Apologies if this is an obvious question, but: I don’t understand why Flaming and Frost runes are set for such a relatively high level! Is giving access to typed damage really that exceptional for a starting/low-level character?
An extra dice of damage is indeed overpowering at low level, especially when combined with other abilities that add weapon damage dice.
Pardon my rules inexperience here; is there any way to switch a weapon’s damage type (to something like fire, for instance) without it having the extra damage die?
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For what it's worth, there's a magic longsword (level 3 item) in the beginner box that deals +1 fire damage.
It's less about the damage type and more about the fact that it's an extra d6 (plus crit-effect). That would be a significant damage boost on the early levels.
By level 8 you already have weapon specialization and many classes have gotten their class-based bonus damage already (barbarian rage upgrades at level 7, rogues get teir second die of sneat attack at 5 and so on). Even greater striking runes are only a few levels away. by that level an extra d6 is still pretty good but no longer as overwhelming as it would be at lower levels.
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The real value is weakness. A lot of monsters have +5 or higher weakness.
A +1 Striking Silver Frost (Longsword) might suddenly do
2d8 + Str + d6 cold + weakness silver + weakness cold
So you can end up at 2d8+d6+14 on double weakness 5 or even +24 on double weakness 10
Double that on a critical hit (not the weakness) and it can one hit end encounters.
Edit: And that doesn’t include rage, sneak or finisher (albeit the latter 2 would need a different weapon)
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Sure, GMs have that ability. You could hand out a unique Dagger that does 1d4 Piercing, 1d4 Fire, that has a cool name and maybe some cool art. It will never be as powerful as the Barbarian's Greataxe, but the Rogue will probably sleep with it under their pillow until retirement.
Similar to how the Longsword linked above isn't game-breaking, but a Rune that simply adds +1 damage to any weapon it's applied to can quickly turn the balance in favor of the players, and give the GM a headache during future encounter designs.
An extra dice of damage is indeed overpowering at low level, especially when combined with other abilities that add weapon damage dice.Which is odd, given that an entire extra weapon dice is priced around level 4.
That strength varies on the weapon die itself though, so the difference between 2d4 and 1d4+1d6 is different than 2d12 and 1d12+1d6.
Dropping an elemental damage rune as treasure early on is unlikely to hurt anything so long as the party can't stack all their damage onto one weapon. I'd be more dubious of making it widely available in shops.
It's not that it's priced at level 4, it's that a boost at level 4 is built into the system, just like how there's another one at level 12 and level 19. Those are also just another extra damage die (Plus a boost to things that scale with the number of damage dice), but they cost 1000, and 30000 respectively.
The reason a striking rune is priced at level 4 is simply because they want level 4s to be able to get them. Same with things like flaming runes.
Personally, I'd allow a player to get a rune that changes 1 weapon die of damage to a different type of without doing additional damage if they expressed interest in doing so, allowing them to pay to upgrade it at level 8. But, that's just me. Also, I'd be wary of giving an actual flaming rune or something similar out too far in advance of level 8.
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Apologies if this is an obvious question, but: I don’t understand why Flaming and Frost runes are set for such a relatively high level! Is giving access to typed damage really that exceptional for a starting/low-level character?
I suspect it's more a matter of just wanting to limit the amount of damage overall. You could use an alternate design where instead of putting the Striking rune at level 4, you put the elemental one at level 4 and the Striking one at 8.
That would be a small boost to d4 weapons, but overall it'd probably be slightly worse, since you'd miss out on effects that count your damage dice. And it would certainly be worse for people with d8 or bigger weapons.
If you look closely you see damage increasing a bit every few levels: a Striking rune at 4, perhaps a Strength increase at 5, specialization at 7, elemental rune at 8. You could reasonably switch the level of the elemental rune with the level of one of the other boosts.
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A striking longsword is doing 2d8+4 damage, or an average of 13, before adding your class specific stuff (rage, sneak attack etc).
At level 4, when you are expected to have a striking rune, a level 4 creature has about 60 hp (average for moderate HP range). That means that you will kill the creature in 4.6 hits. Meaning two PCs can take it out in less that a round. Put another 1d6 on there and the average jumps to 16.5. Thus dropping the creature in 3.6 hits. One above average damage roll and one PC can drop an on level creature in 1 round.
At level 7 your longsword attack will hop up to 2d8+6 with weapon specialization, for an average of 15. A level 7 creature has about 115 hp, or 7.7 hits with your 15 damage weapon. Slap a flaming rune on there and the average jumps to 18.5, or only 6.2 hits.
A level 8 creature has about 135 hp, or 9 hits with your 15 damage weapon and 7.3 hits from your 18.5.
Putting the flaming rune on at level 4 is a significant increase in damage compared to a level 4 creature. The flaming/etc. rune at level 8 brings the number of hits necessary down to almost the same number as it takes to kill a level 7 monster without the elemental rune.
TLDR; they are set at level 8 b/c the creature HP is set with the expectation that you will have them at level 8.
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An extra dice of damage is indeed overpowering at low level, especially when combined with other abilities that add weapon damage dice.Pardon my rules inexperience here; is there any way to switch a weapon’s damage type (to something like fire, for instance) without it having the extra damage die?
I am not aware of anything like that. If you just want a flaming sword for your character, as Aw3som3-117 said, homebrewing a rune that converts one die of damage that the weapon does to a particular energy type is probably not unbalancing.
It might be too powerful in a campaign where many of the enemies are weak to a particular damage type. But there is also the Energy Mutagen that can be used to exploit that as well. Also, if the campaign is designed around having a particular weakness, I have to assume that the GM is expecting the players to find a way to exploit that.
The real value is weakness. A lot of monsters have +5 or higher weakness.
A +1 Striking Silver Frost (Longsword) might suddenly do
2d8 + Str + d6 cold + weakness silver + weakness cold
So you can end up at 2d8+d6+14 on double weakness 5 or even +24 on double weakness 10
Double that on a critical hit (not the weakness) and it can one hit end encounters.
Edit: And that doesn’t include rage, sneak or finisher (albeit the latter 2 would need a different weapon)
Doesn't the attacker only benefit from the weakness with the highest value that they qualify for?
So I did some digging in a friend’s copy of Secrets of Magic, and the Soulforger Archetype /does/ have the ability I’m looking for, under the Planar Pain essence.
Now to just hope the option comes in a less narrow flavor than “I’m so dedicated I have a weapon made out of my soul that I can summon.”
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Doesn't the attacker only benefit from the weakness with the highest value that they qualify for?
It depends on how you are defining an 'instance of damage'. Which as far as I have seen, isn't actually defined in the rules anywhere.
So extrapolating from the rules that are defined:
If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually happens only when a monster is weak to both a type of physical damage and a given material.
If you have more than one type of resistance that would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable resistance value.
Also
It’s possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately. If an attack would deal 7 slashing damage and 4 fire damage, resistance 5 to all damage would reduce the slashing damage to 2 and negate the fire damage entirely.
So since Weakness and Resistance both use the same language regarding 'instance of damage', then I have to conclude that they are both sharing the same definition of that phrase.
Also, since Resistance All applies to each damage type separately, the 'instance of damage' for each of the damage types from the same attack is a separate instance of damage.
So I have to conclude that weakness to two different types of damage from the same attack would both be applied. So an attack that deals 5 cold damage and 3 bludgeoning damage would trigger both a weakness 5 cold and weakness 5 physical for a total of 10 added damage due to the creatures weaknesses.
The exception noted in Weakness of having weakness to a type of damage and a material would be from a single damage type that has both traits. So a weakness 5 piercing and weakness 10 silver - you would only use the higher of the two when attacked with a silver rapier that deals 8 points of silver, piercing damage.
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Doesn't the attacker only benefit from the weakness with the highest value that they qualify for?
You got me thinking
CRB. p.453
If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually happens only when a monster is weak to both a type of physical damage and a given material.
You got me thinking - but I still think my example was correct.
So what is the same 'instance'?
If you have a cold iron striking longsword then the damage is 2d8. So if a monster has weakness slashing and cold iron then only the higher works.
If you have a Flaming Longsword, then 1d8 is slashing and d6 is fire and I would regard this as 2 instances. This would be in line with the comment that to use only the highest applicable weakness only happens when a monster is weak to physical and a material, as that is one instance of dice rolling.
I have [d8 slashing] plus [d6 fire]
This would also be in line with resistances. Btw. the same wording is used for resistances and there was somewhere a clarification that you would apply a resistance (if you have it) against slashing and fire in the above case.
Edit:Ninjaed by a long way by Breithaupclan
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The upcoming Monster Parts system in the BattleZoo Bestiary will also have a quicker way to get elemental damage on a weapon. Granted, it's a a type of progression with initially low damage (1 damage, then 1d4, then 1d6), but it does let you get it sooner than just the 1d6 at Level 8.
Thanks for the kind answers everyone. :)
Pardon my rules inexperience here; is there any way to switch a weapon’s damage type (to something like fire, for instance) without it having the extra damage die?
Aside from specific magical weapons like the aforementioned +1 fire damage sword or something like a Flaming Poi, there is the "Special Circumstances" section of Gamemastering that indicates that you can add traits to actions and attacks in the right circumstances, usually at the expense of an action.
The example is a character using an action to bury their sword in a brazier of hot coals to add the Fire trait to their next attack. This sort of thing is completely up to the GM to determine when it is and is not available, or what exact effect it may have on the game.
If you wanted a more permanent option, you have to work with your GM to find/homebrew one.
It's also about gating solutions to different obstacles - your access to different abilities is gated to different levels so that before those levels the obstacles those abilities nullify are still challenging.
An example of this is flight - if you get it at level 1, climbing obstacles is never a thing (and characters who invested in climbing don't get a chance to shine).
In this case, the obstacle is regeneration (and to a lesser extent physical resistances that can be bypassed with elemental damage) Spellcasters can turn off regeneration with fire at level 1, but this obstacle is kind of a soft obstacle - it's challenge is that the martials in the party have to potentially change their tactics away from their main attacks by using stuff like alchemists fire or oil or a torch instead of attacking with their sword to make damn sure that the troll doesn't regenerate.
If you give everyone access to fire damage on every weapon attack at level 4, it is less likely that the level 5 troll will cause that situation where the party has to be creative with their tactics and use items other than their weapons to overcome it's regeneration.