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I think you are comparing apples and oranges, really, for cost effectiveness.
Compare blanched arrows to enchanted melee weapons, and look at the break-even points.
How many times can you use a +1 ghost touch melee weapon to attack? A lot more than 50 times.
How many times can you use 10 ghost salted arrows to attack? 10 times.
How many times can you use +1 ghost touch arrows to attack, if your GM even allows you to make arrows ghost touch? 50 times.
Weapon blanches reduce, but do not eliminate, the cost differential between melee weapon users and ranged weapon users. The cost ratio still seems in favor of the melee type, not the ranged type.
I'm not trying compare melee weapons with arrows. I see no problem with a weapon blanch on a melee weapon.
I'm mainly comparing a weapon blanch (Ghost Salt) arrow to a Ghost Touch arrow, and to a lesser extent a weapon blanch (Adamantine) to a true adamantine arrow. The Ghost Salt weapon blanch is ridiculously over powered for its cost. And as you pointed out, Ghost Salt weapon blanch arrows make a high CR incorporeal creature much less of a threat.
Swiftbrook: The reason that people are arguing is that the difference in price between a ghost salt arrow and a ghost touch arrow is justified by the difference in price between a ghost touch longsword and enough ghost touch arrows to kill a powerful incorporeal entity that the longsword would make trivial.
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I'm pretty sure my Musket Master / Inqusitor has also gotten at least that high once bane+judgement+dex+whatever was brought into it.I saw an archer take out two incorporeal critters in one round and a gun slinger take out a third in the same round. 40+ HP critters.How did the gunslinger manage that? Double-barrelled weapons, a pistol in each hand, or just an insane amount of damage from a single shot (e.g. a critical hit)?
Although paper cartridges can have the ghost touch property added, they can't have weapon blanches applied.
Let's see...
For my GS/Alch.2d12 (vital strike) + 15 (PB Shot, Deadly aim , Musket Training) + 3d6+4 (Bomb via Comductive Weapon) + 2d6 (admixture funneled acid/alkali)
My grenadier alchemist can do Similar things with his bow attacks.
Yeah, my level 7 dwarven foehammer pushes 1d6+5 with his throwing axes. So I guess you could say he does pretty well for himself.
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Someone probably bought a Ghost Touch weapon before finding out about the Ghost Salt blanch and is sore about it.
Except you can't purchase a ghost touch ranged weapon.
(Something I learned last week)
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Charlie, the problem is that there shouldn't be options that look good but turn out to be very poor. Buying +1, ghost touch arrows seems like a reasonable choice. As it turns out, a less obvious choice is overwhelmingly, and in all respects, better.
That's a choice on the part of the development team to reward players who dig for obscure rules, since they can choose better options than players who have a good baseline understanding of the Core Rulebook.
Outside of PFS, there are some limitations on weapon blanches, the same as whetstone-enhanced ammunition: it takes time to bake 'em. Buying a batch of ghost touch weapons allows a PC to start shooting incorporeal harpies as soon as the character steps out of the store.
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The underlying problem is that because it has to have a base +1 before any other enhancements, magical ammunition is way overpriced for what it does. Is it worth 160 gp for a single shot to do normal damage rather than half? Compare that to a 75 gp charge from a CL 5 wand of magic missile, which does 3d4+3 damage with no attack roll involved.
Weapon blanches bypass that problem. They're still expensive, just not as expensive as buying an 8000 gp, 50-arrow lot of +1 ghost touch arrows. Even if you have Special Order, you're still looking at spending a minimum of 1600 gp. To put it in perspective, by the mid levels, 50 arrows is about 10 rounds of full attacking. So that 8000 gp buys you a single minute of effectiveness.
Feature, not a bug.
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Also, remember that blanches do not return with abundant ammunition.
The blanch gets used up upon the arrow hitting the target. The arrow itself will return to the quiver.
Well then I guess it is yet another thing to leave to table variation because I don't buy your argument on that.
The spell does not return anything to you. What it does is create new ammunition to replace any nonmagical ammunition you used in the previous round. This will recreate special materials, special purpose alchemical arrows, blanches and probably poison since those are all nonmagical properties which ammunition can have. Unless you are trying to argue that replace in this context means you can only ever get plain arrows from this spell.
Special material, yes
special purpose alchemical arrow, maybe, it depend if the content of the arrow is listed under ammunition or notblanches, no, it is not ammunitions
poison, no, again, it is not an ammunition.
Abundant Ammunition
When cast on a container such as a quiver or a pouch that contains nonmagical ammunition or shuriken (including masterwork ammunition or shuriken), at the start of each round this spell replaces any ammunition taken from the container the round before. The ammunition taken from the container the round before vanishes. If, after casting this spell, you cast a spell that enhances projectiles, such as align weapon or greater magic weapon, on the same container, all projectiles this spell conjures are affected by that spell.
Ammunitions, not alchemical materials.
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Swiftbrook: The reason that people are arguing is that the difference in price between a ghost salt arrow and a ghost touch arrow is justified by the difference in price between a ghost touch longsword and enough ghost touch arrows to kill a powerful incorporeal entity that the longsword would make trivial.
You are forgetting the cost of having a weapon with ghost touch ability instead of any other +1 ability, when you don't need ghost touch.
I have 10,000 gp. I can afford a +2 weapon or a +1 ghost touch weapon.
If I am a meele combatant and I aspect to find incorporeal creature 10% of the time my choices are limited. either I accept to deal 50% damage 10% of the time and to get a extra +1 to my to hit and damage, or I get full damage against incorporeal creatures and lose the extra point of damage (or special effect, like keen).
The missile use will spend 8,000 gp in getting a +2 for his bow and buy one or more doses of ghost salt for a few hundred gp.
End result, he will get both benefit: full damage against incorporeal enemies and the full +2 enhancement on his bow.
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The underlying problem is that because it has to have a base +1 before any other enhancements, magical ammunition is way overpriced for what it does.
...
To put it in perspective, by the mid levels, 50 arrows is about 10 rounds of full attacking. So that 8000 gp buys you a single minute of effectiveness.Feature, not a bug.
See, whereas I find the high price of magical ammunition to be the feature in the first place. Stacking extra effects, cheaply, on top of bow special properties is a huge benefit. It should not be inexpensive. If you can't afford it, perhaps you should use other strategies than constantly full-attacking. Archery certainly has the effectiveness to spare.
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@SB: Ah, thanks for fixing that.
@Dorothy: If arrows' loss rate justifies favoring them somehow, wouldn't allowing melee weapons 5 attacks (rather than just 1) account for 50% loss rate?
Or possibly give blanchs a duration of 10 attacks, regardless of hit or miss, the same for both melee and range?
To me, an actual weapon out of a special material is far more useful and more cost effective than weapon blanch. I would only go for a weapon blanch if the special material is not available for some reason. (In PFS, this isn't an issue.) For ammunition, though, weapon blanch is pretty much the best solution available.
If weapon blanches used on ammunition is overpowered, I think the answer is to increase the price on weapon blanches. There are other options for melee weapons (silver sheen, oil of bless weapon, etc.) that are more efficient (and still don't work on ammunition).
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But let’s look at the numbers:
50 Weapon Blanch (Ghost Salt), arrows: 1,002.5 gp
50 Weapon Blanch (Ghost Salt), +1 arrows: 3,302.5 gp
50 Ghost Touch, +1 arrows: 8,302.5 gpOK, who would purchase the Ghost Touch arrows? Remember, I can purchase the Weapon Blanch arrows in lots of 10, not 50.
So, why isn't this overpowered?
Even with the "Custom Order" PFS boon ....
10 Weapon Blanch (Ghost Salt), arrows: 200.5 gp
10 Ghost Touch, +1 arrows: 1,660.5 gp
Maybe the balance problem lies in letting alchemical items duplicate magic effects. Is ghost salt the only weapon blanch that you consider overpowered? And is it overpowered on melee weapons, also?
Cold iron weapon blanch is not cost effective on a melee weapon, because cold iron weapons are so cheap. Ditto with silver weapons and/or silver sheen. With those items, also, you don't have to "save" the weapon until you run across the one type of DR it's blanched against.
Adamantine arrows are +60gp each, but blanched adamantine arrows are only +10gp. Now, those arrows won't help against hardness, so they are not as useful, but still:
50 Weapon Blanch (adamantine), arrows: 500.5 gp
50 Adamantine arrows: 3000.5 gp
Does anyone know how they calculated the cost on weapon blanch?
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Also, remember that blanches do not return with abundant ammunition.
The blanch gets used up upon the arrow hitting the target. The arrow itself will return to the quiver.
Well then I guess it is yet another thing to leave to table variation because I don't buy your argument on that.
The spell does not return anything to you. What it does is create new ammunition to replace any nonmagical ammunition you used in the previous round. This will recreate special materials, special purpose alchemical arrows, blanches and probably poison since those are all nonmagical properties which ammunition can have. Unless you are trying to argue that replace in this context means you can only ever get plain arrows from this spell.
Special material, yes
special purpose alchemical arrow, maybe, it depend if the content of the arrow is listed under ammunition or not
blanches, no, it is not ammunitions
poison, no, again, it is not an ammunition.Ammunitions, not alchemical materials.Abundant Ammunition
When cast on a container such as a quiver or a pouch that contains nonmagical ammunition or shuriken (including masterwork ammunition or shuriken), at the start of each round this spell replaces any ammunition taken from the container the round before. The ammunition taken from the container the round before vanishes. If, after casting this spell, you cast a spell that enhances projectiles, such as align weapon or greater magic weapon, on the same container, all projectiles this spell conjures are affected by that spell.
Yes but we are not talking about firing weapon blanches and poisons at the target but weapon blanched or poison coated ammunition. If either of these are not ammunition then you cant use them with your weapon in the first place
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Also, remember that blanches do not return with abundant ammunition.
The blanch gets used up upon the arrow hitting the target. The arrow itself will return to the quiver.
Do you have a sitation for that? The spell doesn't say it returns the ammo to the container. It says that at the beginning of the next turn, the ammunition is replaced and the ammo pulled is destroyed.
Note that otherwise AA would be useless, as most special ammo is destroyed when it is fired, so returning the fired bolt to the bag would just give you a bag full of destroyed ammo.
A bigger question is "is blanch a magical effect" since AA only works on non magic ammo, or ammo that is made magical after AA is cast.
To phrase this differently...
A weapon which has a blanch that hits the target uses up the blanch, correct? So, if this weapon (an arrow in the case we are discussing) is returned to the quiver intact (the purpose of the spell), the blanch, which was applied to said arrow has still been used up. There is nothing left of the blanch to return.
You get the arrow back, nothing else.
This is one place where the "real thing" is better than the blanch. If you have adamantine arrows, you get the adamantine arrow back. If you have regular arrows, with the adamantine blanch, you get back regular arrows.
Blanches are alchemical in nature, not magical. Based on the description, it is pretty clear that the alchemical charge is used up.
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Also, remember that blanches do not return with abundant ammunition.
The blanch gets used up upon the arrow hitting the target. The arrow itself will return to the quiver.
Do you have a sitation for that? The spell doesn't say it returns the ammo to the container. It says that at the beginning of the next turn, the ammunition is replaced and the ammo pulled is destroyed.
Note that otherwise AA would be useless, as most special ammo is destroyed when it is fired, so returning the fired bolt to the bag would just give you a bag full of destroyed ammo.
A bigger question is "is blanch a magical effect" since AA only works on non magic ammo, or ammo that is made magical after AA is cast.
To phrase this differently...
A weapon which has a blanch that hits the target uses up the blanch, correct? So, if this weapon (an arrow in the case we are discussing) is returned to the quiver intact (the purpose of the spell), the blanch, which was applied to said arrow has still been used up. There is nothing left of the blanch to return.
You get the arrow back, nothing else.
This is one place where the "real thing" is better than the blanch. If you have adamantine arrows, you get the adamantine arrow back. If you have regular arrows, with the adamantine blanch, you get back regular arrows.
Blanches are alchemical in nature, not magical. Based on the description, it is pretty clear that the alchemical charge is used up.
Read what the spell does. It replaces what was in your quiver before. It does not literally return what you just used. If you start out with three ghost salted cold iron arrows in your quiver and draw each one to fire it, the next round you get three more ghost salted cold iron arrows since that is what was taken from your quiver the round before and they are non-magical.
Sounds like yet another question in the iron grip of table variation to me.
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When you fire an arrow at target that is also normally used up. Furthermore Blanches are not used up when they hit or miss the target they are used up when applied to weapons or ammunition. As an alchemically treated piece of ammunition is not magical then it should ber replaced by the abundant ammuninition spell.
Although I am failing to see a build where casting abundant ammunition beats firing arrows as your first move in combat
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I'm going to jump in here since I'm currently playing a gunslinger and want to make sure I have all my rules correct and in line, and still fairly new to the PFS scene. First off, a couple of quotes.
With these two items in mind, from doing a little research today (and will be making some changes to my gunslinger to keep in line with the rules) I found that you cannot buy blanch as part of a purchase, but you have to buy it, apply it and then you can use it. You cannot use blanches in combination with alchemical cartridges.
With the Abundant Ammunition, the spell states that it REPLACES any ammunition taken from the container the round before, not RETURNS. This leads me to two questions. Please note, this train of thought could apply to poisons as well.
1. If you use ammunition with a blanch applied and it hits, does the blanch get replaced by the spell when the spell triggers at the beginning of the round?
2. If you take a piece of ammo with the blanch out of the enchanted container, but not use it, the spell states that the ammo taken from the container the round before vanishes. Does that mean that the blanch is used or does it stay on the newly replaced ammo?
For both of these questions, I feel like the answer will need to be the same, either the blanch/poison is used or the blanch remains. In my mind, since the wording is REPLACED, not RETURNED, it should replace the blanch or poison at the beginning of the round, since it's been applied to the ammunition in question and, in my opinion, part of the ammunition now, since it can't be returned to whatever vial said substance came from.
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This thread has some insight, Du Nord.
I posted in there a while back and never got a definitive answer on using abundant ammunition on poisoned arrows/bolts. That character is long since retired, but the GMs I encountered were about 50-50 on it. I just asked beforehand. If they allowed me to reuse poisons with AA, I cast it during the game and used the poisoned shots. If they didn't rule that way, I just saved the ammunition for a later session.
I'd recommend that you follow a similar stance with your character at tables until there's a concrete post from Paizo on whether or not you can use abundant ammunition to replenish poisoned/blanched arrows and bolts.
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Thank you very much Walter. I'll add that thread to my favorites also, just so I can refer back to it whenever.
I like your idea of asking beforehand and I'll probably do that as well. That's usually part of my routine when I play my gunslinger anyways. Tell them all about my character to make sure there's no question about what I can do. Luckily the blanches don't get used very often, so if they rule in favor of not being replaced by Abundant Ammunition, I'll still probably use it.
The main reason why I asked the two questions of what happens with the ammo while abundant ammunition is going is to try and quiet some of the arguments that people were making about blanches being used and look at it in a different light and to use the correct wording of replace versus return.
David, I agree with you there completely. Since I'm using a wand of it (Half elf with arcane training alternate racial trait), sometimes that full round to get the wand (spring loaded wrist sheath), use it and put it away can get pretty dicey, but for situations like last night (played through Port Godless) and the barbarian is down and out of the rest of the fight, that abundant ammunition saved everyone last night since I was able to bypass DR with my variety of bullets I had on hand.
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A couple of things.
First, yes, it seems a little broken, like when you look at 50 silvered arrows. It's much cheaper to blanch than to buy the arrows outright. And, my characters like to be thrifty! So, I don't mind taking advantage of that.
Second, can you blanch a blunt arrow? Won't the blank only work on metallic weapons (and blunt arrows are wooden)?
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I sincerely hope not as that's not realistic at all. The character might blanch 30 arrows but only use 10 and mark them off on a sheet. The other 20 were never used but remain in his quiver for the next adventure.
Since blanches are applied to ammo/weapons... does that mean they 'go away' at the end of the scenario since they're used?
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Second, can you blanch a blunt arrow? Won't the blank only work on metallic weapons (and blunt arrows are wooden)?
Yes, you can blanch any weapon.
Since blanches are applied to ammo/weapons... does that mean they 'go away' at the end of the scenario since they're used?
No, that was settled here.
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As long as the use of the blanch is accounted for on a Chronicle sheet (under items used) I can't see a reason their effects would go away between scenarios. In general, however, poisons and weapon blanches should be applied to weapons at the start of scenarios rather than the end to lessen the chance of you needing to keep track of whether they're still in effect at the start of the next session.
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OK, who would purchase the Adamantine arrows?Adamantine Blanch bypasses DR/Adamantine but it does NOTHING to hardness - so there is lots of reason to buy adamantine arrows - just since they made durable arrows legal, I would pay the extra 1 or 2 GP to make the arrrow durable and reusable.
I'm thinking of making a Sundering Archer and would be buying those 61gp each Durable Adamantine Arrows :) I just need to find a way to find my missed shots easier :P
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I'm thinking of making a Sundering Archer and would be buying those 61gp each Durable Adamantine Arrows :) I just need to find a way to find my missed shots easier :P
OK, who would purchase the Adamantine arrows?Adamantine Blanch bypasses DR/Adamantine but it does NOTHING to hardness - so there is lots of reason to buy adamantine arrows - just since they made durable arrows legal, I would pay the extra 1 or 2 GP to make the arrrow durable and reusable.
If you have a level of sorcerer or wizard in your mix - then arcane mark all your durable arrows and use detect magic to find them all.
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I'm thinking of making a Sundering Archer and would be buying those 61gp each Durable Adamantine Arrows :) I just need to find a way to find my missed shots easier :P
OK, who would purchase the Adamantine arrows?Adamantine Blanch bypasses DR/Adamantine but it does NOTHING to hardness - so there is lots of reason to buy adamantine arrows - just since they made durable arrows legal, I would pay the extra 1 or 2 GP to make the arrrow durable and reusable.
If you have a level of sorcerer or wizard in your mix - then arcane mark all your durable arrows and use detect magic to find them all.
Thanks for the idea, I was considering taking a level or so in Sorcerer anyway for Gravity Bow.
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As long as the use of the blanch is accounted for on a Chronicle sheet (under items used) I can't see a reason their effects would go away between scenarios. In general, however, poisons and weapon blanches should be applied to weapons at the start of scenarios rather than the end to lessen the chance of you needing to keep track of whether they're still in effect at the start of the next session.
Thanks. Again, it's my PCs with double digit wisdom and perception ranks, not me :-(
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Thanks for the idea, I was considering taking a level or so in Sorcerer anyway for Gravity Bow.I'm thinking of making a Sundering Archer and would be buying those 61gp each Durable Adamantine Arrows :) I just need to find a way to find my missed shots easier :P
OK, who would purchase the Adamantine arrows?Adamantine Blanch bypasses DR/Adamantine but it does NOTHING to hardness - so there is lots of reason to buy adamantine arrows - just since they made durable arrows legal, I would pay the extra 1 or 2 GP to make the arrrow durable and reusable.
If you have a level of sorcerer or wizard in your mix - then arcane mark all your durable arrows and use detect magic to find them all.
If you just want it* on a wand, dip ranger instead.
*gravity bow
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Rangers are not spell casters until level 4 and cannot use Wands with their spells on them until they actually get a Caster Level.
Nope.
Spell Trigger: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
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What they all said. It also means that paladins can easily use a wand of cure light wounds at level 1, which is great.
So can a Ranger, by the way. CLW is a 2nd level spell for Rangers, but that doesn't affect wand use.
Note that this only applies if your Paladin or Ranger did not take an archetype that removes spell casting.
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Rangers are not spell casters until level 4 and cannot use Wands with their spells on them until they actually get a Caster Level.Nope.
Spell Trigger: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Could have sworn I read somewhere that they couldn't, must have been an Archetype that lost all it's spell casting.
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That's a choice on the part of the development team to reward players who dig for obscure rules, since they can choose better options than players who have a good baseline understanding of the Core Rulebook.
Considering that until this year it was part of the core assumption I'd hardly call the Pathfinder Society Field Guide (where ghost salt appears) an obscure rules source.
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That's a choice on the part of the development team to reward players who dig for obscure rules, since they can choose better options than players who have a good baseline understanding of the Core Rulebook.Considering that until this year it was part of the core assumption I'd hardly call the Pathfinder Society Field Guide (where ghost salt appears) an obscure rules source.
I fully agree with you there. Not only that, but this question can pertain to any alchemical substance that you apply to ammunition, such as poison, which can be found in the Core Rulebook.