess the same special ability more than once.

I've never heard of a "+1 Flaming Frost Shocking Longsword", but I don't see any rule against this, unless I'm overlooking it.

#2) On pg 468 of the Rulebook, the table says a +10 item costs $200,000.
How is this possible? All magic items must be at least +1 and cannot exceed +10.
So adding a +10 enchantment to a +1 item would make it a +11 item, which is impossible. Can somebody explain this to me?

#3) I need help house-ruling a special enchantment.
My players want three enchantments that will freeze, paralyze or catch their opponents on fire.
This is my idea so far: if a critical threat is confirmed with a roll of natural-20, the enchantments will freeze/paralyze/burn an opponent for 1d4 rounds.
These enchantments would be upgrades of Flaming, Icy and Shocking Burst.
What would be an appropriate price and CL for these enchantments?

The answer to your questions is as follow.

1. You can easily put these three enchantement to your weapon but I don't get how you narrow it down to 6000gold. your weapon needs to be +1, adding three effect +1 would put the weapon in a +4 category thus the cost would be 32 000g. 16 000 if crafting it and a long time. That seems completely unaffordeable plus not very useful because at this level, you need more then this. Although you could still pour in an already made weapon just for looks.

2. the rules for magic weapon is as follow. You can have a +5 flat. You can add additional Special qualities to it that increase it to +10 maximum. Thus you could have these two as follow.

A +5 weapon with 5 qualities.
A +2 weapon with 8 modified total qualities.

but you cannot have a +6 weapon with any kind of qualities. (+6 is not +5)
and you cannot have an overall modified bonus of +10. Thus like someone else in this thread said, a +2 weapon with +10 total of special ability.

3. I can help you with this matter. What you want is a weapon that is versatile, unique and interesting without it breaking your game. here is my proposition.

First, you can make a prismatic weapon. That means that the three elements coil around blade (if a longsword for exemple) and when it strikes, you toss a dice to see wich element hurts. So 1d4, 1 for fire, 2 for cold, 3 for electricity, and 4 for acid.

When you crit, you could also make the same system. So if the crit was being done when the blade stroke with ice, you could have it paralyse.

My second option would give more power to the PC. It could be a switching weapon. Thus the blade does not exhale every element at once but has access to all. and the player holding the weapon switch wich element he is using with a swift action, thus deciding what to strike with.

Good luck and have fun with your game.

[Splendor]

Also note that using a 'command word' isn't a free action.

Quote:

Activation: Usually a character benefits from a magic weapon in the same way a character benefits from a mundane weapon—by wielding (attacking with) it. If a weapon has a special ability that the user needs to activate, then the user usually needs to utter a command word (a standard action)

[Jeraa]

Quote:

The answer to your questions is as follow.

The question was asked almost 5 years ago. Granted, the thread was resurrected, but that was still over a year ago. Please check the dates of the posts before replying.