Bow and Ammo enhancements stacking

[Beorn the Bear]

How would a +5 longbow stack with +1 Brilliant energy ammunition?

I assume the shot would be +5 Brilliant energy?

[Hyla]

Yes, as I understand it thats correct.

[Dumb Paladin]

Yeah ... the enhancement bonuses wouldn't stack, but you are still going to get +5 to hit, +5 to damage, and it's a brilliant energy attack.

[Dolanar]

by default it ends up being whichever bonus is highest

[Archaeik]

I think there's some confusion about the terminology here...

The OP seems to understand the rules, that everything overlaps.

This happens to create a select few situations in which this overlapping simulates stacking.

Dolanar wrote:

by default it ends up being whichever bonus is highest

I'd like to be clear that this does not "turn off" the other enchantment the way Bracers of Armor says it does.

[Sylvanite]

As long as you remember that there is a +10 effective limit, there shouldn't b any issue with combining ammo and launchers. +5 brlliant energy is only a +9 weapon, so no issue there.

[mdt]

Note that +10 doesn't actually apply to ammo and bows, or at least, there's nothing in the rules about limiting ammo & ranged weapons to +10 overlapped bonuses. And SKR's FAQ says that +10 is not a hard rule when it comes to powers on ammo (his specific example is a Holy sword with +10 on it total, it's enhancement bonus goes up to +7 with +5 of additional powers vs evil creatures).

So, there's no specific rule saying you can't have a +5 weapon with +5 of bonuses, and a +1 arrow with +9 bonuses on it, and fire them and get a +5 attack with +14 bonuses on it. Other than the god awful expense of doing so.