Ways to Optimize Psychic Weapon Enhancement Instead of +1 Enhancement Bonus?

[Rubik]

Normally, a weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus to gain any other magical or psionic enhancements. These +X enhancement bonuses scale in price, and they get more and more expensive the more +X's you have. Furthermore, X's greater than 10 grant a weapon epic status, and the cost thereof skyrockets to a massively overinflated x10 cost.

The psychic weapon enhancement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#psychic) grants a psionic weapon a +1-+5 enhancement bonus when wielded by a psionic character with power points remaining, for a flat +35,000 gp, rather than as a +X enhancement. This allows you to enhance a weapon without the initial +1 cost or the price scaling, while still granting the weapon an enhancement bonus when wielded.

Granted, 35,000 gp isn't terribly cost effective unless you want a +5 weapon (or you're using Greater Magic Weapon and your weapon's effective enhancement bonus reaches +10). What it does is allow you +10 in effective bonuses, rather than +9 and a useless +1 actual enhancement bonus.

Are there any other cool (ab)uses for this particular fact?

Remember, a psionic character with power points must hold the weapon any time it's being magically enhanced, and such a weapon is not considered anything more than masterwork by anyone but a psionic character.

...Though I imagine you could do something similar with (Greater) Magic Weapon, as well.

[torrasque666]

Isn't the whole exercise negated by the line "A weapon with a special ability must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus." ? Or is there a rule somewhere that says that flat GP costs don't require a +1 bonus to start off with?

[Rubik]

Isn't the whole exercise negated by the line "A weapon with a special ability must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus." ? Or is there a rule somewhere that says that flat GP costs don't require a +1 bonus to start off with?Well, the special ability in question IS an enhancement bonus. It kind of satisfies the condition by itself.

Alternately, just cast Magic Weapon on it and use that as the base.

[torrasque666]

Well, the special ability in question IS an enhancement bonus. It kind of satisfies the condition by itself.

Alternately, just cast Magic Weapon on it and use that as the base.

You'd have to use Magic Weapon. Even using the logic of "the ability works while its being worked on" it still isn't valid to be applied to a base item in the first place.

[Flickerdart]

Well, the special ability in question IS an enhancement bonus. It kind of satisfies the condition by itself.

Alternately, just cast Magic Weapon on it and use that as the base.
It can't satisfy the condition by itself - for it to be added, and thus take effect, the sword must already have a +1 bonus. I suppose magic weapon would work, but you may have trouble maintaining a 1 min/CL effect for the 35 days you need to add psychic weapon.

[Forrestfire]

With an Extended Greater Magic Weapon, you might be able to pull it off, so long as someone refreshes it every day or so.

[Rubik]

It can't satisfy the condition by itself - for it to be added, and thus take effect, the sword must already have a +1 bonus. I suppose magic weapon would work, but you may have trouble maintaining a 1 min/CL effect for the 35 days you need to add psychic weapon.There's always Persist, or the above mentioned Extended Greater Magic Weapon.

Also, Forrestfire: this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSdFGfUeyHo) and this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwMvi8vzNhk)

[shaikujin]

I used this to keep costs down in our challenge for Tippy's monk thread.

And morphing sizing shurikens.

Other stuff I was using then included
1) Making a shuriken cheap enough to qualify as a legacy weapon

2) Since the bonus is variable by simply spending PP, also used it to get the optimal options from the +X enhancements menu abilities.

Edit: I mean spending PP so that PP pool pool goes down, which in turn reduces the bonus from +5 to +1. There's also a version of Psychic Weapon that can reduce it to +0.



The +X ability you get when selecting a menu item depends on how powerful a weapon you already have.

Eg, if weapon is already +5, selecting a menu G ability only grants an additional +2.

But if weapon is only +1 when selecting that same menu G ability, you get an additional +5. Can't remember the exact figures, so my numbers will be off.

[Darrin]

Three words:

Dragonshard Pommel Stone.

(Forge of War page 121)

[atemu1234]

Three words:

Dragonshard Pommel Stone.

(Forge of War page 121)

Elaborate, please.

[Rubik]

Elaborate, please.I looked up the dragonshard pommel gem, and it basically allows you to place your enhancements on the gem, rather than on the weapon. The gem overrides whatever enhancements the weapon has, and it ends up costing quite a bit more due to the 25% surcharge of the gem's abilities in addition to the weapon you're attaching it to, but it does ensure that any weapon you pick up is pretty much guaranteed to have value to you, so long as you have your pommel gem.

I think that he might have thought that adding a psychic pommel gem to a weapon would allow you to enhance the weapon it's added to without giving the weapon a +1 directly. But if that gray area in the rules worked, wouldn't just using a +1 pommel gem be considerably cheaper?

[edit] Or maybe he meant, place the +1 on the gem, then use the gem to enhance the attached weapon with the psychic weapon property. I'm not sure.

[Darrin]

Elaborate, please.

"On its own, a dragonshard pommel stone serves little purpose. Over the course of 1 minute, however, it can be attached to any masterwork melee weapon. The weapon then takes on all the qualities imbued in the pommel stone."
(emphasis added)

So put the 35000 GP psychic enhancement on the weapon, and on the dragonshard pommel stone you can put up to +10 worth of enhancements. If you have 130+ PP, you've got a +5 non-epic weapon with +9 worth of enhancements.