What are the ways for a magic weapon to function against ALL ENEMIES?

[Gavinfoxx]

Metalline? Sure-Striking? Morphing? Ghost Touch? Swarmfighting? How many methods of solving this problem are there and how do these enhancements and similar ones (I'm sure I'm missing several!) stack up?

[Buufreak]

Metalline. Hands down. The only one I can think is truly better is that hell razor thing from bovd that just auto ignores all DR.

[Gavinfoxx]

Isn't there a super-metalline somewhere? Also, my question is what do you have to combine to get 100% coverage, no exceptions?

[Buufreak]

Isn't there a super-metalline somewhere? Also, my question is what do you have to combine to get 100% coverage, no exceptions?

That... did not come across clearly.

Regardless, hell razor thing gives no damns, and clearly ignores any and all DR.

[Gavinfoxx]

Found it!

Shadow Striking, Tome of Magic. Seems better than Metalline and Sure-Striking, perhaps?

[The Viscount]

Transmuting costs +2, and you have to hit the target and accept the reduced damage in the first round. The next round it has all properties you'd need to overcome DR of the target for 10 rounds. It's a bit annoying to activate, but if you're looking to pierce all DR but /- no matter what, this'll do it.

[Gavinfoxx]

What about against Regeneration and Fast Healing? There's a Trollbane or something, right? That wasn't a weapon oil I mean.

Also, any way to interact to/from/with the Ethereal plane and Ethereal creatures? Any anti Blink options? Anti cloud-form options? Also, how good is Psychokinetic for the Force damage? A&EG's Force option?

Also, is there any weapon property in 3.5 or PF1 that interferes with fast healing or regeneration?

[NotASpiderSwarm]

Novice Stone Dragon Belt lets you ignore all DR, including DR/-, on 1 attack per combat.

You need a weapon that isn't slashing or bludgeoning for underwater, and a weapon that isn't piercing or slashing for Swarms. That means either a Gnome Hooked Hammer or a Morphing weapon, since methods of overcoming DR don't help with that. You CAN use Aquan(MIC, 2,000 GP) and Swarmstrike(Dungeonscape, +1), which work if you're attacked by a swarm while underwater, but Morphing has enough other advantages that I'd recommend it instead.

Ghost Touch isn't the only way to hit incorporeal creatures, making yourself incorporeal works too. There's also a salve of the effect(Ghostwall Shellac, Dungeonscape, 150 GP), which even used repeatedly is cheaper than adding another +1 to an already-overburdened weapon.

Illusion Bane lets you ignore illusion-based miss chance and dispel Illusions, which is huge for actually hitting spellcasters.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The soulbound weapon psychic warrior ACF (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a) allows you to custom-build your weapon's magical/psionic loadout each time you summon it. Note that you can mix and match things like metalline and morphing whenever you do so to fit the situation at hand.

[Gavinfoxx]

Would Dispelling or similar be needed for actually hitting caster monsters that self buff and low-op self-buffing casters?

Notaspiderswarm, is pearlsteel good enough for underwater fighting?

[Biggus]

Regardless, hell razor thing gives no damns, and clearly ignores any and all DR.

Angelwing Razor, BoVD p.120. It's a major artifact though.

Edit:



Also, is there any weapon property in 3.5 or PF1 that interferes with fast healing or regeneration?

Nearest thing I can think of is Energy Aura (MIC p.32) which does 1d6 of either acid, cold, fire or electric damage. It's a standard action to change the energy type though.

Edit2:

For projectile weapons, there's Force (MIC p.35) which overcomes ALL damage reduction.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

Would Dispelling or similar be needed for actually hitting caster monsters that self buff and low-op self-buffing casters?

Notaspiderswarm, is pearlsteel good enough for underwater fighting?

It's probably fine for actual play, since -2 damage isn't that big a deal compared to the standard multipliers people can stack, but you do run the risk of "what if I fight a DR/Adamantine enemy underwater?"

[Gavinfoxx]

Anything useful to mitigate hardness other than adamantine or starmetal?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Anything useful to mitigate hardness other than adamantine or starmetal?Power Attack. Lots and lots of Power Attack.

[Thurbane]

You could put a bunch of enchantments on a Dragonshard Pommel Stone, then switch it around on different weapons of different materials/damage types.

[tiercel]

How many different ways are there of being immune to (magic) weapon damage? That’s the real problem — even something like DR 15/— can be defeated with MOAR POWER ATTACK, and regeneration can be smacked with enough nonlethal damage with standard Weapon of Choice to achieve unconsciousness while someone grabs an appropriate attack form to coup-de-grace with (though the latter still requires a golf bag of backups, it’s not “have a single weapon of Hit Everything”).

Sure, being able to break all DR is nice, but just doing more damage is probably generally easier. Breaking regeneration is probably nicer but still workarounds exist. You really want to avoid pure “nope” situations most presumably

[Gavinfoxx]

Where do I find Pommel Stones?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You could put a bunch of enchantments on a Dragonshard Pommel Stone, then switch it around on different weapons of different materials/damage types.Aren't objects immune to mind-affecting effects? :smallamused:

[Thurbane]

Where do I find Pommel Stones?

Forge of War, page 121.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

How many different ways are there of being immune to (magic) weapon damage? That’s the real problem — even something like DR 15/— can be defeated with MOAR POWER ATTACK, and regeneration can be smacked with enough nonlethal damage with standard Weapon of Choice to achieve unconsciousness while someone grabs an appropriate attack form to coup-de-grace with (though the latter still requires a golf bag of backups, it’s not “have a single weapon of Hit Everything”).

Sure, being able to break all DR is nice, but just doing more damage is probably generally easier. Breaking regeneration is probably nicer but still workarounds exist. You really want to avoid pure “nope” situations most presumablyRepel Metal, Repel Wood, and Ironguard(SPC) are pretty scary options. There's special materials that would be unaffected(Riverine from Stormwrack, and I'm pretty sure the DMG and/or Frostburn have stats on Stone weapons), but Metalline won't give you that, so it would have to be the base weapon.

[tiercel]

Repel Metal, Repel Wood, and Ironguard(SPC) are pretty scary options. There's special materials that would be unaffected(Riverine from Stormwrack, and I'm pretty sure the DMG and/or Frostburn have stats on Stone weapons), but Metalline won't give you that, so it would have to be the base weapon.
Ooh, good points, plus Repel Metal is even Repel Metal or Stone, but you’re right about Frostburn: Blue Ice (p.80) would work, since it doesn’t count as wood, stone, or metal.

[Maat Mons]

Rapier of Unerring Direction is nice for its ability to ignore miss chances.

[Gavinfoxx]

So, removing the Eberron flavor... if I managed to make a Ferroplasm (3.0 PH, unupdated) Pommel Stone (let's call the price of a small object like that 500 gp worth of Ferroplasm and the work to etch it at such a small scale or whatever), and gave it some +1 ability... that means I could make any Masterwork melee weapon any +1 Whatever weapon for 3000 gp? For all those niche +1's? Provided the character is psionic or has Hidden Talent or whatever?

[Gruftzwerg]

Metalline? Sure-Striking? Morphing? Ghost Touch? Swarmfighting? How many methods of solving this problem are there and how do these enhancements and similar ones (I'm sure I'm missing several!) stack up?

imho none of them are worth to be on your main weapon. Unless your campaign has to deal with a certain type of enemies. And even than, it is hardly questionable to put any of them on your (main) weapon. Only Ghost Touch and Swarmstrike are ok if you really fight them constantly.

For every other regular campaign (imho more than 95% of the tables I've played) these things are totally worthless.

If you really build for high dmg, your dmg boosting stats/abilities on your weapon are more important (and effective) than some ability to overcome DR.

Only Ghost Thouch and Swarmstrike are different here since one forces your to deal with misschances, the other even with immunities. But unless you campaign resolves around these creature types your party caster should be dealing with these few encounters.

For anything else just raw dmg is king. Take a high dmg build, laugh at your enemies DR and just kill em in a single stirke. I would rather take +1 Collision which gives you straight +5 dmg on your attacks. Since for the most part of your carries most enemies have barely more DR it's not worth to go for specific weapons.

Imho just ignore all the regular DRs. For Immunities and misschances I would rather take a backup weapon or just rely on other team members for those few encounters. High dmg beats almost everything.

[Thurbane]

How many different ways are there of being immune to (magic) weapon damage?

Starmantle Cloak + Evasion can render you immune to magic weapon damage, on a successful reflex save (half damage on a failed save).

[the_tick_rules]

for melee weapons transmuting. it's a +2 property from the MIC, it requires one round after a hit to adjust but after that it bypasses any DR. For ranged weapon force, it's a +2 property from the MIC that turns projectiles into force damage, which bypasses so many things (not everything but a whole heck of a lot) There are also gauntlets of ghost fighting from the MIC that bypass incorporeal miss chance and even add d6 damage

[Gavinfoxx]

So if you wanted to combine (say), the various benefits of things like sure-striking, metalline, transmuting, and shadowstriking into a 'least adaptation, adaptation, and greater adaptation', what would be a reasonable way to do it and have the actual enhancements (say, make it a clean +1, +2, +3, with the higher ones being strictly superior) make sense? Possibly even including something like ghost touch or swarmfighting in the +3 variant?

[TheCount]

least: your weapon counts as magic and after the first strike changes to bypass DR/blunt, DR/piercing and DR/slashing
lesser: as least, except your weapon also magically transform into other materials to bypass material specific DR like silver, cold iron, adamantine, etc. it also deals its normal damage even to swarms.
Greater: as lesser, also overcomes aligment based DR. your weapon always count as ghost touch.

Maybe put "ignore 20% miss chance if your opponent has more substract that many from it" on the greater one?

[Bucky]

If you're only worried about coverage from a single weapon, it's probably better to have a ranged weapon and use specialty ammunition to cover the more esoteric vulnerabilities, than to try to have one melee weapon cover everything.

[Gavinfoxx]

least: your weapon counts as magic and after the first strike changes to bypass DR/blunt, DR/piercing and DR/slashing
lesser: as least, except your weapon also magically transform into other materials to bypass material specific DR like silver, cold iron, adamantine, etc. it also deals its normal damage even to swarms.
Greater: as lesser, also overcomes aligment based DR. your weapon always count as ghost touch.

Maybe put "ignore 20% miss chance if your opponent has more substract that many from it" on the greater one?

How about, for the first, "reduces effective object hardness by 5 ", then for the second enchantment, 10, then on the third enchantment, 20 on the second attack? And also, the first two last 1 minute (10 rounds), and the last stays changed for 1d4 minutes? And you still have the benefits of the base substance while transformed?

[Firechanter]

In 3.5 I typically used a low-budget combo as follows:
- Cold Iron weapon
- Bracers of Weaponry Arcane -> weapon counts as silver
- Ring of Adamantine Weaponry -> guess what

Even if you slap these properties onto other items and pay the 50% surcharge, it's still WAY cheaper than paying the +2 for Metalline especially in late game, doesn't cost any actions, and doesn't count (significantly) against your +10 weapon price cap.
For Alignment components there are spells, though Holy is generally not a bad pick for most campaigns anyway.

--

In Pathfinder it's even simpler, once you get the WBL really going you don't need to worry about special materials at all. A +3 weapon counts as Cold Iron or Silver; +4 counts as Adamantine, and +5 bypasses Alignment DR. Gotta say I really appreciate that, as it reduces the "golf bag syndrome".

[Thurbane]

If you're only worried about coverage from a single weapon, it's probably better to have a ranged weapon and use specialty ammunition to cover the more esoteric vulnerabilities, than to try to have one melee weapon cover everything.

What's that weird Eberron weapon that's basically a warhammer with a crossbow attached to the head? War Spikard? Here we go, Magic of Eberron p.138.

Would it work to have the hammer head made of one material, and the bolts/spikes made of another, or different enchantments on weapon and ammo? Looking at RAW, probably not.

[the_tick_rules]

In 3.5 I typically used a low-budget combo as follows:
- Cold Iron weapon
- Bracers of Weaponry Arcane -> weapon counts as silver
- Ring of Adamantine Weaponry -> guess what

Even if you slap these properties onto other items and pay the 50% surcharge, it's still WAY cheaper than paying the +2 for Metalline especially in late game, doesn't cost any actions, and doesn't count (significantly) against your +10 weapon price cap.
For Alignment components there are spells, though Holy is generally not a bad pick for most campaigns anyway.

--

In Pathfinder it's even simpler, once you get the WBL really going you don't need to worry about special materials at all. A +3 weapon counts as Cold Iron or Silver; +4 counts as Adamantine, and +5 bypasses Alignment DR. Gotta say I really appreciate that, as it reduces the "golf bag syndrome".

a viable method and definitely worth it if you can assemble it. I thought the weapons arcane were gloves though? oh and might I suggest adding blessed for consideration? it's a +1 property and it makes your weapon good aligned. it doesn't add 2d6 damage but it does auto-confirm all critical threats against evil targets.

[Thurbane]

In regards to the Gauntlets of Weaponry arcane: they cost 6,000gp. The Trueseilver weapon quality in Ghostwalk was updated to a flat +1000gp cost for an item in the 3.5 update, and achieves the same result.

Both have their own advantages: the gauntlets apply to any weapon you wield, while the weapon quality leaves your hands magic item slot free (and is cheaper)...

[Maat Mons]

An executioner's mace deals (Bludgeoning and Piercing) or (Bludgeoning and Slashing) damage. It's pretty good for dealing with damage-type DR.

[RNightstalker]

Truedeath Crystals from MIC will help with incorporeal foes.

[YellowJohn]

When gearing up high-level melee bruisers, I also recommend the Ring of Adamantine Touch/Gauntlets of Ghost Fighting (or Ghost Shroud) combo

I am often tempted to add an angelhelm (MIC) to bypass DR/good, but Holy/Blessed are good options in most campaigns.

Thanks for the heads-up on Truesilver :-)

[Thurbane]

While not a melee weapon, Hank's Energy Bow (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20061227a) is pretty good. It's force missiles explicitly ignore the miss chance for incorporeal creatures, and arguably the force missiles also bypass DR entirely (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?543137). You can also "power attack" with it, and it automatically adjusts to your Strength bonus.

[Gavinfoxx]

I vaguely remember there are elemental subtype damage reduction somewhere. And does force effects overcome the half damage taken by some swarms? And is Force the only thing that can hit Ethereal?

[Endarire]

This is our how party handled weapons and DR since we could craft them:

-Our melee guys had a main weapon made of Cold Iron or Alchemical Silver. Only against Constructs - of which we fought a small number - did we get a separate Adamantine weapon for each of them.

And, yes, our main goal was to deal more damage. DR didn't matter as much when we had Holy Axiomatic weapons.

[RSGA]

I think that the best way would be to make or find a way to more lastingly apply Ectoplasmic Form to the foe and then have Dissipater on your weapon. You now ignore all its DRs, ignore gear hardness if you feel like sundering, and if it wasn't immune to Criticals then you also boosted your damage by making every hit you land into a critical.