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I tried to ask this in another thread, but it seems to have gotten buried.
Is black powder (by itself) considered ammunition? I ask because I’m wondering if it’s possible to cast Abundant Ammunition on a container of black powder.
It’s unclear to me because Abundant Ammunition looks like it was tailor made for guns, but the spell just says ammunition. I can’t find anywhere in Ultimate Combat that refers to black powder (by itself) as ammunition.
From the Mastering Combat, Firearms section:
Ammunition: Firearm ammunition takes two forms: either black powder and shot (either bullets or pellets) or cartridges. Unlike other types of ammunition, firearm ammunition is destroyed when it is used, and has no chance of being retrieved on a miss. No part of a cartridge can be reused to create new cartridges. Firearm ammunition cannot be treated with poison, unless you are using a pitted bullet.
So I would say yes, you can cast abundant ammunition on a powder horn or a bullet pouch.
I personally would say the Abundant Ammunition would only go on (or work on) the shot itself.
So then, if you wanted to have Abundant Ammunition on both your black powder and your bullets that would require two uses of the spell right? One for each container.
Since it targets "one container" then yeah, it looks like you would need two castings (barring the possibility of just tying your bullet pouch to your powder horn, claiming the efficient quiver as precedent).
It seems like a reasonable english language argument to say that only the shot and not the powder is ammunition, but the powder is defined in the rules as ammunition, and that leads to issues with an abundant ammo'd cartridge pouch.
If you pull a cartridge out, does the whole thing count as ammo, or just the shot that is in it. So if it is just the shot, does only that get conjured into the pouch? And if it is the whole cartridge, what is the difference between that powder and the powder on its own in the horn?
I agree with Bascaria; the rules call out powder as ammunition. The spell would also work on a bag holding your bullets, or your alchemical cartridges, it would seem.
I don't think there's a reason to penalize someone using powder versus cartridges.
I would say that since the powder is a component, along with the bullet, that the spell would work only if you have both together. It would not work on one or the other separately because the powder or bullet by itself is not ammunition. There is really no difference between the two components being together in a cartridge or having to be put separately into a muzzle-loader.