You're a Melee Paladin -- what properties will you get for your main weapon?

[Firechanter]

I hope this doesn't sound too confusing...
in short, this is a "what special abilities should I get?" Thread -- but with special consideration to the PF Paladin's ability to temporarily boost his weapon with Divine Bond.

Divine Bond is able to add the following abilities as needed, in addition to basic Plusses:
- Merciful (+1d6 and all damage is Subdual)
- Defending
- Keen
- Flaming
- Flaming Burst
- Disruption
- Holy
- Axiomatic
- Speed
- Brilliant Energy

So I suppose it's rather pointless to add any of these special abilities permanently, except for Keen maybe.

Also, I love the Bane ability, but rather than paying for a single Bane property, I'm planning on getting a Bane Baldric -- switch around Bane types as much as you like for 50 rounds per day, for the same price of upgrading a +2 weapon to +3 - how isn't this super awesome? good enough for boss fights. This precludes a two-handed melee weapon, but a Bastard Sword should qualify which you can still wield two-handed.

I play an Oath of Vengeance Pala, so I don't have Channel Energy, ergo Grayflame is out -- but the property isn't that great anyway as I see it.
If I were a Sacred Servant with the Rage Domain, Furious would certainly be awesome. But I'm not.

So, any other abilities that have not been mentioned yet but might be worth getting? ^^
PF only, no 3.5 material.
Oh, and the GM permits temporary Divine Bond enhancements to increase the weapon's total bonus beyond +10. :smallcool:

[Sayt]

Bane Baldrick gives you 5 rounds per day of bane, not five minutes.

Otherwise for a melee paladin, most of the magical qualities a straitforward damage paladin wants are on the divine bond list.

Otherwise, it's worth noting that outsider (evil) bane is dramatically superior to Outsider (Demon) bane.

[Psyren]

Generally you just want it for the +X because that stacks with what is already on the weapon. Once you've hit the cap though, the ability to throw on something situational is very useful. Stuff like Merciful, Brilliant Energy, Defending, and even Flaming can save your bacon when you need them but tend to just take up space when you don't, which makes them perfect candidates for this ability.

Conversely, stuff like Holy, Keen, and Speed* should pretty much always be there and you're better off just buying those to put on your weapon.

*if nobody in the party has haste, which shouldn't really happen

[Firechanter]

Bane Baldrick gives you 5 rounds per day of bane, not five minutes.


Whoops... indeed. Well that's a bit of a bummer. That drops the rating from "incredible" to "good for bossfights", I guess.

[8BitNinja]

Holy Flaming Longsword. Plain and simple. Think of all that damage on evil targets when combined with holy weapon and smite evil!

[Firechanter]

Otherwise, it's worth noting that outsider (evil) bane is dramatically superior to Outsider (Demon) bane.

Obviously. However, in our current campaign we're unlikely to encounter a significant number of Outsiders of any kind. (Which of course I didn't mention before)


Conversely, stuff like Holy, Keen, and Speed* should pretty much always be there and you're better off just buying those to put on your weapon.


Generally yes, but in this case, I disagree about Holy. Sure, a lot of enemies will be evil, but every time that's not the case, you'd be better off if you had just put an extra +2 on the weapon. After all, whenever you're fighting an Evil enemy, you can just use your Divine Bond to grab it.

In our game, I expect that while quite a lot of enemies will be Evil, there may be about as many that are Chaotic (Neutral). So here it should be really advantageous to be able to switch between Axiomatic and Holy as required.

Keen is probably a safe bet however, and there should be plenty of Haste in our party to go around.

Just scrolling through the abiltiies in the Equipment book. Most of them seem really terrible.

[Eldonauran]

If you have access to the Inner Sea Intrigue book, you can get the 'Training' weapon property added to the weapon (+1 bonus). While being wielded, the weapon will grant one combat feat to the wielder as long as the wielder can qualify for it. The feat can't be used to qualify for another feat and the feat can not be changed.

My default instinct is the Barroom brawler feat to get any feat you want for one minute, but that seems such a waste of all that money for a once per day feat. I would suggest using it to get a feat that is just outside of your reach as far as what you have planned for your character, or work with the group and get a teamwork feat on each of your weapons. Outflank seems nice. Or precise strike.

[Firechanter]

Hm, very nice, thanks for that suggestion.
Maybe a Critical Feat, to go with Keen...

[Quertus]

Vicious, Flesh Grinding, and Backbiter. That way, I can hopefully more quickly move on to a character I'd enjoy playing. /Snark

Sorry, I play wizards, so I can't really help much, beyond hopefully providing a chuckle at how I'd intentionally fail miserably.

[Eldonauran]

Hm, very nice, thanks for that suggestion.
Maybe a Critical Feat, to go with Keen...

Conductive is a good ability too. Situational but if you come across undead, you can channel your lay on hands through your weapon to harm them. I once thought of using a whip to deliver Lay on hands to allies 15ft away as part of a full attack. Costs 2 LoH but is delivered as a free action when you hit their Melee touch AC instead of a standard action.

[Firechanter]

That's a pretty cool idea for a backup weapon. ^^

Which reminds me:
Armour Spikes.
Apparently, the old 3.5 trick with having +1 Defending Armour Spikes, buffed up with GMW, would still work in PF. However, I'm not even that keen on pumping my AC too high, as my job is to draw attention away from the Squishies.
But maybe some other properties would also suit a set of spiked armour well, what do you think?

(As you may guess, I used to play 3.5 quite a bit, but I've never played PF beyond level 5, so I'm not too proficient with all the PF-specific tricks. This new game is supposed to go up to the highest levels, though.)

[Psyren]

Generally yes, but in this case, I disagree about Holy. Sure, a lot of enemies will be evil, but every time that's not the case, you'd be better off if you had just put an extra +2 on the weapon. After all, whenever you're fighting an Evil enemy, you can just use your Divine Bond to grab it.

With your houserule, that's certainly true. In the RAW version of the ability though, once you have a +5 weapon natively, adding +2 more (whether with your ability or by spending additional dosh) does nothing.

[Malroth]

Viscious is pretty nice to have on a paladin's weapon concidering how easily they can heal themselves.

If you've got a caster in your party that knows Greater magic weapon go with permanent defending as well and get your +x enchantments for "free" otherwise go with the highest + you can afford.

[grarrrg]

Apparently, the old 3.5 trick with having +1 Defending Armour Spikes, buffed up with GMW, would still work in PF. However, I'm not even that keen on pumping my AC too high, as my job is to draw attention away from the Squishies.

You have to actually attack with the Spikes for them to defend (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9o3r).

[Firechanter]

With your houserule, that's certainly true. In the RAW version of the ability though, once you have a +5 weapon natively, adding +2 more (whether with your ability or by spending additional dosh) does nothing.

I don't see how our houserule makes a difference. Maybe I haven't represented our houserule clearly enough. Weapons still top out at +5 Enhancement bonus, but the total sum of market price modifiers may, temporarily, exceed +10.
However, I think that this would still hold even if temp buffs are not allowed to exceed the +10 cap. For example:

Weapon A: +5 Keen Weapon --> Slap on Holy, Axiomatic etc as required; once DB climbs to +5 bonus (lv 17 or w/e), the last bonus point goes to waste.
Weapon B: +3 Holy Keen Weapon --> pump to +5, add other abilities as required, final bonus point goes to waste, and Holy is useless whenever your foe is not Evil.

Of course, with a powerful enough weapon, some enemies may render most of your Divine Bond useless... like, suppose you're up against something like an Inevitable (LN), you already got Haste from your Wizard, the bugger is fire-resistant and immune to nonlethal damage... you may find that once your Plusses are maxed out, nothing in your Divine Bond list can really help you.

[Mordaedil]

Brilliant Energy Holy Bane (Undead) Weapon.

Just bust things up and destroy undead even faster.

[Psyren]

I don't see how our houserule makes a difference. Maybe I haven't represented our houserule clearly enough. Weapons still top out at +5 Enhancement bonus, but the total sum of market price modifiers may, temporarily, exceed +10.

Oh, I thought you were saying that the base enhancement itself could go to +10. What you're describing isn't actually a houserule then - you can exceed +10 equivalent with the RAW ability. (For example, if I have a +5 Vorpal Scimitar for an effective +10 weapon, I can still use my Divine Bond on it to add more abilities, but I can't add any more enhancement bonus.) My point was that +2 to a weapon that is already +5 is wasted, so saying you should do that instead of adding something like Brilliant Energy or Keen is a nonstarter.


Of course, with a powerful enough weapon, some enemies may render most of your Divine Bond useless... like, suppose you're up against something like an Inevitable (LN), you already got Haste from your Wizard, the bugger is fire-resistant and immune to nonlethal damage... you may find that once your Plusses are maxed out, nothing in your Divine Bond list can really help you.

This is an interesting case, because Inevitables only count as constructs if an ability targets constructs. Brilliant Energy doesn't actually target them, it just behaves differently against constructs - which Inevitables are not when not targeted. Since most Inevitables have armor bonuses, it means that Brilliant Energy might be useful here.

This would require GM adjudication in any event. Personally I would say that "dual-type" abilities like Constructed should always return the result that's worse for the creature in a given circumstance since they're also getting double benefits.

[Firechanter]

Ah, see here. Great, then I misunderstood the rulings / FAQs that I had looked up before. All the better if we don't even need to houserule, and that the two of us are on the same page.

Ah, D20 and its various states of rules limbo... concerning the aforementioned Bane Baldric, a friend of mine opined that it would only work with a Bastard Sword if you have the Exotic feat, whereas I maintained that only the place of entry in the weapon tables is relevant, apart from calling the no-two-handed-weapons constraint stupid. Then I realized what a baldric actually _is_ (English not being my first language), and it suddenly made sense. Obviously it can only affect weapons that you can carry on a baldric, but this in turn has nothing to do with the proficiency you use to wield it.

So, since I had misread the item's uses per day, I'm not so sure anymore if it's really worth the money...
are there any other ways, items, spells, that I (as a Paladin) can use to adapt a weapon's Bane ability?

[stack]

Brilliant Energy Holy Bane (Undead) Weapon.

Just bust things up and destroy undead even faster.

I want to give one of these out sometime just to see the players' reaction when they remember what brilliant energy can't do.

[Firechanter]

Brilliant Energy Holy Bane (Undead) Weapon.

Just bust things up and destroy undead even faster.


I want to give one of these out sometime just to see the players' reaction when they remember what brilliant energy can't do.

Yeah, wait a minute... didn't even realize at first, but now the other shoe dropped!

That must be the single most pointless combination of weapon properties in the game. xD

What I don't quite understand, though, is: _why_ can't Brilliant Energy hurt Undead? Normally you'd think Undead hate bright light, don't they?

[Psyren]

What I don't quite understand, though, is: _why_ can't Brilliant Energy hurt Undead? Normally you'd think Undead hate bright light, don't they?

The whole point of the property is that it ignores nonliving matter. Great for going through a hauberk, lousy for chopping up the zombie wearing it.

Personally I would tweak it so that it damages souls - which then adds in intelligent undead like Vampires and Wraiths, but skeletons and robots would still be out.

[Firechanter]

Yeah, that kinda makes sense.

[Mordaedil]

I want to give one of these out sometime just to see the players' reaction when they remember what brilliant energy can't do.

Woah, you gave it away!

[AlmaPenzare]

Rapier paladin of mine has been carrying the same sword since the beginning of the campaign and buffing it whenever she can, she's spent most of her gold on the damn thing and doesn't want any other weapons because she got this from her father. It's currently a

+1 Holy Undead Bane Merciful Crystal Edged Rapier of the Scarlet Throne with Serrated and Lethal nonmagical enhancements.

[Firechanter]

...
of the Scarlet Throne with Serrated and Lethal nonmagical enhancements.

what do each of these mean?

[AlmaPenzare]

what do each of these mean?

One is a discipline enhancement from 3.5
the other two are from the steelforge doc from dsp

[Firechanter]

Ah ok.
Yeah when I played a Warblade in 3.5, Discipline was my favourite property as well. ;)

[AlmaPenzare]

Ah ok.
Yeah when I played a Warblade in 3.5, Discipline was my favourite property as well. ;)

When we spotted it we just kind of took it and added it to pathfinder for our games

[magwaaf]

keen and collision. collision is my favorite weapon enchantment