Advice for weapon enchantments


Advice


So in my group's main game, my level 13 fighter has at least 2 1/2 months of downtime and around 7200 platinum to blow on stuff. He's a falchion crit fisher and I have 2 weapons to do stuff with (I already have a lot of magic items so my weapons are what I want to upgrade).

My main weapon is a weapon that the DM gave me in a story event that levels up every 4th level (12, 16, 20) and is a +2 with +2 equivalent enhancements meaning I can only get it up to +4 maximum. I can only upgrade the enhancement bonus, I can't add anything else to it but I also have another +1 adamantine falchion that I was going to do something with.

I was considering putting Ghost Touch and maybe something else on it but then I was also considering Dancing and Called just to have it out there swinging at stuff. If I get Ghost Touch then that throws out Dancing and Called so I'm not sure which I want to get. We've faced incorporeal creatures before (only 1 encounter but there could always be more) so I'm thinking Ghost Touch just to be safe. If I do go Ghost Touch, what else would you guys recommend I go with? Maybe a burst enchantment?


If you have another Melee PC may I suggest the Menacing property.

I would avoid burst enchants as they are generally a poor return on money.

If you have a bard in party or if you have any barbarian levels, both Courageous and Furious weapons can be quite good. Remember the Strength bonus barbs get while raging is a Morale bonus.

Lastly if you fight either evil or one specific type of foe a lot I would reccomend Bane (Repeating Foe Type) or Holy.

Hope this helps.

Grand Lodge

ghost touch is a sound idea, as is bane. any combo of bane/ghost touch or one of those with a flaming/shocking/etc. is good too. you failed to mention what the weapon is...keen might work too....


I did specifically mention that I'm a falchion crit fisher in the OP but I suppose I did fail to mention that I'm specifically using two different falchions. I'm considering just putting Ghost Touch and a +5 on my secondary adamantine falchion that I have since I'm true neutral and DR good has come up in this campaign. I don't have the cash to +5 it after I +4 my main sword but I would save it up if that's what I went with. Also I kind of forgot about this topic so its a couple weeks old now. Sorry about that.

Also my party consists of me, an arcane strike bard, a ninja, a druid, and a wizard with an NPC ranger and NPC rogue who get switched out for each other every once in a while. Lately I've been the only melee character and everyone else has been out of melee for various reasons. The 2 casters have summoned creatures though so there is that.

The Exchange

If it wasn't an adamantine weapon I'd suggest brilliant energy: not great on a primary weapon (because of the limitation of not harming non-living things) but on a secondary weapon that ability to ignore armour and shield bonus can be the equivalent of up to a +23 to hit! Plus... lightsabre noises! Makes the whole adamantine thing pointless though...

If the PC Wizard is a co-operative type, how about spell storing? Loaded with dispel magic, for example, it can be extremely handy.


The wizard has recently learned the ways of the Treantmonk wizard style and as such has taken to more battlefield control so I think that could work well.

Also I need to clarify my last post; the NPC characters are not bound to the wizard as it sort of appears based on my wording. They are actually bound to our bard who took leadership and did some weird stuff with it with our DM. But I digress.


Courageous is one if my favorite weapon properties, given that it can boost a number of different rolls. Unfortunately Inspire Courage actually gives you a Competence bonus, so Courageous doesn't trigger.

You can get an always-on morale bonus with a Flawed Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone, +1 to hit, saves, skills and ability checks. With a +4 Courageous weapon you get to add a further +2 to hit, saves, skills and ability checks. All round goodness for the price of a +1 enchant.


Personally I think Ghost touch is not worth placing on your primary weapons without sufficient reasons, a wand of magic missile is cheaper, ranged, and does similar damage, if incorporeal's are rare, then ghost touch would be mostly wasted, plus intelligent incorporeal can sunder/steal/disarm and equip your weapon for themselves.
A ring of force shield and shield bash would be useful in more ways.

Burst is good for weapons with an already large crit range (Keened?) or a crit hunter character that can use them more often, they can potentially add up to more damage than mere regular elemental damage, potentially. There is always the risk of elemental resistance, or immunities to that one element, specialization is always risky.

My best suggestion is spell storing, it would allow you to charge the weapon with whatever spell is needed at the time. That means a high alpha strike of intensified shocking grasp, or a ray of enfeeblement, blindness, Ghoul touch, etc. Any single targeted spell, and it can be saved for the enemy you want to use it against.


Menacing is a great enchantment, but you might want to put it on your spiked gauntlet or armor spikes instead of on your primary weapon.

Ghost Touch could be nice to have, but I'd probably put it on a weapon without much enhancement bonus to save a few gold.

Spell Storing seems like a solid enchantment though there are some rules questions around it. I'd suggest putting the Frigid Touch spell in it to stop enemies from full attacking. This could be nice for your armor too. I've yet to try this tactic, but I've seen it used to great effect especially with armor.

My favorite enchantment recently has been Cruel, which makes shaken opponents sickened. You need to have somebody in the party who can make opponents shaken, but that should be easy if the Bard or Wizard cooperate. Blistering Invective is a great Bard spell which can cover this.


Menacing is great in a party with summons, since summons sometimes have trouble hitting, or are summoned into flank anyway. Though yeah, much cheaper on a spiked gauntlet. (A +1 menacing, dueling spiked gauntlet's a little expensive but really nice to wear.)

If you're having trouble with incorporeals, a ghost touch weapon you can grapple or pull with is useful, especially since your falchion can't crit anyway. It might be more useful, since you have full BA and probably an acceptable CMB, to keep the ghosties from running away into the walls.

As far as the falchions go, I think you should consider when you'll be using your backup weapon. I'd consider making the adamantine falchion golem bane, since those are the times you'll be wanting to overcome that DR.

Alternately, dancing and called would let you use both weapons at once, though whether the action economy there is worth it is up to your game.

Lastly, you've already planned a pretty powerful build. If you think a frost burst shocking burst falchion sounds like fun, you should do it. Just make sure you're not just upgrading a weapon you won't be using once your special item levels up, because no weapon is fun if it just sits on your hip.


See if you can get one of your caster buddies to learn the spell Ghostbane Dirge and spend your money on things that will help most of the time. I think your idea of sending one falchion dancing and then drawing the second one is both cool and effective, I would go in that direction personally.


Ghostbane Dirge offers a saving throw which undead are pretty good at. At least in the one campaign where I saw it used it rarely worked. Maybe that's because the DM was fluffing up the monsters a bit with templates though.


threemilechild wrote:

Menacing is great in a party with summons, since summons sometimes have trouble hitting, or are summoned into flank anyway. Though yeah, much cheaper on a spiked gauntlet. (A +1 menacing, dueling spiked gauntlet's a little expensive but really nice to wear.)

If you're having trouble with incorporeals, a ghost touch weapon you can grapple or pull with is useful, especially since your falchion can't crit anyway. It might be more useful, since you have full BA and probably an acceptable CMB, to keep the ghosties from running away into the walls.

As far as the falchions go, I think you should consider when you'll be using your backup weapon. I'd consider making the adamantine falchion golem bane, since those are the times you'll be wanting to overcome that DR.

Alternately, dancing and called would let you use both weapons at once, though whether the action economy there is worth it is up to your game.

Lastly, you've already planned a pretty powerful build. If you think a frost burst shocking burst falchion sounds like fun, you should do it. Just make sure you're not just upgrading a weapon you won't be using once your special item levels up, because no weapon is fun if it just sits on your hip.

As far as bursts go, my main weapon is effectively a burst enchantment. It does 3D8 physical "sand" burst damage on a crit and the DM has stated that I can't add any other enchantments to it, but that I can increase the enhancement bonus. So basically my secondary weapon is one that has things that the main sword can't deal with. Like incorporeals for instance. That's why I was considering it so hard. Also golem bane is definitely a consideration as we've already dealt with those a couple of times in a couple of different games we're running.


Also, speaking of Dancing, does the sword only get your BAB to it's attack roll? I'm level 13 currently. The way I read it, it seems like it only gets my BAB and nothing else which seems really underwhelming when we're getting up to fight things that have 30+ AC sometimes.


It would get its own enhancement bonus and such. (The base +1 and anything you got with greater magic weapon or such.) it also attacks from your square, and unlike some other affects, doesn't say it can't flank, so that's possible, plus the bonus for being on higher ground, potentially. But it's only considered wielded by you for maneuvers and affects which target items (which it can't make on its own, so only defensively), so no strength or morale bonuses.

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