3) ...If we don't allow this, by higher levels, the bladebound's weapon isn't likely anywhere near as good as every other magus' weapon...
I don't really see this as much of an issue. The BB magus saved 200k in gold compared to a non-magus - which he gets to spend that 200k in gold on other magic items.
Compared to a normal magus he saved 50k in gold. (Assuming a normal magus would enchant his weapon up to +5 worth of enchants).
Now there are some limitations on this (other magus have similar limitations if they want to save 150k gold compared to non-magus, though I admit they aren't quite as restrictive as the normal magus could buy agile, etc)
- He doesn't have access to the full array of weapon enchants (agile for example - those are easy to house rule in, even if you put level requirements on some of them if you feel they are too powerful early on).
- He must use a swift action per minute to imbue the additional +5 enchants worth to his weapon.
- It isn't always on, so if the day drags on forever he may run out of arcane points.
On the plus side, his enchants are extremely flexible:
- Party got captured and everyone stripped of their weapons? The barbarian is fighting with that non-magical sword he found. The magus is fighting with that +5 of enchants on that non-magical sword he found.
- Fighting someone fire immune? So much for your flaming, flaming burst enchants. The magus just switches it to cold and probably gets a cold vulnerability bonus to boot.
- The BB comes with some additional perks as well. Alertness, Black Blade Strike, Telepathy, Unbreakable, Energy Attunement, Teleport Blade, Transfer Arcana, Spell Defense, Life Drinker. Some of these could be duplicated in a different intelligent magical item - at a cost of gold expense to make it happen. Others are unique to the BB.
Lots of good stuffPFS aside (where you're certainly right it would not be allowed, but so is anything in a remotely grey area banned, as is crafting of any kind), I see where you're coming from, but in general terms, can't agree because the basic assumption is that the blade is a static magic item. Magic items, even intelligent ones, don't have to be static. All of that changed when they introduced the rules for adding magical properties to existing magic items in 3.0 (that right? I certainly had a more static view of magic items in previous editions).
Who's to say the BB has always been what it is and that the various Magi who have used it over time haven't given it more power? That would certainly be the case for any other magic item that was owned by a series of adventurers. They would take and use the item, but also likely do what they could to add further enchantments to suit their specific needs.
If those needs coincided with the BB's goals, there would likely be no problem with "permission". The Magus and BB generally share a common interest, else why would the blade have chosen to lend itself to this particular magus in the first place? Certainly, if that changes, the BB might try to reject/save against the enchant, and may try to dominate the magus, heck it might even accept the enchant so domination will be easier to achieve. Besides, if it makes the blade more powerful, I doubt it would balk at such an offer under most circumstances. After all, its got an agenda, and becoming more powerful can only help it achieve what it wants to.
As for pricing, IMHO it doesn't really matter what extra properties beyond flat enhancement it has, as those do not impose limits on further enchantment (i.e. max +5 enhancement and max +5 properties). I'd say most of those powers come from the blade's intelligence and/or from "+flat GP cost" properties rather than being additional extra "+X properties", but of course others will disagree as is their...
Well im not going to quote the PRD on black blades as it's all right there.
It's not technically a possession of the magus.
This would be along the lines of having a cohort and saying, you are going to take a level or rogue.
But I'm a cleric, yes well now you are a rogue/cleric.
This may or may not work in the characters favors; you cant simply day it's my character, this my cohort and this is what I want. there is another personality involved.
Also, of the blade is ancient and has been owned before, and a previous magus added something to it, where is that power now?
The thing is, like I said, the blade is already a +5 life drinker, with some other abilities, some fo them are the magus, some of them are the blade.
So IS this blade ALREADY a +10? so it cannot BE added to, like any OTHER +10 item. If not, it's crazy close, meaning you can't add much.
The blade itself is in control of. well itself, and lends the pwoer to the magus when the blade deems fit, which typically, is at certain levels. Doesnt mean the magus and the sword agree, so what if the sword doesn't want the agile power and even if the magus adds it, refuses to use it?
All possibilities.
All these things are up to the GM but shouldnt be assumptions of the player.
I think the intent here is to show the "generic" blackblade. Might there be an agile one out there? Sure. Talk to your GM.
But I still say you arent enchanting a masterwork weapon, you are paying to enchant a +5 life drinker plus with the agile property, which is substantially more expensive than adding agile to a +1 weapon.
Can your 4th level magus even afford to do such a thing, and even then, WHO is going to do the work?
For anyone but the magus, it's a masterwork sword. but this would befuddle the magical ritual to enhance the weapon. The crafter would be intending to work with a masterwork weapon (therefore thinking he should be charging to add a +1 and agile as needed) when he is handling a +5 life drinker , and so technically, what he is trying to do would either NOT work, or be much more difficult than he thought at first glance and then therefor cost more money.
"It's a magic sword, just add agile to it"
"I beg to differ sir, not it's not, its merely masterwork"
all sorts of problems would come out of this.
Now if the MAGUS were paying the feats to do this himself. ad I were the GM;
I wuld think 2 things, 1) the PC has 'paid' with feat(s) and skills to do this and 2) he could either working together with the black blade, then "uncraft" one power to add another (paying nothing) or pay the money to put something additional on his blade (if he could because of the existing pluses of the weapon, even if he can't access them yet)
But none of this is RAW, there is no RAW for altering your black blade, so there is no argument against a GM for "I m going to do this" it would all be custom, and as per the discretion of the GM
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hmm..Playing devil's advocate, as the direction this thread is now going seems pretty risky.
If the BB is already predefined, as is being described above, and it’s just a matter of 'tapping' into pre-existing abilities, why would I even need to take a level of Magus?
I could be any class, kill the magus or just steal the sword, and use UMD to access all the inherent abilities that are held within.
Base class emulation is DC 20, add on whatever additional stipulation you want, GM could even state it's a DC 35. And by 5th level I could meet that.
Throw in alignment restrictions and anything else you want.
Doesn't really change the difficulty that much.
There's a bit of a missing thing here, people are over looking. the black Blade doesn't belong to the character. It's a symbiotic bond, the blade may have been passed from magi to magi over many centuries. it has simply come into this magi's possession via mcguffin.
now understanding that the black blade is ALREADY defined. And that the blade awakens as the magi's power increases.
The weapons IS ALREADY a +5 life drinking, Intelligent weapon with spell resistance, energy attunement and teleportation abilities.
It was this sword before the magus and will be this sword again for another magus.
now how would you calculate adding a +1 to this weapon, and CAN you, given it's abilities? you cant have more than a +10 weapon and if you were to add to it with standard magic, the weapon could reach that +10 threshold, totally invalidating your arcane pool abilities to modify it, congrats you have no just paid money to cancel a class feature!
The weapon is also free willed, with it's own agenda, so permission to alter it's basic abilities would be needed (which defaults to GMs Permission)
So what I suggest is permission from the DM to swap out or change abilities on a +1 = +1 basis.
However for PFS/organized play, no.... you can't alter the black blade.
But bear in mind, if you could, you have to pay to add +1 to a +5 life drinker intelligent energy transformative weapon, Not a masterwork sword.
You know Pendagast, I often disagree with you, but that's an excellent way of looking at things. It's practical, it's RP-oriented as well as mechanics-savvy, and you presented it with a clear mind and no obvious bias.
Kudos.
Except that it isn't so - the Magus wouldn't be able to add enhancement bonuses and other powers using her his/her arcane pool if it was already +10 the way you're postulating.
Personally I see enchanting its enhancement bonus as a waste of money. Say your magus with a +1 black blade pays to enchant it to +2.. in a couple of levels its going up to +2 on its own. It doesn't become +3 at that point, the +2 enchant that was added just overlaps with the blade's own bonus to no extra effect at that point, save to add to the overall gp value of the item. In the long run, it might mean the blade's next owner receives it already at +2, but that's at best a home campaign legacy.
If its enchanted with other abilities, then likewise in the long run, it means some of the blade's maximum of +5 worth of bonus effects are locked in, and you won't be able to use all of the enhancement your arcane pool allows nor be able to choose some of the most costly abilities like dancing or vorpal. But nothing says you can't do it.
There still is the question of pricing though, since people shouldn't get something for nothing, and where adding to an enhancement bonus that will rise to +5 on its own is just throwing money away - enchanting for special abilities at an 'early' stage of enhancement straight-up would be vastly under-costing the eventual value of it. So, for pricing special ability enchants, for balance, the blade should be considered +5 enhancement. But with that, if one of my players wanted to pay 72,000 gold to put (for instance) a +1 enchant Merciful onto their black blade and shoot their blade's eventual potential in the foot? I'd let them.
Realistically, the only things you should be enchanting onto your black blade are the straight-cost enchants, and there's only 4 of those: Impervious, Glamered, Transformative, and Dueling. Of those, two are pretty useless anyway, and none are unbalancing.
Except that it isn't so - the Magus wouldn't be able to add enhancement bonuses and other powers using her his/her arcane pool if it was already +10 the way you're postulating.
Personally I see enchanting its enhancement bonus as a waste of money. Say your magus with a +1 black blade pays to enchant it to +2.. in a couple of levels its going up to +2 on its own. It doesn't become +3 at that point, the +2 enchant that was added just overlaps with the blade's own bonus to no extra effect at that point, save to add to the overall gp value of the item. In the long run, it might mean the blade's next owner receives it already at +2, but that's at best a home campaign legacy.
If its enchanted with other abilities, then likewise in the long run, it means some of the blade's maximum of +5 worth of bonus effects are locked in, and you won't be able to use all of the enhancement your arcane pool allows nor be able to choose some of the most costly abilities like dancing or vorpal. But nothing says you can't do it.
There still is the question of pricing though, since people shouldn't get something for nothing, and where adding to an enhancement bonus that will rise to +5 on its own is just throwing money away - enchanting for special abilities at an 'early' stage of enhancement straight-up would be vastly under-costing the eventual value of it. So, for pricing special ability enchants, for balance, the blade should be considered +5 enhancement. But with that, if one of my players wanted to pay 72,000 gold to put (for instance) a +1 enchant Merciful onto their black blade and shoot their blade's eventual potential in the foot? I'd let them.
Realistically, the only things you should be enchanting onto your black blade are the straight-cost enchants, and there's only 4 of those: Impervious, Glamered, Transformative, and Dueling. Of those, two are pretty useless anyway, and none are unbalancing.
Well i didnt necessarily say it WAS +10, but if you made it so by adding a few danglies, then no, you couldnt use your arcane pool powers, i mentioned that above.
IF you were at Say, +2 and then you added, another +2 of goodies, then got all the way up where we are dealing with a +5 Life drinker, teleporting wah way.... it's all that PLUS the +2 you added. So whats that a +9? How much room do you have to add your magus munch now?
Or, since the magus arcana works without blackblade, what happens if the magus DID pick up a +10 sword? Are his powers moot with that weapon? or do they stack??
Either way, there isn't much room to ADD anything to a blackblade, you are STILL looking at needing the blades permission to even allow it, there would be the aforementioned issues of "someone else" touching it.
And no... you can't just use UMD to acess the black blades power, because to anyone else it's a masterwork weapon, says so in the description. This is why enchanting it, outside of it's already existing enchantments would be a problem to say the least.
Think of it like this, if you COULD do like you say, then what is stopping me from adding +5 Vorpal to my blackblade, and then rising up far enough so that my BB is now a +10 Vorpal Life drinker with all the other goodies?....wait... it wont work.... because you can't, see?
How much can you ADD to it? The answer is clearly nothing.
It's not a "mundane" magic weapon, it is an archetype ability skinned as a weapon.
Otherwise you could get away with the above shennanigans. the asnwer is enchantment to it wont stack.
Now if you want an agile BB, i dont see why that can't be worked out with the GM, i seriously doubt every BB out there is a carbon copy.
The black blade is cleary intended to get up to +5/+0 as far as enhancement and +x bonus special abilities, in tandem with the magus' arcane pool getting to the point of being able to add up to +5 bonus worth of special abilities. Any enhancement you chose to enchant it with would get eaten by its own rising enhancement level. Any other special abilities you added would apply to the limit of +5 bonus in special abilities. So if you add the +5 bonus-equivalent special ability of Vorpal to it, you lock it out of being able to add any other abilities to it with your arcane pool.
Since you asked, yes - a non-bladebound magus picking up an effective +10 sword (+5 enhancement, +5 in special abilities) wouldn't be able to enhance it with their arcane pool, since it is already at maximum. They could still do any other tricks with their arcane pool that didn't add any enhancement/special ability equivalent levels to it, such as a kensai's perfect strike.
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Since you asked, yes - a non-bladebound magus picking up an effective +10 sword (+5 enhancement, +5 in special abilities) wouldn't be able to enhance it with their arcane pool, since it is already at maximum. They could still do any other tricks with their arcane pool that didn't add any enhancement/special ability equivalent levels to it, such as a kensai's perfect strike.
If I recall correctly there is some post from SFK that say that if you use a class ability to temporarily enhance a weapon ability and the weapon total enhancement would go over +10 you get to choose what enhancement you keep while the effect is operative, even temporarily discarding permanent enhancements to use temporary effects.
The discussion was about a paladin power, but the principle is the same.
I hadn't heard that ruling. It still wouldn't go over +10 effective enhancement bonus then, but your arcane pool could temporarily alter the special ability on it.
Something else you can do to get more mileage out of your black blade is buy a scabbard of keen edges. A little more crit-range is always good, and with it you don't have to pay part of your allocatable bonus to put keen on the weapon - you can put it in damage instead.
Since you asked, yes - a non-bladebound magus picking up an effective +10 sword (+5 enhancement, +5 in special abilities) wouldn't be able to enhance it with their arcane pool, since it is already at maximum. They could still do any other tricks with their arcane pool that didn't add any enhancement/special ability equivalent levels to it, such as a kensai's perfect strike.If I recall correctly there is some post from SFK that say that if you use a class ability to temporarily enhance a weapon ability and the weapon total enhancement would go over +10 you get to choose what enhancement you keep while the effect is operative, even temporarily discarding permanent enhancements to use temporary effects.
The discussion was about a paladin power, but the principle is the same.
I'd also be interested in seeing that.
This came out 4 months after the last post but for anyone reading this thread in the future here ya go!
Cannot further enchant a black blade.
Magus, Black Blade: Can I use Craft Magic Arms and Armor to increase my blade's enhancement bonus?
No, nor can you use that feat to add other properties (such as flaming) to the black blade. You can use your arcane pool to temporarily add abilities to your black blade.
—Pathfinder Design Team, 07/19/13