Deconstructing Taulmaril

[Quertus]

Taulmaril, aka Heatseeker, aka the energy bow, but most commonly known as Hank's Bow, is an understandably popular choice in archer build threads. For the low, low price of 22.6k, it gives 2d6 base damage dynamic strength bonus infinite ammo force damage(!) ranged Power Attack sheds light and is a +2 weapon.

Wow.

So, my question is, how much does each of those contribute to the price?

A +2 weapon clocks in at 8k, the base masterwork composite bow is 400 gold, and shedding light is free.

But what about the other 14.2k? Can we reasonably assign a value to any of Taulmaril's other attributes, to say create a swordmade of a shard of Force, or an orcish shotput that allows and enables ranged Power Attack? Can we do the math to allow characters to build their own custom weapons, or must archers continue stealing Hank's Bow?

For the low, low price of 22.6k, it has 400 masterwork bow ??? 2d6 base damage 1k dynamic strength bonus ??? infinite ammo ??? force damage(!) ??? ranged Power Attack 0 sheds light 8k and is a +2 weapon.

That's 13.2k unaccounted for (or one of them costs a +1, and 3.2k unaccounted for).

[DarkSoul]

Taulmaril and Hank's bow are two completely different weapons. You're talking about Hank's bow here.

You can get the dynamic strength bonus by deconstructing the Bow of the Wintermoon relic from the MIC. Power shot is a class ability for Peerless Archer (Silver Marches). Force damage is a +1 or +2 ability; MIC again. Damage increase could be charged as a size increase, possibly at a premium since the weapon isn't actually bigger. I think the only problem is infinite ammo, but I wouldn't call that more than a +1 enchantment. Check the pricing on the Quiver of Plenty (Dragon Compendium) and you'll see why I say that.

[hamishspence]

I got the impression that Taulmaril came with a quiver of plenty in the book - after they notice the number of arrows in the quiver go from 19 immediately after the shot, back up to 20, they say "So the quiver has some magic, too."

[Crichton]

Taulmaril and Hank's bow are two completely different weapons. You're talking about Hank's bow here.


While true that they're different, they're similar enough that when asked about Taulmaril in the old 'Ask Wizards' column, the answer immediately started describing Hank's bow, here:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20061227a



As noted, Taulmaril is styled in similar fashion to the magic bow possessed by D&D Cartoon's Hank the ranger.



And then goes on to show the stats for Hank's bow.

[Quertus]

Well, it appears that I've fallen for someone else's mistake. :smallredface: Yes, I'm asking about Hank's bow, and trying to account for / itemize its price.


You can get the dynamic strength bonus by deconstructing the Bow of the Wintermoon relic from the MIC. Power shot is a class ability for Peerless Archer (Silver Marches). Force damage is a +1 or +2 ability; MIC again. Damage increase could be charged as a size increase, possibly at a premium since the weapon isn't actually bigger. I think the only problem is infinite ammo, but I wouldn't call that more than a +1 enchantment. Check the pricing on the Quiver of Plenty (Dragon Compendium) and you'll see why I say that.

If I went this route, and someone wanted Hank's bow, but only +1, and without force damage or infinite ammo, it would have a negative price. So they could just preorder a few thousand, "pay" half upfront, and retire. :smallamused:

Plus, have some nice bows to equip their guards when the Wizard finishes them a few years ago.

[DarkSoul]

While true that they're different, they're similar enough that when asked about Taulmaril in the old 'Ask Wizards' column, the answer immediately started describing Hank's bow, here:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20061227a





And then goes on to show the stats for Hank's bow.I disagree that they're similar. Taulmaril is, officially, a +3 keen force elven longbow. Hank's bow could have been the inspiration for it, but barring the force damage, in my opinion they're quite different.


If I went this route, and someone wanted Hank's bow, but only +1, and without force damage or infinite ammo, it would have a negative price. So they could just preorder a few thousand, "pay" half upfront, and retire.No, they'd pay for a +1 longbow with dynamic strength (which was somewhere between 1000 and 2000 gold IIRC from my own deconstruction of the Wintermoon bow), a virtual size increase for, imo, another 1-2k or charge it as a +1. It also gives the equivalent of Power Attack for the weapon, which should cost around 10k. How you'd adjust that cost for the fact that it's on a ranged weapon is up to you. Personally I might go down to around 8k but no lower than that.

There's a reason everyone wants Hank's bow: it's both ridiculously good and stupidly undercosted.

[Quertus]

No, they'd pay for a +1 longbow with dynamic strength (which was somewhere between 1000 and 2000 gold IIRC from my own deconstruction of the Wintermoon bow), a virtual size increase for, imo, another 1-2k or charge it as a +1. It also gives the equivalent of Power Attack for the weapon, which should cost around 10k. How you'd adjust that cost for the fact that it's on a ranged weapon is up to you. Personally I might go down to around 8k but no lower than that.

There's a reason everyone wants Hank's bow: it's both ridiculously good and stupidly undercosted.

Is the article wrong there, too - is it really only +1?

Do you have a link to your deconstruction of the Wintermoon bow? Is said bow even worth looking at in this context?

[DarkSoul]

No, it's something I just did for personal use, but I noticed that the relics seem to be priced according to their basic abilities rather than their "attuned" ones, for those with the True Believer feat or who sacrifice a spell slot.

I'll look at it again when I have my books at hand. As far as whether the Wintermoon bow is worth considering, I'd put it right behind Hank's bow for the dynamic strength because they're the only two bows that explicitly scale. You can exactly duplicate Taulmaril with standard enchantments, Hank's and Wintermoon you can't.

[Quertus]

As far as whether the Wintermoon bow is worth considering, I'd put it right behind Hank's bow for the dynamic strength because they're the only two bows that explicitly scale. You can exactly duplicate Taulmaril with standard enchantments, Hank's and Wintermoon you can't.

I thought that there were several with scaling strength, including one in the elh.

Also, "scaling strength" is the part I'm personally most interested in pricing. On top of the standard reasons, I hate taking extra penalties when my archer takes strength damage, and I hate lycanthrope (etc) archers needing two(+) bows to be optimal.

In point of fact, I once had an NPC lycanthrope claim strength damage when the party noticed the trouble he was having with his bow. I'm pretty sure that they thought that he had killed someone and taken their bow, or that he had gotten the bow as loot, and it's enchantments were just too sweet to sell, or some similar misinterpretation of his lie.

[DarkSoul]

Well, because of the wintermoon bow you have a good baseline value for the scaling strength. Its 3400 gold in the MIC, and is a plain +1 longbow. 400gp for the bow, 2k for the +1 is 2400, plus 1k for scaling strength gives you 3400.

[Fizban]

But what about the other 14.2k? Can we reasonably assign a value to any of Taulmaril's other attributes, to say create a swordmade of a shard of Force, or an orcish shotput that allows and enables ranged Power Attack? Can we do the math to allow characters to build their own custom weapons,
No. Specific weapons are a package deal. While the price to upgrade them is clear, the "price" of the other arbitrary abilities is arbitrary and often includes tons of phantom "oh well this isn't so strong by the time you can afford it" logic which is itself based on the stated/desired price of the Specific weapon by the author, sometimes even the fact that the base weapon is something like a club or spear rather than more powerful martial or exotic weapons, and can be further messed with by "updated" versions where a second author arbitrarily changed the abilities and/or price further.

Unless you can already easily duplicate the item by following a formula, indicating it was priced by formula, you shouldn't be allowing "characters to build their own custom weapons" based off of any specific weapons at all. Assuming you find Hank's Bow acceptable in the first place, they can get a Hank's Bow and upgrade it from there, but you can't peel off this or that and pretend it's actually justified. Any custom item with Specific abilities that isn't a direct formulaic upgrade from the existing Specific item (which was itself okay'd by the DM), is itself a brand new Specific item which much be okay'd by the DM separately.

And the DM should exercise significantly more caution than just "eh you found a way to bend some made up math to do what you want so it must be okay." Because evaluating what things will actually do to the game is the DM's job.

[Quertus]

Well, because of the wintermoon bow you have a good baseline value for the scaling strength. Its 3400 gold in the MIC, and is a plain +1 longbow. 400gp for the bow, 2k for the +1 is 2400, plus 1k for scaling strength gives you 3400.

Well, that's super helpful for my purposes. Thanks! :smallbiggrin:


No. Specific weapons are a package deal. While the price to upgrade them is clear, the "price" of the other arbitrary abilities is arbitrary and often includes tons of phantom "oh well this isn't so strong by the time you can afford it" logic which is itself based on the stated/desired price of the Specific weapon by the author, sometimes even the fact that the base weapon is something like a club or spear rather than more powerful martial or exotic weapons, and can be further messed with by "updated" versions where a second author arbitrarily changed the abilities and/or price further.

Unless you can already easily duplicate the item by following a formula, indicating it was priced by formula, you shouldn't be allowing "characters to build their own custom weapons" based off of any specific weapons at all. Assuming you find Hank's Bow acceptable in the first place, they can get a Hank's Bow and upgrade it from there, but you can't peel off this or that and pretend it's actually justified. Any custom item with Specific abilities that isn't a direct formulaic upgrade from the existing Specific item (which was itself okay'd by the DM), is itself a brand new Specific item which much be okay'd by the DM separately.

And the DM should exercise significantly more caution than just "eh you found a way to bend some made up math to do what you want so it must be okay." Because evaluating what things will actually do to the game is the DM's job.

I mean, I cannot deny the likelihood that the designers were idiots, and did just that. But that is not the 3e formulaic way. This my (and players', and my GMs') desire to get at the presumed underlying formula, if possible.

[Fizban]

I mean, I cannot deny the likelihood that the designers were idiots, and did just that.
Gave items prices they thought were appropriate, as the DMG says they should? If you like almost anything from Magic Item Compendium, then you're using fiat priced items. 'Cause that's basically the whole point of the book, that they went and took a ton of existing items and fiat'd the prices and abilities to whatever they thought were appropriate, with the explicit goal of getting players to want them rather than any higher perspective.

But that is not the 3e formulaic way. This my (and players', and my GMs') desire to get at the presumed underlying formula, if possible.
The "formulaic way" isn't 3.x either, not when the DMG is abundantly clear on how those "formulas" require a DM for item approval anyway. There is no presumption that everything is made from a formula, and specific items are priced however the writer feels like it. Hank's Bow was not made with a formula, and as has already been stated, trying to formula it out only reveals that the bow is massively underpriced the moment you look up the Force property (or feat items, or. . . )

Though, incidentally, if there's any formula being missed it's the +3 on the weapon table. There is no such thing as "force" damage (not in the base rules, not in Rules Compendium, not even in the Force property- only in the lazy descriptions of certain spells and abilities), and Hank's Energy Bow does not have the Force property. Nor does it claim to deal "force damage". All it does there is ignore incorporeal miss chance, which makes it the equivalent of the Ghost Touch property. If properly rated as a +3 total weapon, the remainder is 4,000gp, minus 1,000 if you want to count Bow of the Wintermoon as a pricing for str adjust.

Now you just need to account for an extra +2.5 untyped damage (another near +1 equivalent), and a feat that doesn't exist, in the remaining 3,000, when the cheapest explicit feat cost is 10,000 in AaEG, and the damage could run anywhere from 3,000 to 15,000 depending on what you're comparing. And that's it, you're done. Hank's Bow is not priced according to anything but fiat, there is no formula. Someone made it up, same as someone else made up every other specific item (and the vaunted "formulas") in the first place.

Either you decide that pile of abilities is worth a small amount of gp, or that they're only allowed as a package deal as Hank's Bow, or that Hank's Bow itself is underpriced and requires a change. You cannot attempt to reconcile the differences between fiat rules with a formula when the whole point of a fiat ruling is that it is made with no regards to any "formula." If you subtract formula price and abilities and are left with a price too small for the remaining abilities, then you can't use that item as justification for a new formula price, there is no "new formula" to find. You've just got a fiat specific item.

It's entirely possible that there's missing information too. The text says Hank can use the bow to make power shots, reminding us that this was written for no other reason than to realize a specific cartoon character. Said specific character might very well have Power Attack on their feat list, and that could be why the writer apparently didn't think it was worth much- because it was just expanding use of an existing character ability. This is still a pretty significant ability which is completely impossible otherwise, but maybe the writer didn't think so (after all, this is the age of 2:1 power attack or you're garbage). Or the original text could have been such that Hank and only Hank could do that and the writer never meant the bow to do it for everyone, but whoever posted it to ask wizards took that text and folded it in anyway (though even I find this unlikely). Either could justify dramatically different costs.


Now, if you want what I'd say the unique abilities are actually worth-

Dynamic str bonus is worth as much damage as a character with a changing str bonus will get out of it. Typically this is +2 for rage or Bull's Str, but could be as high as +4 or more if they're shapeshifting or using Bite of the X. Alternatively they could have bought the full str bonus and then eat the -2 when their str isn't maxed. Unless I'm expecting shenanigans I'd probably make it 2,000, otherwise it jumps to 8,000 (approaching Exotic: Bone Bow or +2 esoteric bonus pricing), or a full +1 bonus.

2d6 base damage is a size increase, if Strongarm Bracers are a thing then that's at least 8k, which is a steal compared to a Quiver of Energy. A +1 bonus cost is appropriate again here. Generally I just wouldn't allow it.

Infinite ammo is odd. Efficient quiver is actually terrible for arrows (much better for spears, staves, polearms), but any other storage item can hold a ton. Dedicated arrow storage ought to hold as much as you'll ever need in the same 2-3k range, and infinite ammo is just arrow storage that can't hold arrows you find.

Power shot: not a weapon ability, just make a feat. If you want it on items for cheap because the archers need it so bad, then I expect to see maces of Power Attack on all the clerics.

[Quertus]

@Fizban - OK, granted, it's Fiat all the way down. At some point, the answer is because some designer decided so.

But, just because some designer decided so for Magic cards or Pokemon, and they're all Fiat at some level, doesn't mean that my Fiat deck of cards I printed in my basement carries the same weight as a "real" deck, even if my cards are better balanced.

As much as I may disagree with RAW pricing, "balance", etc, my goal is nonetheless to determine how much of RAW can be reverse engineered.

Still, good call on pointing out the explicit call to GM judgement. If it comes up again, I'll aim to not only be ready with what RAW pricing the Playground can divine, but with the proposition for the GM/table to price arbitrary enchantments to craft a truly unique, one of a kind custom bow.

I'd love to see the custom bow whose flaming arrows burned through mist, provided light, and set the target on fire. The wind bow that did knockback, ignored wind penalties, and cut through wind wall spells. The plant bow that acted as a single-target Entangle effect. Or, **** yeah, the Bow of Wonder, where each arrow had a different random effect!

I would love to play in a game where the GM didn't feel limited to published enchantments. Or maybe even one where the pricing was based entirely on how much the GM/table thought that the character needed a power boost - although that risks favoritism.

But this thread is simply about divining RAW by deconstructing Hank's Bow.

[Quertus]

I just had another thought about this topic - one that I hope can help make this thread make more sense to those who just want to call "Fiat pricing" or "it's a bundle deal" - suppose someone wants to further enchant the bow, say with Flaming. OK, does that cost 10k, to go from a +2 to a +3, or does one of those powers count as a +1 enchantment, necessitating a 14k price tag to go from +3 to +4?

Sure, we could just keep playing "Fiat pricing", just like we could just hand out levels whenever we felt like one of the PCs needed a Power-Up*. But my tables seem to prefer not to reinvent the wheel, and drive pre-made cars whenever possible.

* Note that I have suggested just that in threads in the past, and I don't recall a single Playgrounder lauding it as an innovative improvement to elf games.

[DarkSoul]

I just had another thought about this topic - one that I hope can help make this thread make more sense to those who just want to call "Fiat pricing" or "it's a bundle deal" - suppose someone wants to further enchant the bow, say with Flaming. OK, does that cost 10k, to go from a +2 to a +3, or does one of those powers count as a +1 enchantment, necessitating a 14k price tag to go from +3 to +4?Force is a +2 enchantment. Adding anything else starts at +4 and goes up.

[Quertus]

Force is a +2 enchantment. Adding anything else starts at +4 and goes up.

At 22.6k, Hank's Bow costs less than the 32k of a +2 Force Bow (and is strictly better, no? Actually, the one I remember costs +3, and could break Wall of Force, so not strictly better?).

Of course, most would say the same about Wizard 12 vs Monk 20, so balance isn't exactly 3e's strong suit.

[Fizban]

I just had another thought about this topic - one that I hope can help make this thread make more sense to those who just want to call "Fiat pricing" or "it's a bundle deal" - suppose someone wants to further enchant the bow, say with Flaming. OK, does that cost 10k, to go from a +2 to a +3, or does one of those powers count as a +1 enchantment, necessitating a 14k price tag to go from +3 to +4?
If you want the RAW answer, then a Specific weapon with only +2 in named and numbered abilities is only a +2 in named and numbered abilities, so 10,000. As you were aware.

But as I already pointed out, Hank's bow is clearly fulfilling the primary effect of Ghost Touch. Which means there is no great imposition in ruling that it is clearly a +3 weapon and modifications will be priced accordingly. Whether or not the DM chooses to do so should be based on how much they and their campaign value ignoring incorporeal miss chances.

The RAW answer on subdividing the specific abilities is "ask the DM." It is best to have suggestions prepared before asking the DM, so yeah, go ahead and pick your prices and make your case.

Sure, we could just keep playing "Fiat pricing", just like we could just hand out levels whenever we felt like one of the PCs needed a Power-Up*. But my tables seem to prefer not to reinvent the wheel, and drive pre-made cars whenever possible.
Not a great analogy considering how you're asking for the opposite of a pre-made car by rejecting the pre-made specific items, and instead trying to use them to justify prices for custom items.

[Quertus]

Not a great analogy considering how you're asking for the opposite of a pre-made car by rejecting the pre-made specific items, and instead trying to use them to justify prices for custom items.

Touché.


It's funny that you say that, because the Energy Bow as well as the other special items in that adventure are a DM gift to Hank and the others, to give them the special power from the show.

Well, Hank's Bow has a listed price, and anyone making an archer will get told to use Hank's Bow... and, IIRC, the DMG recommends setting a price for all custom items you create. So I'm missing the punchline.