Spell Storing Ammunition


Rules Questions


I'm looking at the possibility and I see that spell-storing is on the melee random treasure table and not the ranged one. Is there something that says you can't put an ability from one table on a different weapon besides in individual ability descriptions? Because this seems like an extremely broken combination.


since ammunition that hits its target is destroyed you would only be able to get one spell in it, which sort of nerfs the spell storing ability right there (as with a normal spell storing weapon you can put another spell in after using the one it holds), added to the fact that it has to be a target spell (so no fireballs or scorching rays store with in)of third level or below, and I don't see it as that over powered.

what spells where you thinking of using with it that would make it so 'broken'?


50 +1 spell storing shuriken with Cure Critical Wounds cast into each one. For 8000 gold I can have 50 ranged Cure Criticals which I can use as many times as I have attacks in a full attack. A halfling ninja at level 10 with two-weapon fighting, improved two-weapon fighting, rapid shot, flurry of stars, and ki spent on an extra attack can throw 8 shuriken in a round and cast 8 Cure Critical Wounds at any range in a round of combat. Or send all 8 of them at an enemy with say Vampiric Touch in them to deal 80d6 of damage, without sneak attack (all assuming you have an equivalent level caster in the party of course. Without a cleric you might be forced to settle for just the damage). This would require a decent amount of preparation, but the effects would be silly.


Spell Storing is not on the ranged/ammunition table. If you allow it on ammo, it is rediculously OP.

My DM let me get away with using that loophole, and make +1 spell storing arrows. I was a cleric, so I put cause serious wounds in all my arrows(I has a few with cure serious for undead). At level 13ish, I took down an epic level Juggernaut(Construct PrC from Iron Kingdoms) from range in 3 rounds using +1 adamantite arrows of spell storing with the level 3 version of the damage construct spell. Sure, the arrows cost 80 gold a pop, but they are totally worth it(remember that cost to craft is half).

So a level 7 fighter, haste, with rapid shot and all the archery feats the feats is doing 1d8 + 9 + (3d8 + 7 Will for half) damage per shot, and they are shooting 4 arrows per round. Depending on will saves, the fighter would be doing 95-136 damage damage a round if all their shots hit. It totally trivialized harder fights by letting you blow money to do a lot more damage.

In short, allowing spell storing on ammunition is like having a wand that you can fire as many times per round as you can shoot.

Now, if you wanted to put spell storing on a ranged weapon like a bow, that would be balanced, but by the RAW that isn't allowed.


As a house rule, I allow the spell storing ability on throwing weapons.

Three reasons:
Thrown weapons are fairly weak as written.
A melee weapon can have both spell storing and throwing, creating the same effect but lame looking. (I throw my halberd!)
It's cool!


Blueluck wrote:

As a house rule, I allow the spell storing ability on throwing weapons.

Three reasons:
Thrown weapons are fairly weak as written.
A melee weapon can have both spell storing and throwing, creating the same effect but lame looking. (I throw my halberd!)
It's cool!

A lot of throwing weapons(daggers and spears) are melee weapon, and are legal to receive the spell storing enchantment. I would even allow throwns weapons that can be used as improvised melee weapons like javelins. When you enchant those to store spells, you are spending 8000 gold to get off 1 spell per combat since putting a spell into the qeapon into the weapon during combat is a waste of time. If I want to throw 5 spell storing daggers in one round, great, but it is going to cost 40,000 gold to enchant them all.

Ammunition OTOH is 8000 gold to enchant 50 shots to +2. If you have a crafter, it costs your 80 gold per shot.


You might just want to enchant Craft Magic Arms and Armor = the ammunition each separately, using a (Single use, use-activated) magic that costs ( SL x CL x 50 ).

Ammunition does not take up a body slot, it would have the No Space Limitation (multiply entire cost by 2).

That would be the cheapest way to do it. To create a one shot spell effect. The +1 magic bonus would still cost the normal 2,000 gold tho :(


Charender wrote:
Spell Storing is not on the ranged/ammunition table. If you allow it on ammo, it is rediculously OP.

I'm just wondering because I couldn't find it anywhere, where does it say that ranged weapons can't have abilities from the melee weapon table? It says for a lot of the individual abilities, but it doesn't say so for spell storing and the table you're referring to is for determining what treasure players find if you want to decide randomly.

Blueluck wrote:

As a house rule, I allow the spell storing ability on throwing weapons.

Three reasons:
Thrown weapons are fairly weak as written.
A melee weapon can have both spell storing and throwing, creating the same effect but lame looking. (I throw my halberd!)
It's cool!

The issue is that you can enchant 50 pieces of ammunition at the same time. For an ability like spell storing that's supposed to be burned in one shot it becomes incredibly broken as you can essentially full attack with spells. I basically want to draw attention to it as it's an exploit that should probably be errata'd if it's legal :P


Jiraiya22 wrote:


The issue is that you can enchant 50 pieces of ammunition at the same time. For an ability like spell storing that's supposed to be burned in one shot it becomes incredibly broken as you can essentially full attack with spells. I basically want to draw attention to it as it's an exploit that should probably be errata'd if it's legal :P

I remember that being in past edition of D&D, but can not find that in Pathfinder (after looking). What book and page does it still list this ??


Oliver McShade wrote:
Jiraiya22 wrote:


The issue is that you can enchant 50 pieces of ammunition at the same time. For an ability like spell storing that's supposed to be burned in one shot it becomes incredibly broken as you can essentially full attack with spells. I basically want to draw attention to it as it's an exploit that should probably be errata'd if it's legal :P
I remember that being in past edition of D&D, but can not find that in Pathfinder (after looking). What book and page does it still list this ??

In the footnotes on the weapon enchant price table.

"1 For ammunition, this price is for 50 arrows, bolts, or bullets."

By a pure RAW, it is illegal. Spell Storing is not listed as an enchantment for ranged weapons, thus it is not a legal enchant for ammunition.


Yaa found it. Thank. I thought that was listed somewhere. But could not find it listed in the wordie section.

So +1 Magic for 50 bullets would cost 2,000 gold.

So then the question becomes.... is Ammunition treated as melee weapon or range weapon.

One might argue that the Gun is a Range weapon, while you treat the ammunition as melee weapons. (is there any rules, againt this ??)


Back in 3.0, I played an archer with spell storing arrows and a quiver of Ehlonna. I had 500 arrows, ten of each of the spells I was interested in having. As a speed based archer I could get off a ridiculous number of shots and each one would have a spell effect as well. It was completely over powered. I got off 5 spell effects per round, minimum. The pure casters got off two, max.

Ammunition and Ranged weapons should definitely both use the ranged weapons table. Mainly because they are used at range rather than in melee.

I was tempted recently to try and persuade my DM to allow me to purchase some spell storing throwing daggers. The only way it would be legitimate would be to have the throwing and spell storing enchantments on a melee weapon.

Spell-storing, like viscous is much more powerful at range than it is by melee. For a start, the cleric cannot cast cause serious/bestow curse at range, so why should the archer be able to?


Sleep-Walker wrote:


Spell-storing, like viscous is much more powerful at range than it is by melee. For a start, the cleric cannot cast cause serious/bestow curse at range, so why should the archer be able to?

Off topic.... But love Reach Feat, so you can Bestow Curse/Harm/Rusting Grasp at range. +1 short, + 2 med, +3 long. :)


Charender wrote:
Blueluck wrote:

As a house rule, I allow the spell storing ability on throwing weapons.

Three reasons:
Thrown weapons are fairly weak as written.
A melee weapon can have both spell storing and throwing, creating the same effect but lame looking. (I throw my halberd!)
It's cool!

A lot of throwing weapons(daggers and spears) are melee weapon, and are legal to receive the spell storing enchantment.

Doh! That was going to be my third reason, but I got distracted while I was posting, and when I came back I'd forgotten what #3 was going to be, so I just wrote, "It's cool!" :P

Thanks for pickup up where my brain shut off!


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Spell storing is command triggered after the hit, after it left the wielder's possession. I'm pretty sure you can't activate items at a distance.

Anytime the weapon strikes a creature and the creature takes damage from it, the weapon can immediately cast the spell on that creature as a free action if the wielder desires.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

You cannot have spell storing ammunition/missile fire devices, RAW. However, you can have ammunition/weapons that activate a spell effect on impact; see arrow of sleep, javelin of lightning, etc. The differences are that ranged attacks are treated as expendable, rather than reusable, and the effect is automatic, rather than discretionary.


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Quote:
Anytime the weapon strikes a creature and the creature takes damage from it, the weapon can immediately cast the spell on that creature as a free action if the wielder desires.

So only weapons which are wielded at the moment they strike a creature can be used with spellstoring. This rules out ranged weapons and ammunition since they either don't strike the creature themselves or they aren't wielded at that point.

A loophole is using ammunition as a melee weapon (ie. spellstoring arrows used as daggers). That's high grade limburger though.

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