When designing a custom item earlier this evening, I had an idea for a way to make the Elemental Burst properties simpler to use. Instead of switching or adding different die types, my idea is this:
Elemental Burst allows the energy damage (normally 1d6 of relevant kind) to be multiplied upon a critical hit.
Simple, and no remembering how many dice of what type to add.
This sounds pretty reasonable to me... But I'm not an expert in balance.
I'd tentatively say to bump up the dice to d8, even on regular hits, but that's just because I feel there's a bit of damage loss there by sticking to d6s even for crits.
But I'm sure there's so mathfinder that can be done to disprove that
The biggest issue with the elemental properties is the number of things that resist them, and the least-resisted one (corrosive) is less common and not even in the core book I believe.
I like sticking with the d6 mostly because I associate d6 with elemental damage via Fireball and Lightning Bolt.
The idea of folding it into the base enchant isn't a bad one, although I've never had a shortage of players taking the regular version in my games. Resistance issues can be a pain, but depend on what you're fighting. The Burst one is what's unpopular in mine.
Yeah folding them together might be best, an extra d6 is never really much compared to what you're normally putting out, and even in the best scenario of fighting something that's vulnerable to that element, the most you'll get is a +9 to your total damage assuming you roll a 6
Yeah folding them together might be best, an extra d6 is never really much compared to what you're normally putting out, and even in the best scenario of fighting something that's vulnerable to that element, the most you'll get is a +9 to your total damage assuming you roll a 6
I tend to like 1 - 6 damage more than the 1 you'd get from the cost otherwise.
Although it doesn't add to hit, if you subscribe to the metric that 1 hit is equal in value to 2 damage, then that 1d6 could be potentially worth as much as 3 hit.
That equation [which is a bad one really. Just because it's the Power Attack equation doesn't make it accurate] assumes the damage is capable of critting according to any given weapon's crit stats.
1d6 is worth 3.5 damage, and it's anything with resist-5 is basically immune to non-critical hits from it [let alone all the creatures immune to various energy types.]
Right, but for anything that isn't immune or resist 5, you're getting 3x (on average) the damage from an elemental enchant than you would from a +1.
Fair enough. It's definitely dependant on the specifics of the game. I tend to run undead heavy games, so fire is often a safe pick.