In another thread,
The Automatic Bonus Progression rules state: "Any weapon, armor, or shield special abilities on attuned items count against a character’s
enhancement bonus from attunement. To determine an attuned magic item’s enhancement bonus, subtract the cost of its special ability from the enhancement bonus granted by attunement. (This applies only to special abilities whose cost is equivalent to an enhancement bonus, not to those that cost a flat amount of gold pieces.) For example, if a character with a +3 enhancement bonus from weapon attunement wields a keen scimitar, she subtracts 1 point of her enhancement bonus (for the cost of keen), leaving her with a +2 keen scimitar. If a character doesn’t have enough of an enhancement bonus to afford the special ability (such as a 4th-level character with a vorpal longsword), she can still use the weapon’s power on its own, but the weapon gains no enhancement bonus."Am I reading this correctly? Under this system it's impossible to have a +10 equivalent weapon? Even at 20th level, a weapon with a +5 ability will never have any Enhancement bonuses to hit?
Relatedly, how does Automatic Bonus Progression interact with ability's like a Paladin's Divine Bond or a Magus' Arcane Pool which can add temporary enhancements to a weapon?
Since that was one of several questions, I've broken it out here for people to make it a FAQ topic.
As published, the system is different from what was in the Unchained Blog Preview, which had a table for adding "capacity" to the weapon in addition to the Enhancement bonus.
This needs some clarification, I think.
No FAQ required: The blog specifically indicated that it was an alternate option. (incidentally, while I'm a fan of my version from the blog, Revan did appear to have missed the high-level option in Unchained using the in-book system for a +10 equivalent weapon)
No FAQ required: The blog specifically indicated that it was an alternate option. (incidentally, while I'm a fan of my version from the blog, Revan did appear to have missed the high-level option in Unchained using the in-book system for a +10 equivalent weapon)
Is that in reference to the "legendary gifts"?
I am less concerned about being able to have up to +8 in total bonuses at 19th level than I am with being limited by the advancement below that.
For example, a +1 Holy Sword is a total equivalent of +3. It won't fully function until the character is level 14 (having then a +3 bonus to use on the blade); before then, it operates as a +0 Holy Sword (or +1 to attack/+0 damage from being Masterwork).
Does that qualify for penetrating DR/magic? Some GMs might say no. It certainly won't qualify for using the enhancement bonus to penetrate material-based DR... so players will more often opt for straight enhancement bonuses over special powers, I would expect (though I could be wrong).