Dancing weapons: can they break the game?

[sengmeng]

I see nothing in rules as written that say you must be capable of wielding a dancing weapon to activate its dancing ability. Therefore, you could loose a colossal dancing greatsword on someone as a standard action. You could have four of them in a bag of holding and release one every round to have four 8d6 weapons attacking at once. And, they get iterative attacks if you have them, if I understand RAW. Just hand the Bag of Holding to a 20th level fighter, barbarian, ranger, or paladin, and let them juggle 130 lbs swords ad nauseum. Am I missing anything?

[LordBlades]

Technically you could do that, but it's not that great. At that level, the amount of damage you can get from ubercharging probably outshines the damage dealt by this trick by a few orders of magnitude (8d6 is only 28 damage on average).

[sengmeng]

28 average damage with 16 attacks...? half of which have a good chance of hitting, and the other half might roll a 20...?

Just sayin'

[LordBlades]

28*16=448 damage on average; and for that you need to spend 200k gold.

Whreas a single pouncing ubercharger (Leap Attack+Valorous weapon) gets an x8 modifer on his Power Attack when charging, for a total of 640 damage from power attack alone on his 4 attacks.

[sengmeng]

Here's the real kicker: you can do both.

[Tyger]

Not to mention that you only get 4 rounds of use, and it takes a standard action to activate the dancing property... so that's 4 rounds of combat where you are doing nothing but getting swords out. Factor the move action to draw them from the bag, and you have 4 full rounds where you are doing nothing other than loosing the blades.

In that same four rounds, the wizard has already won the fight, the barbarian charger has dealt out over 2,400 damage, the rogue has sneak-attacked for several orders of magnitude more than these swords deal and don't even get me started on what the druid and her animal companion have done. :smallbiggrin:

In short, no, the dancing enchantment doesn't break the game. That's a huge investment of cash for a bunch of weapons that aren't really all that powerful. For 200K gold (the minimum to buy four +5 weapons) you can get far more break-the-game items.

It does make for an interesting visual though... :smallcool:

EDIT: Nope, you can't do both. Your standard actions are going to be eaten up, so you aren't doing any significant combat actions. Even if you manage to convince your DM that you can keep the swords up all the time, if you have four of them, you have to re-activate one every round (they only dance for four rounds) so you'll never get to take a combat action of your own.

[Mutazoia]

The only real way to pull this off is to duel wield and have both swords have dancing and then release them one at a time (release one at the start, fight with the other then release that one as the first peters out). You'll spend a round picking up your other sword though. Or just release both and draw a third weapon, but you still spend rounds doing nothing.

Or you can just hire some orphan kid in the next village to do nothing but pull dancing swords out of your bag of holding all day.

[Tyndmyr]

Here's the real kicker: you can do both.

Additional damage beyond "you're dead" is mostly pointless.

[Mutazoia]

Additional damage beyond "you're dead" is mostly pointless.

Seven Rules of Highly Effective Pirates Rule #34: If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.

[Doc Roc]

Seven Rules of Highly Effective Pirates Rule #34: If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.

Uberchargers do not leave anything behind. Past 2k damage, it gets redundant. Generally, if you need more damage than that, damage was never the answer.

[ericgrau]

Standard action to let loose, only lasts 4 rounds. So you can only cycle 4 of them, at the expense of your own ability to attack. It seems like its attack bonus is only equal to your BAB without modifiers. Add on size penalties and your chance of hitting anything seems pretty low.

[sengmeng]

...BAB without modifiers. Add on size penalties and your chance of hitting anything seems pretty low.

"without modifiers" means "without modifiers"

What does the ubercharger do to multiple opponents?

[ericgrau]

That's my wording not the rules. The rules only say its BAB (not "AB") equals your own. Which mean size modifiers and weapon enhancement bonuses would still apply, but I suppose strength would not.

[Doc Roc]

"without modifiers" means "without modifiers"

What does the ubercharger do to multiple opponents?

Belt of Battle for a second charge, gain a trample effect, rely on a wizard for disables, there are a lot of options here, particularly for 200k gp.

[arguskos]

Belt of Battle for a second charge, gain a trample effect, rely on a wizard for disables, there are a lot of options here, particularly for 200k gp.
Out of curiosity, how do you get trample? :smallconfused:

[Doc Roc]

Out of curiosity, how do you get trample? :smallconfused:

Grafts, my dear friend, grafts. Or a couple magic items. Also a soulmeld.

The one I am thinking of is not great, but is hilarious. It's the Rollers from the fiend folio, under maug grafts. The maugs are one of those races I wish had become a staple race somewhere, like maybe in eberron. Shame it never came to pass.

[arguskos]

Grafts, my dear friend, grafts. Or a couple magic items. Also a soulmeld.
Which ones? I seem to recall there's a... maug graft that can do it? What items grant it though? Seems more useful in general.

[Doc Roc]

Which ones? I seem to recall there's a... maug graft that can do it? What items grant it though? Seems more useful in general.

Your best bet might be the soul-meld, since there's a couple incarnate charger builds that are quite good at dealing Sufficient damage. For the items, I'd need to dig through my old memory banks. I think one of them is a mount-only item that they left the specifier off of, though mounted uber-charging is definitely The Way. In which case, you'd rely on your mount for the trample, I suspect.

[arguskos]

Your best bet might be the soul-meld, since there's a couple incarnate charger builds that are quite good at dealing Sufficient damage.
I'll look into it, then. Happen to remember the name?

EDIT: Damn you and your edits! :smalltongue:

[Doc Roc]

I'll look into it, then. Happen to remember the name?

EDIT: Damn you and your edits! :smalltongue:

I'm sorry! I did mention old memory banks!

[arguskos]

I'm sorry! I did mention old memory banks!
In the edit! :smalltongue:

I'd just get into chat, but I'm in class and pretending to pay attention, so nyeh.

Also, I'll stop derailing this now. :smallbiggrin:

[The Cat Goddess]

As an aside...

It's funny that a Collosal weapon is less likely to hit than a Tiny weapon.

[Doc Roc]

As an aside...

It's funny that a Collosal weapon is less likely to hit than a Tiny weapon.

Ever swung an oversized sword? As in, one over 3kg or so?

[Coidzor]

Much, much better off getting a couple of flying, sizing, morphing shields made out of Riverine so you have a bunch of flying carpets that you can use as walls in combat to split up your enemies.

[Necroticplague]

Everdancing ammunition is much better than a dancing weapon. You only need to activate it once, and then let it defend you forever.

[Tyndmyr]

I am amused at how many people come here with "Gasp! X breaks the game!", and are met with "Oh that's nothing. Behold this mind-altering atrocity against nature! Now THIS is how you break a game."

Not that I have anything against this, mind you.

[Tvtyrant]

I am amused at how many people come here with "Gasp! X breaks the game!", and are met with "Oh that's nothing. Behold this mind-altering atrocity against nature! Now THIS is how you break a game."

Not that I have anything against this, mind you.

I believe that is the work of years of taking someone else's game-breaking combos and making them better.

[Doc Roc]

I believe that is the work of years of taking someone else's game-breaking combos and making them better.

When your whetstone is the world and your blade is Armageddon given voice in steel and magic, you would be surprised just how much sharpening can be done.

[herrhauptmann]

How about if you made the juggling weapons also Spellblades? I know there's a thread somewhere about Spellblade tennis.