Dancing
Price +4 bonus; Aura strong transmutation; CL 15th; Weight —
DESCRIPTION
As a standard action, a dancing weapon can be loosed to attack on its own. It fights for 4 rounds using the base attack bonus of the one who loosed it and then drops. While dancing, it cannot make attacks of opportunity, and the activating character it is not considered armed with the weapon. The weapon is considered wielded or attended by the activating character for all maneuvers and effects that target items. While dancing, the weapon shares the same space as the activating character and can attack adjacent foes (weapons with reach can attack opponents up to 10 feet away). The dancing weapon accompanies the activating character everywhere, whether she moves by physical or magical means. If the activating character has an unoccupied hand, she can grasp it while it is attacking on its own as a free action; when so retrieved, the weapon can’t dance (attack on its own) again for 4 rounds. This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
Craft Magic Arms and Armor; Spells animate objects; Cost +4 bonus
Well, it doesn't say officially. However, it does say you're not considered Armed with the weapon (so one could infer that the weapon would not be considered wielded by you), but it does explicitly say the weapon is considered as wielded when targeting items.
I'd say no, you don't get to apply feats, but you would be able to apply any enhancement bonus to the attacks and damage, and since it uses your BAB, I would say that you could be able to perform a full attack with it.
I think the "draw" of using this enchantment is to let it loose and pull out a backup weapon for lots of attacks per round, and possibly to have multiple dancing weapons out at once.
Yeah doesn't seem worth it unless you're a 3/4 class playing as a caster, like an Oracle or Druid. Then MAYbe, it might be worth it, I'd have to run the numbers though.
It might be worth it for a Magus or Paladin or any class that can imbue weapons with enchantments from class features, and then let it loose. I dunno, still seems iffy at best.
It might be worth it for a Magus or Paladin or any class that can imbue weapons with enchantments from class features, and then let it loose. I dunno, still seems iffy at best.
If your DM houserules that class granted enhancements can exceed the normal +10 total limit... yes... but for any that follow the FAQ on the subject, your class ability will be severely hampered by the existing enchantment level of the weapon.
Dancing weapons are a case of a thematic and interesting enchantment that proved too difficult to properly balance and as a result were balanced into a virtually unusable state. The problems with Dancing weapons from a balance perspective are as follows:
1) if the weapon receives all bonuses as if you were still wielding the weapon, then a high damage character who can afford multiple dancing weapons would be extremely overpowered, even just 1 dancing weapon effectively doubles their damage output for 4 rounds. Which in many cases can be enough extra damage to end combat in less than 4 rounds.
2) if the weapon receives no bonuses as if you were still wielding the weapon, then the enchanted weapon is of little to no use against anything but weak enemies. With no attribute bonuses the chance to hit with the weapon takes a sharp nosedive leaving it missing the vast majority of the time, quite possibly resulting in 4 rounds of the weapon simply floating around effectively doing nothing at all.
3) if the weapon can benefit from a lot of low level enchantments and still be dancing, then it can potentially add a massive amount of extra damage for a character who normally would do very little weapon damage.
Rather than find a middle ground that can reasonably limit the weapons potential without making it effectively useless, the original writers for the enchantment took the nuclear approach and stuck it as a +4 with no bonuses. Solving issue 1 & 3, but exasperating issue 2.
When Paizo converted it over for Pathfinder, they didn't change anything about it. It is still exactly the same as it was in 3.0, and just as useless...
+4 is too high of a cost for a weapon that misses on more than 70% of its strikes and does hardly any damage when it does hit. But allowing it full bonuses is too strong.
Quite frankly the most effective use of Dancing is to make a +1 Dancing Vorpal/Heart-piercing weapon, and cash in on the weapon only being guaranteed to hit on a nat 20 by making it have a chance to outright kill the target.
It might be worth it for a Magus or Paladin or any class that can imbue weapons with enchantments from class features, and then let it loose. I dunno, still seems iffy at best.If your DM houserules that class granted enhancements can exceed the normal +10 total limit... yes... but for any that follow the FAQ on the subject, your class ability will be severely hampered by the existing enchantment level of the weapon.
Dancing weapons are a case of a thematic and interesting enchantment that proved too difficult to properly balance and as a result were balanced into a virtually unusable state. The problems with Dancing weapons from a balance perspective are as follows:
1) if the weapon receives all bonuses as if you were still wielding the weapon, then a high damage character who can afford multiple dancing weapons would be extremely overpowered, even just 1 dancing weapon effectively doubles their damage output for 4 rounds. Which in many cases can be enough extra damage to end combat in less than 4 rounds.
2) if the weapon receives no bonuses as if you were still wielding the weapon, then the enchanted weapon is of little to no use against anything but weak enemies. With no attribute bonuses the chance to hit with the weapon takes a sharp nosedive leaving it missing the vast majority of the time, quite possibly resulting in 4 rounds of the weapon simply floating around effectively doing nothing at all.
3) if the weapon can benefit from a lot of low level enchantments and still be dancing, then it can potentially add a massive amount of extra damage for a character who normally would do very little weapon damage.
Rather than find a middle ground that can reasonably limit the weapons potential without making it effectively useless, the original writers for the enchantment took the nuclear approach and stuck it as a +4 with no bonuses. Solving issue 1 & 3, but exasperating issue 2.
When Paizo converted it over for Pathfinder, they didn't change anything about...
On a full bab class at level 16, a +1 dancing vorpal weapon with 4 attacks per round would kill someone once every 5 rounds of combat, at least in theory :)
Actually... in theory, it's much rarer... once every 5 rounds you'll score a nat 20, but the confirm may prove much rarer...
Confirm on a 20 = 1 in 400 rolls.
Confirm on a 15 = 1 in 66 rolls.
Confirm on a 10 = 1 in 36 rolls.
Confirm on a 5 = 1 in 25 rolls.
Confirm on a 1 = 1 in 20 rolls.
The only reason that Vorpal on a dancing weapon is the most effective use of the Dancing enchantment though, it because, no matter how unlikely it may be to score that confirm, the chance of outright killing the target will always make up for the utter lack of worthwhile damage from the dancing weapon.