Help Designing a Crossbow

[IIzak]

So in my game, one of my players is related to the family of evil dragon cultist people. He wanted one of the family members to wield a crossbow that they could imbue with either fire or acid. In attempting to design an interesting weapon for her to use, I've had to throw some weird stuff together and I think this is where I'm sitting:

+2 Dragon Channeling Heavy Repeating Crossbow

A dragon channeling weapon can channel the breath weapon of the creature wielding it. Once per round, rather than use your breath weapon, you can instead imbue your breath weapon into the weapon you are wielding. If you are wield a ranged weapon such as a bow or crossbow, this enchantment imbues your ammunition with your breath weapon. Add the damage and/or effects of your breath weapon to the damage that you would normally deal.

This is probably poorly worded but this is essentially what I'd like it to do. The enchantment is kind of tailored to dragonfire adepts, but I think it could be opened up to other stuff. I'm not sure how much of a weapon bonus this would be worth though, so I'm turning to the Playground for thoughts and ideas. Is this an enchantment you would want if you had a breath weapon? With ranged weapons, should the breath weapon effects be applied to all shots fired in a round or only the first? Any help or suggestions on how to make this better/more balanced? Any and all help would be appreciated.

[ExLibrisMortis]

It all depends on the activation action, and possibly on what area you give to the effect.

If it's a standard action to fire a dragonfire-enhanced bolt, producing--say--a 20' full-damage burst around a target within one range increment, that's very nice: the range is longer than for most breath weapons, it's comparable in area to a regular cone, and the crossbow damage is basically free. The downside is that you have a to-hit roll and a reflex save, though you can always make a touch attack to hit a square to get only the burst damage.

You can also allow the crossbow to "extend" a line-shaped breath weapon. You fire the bolt, imbued with dragonfire, and either on striking the target or after a set distance (~30 feet), the breath weapon goes off, hitting targets further along the path of the bolt.


If it's a swift action to imbue a single bolt with dragonfire, adding full breath weapon damage to the attack, that's also quite good. Once per round, but a good amount of extra damage, and it doesn't interfere with reloading.

If it's a swift action to imbue all bolts (fired this round) with dragonfire, adding full breath weapon damage to the attack, that's quite strong. It gives you the same effect as Eldritch Glaive/Eldritch Claws for warlocks, but with an additional range boost on top. The downside is clear: to make a full attack, the crossbow must be self-loading, or you must invest in feats to reload as a free action.


You could even do a "lesser" variant that works on a single bolt as +1 enhancement, and a "greater" variant that works on all bolts fired this round as +3 enhancement. I wouldn't make them too expensive, because the user must invest a lot of levels/RHD to get the breath weapon in the first place, and requiring a swift action locks out some other buffs/magic items, including some that let you move+full attack.

[Gildedragon]

Drop it to +1, have it be Self Loading (a +1 enhancement); I'd have Dragon Channeling allow to turn the breath weapon into a ray

[Vaern]

I think the full damage and effect of the breath weapon might not be good for a weapon enchantment. Bonuses granted by a weapon enchantment are usually fairly static, but with this one the weapon's power can vary immensely from one wielder to the next which makes its value difficult to determine.
The ability to infuse a weapon with an aspect of your character seems better fitted for a wondrous item than a part of the weapon itself, imo. I don't know how much damage your dragonfire adepts deal, but I'm looking at this enchantment with the mindset of, "What if a dragon was to shapeshift into a human and pick up one of these crossbows? If it's a direct attack, they don't get a reflex save, do they? That's anywhere from 1d6 to 24d10 damage, depending on the dragon."

I'd look at the Energy Aura weapon enchantment, which can be flaming, shocking, acidic, or frost on command, dealing an extra 1d6 points of whichever one energy type you happen to need at any given time time, at a +2 bonus.
Make Dragon Channeling something similar in concept. Rather than the full effect of the breath weapon, just an extra +1d6 damage of your breath weapon's energy type, or maybe +1d8 if you want it to deal a bit stronger than just your standard weapon enchantments. It has the added bonus of encompassing all energy types in a single enchantment, but the drawback of requiring a breath weapon to function. I'd say this would be a +1 bonus.
Or perhaps at a +2, add the effect of the Energy Surge enchantment, which may be fueled by expending your breath weapon rather than having charges based on constitution. Not quite as strong as breath weapons get, but it's a static bonus for a static price - and you also have to factor in the sheer range that the crossbow gives them compared to just blowing their breath weapon in front of themselves.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I'd look at the Energy Aura weapon enchantment, which can be flaming, shocking, acidic, or frost on command, dealing an extra 1d6 points
This is far too low-power, and kind of makes the whole "has to have a breath weapon" requirement pointless, because anyone can already get 1d6 energy damage (or even just a flaming acidic weapon for 2d6). For one, Energy Aura is bad value, and for two, it doesn't require you to invest levels into DFA/dragon RHD. Don't think of Dragon Channeling as 8d6 bonus damage to an ordinary crossbow attack. Think of it as a bonus crossbow bolt on the 15th-level breath weapon you have anyway. A typical crossbow attack from a DFA/dragon (who don't have crossbow-improving class features) is probably 3d6 damage on average, not at all worth a high bonus. Plus that it might reduce your breath weapon to a single-target effect.

As another point of comparison, Dragonfire Inspiration works on every attack for the entire party for five rounds, and keeps pace with DFA breath weapon damage quite well, assuming you invest in two more feats (Words of Creation, Song of the Heart), and some magic items (vest of legends, badge of valour).

As a third point of comparison, a swift hunter grabs a fist of d6s per attack for a swift action every round (with Travel Devotion). A magical crossbow that allows DFAs and dragons to do a similar thing isn't nothing, but it's nowhere near powerful enough to be nerfed down to 1d6.

[Vaern]

I'm not saying energy aura is good value, but, I mean, the way magic weapons are priced is kind of clunky to begin with. If there was such +1.5, I might put it there. However, I'd like to point out that the enchantment is there for versatility, not sheer power, so in some situations it may be preferable to a flaming acidic weapon.
I'm just making the point that it's easier to price an item if you make it as a customized variant of something that already exists rather than creating something entirely new.
And I'd just like to stress once again that I haven't had the opportunity at this time to look at the class in question. But off the top of my head, I've seen breath weapon abilities with cooldowns based on a die roll after the attack, ones limited by the creature's constitution, feats that grant sorcerers a breath weapon only after casting a spell, spells which grant and augment breath weapons themselves... There's a lot of ways to gain access to breath weapons, even if it's only as a temporary effect, and just as many ways to empower them, which means that I can see that a weapon that directly applies the effect of one has a very high potential for abuse even without knowing how the class is being designed for its supposed to work.
You can design something with one type of character in mind, which is all well and good, but it's when someone you didn't take into consideration picks up a weapon they're not meant to have that the game starts breaking. Thus, giving the weapon a static ability that is active as long as an ability is present, with the option to expend said ability for an extra burst of damage makes it a lot easier to price. And this way you don't have to worry about whether a saving throw is still allowed if a breath weapon is channeled through a weapon, or whether it applies to all attack or only the first.

When you're designing something, you shouldn't be looking at it with the mindset of "This feat on this character makes them ridiculously powerful, so why should I worry about someone abusing this item?"
What you should consider how it measures up against existing enchantments. You should think of who the item is available to and how they can abuse it, rather than only who is meant to use it and how it is meant to be used, and devise ways to set some kind of limitations to prevent it from getting out of hand - because if you decide that something exists in your world, you must be prepared for players to get their hands on it even if they aren't meant to. And finally, you should consider whether, as a player, you can reasonably expect a DM to allow you to use the content you've created. And certain ideas may work better in different groups, but my perspective and suggestions are those of someone who's always worked with a fairly strict DM on balancing my own homebrewed content for his games.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I'm just making the point that it's easier to price an item if you make it as a customized variant of something that already exists rather than creating something entirely new.
Quite, and I don't disagree, but I think you're being too careful, and your comparisons aren't the best.

1) Energy aura is not only weak, it is not similar to dragon channeling. Look at an ability that is, like spell-storing. Spell-storing is a +1 ability, exactly what I proposed for lesser dragon channeling.

2) Instead of looking at potentially usable breath weapons only, look at finished character builds, some using dragon channeling, some using other ways to get high crossbow damage. Would this crossbow allow breath weapon+crossbow builds to outperform current DFI/Swift Hunter builds? No. This crossbow only allows DFAs to develop into a new direction, that of crossbow specialist.

DFAs have only half base attack, and no special affinity with ranged attacks.
Dragons aren't proficient with crossbows, and it's doubtful they can wield them in any case. Their breath weapons are usable every 1d4 rounds, and all MM1 dragons with ECL < 21 have breath weapon damage below 10d6. Even setting LAs to 0 would put maximum breath weapon damage at 10d10, a lower per-round average than a DFA.
Dragon shamans have 3/4 base attack, and they have to wait 1d4 rounds between breath weapon uses.
The dragon breath spell has the same 1d4 round limit, and only deals up to 10d8 damage per use at CL 20.

Overall, while breath weapons with full channeling can achieve slightly higher pure damage bonuses than DFI or Swift Hunter builds, they require huge investment, and they lose bab, attack bonus, and class features.