magical ammunition

[AustontheGreat1]

Where do I find the rules and costs for magical ammunition? I want a wide variety of bane arrows and I don't know how much it would cost.

[Pluto]

Check the enhancement Pricing tables.

50 pieces of ammunition = 1 real weapon for pricing purposes.

[taltamir]

Check the enhancement Pricing tables.

50 pieces of ammunition = 1 real weapon for pricing purposes.

which is a really raw deal since the 1 real weapon keeps its enchantment even after 50 attacks... its worse, the 50 attacks include misses! To seal the deal on it, a real weapon that is ranged can impart its bonus to ammunition. So a +1 bow makes all arrows fired from it +1, forever! a stack of 50 +1 arrows can be fired from normal bows, but after the 50 are used they are gone

magical ammo is used in the odder cases. for example, you can make 50 arrows of sleep, hand them to 50 archers, and have them fire them all at once. not as cost effective, but it took 1/50th the time to affect 50 targets.
Also, you can stack them. So a bow of +5 fire burst being used to fire arrows of lightening and sonic will end up being +5 fire burst, sonic, lightening arrows.

[Splendor]

Also, you can stack them. So a bow of +5 fire burst being used to fire arrows of lightening and sonic will end up being +5 fire burst, sonic, lightening arrows

Careful on the wording there, they don't stack they overlap.

A +3 bow firing a +3 arrow still only gets +3 not +6.

[ericgrau]

which is a really raw deal since the 1 real weapon keeps its enchantment even after 50 attacks...

But it's a price advantage for less than 50 attacks. Once you consider that your wealth keeps going up as you level, so that the money lost is no longer significant, and how many levels it takes to make 50 attacks, it's not so bad. If, like most groups, you don't actually spend 13 encounters gaining a level you could come out very much ahead on power, gp for gp anyway.

But stacking an enchanted arrow with an even more enchanted bow is probably the way to go. Especially if you pick arrows by situation, like bane arrows, adamantine/cold iron/silver arrows or energy types that might be resisted sometimes like flaming. A +1 bane arrows costs 1/50th the price of a +1 bane weapon, so 1/50th of +2 equivalent or 1/50th of 8000 gp or 160 gp each. Plus a few silver pieces for the masterwork arrow. I forget how much you can chech the Player's Handbook or probably ignore it or just pay 161 gp each.


Careful on the wording there, they don't stack they overlap.

A +3 bow firing a +3 arrow still only gets +3 not +6.

Which is why you don't fire +3 arrows from +3 bows, you fire +1 arrows of lightning and sonic from a +5 fire burst bow and get +5 fire burst lightning sonic arrows.

[holywhippet]

which is a really raw deal since the 1 real weapon keeps its enchantment even after 50 attacks... its worse, the 50 attacks include misses!


Not quite. An arrow or bolt that misses has a 50% chance of surviving.

[ericgrau]

Even if destroyed that'd still be a full 50 attacks. Being able to collect half your misses means you actually get more than 50 attacks.

[Vizzerdrix]

The best thing about magical ammunition is not wasting space on your favorite bow. Things like Bane and fire are handy, but you'll soon run into more and more situations where they aren't as useful.