Deophaun
2017-01-10, 11:23 AM
Are you a wizard looking forlornly at that light crossbow on your character sheet? Did you get hand crossbow proficiency and wished there was something amazing you could do with it without a lot of investment? Bored with pin cushioning your opponents with only damage to show for it? Strapped for cash and looking for a cheap solution that’s normally astronomically priced? Well, I’m here to help with this handy-dandy list of unique ways to get the most out of magic-enhanced ammunition.
- Sacred item: A classic. Designers probably didn’t think about putting this on ammunition, but a failure to think on their part does not constitute a responsibility not to abuse on ours.
- Light/darkness/silence: Cast on your ammunition for ranged scouting or stealth, and there are some offensive light/darkness emanations as well. There is a question of if your arrow sticks in the creature it hit. Pathfinder does have a barbed arrow that does by inference.
- Sign of sealing/greater: What’s that? How does that work? Why, use it on an alchemist’s arrow (A&EG) that we know has a container inside that will get broken. Now your explosive arrow really is explosive. Boost it with your favorite metamagic(s) (Empower? Maximize? Fell Drain? Invisible?) to make it super-splody.
- Glyph of warding/greater: Works like sign of sealing, except we have a problem: who is the one responsible for breaking the container? Is it you who fired the arrow or the target that had the temerity to get hit with it? The answer is very significant. If it’s the target, go nuts. Flame strike, flame strike, and flame strike are all good choices. You might even want to do flame strike. The possibilities are virtually endless and you’ll make the guy who took levels in Arcane Archer look like even more of chump. If it’s you, then we need to ask questions like “Do you have evasion?” If yes, then look into flame strike. If not, take one for the team and flame strike. Provoke an AoO while you’re at it. That’ll teach you for telling me there are better spells than flame strike, Gary.
- Glyph Seal: As glyph of warding, except now you can use a non-harmful arcane version of flame strike. Oh, and you have to remember to retrieve the seal.
- Wand Chamber: OK, so technically this is ammunition-enhanced magic, but close enough. Does your DM let you put wand chambers on everything? Gauntlets? Armor spikes? Fine, brightly-colored plastic novelty swords that skewer cherries in fruity alcoholic drinks? Then buy yourself an arrowhead and some fletching for 100 gp and glue them to a wand for free-action drawing. Just don’t actually use it as an arrow. Or do, it’s not my gold you’re spending.
- Banishing (MIC): Add special materials and sacred (MIC) as needed to boost DC.
- Binding (MIC): Bards tell stories of people that use scrolls of dimensional anchor. Sages are baffled as to why, though. It’s not exactly epic story material, now is it? And I suppose the scrolls are a waste, too.
- Brilliant Energy (DMG): Do you want to shoot through walls? You want to shoot through walls. Pair with a Seeking bow and lots of ranks in Listen. Make it super-splody (above) for exponentially increased returns on fun.
- Cursespewing (MIC): Expensive, but nearly guaranteed if your ranger has hunter’s mercy prepared.
- Dislocator/Great (MIC): Just remember that you can only teleport targets onto surfaces that support them. Otherwise, have fun out there kids.
- Dispelling/Greater (MIC): …may not actually work as your ammunition is destroyed before you can activate it, but your DM may be nice.
- Enervating (MIC): See Cursespewing, although I’d probably go for Stygian below.
- Illusion Bane (MIC): See Dispelling above.
- Incorporeal Binding (MIC): Fight allips at their official ECL and actually win!
- Knockback (MIC): Unlike Dislocator, this can be used to throw someone out a window, making it worth its weight in comedy.
- Lucky (MIC): Reroll! Add to any of the above.
- Power Storing (MIC): Like Spell Storing, but for psionics and with none of that “wielder” wording and “melee only” nonsense.
- Prismatic Spray (MIC): See Cursespewing.
- Revealing (MIC): Shoot invisible creature, let everyone else shoot invisible creature. Pair with Seeking (DMG) if you’re a scrub and can’t see invisibility yourself.
- Slow Burst (MIC): If you are casting hunter’s mercy a lot, why not? Ah, low Will DC, that’s why.
- Stunning (MIC): See Slow Burst, but the save is slightly higher and targets Fortitude.
- Stygian (MIC): Enervating without the need for a crit, but does cost your swift.
- Weakening (MIC): Another inexpensive hunter’s mercy candidate but without offering up a save.
- Blindsighted (MIC): Probably the cheapest source of blindsight you’re going to find. You do have to actually wield it (as an improvised weapon, natch), so that’s a bummer for two-handed-wielding uberchargers. Really, why does WotC give one-handers all the love?
- Illuminating (MIC): You mean there’s a use for this? Yes! It’s a) cheaper than an eternal torch that b) doesn’t get totally dominated by magical darkness and c) can only be suppressed for 1d4 rounds by a targeted darkness instead of dispelled. Sure, 30% of magic items already have this for free, but if your DM requires you to buy 100 to get 30 glowy, this saves. Otherwise, this is still useless and you should get a glowy +1 arrow for 10 gold less.
- Manifester (MIC): Why spend gold on cognizance crystals? Seriously. I’m not even asking in the context of this ability, which you don’t even need to hold, btw. Just have a few manifester arrows on you somewhere and you’re good.
- Spellstrike (MIC): Like Defending, but for saves vs. spells. Again, you don’t even need to hold this one. However, if you dip this cheese in the fondue pot of greater magic weapon, you will need a Defending weapon to go with this to protect from flying books.
- Warning (MIC): You do have to hold it, but once the fight has started, it’s started. Drop the sucker. You can add Burning (ECS) for a greater bonus. Now see if you can finish the fight before the arrow hits the ground.
Please add your favorites below.
- Sacred item: A classic. Designers probably didn’t think about putting this on ammunition, but a failure to think on their part does not constitute a responsibility not to abuse on ours.
- Light/darkness/silence: Cast on your ammunition for ranged scouting or stealth, and there are some offensive light/darkness emanations as well. There is a question of if your arrow sticks in the creature it hit. Pathfinder does have a barbed arrow that does by inference.
- Sign of sealing/greater: What’s that? How does that work? Why, use it on an alchemist’s arrow (A&EG) that we know has a container inside that will get broken. Now your explosive arrow really is explosive. Boost it with your favorite metamagic(s) (Empower? Maximize? Fell Drain? Invisible?) to make it super-splody.
- Glyph of warding/greater: Works like sign of sealing, except we have a problem: who is the one responsible for breaking the container? Is it you who fired the arrow or the target that had the temerity to get hit with it? The answer is very significant. If it’s the target, go nuts. Flame strike, flame strike, and flame strike are all good choices. You might even want to do flame strike. The possibilities are virtually endless and you’ll make the guy who took levels in Arcane Archer look like even more of chump. If it’s you, then we need to ask questions like “Do you have evasion?” If yes, then look into flame strike. If not, take one for the team and flame strike. Provoke an AoO while you’re at it. That’ll teach you for telling me there are better spells than flame strike, Gary.
- Glyph Seal: As glyph of warding, except now you can use a non-harmful arcane version of flame strike. Oh, and you have to remember to retrieve the seal.
- Wand Chamber: OK, so technically this is ammunition-enhanced magic, but close enough. Does your DM let you put wand chambers on everything? Gauntlets? Armor spikes? Fine, brightly-colored plastic novelty swords that skewer cherries in fruity alcoholic drinks? Then buy yourself an arrowhead and some fletching for 100 gp and glue them to a wand for free-action drawing. Just don’t actually use it as an arrow. Or do, it’s not my gold you’re spending.
- Banishing (MIC): Add special materials and sacred (MIC) as needed to boost DC.
- Binding (MIC): Bards tell stories of people that use scrolls of dimensional anchor. Sages are baffled as to why, though. It’s not exactly epic story material, now is it? And I suppose the scrolls are a waste, too.
- Brilliant Energy (DMG): Do you want to shoot through walls? You want to shoot through walls. Pair with a Seeking bow and lots of ranks in Listen. Make it super-splody (above) for exponentially increased returns on fun.
- Cursespewing (MIC): Expensive, but nearly guaranteed if your ranger has hunter’s mercy prepared.
- Dislocator/Great (MIC): Just remember that you can only teleport targets onto surfaces that support them. Otherwise, have fun out there kids.
- Dispelling/Greater (MIC): …may not actually work as your ammunition is destroyed before you can activate it, but your DM may be nice.
- Enervating (MIC): See Cursespewing, although I’d probably go for Stygian below.
- Illusion Bane (MIC): See Dispelling above.
- Incorporeal Binding (MIC): Fight allips at their official ECL and actually win!
- Knockback (MIC): Unlike Dislocator, this can be used to throw someone out a window, making it worth its weight in comedy.
- Lucky (MIC): Reroll! Add to any of the above.
- Power Storing (MIC): Like Spell Storing, but for psionics and with none of that “wielder” wording and “melee only” nonsense.
- Prismatic Spray (MIC): See Cursespewing.
- Revealing (MIC): Shoot invisible creature, let everyone else shoot invisible creature. Pair with Seeking (DMG) if you’re a scrub and can’t see invisibility yourself.
- Slow Burst (MIC): If you are casting hunter’s mercy a lot, why not? Ah, low Will DC, that’s why.
- Stunning (MIC): See Slow Burst, but the save is slightly higher and targets Fortitude.
- Stygian (MIC): Enervating without the need for a crit, but does cost your swift.
- Weakening (MIC): Another inexpensive hunter’s mercy candidate but without offering up a save.
- Blindsighted (MIC): Probably the cheapest source of blindsight you’re going to find. You do have to actually wield it (as an improvised weapon, natch), so that’s a bummer for two-handed-wielding uberchargers. Really, why does WotC give one-handers all the love?
- Illuminating (MIC): You mean there’s a use for this? Yes! It’s a) cheaper than an eternal torch that b) doesn’t get totally dominated by magical darkness and c) can only be suppressed for 1d4 rounds by a targeted darkness instead of dispelled. Sure, 30% of magic items already have this for free, but if your DM requires you to buy 100 to get 30 glowy, this saves. Otherwise, this is still useless and you should get a glowy +1 arrow for 10 gold less.
- Manifester (MIC): Why spend gold on cognizance crystals? Seriously. I’m not even asking in the context of this ability, which you don’t even need to hold, btw. Just have a few manifester arrows on you somewhere and you’re good.
- Spellstrike (MIC): Like Defending, but for saves vs. spells. Again, you don’t even need to hold this one. However, if you dip this cheese in the fondue pot of greater magic weapon, you will need a Defending weapon to go with this to protect from flying books.
- Warning (MIC): You do have to hold it, but once the fight has started, it’s started. Drop the sucker. You can add Burning (ECS) for a greater bonus. Now see if you can finish the fight before the arrow hits the ground.
Please add your favorites below.