Jyoti's Feather-Spellheart

[Aristophanes]

"Weapon: The weapon has the disrupting rune while the feather is affixed."

Does this allow for a weapon that already has 2 property runes to benefit from a 3rd (the spellheart)?

[Baarogue]

The rules for runes on GMC p.224 say "The number of property runes a weapon or armor can have is equal to the value of its potency rune." It then continues to use the phrase "can have" in later sentences, and never differentiates whether the property runes are etched, imbued, or bestowed by a spellheart. I read that to mean it's a hard limit on the number of property runes an item can have, no matter the source

[Finoan]

That is probably the intent - that you can only have rune effects active equal to the number of potency rune value.

But that reasoning breaks down a bit with Champion Blade Ally:

Quote:

Blade Ally: A spirit of battle dwells within your armaments. Select one weapon or handwraps of mighty blows when you make your daily preparations. In your hands, the item gains the effect of a property rune and you also gain the weapon's critical specialization effect. For a champion following the tenets of good, choose disrupting, ghost touch, returning, or shifting. For a champion following the tenets of evil, choose fearsome, returning, or shifting.

Which can put property runes on weapons with no potency rune and without overriding that general rule.

So does the Feather Spellheart also silently override the general rule like Champion Blade Ally does?

[Baarogue]

Blade Ally doesn't say the item "gains" or "has" _the rune_. It says the item "gains the effect" of the rune. The exact wording of Blade Ally is more cumbersome than it's worded on the spellheart, and I find that significant

Runic Impression similarly says "Your unarmed attacks or weapon gain the benefits of a weapon rune you choose" but then later says that it also suppresses existing property runes to reduce the target to its legal maximum. No such language has ever been added to Blade Ally and there has been at least one errata pass on the CR since Secrets of Magic, not to mention the remaster compatibility errata that probably would have mentioned it if they intend to change it - but I guess we'll see in PC2