How high can a weapon enhancement bonus be?


Advice


As the title states, how can we pump up theoretical enhancements for weapons? Most enhancements stop at +5, but how about we see if we can get beyond that?

In the hands of a Rage Prophet who took the life mystery, a +5 Furious, Grayflame, Bane sword has an effective +10 enhancement bonus while the RP is raging, after channeling energy, and whilst striking it's favored foe.


Can't rightly say that I've read up the magic item creation rules for PF yet (I'm a 3.5 veteran), but I'm pretty sure that as far as pure enhancement boni go, +5 is the cap. You can keep adding other abilities that are +x-equivalents, and certain effects (like Bane) can temporarily boost the base +5, but actual enhancement enchantments cap at +5. I believe you needed to be an epic character to go beyond that cap back in the 3.5-days...


What Propsken said. Weapon enhancement bonuses cap at +5 with additionally weapon properties capable of tacking on another +5 for a total of no more than +10 (footnotes #2, #3 (ranged) and #4(melee) in the respective tables under 'Weapons' in the magic item tables)

CRB wrote:

2 A weapon can't have an enhancement bonus higher than +5. Use these lines to determine price when special abilities are added in.

3 Reroll if you get a duplicate special ability, an ability incompatible with an ability that you've already rolled, or if the extra ability puts you over the +10 limit. A weapon's enhancement bonus and special ability bonus equivalents can't total more than +10.

4 Reroll if you get a duplicate special ability, an ability incompatible with an ability that you've already rolled, or if the extra ability puts you over the +10 limit. A weapon's enhancement bonus and special ability bonus equivalents can't total more than +10.

EDIT: Recently there was a thread discussing what would happen (or how to decide what got supressed etc.) if you had a +1 weapon with +9 abilities added on that then became the target of a Greater Magic Weapon spell ... I've lost track of that thread.


I'm aware that the hard cap is a +5, but like Bane and Furious, there are special qualities that affect weapons as if they were +X higher. Therefore, I was curious if there were any interesting theories on how to boost effective weapon enhancements past the regular +5 limit that were impressive. Mostly just was wishing to see what other people would come up with for a "most powerful weapon".

Sczarni

per the FAQ the bane makes a +5 a +7 versus that foe. Furious gives another +2 (or more). But the FAQ pretty well states the overall cap is +10 ENHANCEMENT BONUS no matter what skills add to the +. Basically they "don't stack any higher" is the official answer. So throw on Luck, Morale, Situation, Insight, etc... bonuses... And get to +50 that way (Look at True Strike, that is a nice +20).


Is that the case? I thought that the +10 enhancement bonus was just for the total a weapon can be enchanted with vis a vie qualities. I was hoping that there was some way to bump that up any higher via tricks.

Sczarni

You can bump up the attack total by other things, such as differently sourced bonuses (as mentioned: Luck, Morale, Insight, Conditional, etc...). But the FAQ for Enhancement Bonuses on weapons says the cap is +10, no matter the modifiers.

Spoiler:
Weapon Bonuses: Can weapon special abilities (such as bane) or class abilities (such as a paladin's divine bond) allow you to exceed the +5 enhancement bonus limit and the +10 bonus-equivalent limitation?

For the enhancement bonus limitation, it depends on the specific effect or ability that's altering the weapon.

Bane: This allows the weapon to exceed the +5 limit, but only against the designated creature type. For example, a +5 dragon-bane longsword is normally a +5 weapon, but has a +7 enhancement bonus against dragons and deals +2d6 points of damage against dragons.

Paladin: The divine bond ability says "These [enhancement] bonuses can be added to the weapon, stacking with existing weapon bonuses to a maximum of +5." That means if a paladin has a +5 longsword, she can't use her divine bond to increate the enhancement bonus to +6 or higher (but she could use her bonuses to add abilities such as flaming to the weapon).

The +10 bonus-equivalent limitation is a hard cap for all weapons; you can't exceed that even with class abilities or other unusual abilities.

posted March 2013 |

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / How high can a weapon enhancement bonus be? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Advice