I'm building a character who will use a crossbow as primary weapon, to join in an existing adventure. We (both as players and characters) know that undead are the major foe so I am thinking of buying an 'undead bane' weapon.
The 'bane' property adds +1 to the enhancement-equivalent price, so making a masterwork crossbow into a '+1 undead bane' crossbow would cost 8,000 gp more.
Now, I thought about saving some cash and just getting some undead bane crossbow bolts. However, if I read this right, a set of 50 '+1 undead bane' bolts would also cost me 8,000 gp (it looks like a set of 50 count as one item for determining the price).
So, my question is, is that right? If so, and I expect to fire more than 50 shots over the course of the adventure, is there some reason I might buy the magic bolts rather than a magic crossbow (with mundane bolts), for the same price, which I can fire more than 50 times?
Taking your word for the costs for now, there is one rationale I can think of for the pricing. If you put the Bane property on your crossbow, you always have it there. And while it is great when you fight undead, it does you no good versus other types of foes you can face. And while the ammunition may be a bit overpriced, you have much more flexibility, since you can swap out ammunition based on the situation. You may be better off using a more generic quality on the crossbow, that will be effective against most foes, and then use specialized ammo for more specific targets.
You are correct. Later on when you have more money to play with it will be cheaper to get +1 (+ whatever bane/holy/element/etc) ammunition than it will be to upgrade the weapon itself. Basically enhance the weapon with what you need, then make ammunition for the 'nice to have occasionally' enhancements.
If you know there will be an undead presence the entire campaign, bane(undead) makes sense. If it is only for this beginning portion of your game maybe a different enhancement (like acidic or flaming) would be a better option in the long run.
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There's another thing. 8000/50 is 160. While in this case the adventure has a whole lot of undead so perhaps a magic crossbow would be better, in other adventures, having a small quarrel of 15 bolts or so might be the better idea while enhancing you crossbow with more generic upgrades. Depending on your GM, you often can just buy a smaller amount of magical ammunition, maybe one, maybe 10 or whatever.
Finally:
A +5 Crossbow firing a +1 Undead-Bane bolt is treated as a +5 Undead-Bane attack for that shot.
Thanks for the confirmation. You're right that putting the ability on the crossbow will make it more expensive to add something else later--but along a similar line, buying a second +2-equivalent crossbow for when we're 'done with the undead' for now becomes cheaper if I expect I will fire 100+ shots. I will have to think about it.
(The present undead-adventure is Kind Of A Big Deal for the party at the moment, to the extent that it might override more long-term-focussed decisions.)
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There's another thing. 8000/50 is 160. While in this case the adventure has a whole lot of undead so perhaps a magic crossbow would be better, in other adventures, having a small quarrel of 15 bolts or so might be the better idea while enhancing you crossbow with more generic upgrades. Depending on your GM, you often can just buy a smaller amount of magical ammunition, maybe one, maybe 10 or whatever.
Finally:
A +5 Crossbow firing a +1 Undead-Bane bolt is treated as a +5 Undead-Bane attack for that shot.
+7
+5 for the xbow and a further +2 for the Bane effect.
:)
And thus a +5 Undead-Bane attack. I know my stuff man.