Allowing (element) burst weapons to "shoot" the elemental damage?

[Eladrinblade]

Say I want to houserule that a flaming burst longsword can shoot the flaming damage as a ranged-touch attack out to 20/40/60ft or whatever; just the 1d6 fire damage (no crit, no sneak attack, no damage bonuses). Can do this instead of a regular sword attack. What do you think? It's "only" the 1d6 elemental damage, and the range is kinda short even for thrown weapons (especially if you compare it to distance/far shot), but its a touch attack and bypasses armor/nat armor/shields. Too much? No big deal?

[Lilapop]

Totally depends on the rider effects you can apply. And it sounds like you are the DM, and you won't allow any. That makes it close to worthless (or rather, as you seem to be handing it out for free, meaningless).

As a character who can afford an 18k gp weapon, I'd rather spend two turns to dig through my backpack and put on my ring of fly 1/day, and then one turn to fly over and attack once with my sword, than spend three turns to shoot 1d6 fire damage three times. Outside of unusual circumstances (like, say, the "button" to make the magic bridge appear is lighting the magic brazier on the other side), it simply isn't worth my time.

[icefractal]

Definitely not OP, would be underpowered if it wasn't a free addition. As Lilapop mentions, not something characters will use in most circumstances.

If it carried Sneak Attack, it'd be worthwhile for Rogues. More expensive than a Wand of Produce Flame, but at higher levels I could see it being used.

To make it an at-all-worthwhile attack for most martials, it needs to do more than 1d6 - because by the time you've got a +3 weapon, that's really not going to cut it. I'd say:
1) Add the weapons enhancement to attack and damage as normal.
2) Apply some stat to damage. Strength might not make sense because it's non-physical, but what about Con? Makes sense if the wielder's vitality is powering the weapon (as it does for breath weapons), and is going to be decent for most weapon-users.
3) Can do whatever things are applicable to a ranged attack.

It's still going to be a secondary choice generally, since people whose primary weapon is melee tend to do best in melee, but it could be a decent backup. And [Energy] Burst definitely does need some help, it's really not worth it as-is.

[Silly Name]

Compare to Flame Tongue:

This is a +1 flaming burst longsword. Once per day, the sword can blast forth a fiery ray at any target within 30 feet as a ranged touch attack. The ray deals 4d6 points of fire damage on a successful hit.

Even this is a pretty underpowered ability, mostly because of the once per day limitation.

Just to be clear, since you say I could shoot energy in place of a normal sword attack, does that mean I can do a full attack, or is each shot a standard action? If it's the former, it'd be an ok-ish ranged option for those times I end my turn just a bit away from my target, otherwise my standard action is probably best spent doing something else at high levels, assuming I can't full attack in melee this turn.

You may want to boost the damage to 2d6 or 2d8: still not a big number but it's better than breaking out your old bow.

[Fizban]

The Nightblade of Arvandor in Book of Exalted Deeds, and the Talon Scepter in Magic Item Compendium, already provide two (wildly different in price, effect, and function) unlimited low damage ranged touch attack items. This proposal is cheaper than the Nightblade, but has no extra attacks. It doesn't compare at all to the Talon Scepter, but the Talon Scepter is ridiculous.

Allowing no crits is a very artificial limit: everything that uses an attack roll can crit. Allowing no sneak attack shows an awareness of sneak attack problems, but those problems don't come from this new weapon ability: the come from the Talon Scepter, or Gloves of The Uldra Savant, or Gloves of Lightning, or a Wand of Scorching ray, or Lesser Orb, or even Ray of Frost, or completely non-magical flasks.

You could probably get away with going as high as using the actual traditional burst die, the d10, and allowing extra blasts on BAB. Word it such that activating the item is its own full round action (which provokes AoOs), not a full attack that can benefit from Haste or Rapid Shot, and you have an effect with a built in but sharply limited natural scaling, which works better for proper weapon users, and gives them a chance at an option for things that have DR or possibly too much AC, assuming they're not also resistant to the energy type. If you really wanted to get fancy it could instead do one attack per point of threat range, with each attack dealing the given burst dice, so a scimitar gets three attacks ad 1d10 and a scythe gets one at 3d10, on the full round action.

But this quickly approaches a "why is this not its own weapon property?" question, since Burst is just fine as-is. The reason most people never use Burst weapons is that most people aren't using Scimitars with Improved Crit. Those that do can find that burst damage triggering on a a surprisingly high fraction of their attacks, and careful reading of the critical hit rules shows that burst damage works on "crit-immune" creatures, because they are immune to the extra damage from critical hits, but not the critical hit itself: the Burst damage still triggers, having nothing to do with the ignored multiplier, the same as the base 1d6 doesn't care about the ignored multiplier. So Burst weapons are a perfectly fine choice, if the DM isn't fielding energy resistant creatures, and actually function as an option for the classic rapier rogue to use against foes immune to sneak attack without committing to a Bane weapon. They don't need an extra energy blast- they need a note pointing out that only 18-20 and x4 weapons are ever made Burst, and that they are expected for use with the Improve Crit feat and thus underpowered without it (there are even weapon properties that fail to function entirely for people without the appropriate feat, which would get the point across much better).

[Eladrinblade]

Just to be clear, since you say I could shoot energy in place of a normal sword attack, does that mean I can do a full attack, or is each shot a standard action?

A full attack; any time you could make an attack with the sword, you could instead shoot energy from it. Well, not AoO's because its a ranged attack, but you get it. You could even split up a full attack; say you get three attacks, you could drop one enemy in melee with the first attack, then use the other two against a distant foe.

[icefractal]

Burst is just fine as-is. The reason most people never use Burst weapons is that most people aren't using Scimitars with Improved Crit.
That's where it's most suited, yeah, but let's look at the numbers.

For an example case. Ranger 10, and this is our "middle" favored enemy:
base damage = 4.5 (1d8) + 4 (favored enemy) + 3 (strength) = 11.5
base hit chance = 0.6 (60% pre-enhancement, this is arbitrary but seems like a reasonable common case)

+3 weapon = 14.1 per attack
+2 flaming weapon = 14.7 (unless fire resistant)
+1 flaming burst weapon = 13.9 (unless fire resistant)
+1 collision weapon = 14.8

It comes out worse than just normal Flaming, until the point where you're hitting on a '2' with most attacks and the additional bonus to hit doesn't matter.

The actual best case would be someone who's two-weapon fighting with no other bonuses to damage - no strength bonus, no sneak attack, no favored enemy. In which case, they don't sound like much of a melee character anyway, and it seems questionable to spend a lot on two +3 (at least) weapons for them.

Edit: Re-ran the numbers, think I had an error in there before.

[Fizban]

That's where it's most suited, yeah, but let's look at the numbers.

For an example case. Ranger 10, and this is our "middle" favored enemy:
base damage = 4.5 (1d8) + 4 (favored enemy) + 3 (strength) = 11.5
base hit chance = 0.7 (70%, this is arbitrary but seems like a common case)
The favored enemy is completely irrelevant, and your expected hit chance is surprisingly high. I assume you're running this through some automated damage calculator. Which rather ignores the much more exciting fluctuations of crit builds which are what draw people to them in the first place. The higher your base hit chance, the less often you threaten compared to your hits: with a 15-20, attacks that need a 10 (which will include a lot of attacks once you start making iteratives) threaten 50% of the time, resulting in a 1/4 chance to crit on that swing, while attacks that need a 15 threaten 100% of the time, with a 1/4 to confirm, for a net 1/16 chance to crit on that swing. But that's not what it feels like, because when the crit fisher is outmatched or making their low bonus attacks, what they notice is how often they threaten: when times are bad, random crits get better.


+3 weapon = 18.2 per attack
+2 flaming weapon = 20.2 (unless fire resistant, then 16.7)
+1 flaming burst weapon = 22.9 (unless fire resistant, then 15.3)
+1 collision weapon = 21.4

Seems pretty borderline, considering the risk of being negated by energy resistance. And this is a very favorable case - it's strictly worse for something like a high-strength single-weapon user.
So what you're saying is it beats the +3 weapon, it beats the +2 basic energy weapon, and it actually still beats the best damage property in the entire game which also multiplies on crits and is already known to be blatantly better than any of the PHB properties? Sounds like Burst weapons with Improved Crit are "powered" then, exactly where they should be, and despite being completely bogus Collision manages to come in just under the wire for pretending that it has lower damage in exchange for being untyped.

The actual best case would be someone who's two-weapon fighting with no other bonuses to damage - no strength bonus, no sneak attack, no favored enemy. In which case, they don't sound like much of a melee character anyway, and it seems questionable to spend a lot on two +3 (at least) weapons for them.
The relative percentage based on piling up a bunch of other bonuses doesn't matter, and you're the one who picked a TWF character. And I just said that it's a potential use for rogues vs undead and such, when rogues specifically aren't getting sneak attack, and are not usually strength builds, and yet often seem to think they are melee classes.

Are burst weapons going to look good next to forum char-op builds? No, because no weapon property looks good next to any of that, except maybe Collision. If you expect TWF blender or always on favored enemy or uberchargers or splitting bows, obviously Burst weapons are going to look bad. They're a core DMG property that was written back when crit boosters stacked and every martial character took Improved Crit because there were only so many feats in the PHB and people loved crits, being compared to builds specifically designed and assumed to get all their damage all the time every time.

[icefractal]

The favored enemy is completely irrelevant, and your expected hit chance is surprisingly high.So first off, I believe I had an error previously, I just re-calculated the numbers and they came out significantly lower this time. I also lowered the hit chance to 60%, which does seem more likely for TWF.

Second, favored enemy is in there because we're talking about who would be using a crit-based build in core. Crits don't synergize with Sneak Attack, and the extra damage from Flaming is dwarfed when considering a two-handed Power Attack type, so TWF Ranger seemed like the most favorable environment for it. Also, this is without considering damage overflow (landing a crit on a low-hp foe).

Here's the comparison for a different character, a Barbarian with a falchion (also 15-20 with Improved Crit):
Hit = 0.45 (we started with 70%, then Power Attack for 5)
Damage = 2d4 + 12 strength + 10 power attack = 27

Results:
+3 weapon = 23.4
+2 flaming = 22.66
+1 flaming burst = 20.775
+1 collision = 21.45

I mean, I don't deny that big crits are fun. But since they're not actually that powerful, it doesn't seem like a balance problem to add something extra to those weapon properties.