Need some help understanding Weapon Abilities

[Aune]

Right so I'm the DM for a 3.5 game for an artificer. We're currently trying our best to parce the 3.5 weapon enchanting rules in regards to special abilities.

He is currently a level 9 artificer so I understand he can make a weapon with a +3 which is fine. The confusion comes with how many maximum total special abilities could he add to this +3 weapon. I understand that the abilities are in no way dependent upon the enhancement bonus beyond it having to at least be +1.

I just want to know what's stopping him, if anything from... say making a +3 shocking burst magebane wounding weaking weapon with like... a total cost of a +9 weapon. If it's legal by the rules then I'm all for it. The guy has the gold and the craft reserve saved up for it I just want to know if it's legal.

[Tzardok]

The maximum total enhancement bonus on a weapon is +10. You can add as many weapon abilities as you can pay for and qualify to make as long as the total doesn't go beyond +10.

[Morphic tide]

Right so I'm the DM for a 3.5 game for an artificer. We're currently trying our best to parce the 3.5 weapon enchanting rules in regards to special abilities.
Minor terminology quibble, it's stayed "enhancing" to avoid ambiguity with the Enchantment school, that preserves the original meaning.


He is currently a level 9 artificer so I understand he can make a weapon with a +3 which is fine. The confusion comes with how many maximum total special abilities could he add to this +3 weapon. I understand that the abilities are in no way dependent upon the enhancement bonus beyond it having to at least be +1.
He should be limited to CL 11 qualities (the "do basically whatever item you want" feature also lets you do under-CL items), so things like the energy Burst qualities, Vorpal, or Spell Storing are off the table.


I just want to know what's stopping him, if anything from... say making a +3 shocking burst magebane wounding weaking weapon with like... a total cost of a +9 weapon. If it's legal by the rules then I'm all for it. The guy has the gold and the craft reserve saved up for it I just want to know if it's legal.
An important thing to note is that Craft Reserve is supposed to reset to the new number regardless of remainder, not add, so you have to churn through a lot of Retain Essence fodder to be "saving up" with it. It's a perfectly understandable houserule to switch to adding the difference given the effectively mandatory downtime, but it's even weirder than all the arguments Psionics augmentation leads to.

[Aune]

An important thing to note is that Craft Reserve is supposed to reset to the new number regardless of remainder, not add, so you have to churn through a lot of Retain Essence fodder to be "saving up" with it. It's a perfectly understandable houserule to switch to adding the difference given the effectively mandatory downtime, but it's even weirder than all the arguments Psionics augmentation leads to.

More like the party figures it is more efficient to just give their artificer magic items to break down instead of selling them for gold and buying it. Part of the reason he's so keen on burning through his reserves now is in fact because a level up is incoming.

[Morphic tide]

More like the party figures it is more efficient to just give their artificer magic items to break down instead of selling them for gold and buying it. Part of the reason he's so keen on burning through his reserves now is in fact because a level up is incoming.
Brought it up because given you're unclear on what's craftable, you might have misread how Craft Reserve operates. Doing this does technically lose overall wealth as you're not returning GP, but keeping the Artificer on-pace and having exactly as desired items can be worth quite a lot of this. Granted, if the Artificer actually has the 4k craft reserve and access to 100k GP in liquidity (that is, GP plus GP value of trade goods plus sales value in other items, maybe loans if you're using those rules) for a 200k item like a +10 weapon, then you're talking a long time waiting for that to clear at 1k market price per day.

This is why the Dedicated Wright is a must-have, because it lets you avoid the rapidly-escalating crafting days being a downtime shackle.

[Aune]

Brought it up because given you're unclear on what's craftable, you might have misread how Craft Reserve operates. Doing this does technically lose overall wealth as you're not returning GP, but keeping the Artificer on-pace and having exactly as desired items can be worth quite a lot of this. Granted, if the Artificer actually has the 4k craft reserve and access to 100k GP in liquidity (that is, GP plus GP value of trade goods plus sales value in other items, maybe loans if you're using those rules) for a 200k item like a +10 weapon, then you're talking a long time waiting for that to clear at 1k market price per day.

This is why the Dedicated Wright is a must-have, because it lets you avoid the rapidly-escalating crafting days being a downtime shackle.

The Party is pretty rich honestly (in part because of this player deciding to be a merchant). I'm not really running some grand adventure with this group and am just letting them play sandbox in my setting. The plot is essentially them building up a small kingdom in a monster infested land Kingmaker style and the artificer basically saved up all of his character wealth for 4 levels to buy and then upgrade an airship.

I just wasn't clear on the language of weapon abilities because frankly the DMG doesn't have the cleariest of languages in regards to weapon abilities. It at most uses 1 ability at a time in its example cases and gives no context on how to handle multiple special abilities on a weapon.

[tyckspoon]

The Party is pretty rich honestly (in part because of this player deciding to be a merchant). I'm not really running some grand adventure with this group and am just letting them play sandbox in my setting. The plot is essentially them building up a small kingdom in a monster infested land Kingmaker style and the artificer basically saved up all of his character wealth for 4 levels to buy and then upgrade an airship.

I just wasn't clear on the language of weapon abilities because frankly the DMG doesn't have the cleariest of languages in regards to weapon abilities. It at most uses 1 ability at a time in its example cases and gives no context on how to handle multiple special abilities on a weapon.

Yeah, you just add all the total + equivalents together and use the appropriate line in the item costs table.

Worth remembering you don't have to create an item all in one go, either, which becomes very relevant when you're looking at a 162k value weapon that would take almost half a year to craft - you can make it stages and just pay the difference between values as you go.

[Forrestfire]

He should be limited to CL 11 qualities (the "do basically whatever item you want" feature also lets you do under-CL items), so things like the energy Burst qualities, Vorpal, or Spell Storing are off the table.

Note: the listed caster levels for magic items and weapon special abilities are "expected level this is found at," not "minimum CL to craft."

Flaming burst says this:


Strong evocation; CL 12th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor and flame blade, flame strike, or fireball; Price +2 bonus.

You can craft it at any CL of 3 or higher (because you need a +1 enhancement, and a +1 enhancement requires CL 3).

Spell storing says this:


Strong evocation (plus aura of stored spell); CL 12th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, creator must be a caster of at least 12th level; Price +1 bonus.

This one is actually a hard restriction; you have to be at least CL 12 in order to craft it.

Vorpal says this:

Strong necromancy and transmutation; CL 18th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, circle of death, keen edge; Price +5 bonus.

No CL restriction, though you may have issues emulating the higher-level circle of death spell as a low-level artificer, and the WBL cost would be the most significant gate.

[Darg]

Note: the listed caster levels for magic items and weapon special abilities are "expected level this is found at," not "minimum CL to craft."

Flaming burst says this:



You can craft it at any CL of 3 or higher (because you need a +1 enhancement, and a +1 enhancement requires CL 3).

Spell storing says this:



This one is actually a hard restriction; you have to be at least CL 12 in order to craft it.

Vorpal says this:


No CL restriction, though you may have issues emulating the higher-level circle of death spell as a low-level artificer, and the WBL cost would be the most significant gate.

Magic weapons and armor specifically mention you must meet the caster level of the ability or enhancement bonus, whichever is higher. All other magic items don't have this requirement.

[Forrestfire]

Magic weapons and armor specifically mention you must meet the caster level of the ability or enhancement bonus, whichever is higher. All other magic items don't have this requirement.

Per the errata for page 215 of the DMG, "the minimum caster level is that which is needed to meet the prerequisites given."

For flaming burst, that's CL 3 (the minimum CL for flame blade). For spell storing, it's CL 12 (the listed prerequisite). For vorpal it's CL 11 (the minimum CL for circle of death). These are separate from the CLs given in the item descriptions.

It's weird and circuitous, yes, but what in 3.5 isn't... :smalleek:

[Darg]

Per the errata for page 215 of the DMG, "the minimum caster level is that which is needed to meet the prerequisites given."

For flaming burst, that's CL 3 (the minimum CL for flame blade). For spell storing, it's CL 12 (the listed prerequisite). For vorpal it's CL 11 (the minimum CL for circle of death). These are separate from the CLs given in the item descriptions.

It's weird and circuitous, yes, but what in 3.5 isn't... :smalleek:

You can have a caster level of 0 and still cast the spells using UMD. Nothing says that the caster level requirement is based on the spells required for the creation of the item. The errata (which is actually much more confusing than the sentences it claims are confusing) does not change the special prerequisites magic armor and weapons have:


Creating magic armor has a special prerequisite: The creator’s caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the armor. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability, the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met.

They were written with the original intentionality in mind. As the errata doesn't actually remove that intentionality and rather obfuscated it instead, there's no reason to believe that the rule was actually changed.

[Aune]

Seems my confusion on this topic was warrented if there's this much confusion about even the errata.

Glad I made this thread then so others can google search it and use it for their own reference.