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For the first one: Fortuitous. Or "get 2 AoOs for the price of one". It is a mini full attack (full BAB attack + BAB-5 attack) when something draws an AoO. So pretty much the prime weapon property for a reach build.
So that you are truly a 25' wide circle of pure pain that enemies have to tip toe around. Not that it will work (particularly if you grab lunge, which is fantastic for reach builds), but they don't live long enough to learn that.
For finessable weapons, Dueling. Flat 14k for a +4 to initiative and some CDM bonus
Vicious if you have reliable healing or high AC.
Fortuitous for any reach build (as is mentioned above).
Spell Storing, for any kind of melee weapon. Conductive, for ranged and/or melee.
... particularly if you grab lunge, which is fantastic for reach builds...
It is bad for reach builds. You already have reach. Another 5ft WHEN ATTACKING isnt adding much.
Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn. It does not last until the beginning of your next turn. So it is inactive when your opponents provoke AoOs in their turn. Then you are back to your native reach.
... particularly if you grab lunge, which is fantastic for reach builds...It is bad for reach builds. You already have reach. Another 5ft WHEN ATTACKING isnt adding much.
Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn. It does not last until the beginning of your next turn. So it is inactive when your opponents provoke AoOs in their turn. Then you are back to your native reach.
Which is EXACTLY why lunge is good for reach builds. Attack at 15ft out and now they can't 5ft-step inside your threat. Yeah, it has it's own short comings but it's not bad by any means.
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... particularly if you grab lunge, which is fantastic for reach builds...It is bad for reach builds. You already have reach. Another 5ft WHEN ATTACKING isnt adding much.
Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn. It does not last until the beginning of your next turn. So it is inactive when your opponents provoke AoOs in their turn. Then you are back to your native reach.
It's not so much about widening your threatened space for AoOs, as it is about attacking from 15' out so your foe can't 5 foot step up to you and must provoke to get to you.
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It's not so much about widening your threatened space for AoOs, as it is about attacking from 15' out so your foe can't 5 foot step up to you and must provoke to get to you.... particularly if you grab lunge, which is fantastic for reach builds...It is bad for reach builds. You already have reach. Another 5ft WHEN ATTACKING isnt adding much.
Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn. It does not last until the beginning of your next turn. So it is inactive when your opponents provoke AoOs in their turn. Then you are back to your native reach.
It only works if you don't have any lemmings in your party who mindlessly close to 5ft to attack the enemy. But if your group respects the tactical movement of the game it really works well.
Dueling isn't just for the disarms or feints, but also the initiative bonus. I've never really invested in initiative, but if you put some effort in it, it really pays off. You don't have to be on the defensive if you win initiative, you control what happens. Also great for sneak attack users.
As for Vicious, it's a double-edged sword. It can really turn against you, but it really speeds up combat. At high level, most of your damage comes through static bonuses or piling up damage dice. Granted, it's only 2d6, but it adds up if you count iterative attacks. Same principle as extra initiative, really: the faster the enemy's dead, the less you have to worry about him endangering you. Say, with Haste available to you and BAB 6+, if every attack hits, that's 6d6 points of damage you otherwise wouldn't do. Sure, you take some yourself, but that's negligible against what a full attack from the opponent would do.
It only works if you don't have any lemmings in your party who mindlessly close to 5ft to attack the enemy. But if your group respects the tactical movement of the game it really works well.It's not so much about widening your threatened space for AoOs, as it is about attacking from 15' out so your foe can't 5 foot step up to you and must provoke to get to you.... particularly if you grab lunge, which is fantastic for reach builds...It is bad for reach builds. You already have reach. Another 5ft WHEN ATTACKING isnt adding much.
Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn. It does not last until the beginning of your next turn. So it is inactive when your opponents provoke AoOs in their turn. Then you are back to your native reach.
First- Ryric- thank you for ninja-ing me. I love when others help to preach for the church of the longspear. Yes, it is a tactical feat used to preserve your right to get AoOs. Because otherwise, you can't attack firt without losing your AoOs (which is particularly troubling when you get 2 attacks with fortuitous)
Second- Imbicatus- The thing with reach is that you are no turtled up monk. You are a 2 hander, most likely with some nice damage boosting class features. You can also full attack everything in a circle 45' wide with lunge. Basically- you are a major melee threat, even with just your normal attacks. In some practical terms, you are are just few steps behind a pouncing barbarian.
And that doesn't even get me started on the whole 25' wide circle of pain. In that case, your GM might totally throw enemies at you. Why? Because, with fortuitous, each of those attacks eats up an AoO. That means you use up 2 on a single enemy. So your GM might throw a mook at you hoping you eat up your double attack so that he can send an actual threat past you with minimal damage.
That works in game setting logic too- the enemy sends a servant to tie up your movements so they can slip past you.
Polearms : Fortuitous, for both tank and dpr?
You are a reach build- your DPR is part of your tank's defense. Because making the GM consider 'what monsters am I willing to sacrifice?' is a defense in its own right.
In more realistic terms- more attacks you can commonly grab for a relatively small price? Why not get it? Being a tank doesn't mean you shouldn't be happy with getting more damage in. Heck, I think it should be a goal for a tank- I think of 'tank' as more of a secondary role, meant to supplement a primary role (DPS, debuff, maneuvers, blasting, etc.).
Also, interesting thought on phalanx soldier- could they use lunge and a light shield in order to TWF with shield and polearm? As in- using lunge to get the shield's reach out long enough to meet the polearm's reach? I usually think of that archetype as one that sacrifices DPS for shields (since they are using polearms 1 handed), but getting TWF in there can keep them in the DPS game. Admittedly, such a build would eat up a lot of feats, and not really turn on until level 6 at the very least.
It's not so much about widening your threatened space for AoOs, as it is about attacking from 15' out so your foe can't 5 foot step up to you and must provoke to get to you.It only works if you don't have any lemmings in your party who mindlessly close to 5ft to attack the enemy.
That presumes I care if my allies gets attacked.
For example, my ally might have a high AC defensive build, in which case the enemy has to choose between full-attacking the wrong PC, or provoking to get to me.
Or maybe I just don't like my ally very much.
Menacing
Holy is usually a good fallback
Depending on the campaign, bane can be incredibly useful for a low investment. Untyped damage boost and additional enhancement bonus? Yes please.
Holy is amazing.
Most of the time PC fight evil creatures.
If only because non evil creatures can some times be reasoned with.
Holy hits: Undead, demons, devils. Holy is also required to beat the DR of most evil outsiders
Merciful is usually good for anything. Most things aren't immune to nonlethal, and it helps to take prisoners.
Yeah, but would it be a main weapon?
...now there is good for thought- what about back up weapons? You know- that ghost touch weapon you keep in your pocket on the off chance your GM throws ghosts at you. Not something you would ever put on your main weapon (since it is too specialized to justify the bump in price), but something you want on hand nonetheless.
I would imagine things like this would often be +1 ghoust touch silver heavy maces- that list of things you need on hand for various problems.
Vorpal + Loaded dice.
Which is EXACTLY why lunge is good for reach builds. Attack at 15ft out and now they can't 5ft-step inside your threat. Yeah, it has it's own short comings but it's not bad by any means.... particularly if you grab lunge, which is fantastic for reach builds...It is bad for reach builds. You already have reach. Another 5ft WHEN ATTACKING isnt adding much.
Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn. It does not last until the beginning of your next turn. So it is inactive when your opponents provoke AoOs in their turn. Then you are back to your native reach.
Ahh. Okay. Didnt see this aspect.
I'll 2nd Spell-storing. If you have any sort of Spellcaster in your party, you can make great use of this type of weapon. If nothing else you end up saving your Spellcaster party member the action it would have taken to use the spell, and dish out some damage as well.
Spell storing! Adding 5d6 for a simple shocking grasp is no joke when you need it.
Also, if you throw the weapon ever then I say Anchoring. It locks a target down pretty well. You could also use it to hold someone at melee. The downside is you're basically disarmed. You could pair it with called though to get it back a as swift action. Or maybe even returning to get it free at the start of your turn.
The question here though is does the enemy come with the weapon that they technically anchored to...
I feel most special abilities aren't worth the loss of increasing the to hit and damage. A +2 equivalent has to be better than a +2 to hit and a +2 damage. using the conversion that a +1 to hit ~ +2 damage and you're having to get at least 6 damage worth out of your special ability. But also I feel for a lot of classes that the to hit is more DPR than just a +2.
So lets look at holy. It's a +2 equivalent to add 2d6 (7 average) damage against evil. So this beats the +6 damage, but it's also conditional. Fortunately evil is pretty common for "heroes" to fight against so it'll be on most of the time. So holy is maybe worth it.
I feel most special abilities aren't worth the loss of increasing the to hit and damage. A +2 equivalent has to be better than a +2 to hit and a +2 damage. using the conversion that a +1 to hit ~ +2 damage and you're having to get at least 6 damage worth out of your special ability. But also I feel for a lot of classes that the to hit is more DPR than just a +2.
So lets look at holy. It's a +2 equivalent to add 2d6 (7 average) damage against evil. So this beats the +6 damage, but it's also conditional. Fortunately evil is pretty common for "heroes" to fight against so it'll be on most of the time. So holy is maybe worth it.
Not that I disagree here at all. But it's often a flavor thing really. I feel like weapon enchantments can be worth it. I do think that a lot of armor enchantments are too situational though and would almost always prefer the straight enchantment bonus to +5 before adding special effects.
But based on your logic, a spell storing enchantment could be worth it if the combats are short or if someone else is willing to keep the spells up in the weapon for you.
I feel most special abilities aren't worth the loss of increasing the to hit and damage. A +2 equivalent has to be better than a +2 to hit and a +2 damage. using the conversion that a +1 to hit ~ +2 damage and you're having to get at least 6 damage worth out of your special ability. But also I feel for a lot of classes that the to hit is more DPR than just a +2.
So lets look at holy. It's a +2 equivalent to add 2d6 (7 average) damage against evil. So this beats the +6 damage, but it's also conditional. Fortunately evil is pretty common for "heroes" to fight against so it'll be on most of the time. So holy is maybe worth it.
Not that I disagree here at all. But it's often a flavor thing really. I feel like weapon enchantments can be worth it. I do think that a lot of armor enchantments are too situational though and would almost always prefer the straight enchantment bonus to +5 before adding special effects.
But based on your logic, a spell storing enchantment could be worth it if the combats are short or if someone else is willing to keep the spells up in the weapon for you.
Yes. A shocking grasp is 5d6 average 17.5 damage. But it's only once. So it's value needs to be greater than about 3 damage per attack you make. If you're likely to make 6 attacks in a combat then it's potentially about equal. If you'd make more than that many then it's worse. Then you need to check how common any resistance to the spell is and that lowers spell storing. Also, unless you're sure to have the caster fill it up for every fight, it's value is lowered.
I feel that there's maybe 20% of abilities that could potentially be better than increasing your +. But you need to be focused in that to be so. Like fortuitous is good if you're not normally using all your AoO and if you have bonuses to AoO. It's also dependent on how likely your second attack is to hit. a secondary attack is at least a -5 if not more worse than your first attack. Also it doesn't do anything for any attacks made on your turn. Thus I feel it's not like, "if reach weapon always have fortuitous" but more like, "if reach weapon then maybe consider fortuitous"
Yes. A shocking grasp is 5d6 average 17.5 damage. But it's only once. So it's value needs to be greater than about 3 damage per attack you make. If you're likely to make 6 attacks in a combat then it's potentially about equal. If you'd make more than that many then it's worse. Then you need to check how common any resistance to the spell is and that lowers spell storing. Also, unless you're sure to have the caster fill it up for every fight, it's value is lowered.
And that's just one damage aspect of it. It can offer more than just that, such as Vampiric Touch ("healing" the wielder), Hold Person (practically an instant-kill), or some fun things like Force Punch and "Litany" spells.
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This is kind of making me want to make a character that crafts piles of +1 spell storing daggers in place of a higher bonus weapon. Spell storing casts as a free action rather than a swift action on hit, so a dual wielding character with quickdraw could possibly dump a huge number of casts rapidly in a fight. There is probably something fun that can be done by hitting someone with 5 touch of idiocy spells in a round...
This is kind of making me want to make a character that crafts piles of +1 spell storing daggers in place of a higher bonus weapon. Spell storing casts as a free action rather than a swift action on hit, so a dual wielding character with quickdraw could possibly dump a huge number of casts rapidly in a fight. There is probably something fun that can be done by hitting someone with 5 touch of idiocy spells in a round...
You could! It'll cost a small fortune, but it's entirely doable. And hilarious to think about.
Only a small fortune though. It wouldn't get really crazy until the mid teens, but it should be entirely feasible to have a character have that be his "thing" he invests in ending up with 40+ spell storing daggers by the end of a typical campaign. With leadership to have underlings fill up the daggers, you would pretty much just get to cast a 3rd level or lower targeted spell on every attack in most situations...
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Leveraging for trip builds (2x enhancement to trip checks amongst other bonuses, from Weapon Master Player Companion)
Alternatively (or additionally), you could use the dueling enchant from the Pathfinder Society Field Guide to grant 2 x enhancement luck bonus to CMB that uses the weapon i.e trip, disarm, sunder. As a luck bonus it can also be affected by the fate's favored trait.
Holy and bane are always nice, situational abilities. I have yet to see my favorite mentioned:Impact
Price +2 bonus
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Weight —
DESCRIPTION
This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons that are not light weapons. An impact weapon delivers a potent kinetic jolt when it strikes, dealing damage as if the weapon were one size category larger. In addition, any bull rush combat maneuver the wielder attempts while wielding the weapon gains a bonus equal to the weapon's enhancement bonus; this includes all bull rush attempts, not only those in which a weapon is used, such as Bull Rush Strike, Shield Slam, or Unseat.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
Craft Magic Arms and Armor, bull's strength, lead blades, righteous might or giant form I; Cost +2 bonus
It is not particularly useful for all weapons, more for those that are "on the cusp". For instance, the longsword does 1d8. With this, it now does 2d6 to EVERY TARGET. Not situational at all.
For instance, the longsword does 1d8. With this, it now does 2d6 to EVERY TARGET.
That's +2.5 damage on average - if that's all I'm using it for I'd rather have +2 to hit and +2 to damage from a regular enhancement bonus.
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It is not particularly useful for all weapons, more for those that are "on the cusp". For instance, the longsword does 1d8. With this, it now does 2d6 to EVERY TARGET. Not situational at all.
It's only useful if you stack with actual size increases. In your example, a longsword average damage normally is 4.5. With Impact it is 7. You are spending a +2 weapon enhancement for 2.5 damage. For that same +2 you could have gotten Holy, which adds an extra 2d6 on top of your d8, and overcomes alignment DR. Granted it's only against evil opponents, but for most games, that is going to be most of the things you fight.
Outside of an enlarged, vital strike build I fail to see how an average +2.5 dmg is worth a +2 equivalent enchantment. What am I missing?
Holy and bane are always nice, situational abilities. I have yet to see my favorite mentioned:Impact
Price +2 bonus
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Weight —DESCRIPTION
This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons that are not light weapons. An impact weapon delivers a potent kinetic jolt when it strikes, dealing damage as if the weapon were one size category larger. In addition, any bull rush combat maneuver the wielder attempts while wielding the weapon gains a bonus equal to the weapon's enhancement bonus; this includes all bull rush attempts, not only those in which a weapon is used, such as Bull Rush Strike, Shield Slam, or Unseat.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
Craft Magic Arms and Armor, bull's strength, lead blades, righteous might or giant form I; Cost +2 bonus
It is not particularly useful for all weapons, more for those that are "on the cusp". For instance, the longsword does 1d8. With this, it now does 2d6 to EVERY TARGET. Not situational at all.
Impact is a favorite of mine as well. As a matter of fact I'm building a fighter who will make use of impact, vital strike, power attack and potions of enlarge person in order to cause huge amounts of damage with max accuracy...
To answer the OT: good weapon magical abilities are
-Keen (unless you want the feat for it)
-Bane (situational, choose it if the campaign is heavily oriented against a specific type of opponent, for ecample bane evil ousiders in Wrath of the Righteous)
-Vicious (if you have reliable ways of healing yourself)
-Impact (great boost to damage, period)
-Holy (most opponents in most campaigns are some variation of EVIL, a very safe bet)
-Speed (well it's costy but it's one more attack per round...)
-Brilliant energy (unless your campaign is based against constructs and or undeads)
-Vorpal (because beheading stuff is just rad)
-Heart-Piercing (Vorpal but you can use it with that bow... yes the one you are using to shoot 7 arrows per round I wonder how long it will take for you to roll a nat 20...)
-Quaking (a bit too costy but "trip anything no matter the size" is just what all those trip experts were waiting for)
-Vampiric (wound enemies and heal back... I think it could work very well along with vicious even if the healing is moderate)
Edit: I was almost forgetting what's probably the best new ability for a weapon
-Liberating (for 7k gp and no weapon bonus increase you get an easy way to save yourself from those pesky paralysis effects that have been the bane of melee types forever!).
Err, is there a "Vampiric" weapon special ability in pathfinder?
Err, is there a "Vampiric" weapon special ability in pathfinder?
Yep, coming at you straight out of the brand new Weapon Master Handbook! It's pretty good even if it's +2 for 3 moderate heals a day.
Furious for Barbarians, +1 Enhancement which functions as a +2 enhancement while using rage.
For instance, the longsword does 1d8. With this, it now does 2d6 to EVERY TARGET.That's +2.5 damage on average - if that's all I'm using it for I'd rather have +2 to hit and +2 to damage from a regular enhancement bonus.
Eh, I'm not an optimizer. I'm a role-player so pardon me if math doesn't enter into every decision I make for my character.
However, it does get more significant with higher cusp weapons: The Totem Spear does 1d10 but 2d8 when given Impact.