[3.5] Most useless armor/weapon enchantment ever ?

[zagan]

While rereading the book underdark, I've come across an enchantment called Illithiwrough.
It give a +1 insight bonus to attack and damage roll on weapon and the same bonus but to AC on armor. The bonus rise to +2 if the wielder is pionic.
It's priced as a +2 enchantment.

Am I the only one in seeing the problem here ?
For the same price you can just enchant your weapon for a normal +2 bonus. That way you can still benefit from various spell or power that give insight bonus.

They're probably an more an even more useless enchantment somewhere but I can't think of what it could be.

So what do you think ?

[Claudius Maximus]

I suppose you could put it on something that's already +5, and get a higher AC or attack/damage that way, so it isn't completely useless.

[zagan]

I suppose you could put it on something that's already +5, and get a higher AC or attack/damage that way, so it isn't completely useless.

Okay, I didn't think of that, still that doesn't make it good.

[Melamoto]

Technically, but by the time you can get a +7 weapon, are you really going to be spending a +2 bonus to get +1 to attack and damage? It's more useful than made out in the OP, but still pretty damn useless.

[hamishspence]

I suspect it was intended more for flavour- maybe to make treasure more useful to the monsters than the players.

Illithids in Illithidwrought armour- but once the players get it off the illithid, they find it underwhelming.

Drowcraft is similar- armour that has to save or be destroyed by sunlight. Flavoursome in an underdark game- not so good for the PCs when they leave it.

[sofawall]

Well, it stacks with GMW, for one thing.

[zagan]

I suspect it was intended more for flavour- maybe to make treasure more useful to the monsters than the players.

Illithids in Illithidwrought armour- but once the players get it off the illithid, they find it underwhelming.

Drowcraft is similar- armour that has to save or be destroyed by sunlight. Flavoursome in an underdark game- not so good for the PCs when they leave it.

Yeah, I can see it use as a DM tool or for flavor.

Anyone can think of an even worse enchantment ?

[Eloel]

Yeah, I can see it use as a DM tool or for flavor.

Anyone can think of an even worse enchantment ?

Ki Focus.

It either does nothing (if you don't have the Ki abilities)
Or it makes you worse (you need to be a monk)

[Nero24200]

Yeah, I can see it use as a DM tool or for flavor.


In some cases it is. In fact in Baldur's Gate 2 for the PC...(Spoilers)
You'll find yourself fighting some powerful creatuers like large groups of Beholders and even a Baalor whilst in the underdark, but naturally you're able to find up to +5 equipment easily on drow patrol.

The moment you leave the underdark chapter however, it's back to +2 equipment.
Which felt a little...well...meh...why put them there in the first place when they could just place more level-appropraite monsters?

[Starbuck_II]

In some cases it is. In fact in Baldur's Gate 2 for the PC...(Spoilers)
You'll find yourself fighting some powerful creatuers like large groups of Beholders and even a Baalor whilst in the underdark, but naturally you're able to find up to +5 equipment easily on drow patrol.

The moment you leave the underdark chapter however, it's back to +2 equipment.
Which felt a little...well...meh...why put them there in the first place when they could just place more level-appropraite monsters?

There is a way to keep the +5 stuff. The game checks for it only in certain areas.

[deuxhero]

Doesn't an insight bonus apply to touch ac?

[Eloel]

Doesn't an insight bonus apply to touch ac?

Good point there!

[zagan]

Doesn't an insight bonus apply to touch ac?

In that case on the armor it could be of some use, yes.

[Eldariel]

Psionic character with Illithidwrought +1 X is one of the better ways to improve your To Hit, second to Martial School-weapons from ToB but better than pretty much anything else (though not stacking with few other Insight-based bonuses make them narrow; manifesters tend to just use Powers for Insight-bonuses, but non-manifesters of psionic races can indeed make fine use of it). Greater Magic Weapon, as recited, is the primary reason this works out. You don't want standard bonuses beyond +1.

[zagan]

Psionic character with Illithidwrought +1 X is one of the better ways to improve your To Hit, second to Martial School-weapons from ToB but better than pretty much anything else (though not stacking with few other Insight-based bonuses make them narrow; manifesters tend to just use Powers for Insight-bonuses, but non-manifesters of psionic races can indeed make fine use of it). Greater Magic Weapon, as recited, is the primary reason this works out. You don't want standard bonuses beyond +1.

It's a pretty specific situation but your right if you really need the to hit bonus and you have nothing else as source of insight bonus it's usefull. Even then I think it's overprice.

[Starbuck_II]

+1 insight to hit is only 3500 go from Sword and Silence (3.0) if allowed. Need UMD though.

[NEO|Phyte]

It's a pretty specific situation but your right if you really need the to hit bonus and you have nothing else as source of insight bonus it's usefull. Even then I think it's overprice.
Insight bonuses aren't common, to my knowledge. I know the powers that armor enchantment is most likely based on are only 1 minute/level and expensive to augment.
:edit: unless it's based on the power that gives you a +2 bonus on ONE event within the duration.

[ericgrau]

Well, it stacks with GMW, for one thing.
This. So it let's you get a higher bonus than normal for a lower price. It's actually slightly OP on psions.

I'm going to say brilliant energy weapons are almost useless. They're only good against melee NPCs. Everything else even angels and so on have natural armor. Bit I suppose that's more situational than useless.

The burst weapons are almost useless, in that even on a crit focused build they do less damage than the other damage enchantments. But I suppose they're good for coup de grace's when a DC 57 fort save just isn't high enough or when you run out of other damage enchantments... which only happens if restricted to core.

[Starbuck_II]

If Brilliant weapons let you turn off their ability: it would be more worth it. As is they make you useless vs undead/constructs.

[RandomLunatic]

I nominate vorpal. Expensive as heck and works less than 5% of the time.

[ericgrau]

If Brilliant weapons let you turn off their ability: it would be more worth it. As is they make you useless vs undead/constructs.

Maybe... or you could have a +4 to hit and damage all the time. Or damage enchantments, which are even better. I forgot about the undead and constructs thing, that just makes them worse.

OTOH brilliance is a nice spell, maybe OP, and it let me find out another nice advantage brilliant energy weapons may have. A party member was using a brilliant lance to punch right through cover. That was more helpful. So reach brilliant weapons may be worth it even if not everything you fight is armored.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

I nominate vorpal. Expensive as heck and works less than 5% of the time.This.

If it worked throughout your crit range (like everyone house-rules it), it would actually be you know ... fun.

[Iceforge]

While an enchantment bonus to hit is specified in the DMG to grant a bonus to hit and damage when using the magic weapon, reading the entry on Illithidwrought doesn't mention it being restricted to usage of the item containing the Illithidwrough quality, althrough the fluff text does imply it

[Temotei]

This.

If it worked throughout your crit range (like everyone house-rules it), it would actually be you know ... fun.

I disagree. I think it should be the critical range of the weapon plus Improved Critical or keen if you have either. Allowing full critical range is crazy for builds meant for that. You can easily get 12-20, and with a bit more, you can get down to 2-20 (1 being a miss). Allowing instant death on anything but a natural 1 is just asking for your encounters to be obliterated unless you constantly use golems and undead or oozes.

Of course, that's assuming you hit on any roll, which probably isn't the case. Still, it could be easily abused.

[Viletta Vadim]

This.

If it worked throughout your crit range (like everyone house-rules it), it would actually be you know ... fun.
It would be useful, sure, but fun? Not really. "You die, no save," effects are rather boring, and while a houseruled vorpal crit build could be rather effective, it's just not any fun to throw around the no-save death effects from which the only defense is pretty much immunity of whatever flavor.

[deuxhero]

The most useless enchantment for weapons off the top of my head would be the bursts. You get an extra die of damage ONLY on a critical for the opertunity cost of at minimum adding another type of damage that always applies (unless you encounter one of the many monsters that are immune anyways),

[Volkov]

The most useless enchantment for weapons off the top of my head would be the bursts. You get an extra die of damage ONLY on a critical for the opertunity cost of at minimum adding another type of damage that always applies (unless you encounter one of the many monsters that are immune anyways),

The die size increases on crits too. But unless you are using a keen scythe with other forms of crit range increasing cheese, yeah it's not that great.

Now the power enchantments are awesome in theory, not so much in practice. But hey, when you do get a crit with that scythe of yours, it makes for a nice lightshow.

[Greenish]

The die size increases on crits too. But unless you are using a keen scythe with other forms of crit range increasing cheese, yeah it's not that great.

Now the power enchantments are awesome in theory, not so much in practice. But hey, when you do get a crit with that scythe of yours, it makes for a nice lightshow.Scythe is all traditional and stuff, but how about a Keen Kaorti Falchion? :smalltongue:


Okay, you'll need to blow a feat on it, and Kaorti is from web enhancement, and the material is very hard to acquire even if it exists in your setting, but one can always drool dream…

[Eldariel]

The die size increases on crits too. But unless you are using a keen scythe with other forms of crit range increasing cheese, yeah it's not that great.

What you need is quite frankly heavy critical optimization (12-20) and Kaorti Resin x2 weapon. At that point, Bursts become stronger than two individual weapon enhancements. But that's pretty niché and completely undoable in Core. No Core-character should use Burst over two standard damage enhancers purely efficiency-wise.

[Grumman]

For the same price you can just enchant your weapon for a normal +2 bonus.
It also gives you a discount on an associated enchantment (Tentacle for weapons, Halfweight for armour).

[JaronK]

Yeah, the enchantment in the OP is actually quite good. Combine it with a Tooth of Leraje (CL 20 GMW once per day) and it's one of few enchantments worth putting on an ubercharger's lance (along with Valorous and Martial school). After all, you're going to kill if you hit... all you need is a bigger boost to hit.

As for Vorpal, again you can make a build to work with it, usually by having an insane number of attacks so you're very likely to land the killing hit.

But the burst weapons? Yeah, I can't see much point there.

JaronK

[Brendan]

vorpal is very overpriced, i mean, who has heard of a normal sword cutting someone's head off??? ignore the fact that swords tend to kill people that way without magic, and that +5 is just crazy.

[ericgrau]

It still works out to almost 1 decapitation per fight even before much optimization, so it's hardly the worst in the world. I mean against minions, that's meh. But if in the BBEG fight you tell your party to take out the minions and protect you while you solo the BBEG, that's something special. Or at least it's sometimes useful.

I'm staying on the burst wagon.

[JaronK]

It's also quite possible to ensure a natural 20 (there's a spell that does that) which makes Vorpal incredibly good. It's basically "your next melee attack auto kills anyone who could be critted." The other option is something like Monk 6/Shou Disciple 5/Kensai 9 using attack boosting manuevers with a vorpal unarmed strike (via Versitile Unarmed Strike) to get a ton of attacks which will eventually kill. With Snap Kick, TWF, ITWF, and GTWF you've got 5 attacks at your highest BAB (which is admittedly at -4) and 5 iteratives... that's a vorpal hit every two rounds on average, or one per round when you use a Belt of Battle for an extra full attack. VERY nice against big bosses.

JaronK

[Sinfire Titan]

Blueshine in a Frostburn campaign...

[Runestar]

I feel the halfweight armour property (underdark) is also fairly overpriced at +3.

I mean...+1 halfweight fullplate is light armour...but so is +4 mithral breastplate!

[Lycanthromancer]

There's no such thing as a useless enhancement...

...to an artificer.

[Roderick_BR]

That feat that enhances the armor's Max Dex in 1 point.

Yeah.

On the other hand, one of the BEST enhancements was in the Defenders of Faith (3.0), that gives you permanent Haste, for only +3 cost, when Haste was good. +1 haste to initiative, +4 haste bonus to AC, and +1 default action, for only +3? Yes, please. Even if it was only a move action, or an extra attack, it would be awesome, but Haste was horribly nerfed in 3.5

[DragoonWraith]

Haste was horribly nerfed in 3.5
Not so horribly; it's still one of the best 3rd level spells out there. Which sort of says something about the 3.0 version.

[tonberrian]

I nominate Throwing. Absolutely useless unless you're built to throw weapons, and at that point it's only marginally useless - the best weapons for throwing are already throwable, and any class features that let you throw better work best with those weapons.

[Runestar]

That feat that enhances the armor's Max Dex in 1 point.

Yeah.

On the other hand, one of the BEST enhancements was in the Defenders of Faith (3.0), that gives you permanent Haste, for only +3 cost, when Haste was good. +1 haste to initiative, +4 haste bonus to AC, and +1 default action, for only +3? Yes, please. Even if it was only a move action, or an extra attack, it would be awesome, but Haste was horribly nerfed in 3.5

Haste still works well in 3.5, albeit differently. You would never see a wizard in 3.0 who didn't start combat with "XXX casts haste, followed by some spell using his extra partial action, then casts 2 spells each round followed by a quickened spell". Fighters used it to move and still be allowed a full attack.

In 3.5, it benefits the entire party, though only physical attacks benefit. Better balanced overall, IMO.

[herrhauptmann]

Haste still works well in 3.5, albeit differently. You would never see a wizard in 3.0 who didn't start combat with "XXX casts haste, followed by some spell using his extra partial action, then casts 2 spells each round followed by a quickened spell". Fighters used it to move and still be allowed a full attack.

Sounds like you're describing the Swiftblade PrC nowadays :) Except they automatically quicken haste past a certain point.

Useless enchantments: Maybe the MiC 'Light' enchantment. Fortunately it's cheap. But it's only a basic light spell, sorta useless since random magic weapons are 30% likely to be glowing anyway.

[Xenogears]

Kuni Crystal from OA kinda sucks. It's +3 enhancement and all it does is give +2d6 damage to creatures with the Shadowlands subtype (setting specific monsters...) and make a field of light out to 5xEnhancement bonus feat that has about a )% chance of realistically keeping shadowlands creatures away (The DC is pretty low...). I'd rather just give it the honorable enhancemet (also from OA. Deals 2d6 to shadowlands creatures, anyone with taint, and anyone with NE, TN, CN, and CE alignments for a +2).

[BenTheJester]

Sounds like you're describing the Swiftblade PrC nowadays :) Except they automatically quicken haste past a certain point.

Useless enchantments: Maybe the MiC 'Light' enchantment. Fortunately it's cheap. But it's only a basic light spell, sorta useless since random magic weapons are 30% likely to be glowing anyway.

Swiftblade specifically replicate 3.0 Haste. However, it's not like any spellcaster can just get it on their spell list. Swiftblade makes you lose caster levels in exchange for those sweet, sweet abilities.

[Lycanthromancer]

Swiftblade specifically replicate 3.0 Haste. However, it's not like any spellcaster can just get it on their spell list. Swiftblade makes you lose caster levels in exchange for those sweet, sweet abilities.Gestalt. Piece of crap minimum character counts.

[CockroachTeaParty]

The Psychic weapon property has always struck me as rather odd. It costs +35,000 gp (not a +1, +2, etc. therein might lie the key), and it only is useful in the hands of a psionic character. It's enhancement bonus depends on the wielders power point reserve.

So a psychic warrior will start the day with his Psychic weapon at its strongest, and as he uses his buffs and other powers, the weapon actually gets worse. How would this enhancement ever be useful?

Does it stack with the enhancement bonus already on the weapon? If that's so, you could have a +5 Psychic weapon have the equivalent of a +10 enhancement bonus, which is pretty epic. But I'm not sure if that's RAW or RAI...

It just seems... not that good.

[herrhauptmann]

Swiftblade specifically replicate 3.0 Haste. However, it's not like any spellcaster can just get it on their spell list. Swiftblade makes you lose caster levels in exchange for those sweet, sweet abilities.

Yeah, losing a few caster levels sucks. But at swiftblade 10 you've pretty much got a quickened timestop. If you're already hasted before the timestop, that's a minimum of 4 rounds of buffing and summoning spells

[Kantolin]

That feat that enhances the armor's Max Dex in 1 point.

Yeah.

If you mean Nimbleness, that's actually not too bad as shown in the magic item compendium, where i'ts a +1 bonus. It lowers the Armour Check Penalty by 2, and then you're basically paying for a +1 bonus to gain +1 to your AC, but instead of boosting your flat-footed you're boosting your touch (which is struck at more often).

Also synegizes well with Magic Vestment.

Psychic weapons were also redone in the Magic Item compendium, and actually strike me as /too/ good (Or well, strictly better than getting base plusses). When you have 0pp it's a +1 weapon, but when you have at least 1pp it's a +2 weapon, and it costs as a +2 weapon. So basically, you're spending for a +2 weapon that early on is +3 or +4, and stays that way unless you're on a marathon or forced to blow tons of power points.

It then also synchronizes very well with greater magic weapon.

[zagan]

Well I retract what I said in the OP then, it's not the most useless enchantment, it's pretty situational but can be of use.

[erikun]

The Psychic weapon property has always struck me as rather odd. It costs +35,000 gp (not a +1, +2, etc. therein might lie the key), and it only is useful in the hands of a psionic character. It's enhancement bonus depends on the wielders power point reserve.

So a psychic warrior will start the day with his Psychic weapon at its strongest, and as he uses his buffs and other powers, the weapon actually gets worse. How would this enhancement ever be useful?

Does it stack with the enhancement bonus already on the weapon? If that's so, you could have a +5 Psychic weapon have the equivalent of a +10 enhancement bonus, which is pretty epic. But I'm not sure if that's RAW or RAI...

It just seems... not that good.
Dark Sun, or any low-magic campaign. You've basically given yourself a +5 sword for 6000 gp, which is very useful if nobody can cast Greater Magic Weapon.