Bypassing DR with variable enhancement bonuses


Rules Questions


Barbie the Barbarian has just improved her favourite greatsword to a +1 furious, which means its enhancement bonus becomes +3 under rage. She then finds herself up against fey with DR/cold iron.

When she rages, her sword's bonus goes to +3 ... would this kind of thing be good enough to trigger the usual '+3 gets around DR/cold iron', like a plain +3 weapon, or is she still going to lug around her old cold iron warhammer?


Yep. At that moment, it's +3, so it does everything a +3 weapon should do.

Here's a pro-tip for GMs. Ban the Furious enhancement. Most people will never ever want it. Fighters, rangers, paladins, etc. The only people who want it are people who basically rage ALL DAY LONG. Well, at least long enough each battle to win every fight. Many barbarians have rage cycling or at least enough rounds of rage to handle a half dozen fights every day, raging the whole time. If a PC is one of those guys, then this is almost literally the benefit of getting +2 for the price of +1. Worse, eventually they'll have a +7 weapon they use all day for the price of a +6 - but nobody else can get a +7 weapon, ever.

It's pretty hard to fix. Make it count as +2 instead of +1 and it becomes a trap option. Make it a fixed price and it will be broken at any price.

It's simpler to just ban it.

(or use it on NPC barbarians when your PCs don't HAVE a barbarian - or other rager - to make the NPC stronger than he should be without having a more expensive item)

Grand Lodge

DM_Blake wrote:
Worse, eventually they'll have a +7 weapon they use all day for the price of a +6 - but nobody else can get a +7 weapon, ever.

Inquisitors can get a +7 weapon for the price of a +5 (as can a handful of other classes), so this isn't actually accurate. And anyone can get a +7 weapon for the cost of a +6, albeit under much more limited circumstances.

Liberty's Edge

Yeah, banning it is silly. Almost all martial classes have items that gives them bonuses other Classes don't get. If you're banning this, you need to ditch Gloves of Dueling and the like as well.

But really, I'd just let people have their shinies.

Liberty's Edge

DM_Blake wrote:

Yep. At that moment, it's +3, so it does everything a +3 weapon should do.

Here's a pro-tip for GMs. Ban the Furious enhancement. Most people will never ever want it. Fighters, rangers, paladins, etc. The only people who want it are people who basically rage ALL DAY LONG. Well, at least long enough each battle to win every fight. Many barbarians have rage cycling or at least enough rounds of rage to handle a half dozen fights every day, raging the whole time. If a PC is one of those guys, then this is almost literally the benefit of getting +2 for the price of +1. Worse, eventually they'll have a +7 weapon they use all day for the price of a +6 - but nobody else can get a +7 weapon, ever.

It's pretty hard to fix. Make it count as +2 instead of +1 and it becomes a trap option. Make it a fixed price and it will be broken at any price.

It's simpler to just ban it.

(or use it on NPC barbarians when your PCs don't HAVE a barbarian - or other rager - to make the NPC stronger than he should be without having a more expensive item)

An inquisitor can get the same effect, getting bane against the current type of enemies for most of his fights. And a high level magus with the bane arcana can do the same.

The main difference is that the magus get its ability at level 15 spending an arcana, the inquisitor get it a low level and can spend a feat to increase the number of rounds, the barbarian get it as a +1 weapon ability that he can activate at level 1.

The barbarian, AFAIK, is the only one that can get a +9 (furious+bane) against some opponent.


Banning Furious or Bane which is what Furious is based of off is screwing Barbarians. That's like removing Robe of the Archmagi or Ring of Wizardry.

Liberty's Edge

Derek Dalton wrote:
Banning Furious or Bane which is what Furious is based of off ...

Why you think that furious is based on Bane? There is no relation between the two abilities.


DM_Blake wrote:
but nobody else can get a +7 weapon, ever.

Magus gets +7 enhancement with variable Bane via Arcana

Inquisitor gets +7 enhancement with variable Bane/Greater Bane.

Now, imagine a group with a Skald in it: Furious for everyone.


Snowlilly wrote:
Now, imagine a group with a Skald in it: Furious for everyone.

That sort of proves the point though - you're imagining a party-build concept around a specific weapon enchantment; doesn't that seem to suggest that this weapon enchantment might be a little overpowered?

Can you think of any other weapon enchantments that you might "imagine a group" that benefits by being built with that specific weapon enchantment?


DM_Blake wrote:
Snowlilly wrote:
Now, imagine a group with a Skald in it: Furious for everyone.

That sort of proves the point though - you're imagining a party-build concept around a specific weapon enchantment; doesn't that seem to suggest that this weapon enchantment might be a little overpowered?

Can you think of any other weapon enchantments that you might "imagine a group" that benefits by being built with that specific weapon enchantment?

  • Courageous - moral bonuses for everyone
  • Ghost Touch - The incorporeal party attacks normally
  • Heartseeker - Cause nobody can see anybody inside an Ash Storm.
  • Keen - Entire group also takes Paired Opportunist + Seize the Moment

Liberty's Edge

DM_Blake wrote:

That sort of proves the point though - you're imagining a party-build concept around a specific weapon enchantment; doesn't that seem to suggest that this weapon enchantment might be a little overpowered?

Can you think of any other weapon enchantments that you might "imagine a group" that benefits by being built with that specific weapon enchantment?

Easily. As mentioned Courageous + Good Hope is notably better than that little combo.

Really, in many ways, item choice in Pathfinder is a game about finding stuff that might not be super-cool for everyone but is for you because of how your character works. Depriving people of cool tricks just because they're cool is just gonna make the game less fun for everyone.

Some tricks in this category are legitimately game breaking and maybe should be removed...but a weapon enhancement that's probably worse than Gloves of Dueling most times? That's not in that category at all.

Grand Lodge

Courageous isn't really any good after the "clarification", actually.

Liberty's Edge

Jeff Merola wrote:
Courageous isn't really any good after the "clarification", actually.

Ah well, it was just an example anyway. Gloves of Dueling remain a better and more equivalent one.


Ahh, well, you're all right. The fact that other corner cases exist is excellent proof that getting a (nearly) constant +2 bonus for the price of a +1 bonus is totally balanced.

After all, clearly the intent was to get a +3 sword for only 8,000gp, a +4 sword for only 18,000gp, a +5 sword for only 32,000gp, a +6 sword (usually unattainable) for only 50,000gp, or a +7 (usually unattainable) sword for only 72,000gp. All of these are usable (almost) all the time and against EVERY enemy.

It's also obvious that the barbarian was meant to get higher enhancement bonuses, even exceeding the +5 cap, earlier in his career and for less cash than the fighter who is actually limited to that cap. Because, you know, the fighter is better than the barbarian so the barbarian needs this cheese to be competitive with the fighter.

Carry on. Ignore what I said about this ability being poorly balanced.

Liberty's Edge

DM_Blake wrote:
Ahh, well, you're all right. The fact that other corner cases exist is excellent proof that getting a (nearly) constant +2 bonus for the price of a +1 bonus is totally balanced.

If it's conditional? Sure. There are several ways to screw a Barbarian out of raging, and they make your sword worse too.

DM_Blake wrote:
After all, clearly the intent was to get a +3 sword for only 8,000gp, a +4 sword for only 18,000gp, a +5 sword for only 32,000gp, a +6 sword (usually unattainable) for only 50,000gp, or a +7 (usually unattainable) sword for only 72,000gp. All of these are usable (almost) all the time and against EVERY enemy.

And? +2 to hit and damage is very nice, but it's hardly the only magic item to do that over and above enhancement bonuses.

DM_Blake wrote:
It's also obvious that the barbarian was meant to get higher enhancement bonuses, even exceeding the +5 cap, earlier in his career and for less cash than the fighter who is actually limited to that cap. Because, you know, the fighter is better than the barbarian so the barbarian needs this cheese to be competitive with the fighter.

Except, of course, that the Fighter gets Gloves of Dueling, which are slightly more expensive in the short run, but due to having a flat cost of 12k actually wind up much cheaper and do exactly the same thing for most purposes

DM_Blake wrote:
Carry on. Ignore what I said about this ability being poorly balanced.

I will. Because that's basically a load of crap.


Diego Rossi wrote:
Derek Dalton wrote:
Banning Furious or Bane which is what Furious is based of off ...
Why you think that furious is based on Bane? There is no relation between the two abilities.

Look at the wording of both enhancements. They both do essiantly work the same just how they activate is different. Bane goes up by two when facing the bane's enemy focus. Furious goes up by two when raging.


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Ignoring the other discussion that has developed in this thread, I second DM Blake's notion that a +1 Furious weapon will ignore DR pierced by cold iron if its wielder in raging. The same applies to similar situations with most other effects that increase the enhancement bonus of a weapon, like Bane. A notable exception is Greater Magic Weapon spells, which specifically spells out that aside from DR pierced by magic it doesn't allow a weapon to pierce DR thanks to its new enhancement bonus that it couldn't normally. The fact that Greater Magic Weapon needs to spell that out as an exception confirms in my mind that the situational increase to enhancement bonus not allowing you to beat something like DR pierced by cold iron is not the norm.

Enhancement bonus is enhancement bonus. The source doesn't matter when it comes to breaking through DR.


Anyone else feel like they've seen this exact same thread, posts and all, before?

Grand Lodge

Schrödinger's Dragon wrote:
Enhancement bonus is enhancement bonus. The source doesn't matter when it comes to breaking through DR.

The exception being an Enhancement bonus granted via Greater Magic Weapon/Fang, because that explicitly says it doesn't work for overcoming DR (save for DR/Magic).


Enter Versatile Weapon! Very nice spell, that one.

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