Hey guys, we had an incident at our gaming table the other night during our RHoD campaign, which almost flared up into something nasty. It all revolved a disagreement between myself (as DM) and one of the players (the party rogue).
We'd got to the start of chapter 5, and the party had been given a couple of scrolls of teleport to go find and dispatch Azarr Kul, when the party rogue stated that the party sorcerer could use the scrolls to teleport to a bigger city (Greyhawk in this case) and sell some kit, buy some better supplies, more scrolls of teleport, and come back. Everyone thought that it was a good idea, and started to think of what kit they'd need.
The disagreement come in that the rogue wanted some Holy Arrows, and had seen in the DMG that getting 50 of them would be a +2 bonus, meaning ~8k gps (in his view). I stated the rule that you need to have +1 arrows first, before making them holy, meaning a total of +3 arrows, so ~18k gps. He wasn't happy with that, saying that buying +1 Holy Arrows means that the +1 will not stack with the +1 of his bow.
I re-read the DMG on the subject at the time (I don't have it to hand now) and found the rule on it to be a little vague (but more exact on the online SRDs, agreeing that they would need to be a total of +3)
Thinking about this afterwards, I thought that 18k for 50 arrows that only do +2d6 damage was a little steep, but then realised that these affect ANY evil creature, so its fairly wide ranging.
Anyone think that this cost is a little screwy? Or houseruled it?
Thanks!
|
Your interpretation is correct; you can't have a magic weapon that doesn't have at least a +1 enhancement bonus.
That's why magic arrows are kind of a rip-off in 3.5; the enhancement bonus doesn't stack with the enhancement bonus from your bow. Getting a few bane arrows (e.g. dragon bane, undead bane, construct bane, etc.) might be useful, though.
Absolutely correct.
Before applying any magical effect first you must make the item itself magical (which requires at least a +1 bonus).
If he was complaining of the +1 arrow not stacking just suggest that he could buy +2 or +3 arrows instead.
Also the price per arrow of +1 holy arrows is 360 gp each. He doesn't have to buy 50.
Yea, its kind of sad that ammo follows those rules but they are there. The single best use for magical ammo is followers/large combats. You can 50 men a single magical shot for the same price as creating a magical bow.
Now if everyone used a bow (or at least used it with penalties in a single battle) and they were all holy or dragon bane or etc imagine the whole group making their first attack in the round against a devil a holy attack. That would be pretty devistating.
Thanks guys for helping me clear this up... I'll mention to him that he can buy the arrows 1 by 1 (for 360gp each)
The group has moved on to the Fane of Tiamat anyway, so its a moot point for this adventure, but we'll reference it in future adventures.
On the flip side, consider the possibility of allowing amunition to follow a different rule. What if magic ammunition could never hold just a static "+x bonus" and instead just always had properties like keen or holy. The price could be calculated easily enough using the normal rules (holy arrows would be +2, or 8000 for 50), and would allow for more powerful ammunition earlier in the game.
Pros
Those who feel ranged is generally second fiddle to melee get a little love, since the arrows bring special powers to the ranged character earlier.
"Interesting" magical ammunition as treasure becomes easy, as all magical ammo as treasure has a special power, rather than just being a
+x" arrow. Instead of 3 +1 arrows, 3 flaming arrows is much more interesting.
Cons
Ranged characters get a definite power boost, especially in games where magic items are easy to come by, due to either purchasing them or creating them. Bane arrows would become all the rage, as they would cost only 40g each and would still function as +2 arrows. At that cost, a first level PC might start with one or two.
Neither pro nor con, just an effect.
As was mentioned in a previous post, you could hand a bunch of magical arrows out to 50 archers and have them all shoot, causing a fair amount of devastation to the enemy with the right arrows. 50 level 1 warriors with an attack bonus of +3 and holy arrows will still scare the crap out of a devil with an AC of 18, because odds are a quarter of those arrows will hit. And if nothing else, thats about 12d8+24d6. Not pleasant.
But if you use the idea I posited, this situation changes in some regards. It would become easier to outfit your warriors with holy arrows, but less so to outfit them against creatures with DR over Magic, like gargoyles or dragons. You would have to give them specific bane arrows. And while this system makes the bane arrows have no difference in cost against a normal +1 arrow, the bane arrows are effectively just masterwork against everything besides their designated bane target.
Interesting idea, I may have to mull over it some more and decide if I want to implement it in my home game.
You can already get some real bargains, like buying +1 dragon bane arrows for your +5 bow - basically giving you a +5 dragon bane bow without paying full price.
I like the combo of +5 bow with +1 flaming, frost, shock arrows. Or +1 bow of flaming with +1 frost arrows. WAY cheaper than +1 flaming frost bows or arrows.
Edit: Maybe there are some holy oils he can get for his non-magical arrows, like silversheen or oil of magic weapon.