Holy Weapon Enchant

I've been finding in my games that players are quick to obtain this special ability on their weapons. While officially, this enchant isn't any more powerful than the other alignment-based enchants, it does give the PCs a significant advantage in a standard campaign. Most of the enemies they face will have evil alignments, and thus be receiving +2d6 and bypassing DR/good with every attack. Seems too powerful for a +2 bonus, but not powerful enough for a +3 bonus.

I wanted to get some outside opinions on possible changes I'm considering on how I would change this enchant. The change I decide upon would affect all alignment-based +2 enchantments.

1. Eliminate this enchant making it unavailable. Seems drastic but doable.
2. Reduce the damage bonus to +1d6. This puts in line with other bonus damage +1 enchants, but bypassing DR/good is a good reason to keep it at +2.
3. Make it a +3 bonus enchantment. Not a fan of this option as it seems weak for a +3 bonus.
4. Leave as is, but only affects Evil subtype creatures.

Thank you.

since the weapon have to have a +1 bonus before the holy is applied (unless it's an amulet of mighty fists, but that cost more then normal weapons anyway) the minimum they have to spend on base price is 18,000 gp. which is a major cost for starting-mid adventurer. i say for it's cost it is well balanced (especially since most would like to get their weapon up to +4-5 to get the other dr beaker options and extra bonus to hit\damage).

i mean they can also add 2 of flaming\electricity\cold\acid to the weapon to get the same +2d6 damage for that +2 cost and if you check it would have about the about the same amount of monsters it can effect. (not all will take damage from all elements but then again not all are evil ether.)

just leave it. and play your enemies smarter. let them charm\employ non evil goons as well maybe use spells like animate objects or have golems do the heavy lifting(hitting), or work on disarming\sundering the offending weapons.
also remember that holy weapon has a good aura so detect good will notice it. making it harder to disguise and maybe sneak past well informed enemies.

since the weapon have to have a +1 bonus before the holy is applied (unless it's an amulet of mighty fists, but that cost more then normal weapons anyway) the minimum they have to spend on base price is 18,000 gp. which is a major cost for starting-mid adventurer. i say for it's cost it is well balanced (especially since most would like to get their weapon up to +4-5 to get the other dr beaker options and extra bonus to hit\damage).

i mean they can also add 2 of flaming\electricity\cold\acid to the weapon to get the same +2d6 damage for that +2 cost and if you check it would have about the about the same amount of monsters it can effect. (not all will take damage from all elements but then again not all are evil ether.)

just leave it. and play your enemies smarter. let them charm\employ non evil goons as well maybe use spells like animate objects or have golems do the heavy lifting(hitting), or work on disarming\sundering the offending weapons.
also remember that holy weapon has a good aura so detect good will notice it. making it harder to disguise and maybe sneak past well informed enemies.

Thank you.

The cost doesn't seem to be an issue for my players as someone always takes Craft Arms and Armor with a significant bonus to Spellcraft so they can double-time the crafting by Taking 10. The cost is reduced to 8,000 gp and 8 days of crafting time (18k for +3 weapon - 2k for +1 weapon already in possession (these are easy to come by at low-mid levels) = 16k, halved to 8k for crafting).

Add elemental enhancements aren't much of an issue as most creatures in mid-level adventures usually have resistances to protect against these bonuses.

I didn't know about the good aura a holy weapon would emit. It would help some creatures with constant detect good be warned about such a weapon is in play.

Honestly I'm not seeing that this is an issue whatsoever. Tbh, this is exactly what the enchant is meant to accomplish-- countering evil things. I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, but it seems like the appropriate response to this is "thank you for the valuable feedback that this enchant is working as intended". /shrug

Honestly I'm not seeing that this is an issue whatsoever. Tbh, this is exactly what the enchant is meant to accomplish-- countering evil things. I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, but it seems like the appropriate response to this is "thank you for the valuable feedback that this enchant is working as intended". /shrug

It appears that you misunderstood the intention of my post. Of course the enchantment is "working as intended". This is not the Rules forum. This is the Advice forum. I am seeking Advice on what I'm considering. So...

Thank you for your valuable feedback. Yes, this enchant is working at intended, but like many other aspects of the game, I feel it's a bit unbalanced by the nature of how the game is played.

Honestly, bypassing DR/Good is something that can be done by certain classes at first level, and by some 1st level spells. I feel that if you really want to balance out the weapon enchantment, your best bet is to go with option #4, but keep Undead on the list of what is effected, regardless of subtype. That way, you keep the flavor of the Holy sword being effective against supernaturally evil forces. Maybe even allow those NPCs with strong auras (ie, paladins and cleric, and the like) to suffer the effects as well.

Honestly, bypassing DR/Good is something that can be done by certain classes at first level, and by some 1st level spells. I feel that if you really want to balance out the weapon enchantment, your best bet is to go with option #4, but keep Undead on the list of what is effected, regardless of subtype. That way, you keep the flavor of the Holy sword being effective against supernaturally evil forces. Maybe even allow those NPCs with strong auras (ie, paladins and cleric, and the like) to suffer the effects as well.

Thank you. This is a good. Not sure if I'll go this direction, but if I use Option 4, it will have this as a rider.

just a small thing. the crafting time is 1 day per 1k base price. so unless they take extra +5 to dc to do the double crafting time thingy (doing 4 hours twice a day at double speed) 16k base price should cost 8k but take 16 days.

also. something i tend to see in some games is enemies who for some reason won't buff (we keep finding barkskin potions in the loot etc.)

if the enemy is aware that a major threat is coming down the hall and has 10+ int or wisdom he should make some kind of effort to survive .
make a list of what they would buff round by round before hand the more time they have to prepare the more buffed out they should be. stoneskin might cost some costly diamond dust. but failing their mission is not something they should risk.

some of my mid to higher level enemies always have a getaway plan. even if it's just some invisibility or gass form and small holes in the floor.

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Honestly I'm not seeing that this is an issue whatsoever. Tbh, this is exactly what the enchant is meant to accomplish-- countering evil things. I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, but it seems like the appropriate response to this is "thank you for the valuable feedback that this enchant is working as intended". /shrug

It appears that you misunderstood the intention of my post. Of course the enchantment is "working as intended". This is not the Rules forum. This is the Advice forum. I am seeking Advice on what I'm considering. So...

Thank you for your valuable feedback. Yes, this enchant is working at intended, but like many other aspects of the game, I feel it's a bit unbalanced by the nature of how the game is played.

If you're the GM, which it sounds like you are, then you have the option to use enemies that aren't evil. Throw some Neutral enemies at them.

I mean, if you're running a campaign that has a significant amount of Undead as enemies, would you consider nerfing enchantments that counter Undead?

Have them go against fewer Evil things. there's lots of reasons why the bad guys could be "Neutral" simple creatures that don't really have alignments.

If you remove or make Holy worse then your players are probably just going to replace it with Bane (evil outsider) and/or Bane (undead) for pretty much the same functionality. It gives more damage and an attack bonus for lower cost and the extra +2 enhancement bonus will end up bypassing DR/good anyway when they get it up to a +3 weapon. Even before that it might bypass the DR because most outsiders with DR/good have DR/good or (silver/cold iron) at lower levels which is bypassed by a +3 weapon.

I'm just not seeing the problem here. +2d6 damage against a broad variety of opponents is good, sure, but you can also get that kind of effect with Shock+Corrosive. For all the Evil enemies with resistance you do less against you're probably adding an equal amount of Neutrals you do get bonus damage on. As for bypassing DR that's basically only an evil Cleric or Evil Outsider thing (unless I'm missing something). And again, a +1 Bane (evil outsiders) weapon probably does that at low levels and a +3 Bane (evil outsiders) weapon definitely does it. Holy also shuts down regeneration (good) but off the top of my head I couldn't tell you anything that has that. I just can't see a way in which Holy is significantly better than Corrosive+Shock or Bane (evil outsiders) (or Shock+Bane (evil outsiders)). Easier to calculate (is it evil? Add 7 damage) but not so significantly better you nerf it.

I don't really see the problem either.

They're getting +2d6 damage that isn't multiplied on a crit, so ~+7 damage per hit.

That sounds like a lot, but it costs the same as a +2 enhancement bonus, which would give +2 to hit and +2 damage. +1 to hit is usually considered to be worth +2 damage, so if we take that into account:

(2d6 damage) vs (+2 to hit, +2 damage)
= (~7 damage) vs (+4 damage, +2 damage)
= (7 damage) vs (6 damage)
But the 7 damage isn't multiplied on crits, and only affects Evil creatures. Even if 90% of your enemies are Evil and that still reduces it to ~6.3 damage worth of enchantment over the course of the campaign.

And yes it overcomes DR:Good, but you can get to that with a +x enhancement anyway, and it'll also overcome DR:Silver/Cold-Iron/Adamantine/Chaotic/Evil/Lawful. It also only matters if the enemy has DR.