Okay, everyone's asking about magic items lately, so here's something that's been bouncing around in my head for a few days.
Are brilliant energy weapons overpriced? I'm not sure it's worth the +4 bonus. Certainly, it turns attacks against most full-plate clad NPCs and PCs into basic touch attacks, which is very powerful, but it's useless against most monsters (who have natural armor) and all undead and constructs. A +4 modifier cost seems high, to me. I think +3 is more accurate (and certainly never as low as +2, that's too far!).
Or am I just crazy?
+4 does seem to be a smidge high. I suppose that game designers decided that most parties would be fighting ~50% of battles with armoured foes so having that ability would bypass a bunch of challenges.
However I think that bypassing natural armour might be too much. After all the description says that it bypasses nonliving matter and a really thick hide is living matter. So perhaps an in house addendum to the rule ...
Against humans and other normal PC races, Brilliant is at it's fullest potential because these races don't have natural armor, and thus forth must use real armor. But even then, a +3 seems more appropriate. It looses much of it's affect when fighting certain creatures...so I'd actually change it to +3 cost, home rule and what'not. Your statement has enough valid points that I would agree. Obviously for it's cost it is intended for higher level characters but at some high levels it actually is much weaker, because natural armor and the other armor bonuses kick in(and when fighting undead it really wouldn't help in almost any way). So, no, your not going crazy, your correct IMO.
Your Friend,
Sir Smashes Alot
Totally correct: in a by the book game using the random encounter tables from the DMG, brilliant energy is a +4. But that's because a lot of encounters are against NPCs, humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and giants, all of which often wear armor.
But NPCs take time to create, a luxury many DMs go without. In those games, Brilliant Energy is less valuable, because there are less people to use it against.
+3 is about right, unless your in a very NPC heavy game.
Thanks for the support! I was a bit rushed in posting last night, so here is a bit more of my thought process.
A brilliant energy weapon has to be at least a +5, since it must have a +1 enhancement to go along with it. That is a huge investment of money for it to only work/be useful against a certain list of creatures.
As previously stated, constructs and undead are totally immune to a brilliant energy weapon, no matter what. That's a pretty big hit to utility and attractiveness of the enchantment in and of itself, just because of the undead. That's a super common type of creature; who wants to blow 50,000+ gp on something that will never, ever work against them?
Plus, the whole ability is negated against monsters who use natural armor. Even giants and monstrous humanoids, who often wear crafted armor, have a substantial boost from natural armor in many cases. The weapon loses ability there, too. And let's not even consider dragons! (Okay, let's consider them) ALL of their armor bonus is natural armor, so your +4 effective enhancement simply stops working against that dreadful type of foe.
Not to mention, it's not even useful against all NPCs. Wizards and sorcerers wear no armor, so it doesn't really have an advantage over them. Rogues, rangers, bards, and the like have a bit more to fear because they do use armor, but they've also got a good Dex bonus to AC and are fairly used to getting hit (or learning how to avoid getting into melee at all) in the first place. Barbarians are capable of being lumped in this group, too, until they get mithril full plate or some such.
So, clerics, fighters, barbarians who've managed to get some heavy armor, paladins, and some humanoid monsters are the characters that are actually effected by brilliant energy. And it still costs +4? Bleh.
Adding any more special abilities onto a brilliant energy weapon is very hard to do with a +4 cost, as well. So, you'll hit the above list of foes much more easily and consistently, but do far less damage or have far less overall effect because you're missing out on 4 enhancement bonuses's worth of other special abilities. And you are "missing out," I believe, because by time you can afford a brilliant energy weapon, you'll be hitting those ACs fairly regularly, anyway.
In the end, as I stated in the OP and as others have concurred thus far, brilliant energy really seems more appropriate as a +3 enhancement than a +4.
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When you price something that has limited use, you should normally base the price on the worst exploits of that use, since you can count on it being used only when appropriate. (There is probably an exception for really limited uses: "That weapon is both silver and good; it'll totally pwn a vampire or a pit fiend!" "Yeah, and ...?")
I don't think it's quite up to a +4 in an average campaign (see also Vorpal), but I think that +3 is a bit low. (Heck, in my campaign, +4 might be low, since probably 60% of combat opponents are humanoids.)
If you go with +3, consider that this will make it a much more viable choice for use by NPCs against the PCs. This might be either an advantage or a disadvantage for you.
When you price something that has limited use, you should normally base the price on the worst exploits of that use, since you can count on it being used only when appropriate. (There is probably an exception for really limited uses: "That weapon is both silver and good; it'll totally pwn a vampire or a pit fiend!" "Yeah, and ...?")
I don't think it's quite up to a +4 in an average campaign (see also Vorpal), but I think that +3 is a bit low. (Heck, in my campaign, +4 might be low, since probably 60% of combat opponents are humanoids.)
If you go with +3, consider that this will make it a much more viable choice for use by NPCs against the PCs. This might be either an advantage or a disadvantage for you.
By the time the party and NPCs are capable of having these weapons, I'm fine with "lightsaber proliferation." :)
Really, fighter/wizard types have the best use for something like this. It compensates for their low BAB by turning many of their attacks into touch attacks.
However I think that bypassing natural armour might be too much. After all the description says that it bypasses nonliving matter and a really thick hide is living matter. So perhaps an in house addendum to the rule ...
-Clarification-
Sorry, poorly worded post, it should have read something like:Brilliant energy bypasses nonliving matter. Therefore, perhaps it should bypass the natural armour of a living creature. The natural armour of living creatures is from a really tough hide and therefore living and bypassable ...
This little option would help to alleviate some of the problems with dragons and giants etc. And if you used that option I would keep the enhancement at +4.
Still useless against most undead etc but you cann't have everything.
well there are probably multiple reasons why its over priced, some jackass was probably running around with a rapier of brilliant energy calling it a "light saber" i dont think its over priced.
if you dont like it lower the price in your campiagn dnd runs on house rules
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I think that maybe you should consider making 'brilliant energy' a static enhancement since it has both benefits and penalties inherent in its application.
For example, magical armor can have the 'shadow' ability added to it for a flat price. Same thing with 'glamered.' Whether you add it to +1 armor or +5 armor, the price of the enhancement is the same. Perhaps you should consider making 'brilliant energy' similarly available with a base cost of 50k or so?
Do consider that it bypasses anything non-living physical impediment. Personally, it makes sense that deflection still applies, but it goes right through shield and armor bonuses like they weren't there.
Which includes the shield spell, mage armor, bracers of armor, and the ring of force shield.
It is a solid choice, as long as NPCs are foes a fair amount of the time.
Also, you might want to consider house ruling that bane works via a brilliant energy weapon. My last call to WotC on the subject was negative, I didn't like it, so I house ruled otherwise.
Specifically, according to WotC, an undead bane brilliant energy weapon is a waste of money, because it can not hit the undead, therefore can not do any extra damage. I would say let the damage replace the weapon dice (2d6) and have it function as normal from there, gaining its enhancement bonus+2 via bane, plus strength and all others. Your spending a lot on the weapon, and to do what? Make it work against undead as well? Fine with me, add construct bane and now you can hit all creatures, shear through mundane and magic armors, and even maybe (depending on weapon origional damage) deal a little more damage to the creatures that your weapon once couldn't damage. All for what? A +7 weapon? Go for it, I'll take my keen ghost touch +5 weapon, if you want to talk about general effectiveness.
Works in my game, YMMV.
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Do consider that it bypasses anything non-living physical impediment. Personally, it makes sense that deflection still applies, but it goes right through shield and armor bonuses like they weren't there.
Which includes the shield spell, mage armor, bracers of armor, and the ring of force shield.
I realize that the LETTER of the rules suggest that it would pass through mage armor and the like, but I think the SPIRIT of the rules would suggest otherwise. I haven't house ruled this one way or another (as I think a brilliant energy weapon has only ever shown up once in my games) but I believe that force effects like mage armor and shield should prove effective against such a weapon. Otherwise, if you rule that they DON'T, what rationale do you have for allowing a wall of force to stop it? Or do you simply allow the weapon to swing through those as well? It seems to me that the enchantment could use some clarifications to me. I'll have to think about it and playtest it a bit before I make any decisions.
(I suppose being able to swing through walls of force is not such a big deal for a +5 market price modifier.)
I think that briallant energy is one of those weapon abilities that seems much better in idea than in real life. along with vorpal, its just too narrow focus to be worth the cost. (although, my opnion might be skewed because I play in a dragon-heavy campagin). Fighters have no use for it except for power attack, but thats offset when you think of all the d6s that could be added for the same price. Rogues might like it, but the cost is prohibitive. If your wizard is thinking of getting a +4 weapon, you really need to get your head checked. Cleric is the best fit for it, since they can turn undead, and, when its useless, can just hang back and heal the fighters as they smack the dragon. Of course, constructs are a problem, but even the most heavly laden cleric can move more than 20 feet per round. (hopefully)