Lesser Enhancements (D&D 3.5) PEACH

[Frog Dragon]

Looking at the rules for magic item creation, it seems to me that while you can indeed add crystals and such to items, there still aren't much ways to make interesting low level magic weapons that have the magic as a part of them, instead of as a switch-out crystal. I don't know how truly needed this is, but I felt like making these. Options = Good for me.


Lesser Enhancements

A lesser enhancement functions similar to any other weapon enhancement seen in the Dungeon Master's Guide. However, a lesser enhancement only needs the base weapon to be of masterwork quality, instead of having a full +1 magical enhancement bonus. Lesser Enhancements also all have a set price, and are fairly cheap.
Lesser enhancements also do not penetrate DR/Magic, unless specifically stated to do so.

Weapons

List of Lesser Enhancements
Name|Description|Price (GP)
Fire Touch|Weapon deals +2 Fire damage|1250
Electric Touch|Weapon deals +2 Electricity damage|1250
Cold Touch|Weapon deals +2 Cold damage|1250
Acid Touch|Weapon deals +2 Acid damage|1250
Sonic Touch|Weapon Deals +2 Sonic Damage|1500
Brave|Weapon grants bonuses vs Fear effects|1000
Magical|Weapon counts as magical|500
Sanctified|Weapon penetrates DR/Good|500
Desecrated|Weapon penetrates DR/Evil|500
Chaotic|Weapon penetrates DR/Chaos|500
Lawful|Weapon penetrates DR/Lawful|500
Reactive|Weapon grants +1 to Initiative|500
Locked|Weapon difficult to use without command word|500
Lesser Bane|Bonuses against a creature type|1000

Weapon Enhancements
Acid Touch
A weapon with the Acid Touch property deals an additional point of acid damage in addition to any other damage it might deal.
Faint Evocation; CL 5, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Acid Arrow, Acid Fog or Acid Breath (SC); Price +1250

Brave
A weapon with the Brave property grants a +4 bonus to all saves against Fear effects. A character may not have the benefit of more than one brave weapon at a time.
Faint E; CL 4, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Remove Fear; Price +1000

Chaotic
A weapon with this property overcomes DR/Chaos.
Faint Transmutation; CL 3, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Align Weapon and creator must be non-lawful; Price +500

Cold Touch
A weapon with the Cold Touch property deals an additional point of cold damage in addition to any other damage it might deal.
Faint Evocation; CL 5, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Chill Metal or Chill Touch; Price +1250

Desecrated
A weapon with this property overcomes DR/evil.
Faint Transmutation; CL 3, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Align Weapon and creator must be non-good; Price +500

Electric Touch
A weapon with the Electric Touch property deals an additional point of electricity damage in addition to any other damage it might deal.
Faint Evocation; CL 5, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Shocking Grasp, Call Lightning or Lightning Bolt; Price +1250

Fire Touch
A weapon with the Fire Touch property deals an additional point of fire damage in addition to any other damage it might deal.
Faint Evocation; CL 5, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Heat Metal, Flame Blade, Fireball or Burning Hands; Price +1250

Lawful
A weapon with this property overcomes DR/Lawful.
Faint Transmutation; CL 3, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Align Weapon and creator must be non-chaotic; Price +500

Lesser Bane
A weapon with this property functions like a Bane weapon. However, it only grants a +1 bonus to effective enchantment bonus against the selected creature type (thereby overcoming DR/Magic), and only a +1d6 to damage.
Faitn Conjuration; CL 5, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Summon Monster I; Price +1000

Locked
A weapon with the Locked property inflicts a -2 penalty to all attack and damage rolls made with the weapon unless a command word is spoken by the wielder after bringing it to a position from where it may be drawn or attacked with.
Faint Abjuration; CL 3, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Alarm; Price +500[/B]

Magical
A weapon with the Magical property counts as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Faint Evocation; CL 3, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Magic Weapon; Price +500

Reactive
A weapon with this property grants a +1 to Initiative checks when kept on the body. A character may not have the benefit of more than one reactive weapon at a time.
Faint Transmutation; CL 3, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Nerveskitter or Sign (SC); Price +500

Sanctified
A weapon with this property overcomes DR/good.
Faint Transmutation; CL 3, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Align Weapon and creator must be non-evil; Price +500

Sonic Touch
A weapon with the Sonic Touch property deals an additional point of sonic damage in addition to any other damage it might deal.
Faint Evocation; CL 5, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Sonic Blast (SC); Price +1500

Note: Under this system, very low cost enchantments like Illuminating from MIC should be Lesser Enchantments.


So, here's a few. I welcome ideas for both names and the enhancements itself. I will likely make more, and make some for armors too. I just need ideas, which have been rather scarce recently, at least in my head.

Either way, I submit this for EACHing :smallsmile:

[JackMage666]

I would give Brave and Reactive a type bonus, so that it won't stack. I mean, someone could care around 10 daggers with the Reactive quality and get a +10 bonus to Initiative.

Other than they, they're fun. Not particularly useful, but fun. I'd probably carry a bundle of Burning and Zapping arrows for flavorful fun (Need something caught on fire? I got the arrow for that. Need some fish for dinner? Bet I can kill 6 with this arrow...)

[blackjack217]

Desecrated and consecrated effects should be switched in by opinion. Also do lesser enchantments make an item magical?

[Lateral]

Yeah, Desecrated should go through DR/Good, and Consecrated through DR/Evil. Same reason that Planetars have DR/Evil and Gelugons have DR/Good.

Also, maybe some that pass DR/Chaotic and DR/Lawful.

[T.G. Oskar]

You know, stuff like "Burning" and "Vitriolic" are just too awesome names to add to weapon special enhancements of this type.

You can just go with Fire Touch, Acid Touch, Cold Touch and stuff like that. If what you wanna do is mostly add 1 point of damage of the specified element...

Also: Lesser Bane. Weapon is treated as +1 higher and deals 1d6 points of damage when attacking a specified creature (specified on the weapon; thus, you can have a weapon of "Lesser Vermin Bane", for example).

Furthermore: why not allow the minor damage to multiply? At best, you could have 4 points of damage which are less than surprising, or +8 if you exploit weaknesses but then again that's roughly a pittance compared to the full weapon enhancement. I find that, for 1000 gp, what you get is not extremely good.

Aside from that, an alchemical weapon capsule costs a bit more, but also deals more damage than you'd otherwise get, and you can reduce costs by having Craft (alchemy) to recharge those capsules with acid or alchemist's fire. I'd say that you should consider reducing the price of most of these things, since what they offer is far too little for what you actually get. I mean, you get...a +1 to attack and defense for the same price, and for 3000 more XP you get something that on average deals MORE damage than what you get. 500 gp should be reasonable; everything else can also be half-price. ESPECIALLY Magical; for twice the price you get an actual magic weapon, while 300 gets you a masterwork which gets half the benefit of a magic weapon. So I'd slash all prices by half if only because you can get alternate ways to deal with most of the stuff you have here (for example, you can get a Sanctified weapon to deal damage that punctures DR X/evil, or you can get a flametouched iron weapon that works almost the same and almost for the same price).

[ForzaFiori]

Considering that any one of these would make a weapon magic, and therefor pass DR/magic, the "magical" enchantment should cost much less. 250 or so imho. definitely less than the other enchantments, that do the exact same thing and extra.

[Frog Dragon]

I halved the price of the "Magical" enchantment, changed the names of the elemental weapons and removed their multiplication causes, and added Chaotic and Lawful weapons.

I will write up the lesser bane shortly, but, a note about the anti-DR weapons. They are exactly right. A sanctified weapon is a weapon made by the forces of good to stab devils. A devil has DR x/Good. Therefore, the weapons are correctly made.

About Brave and Reactive. I'm fairly sure they already don't stack, for the same reason spells with untyped bonuses don't stack. Same source and all that jazz.

[Soulblazer87]

Actually... I think that untyped bonuses stack... Except when it's the same spell. But if it's two different ones, then it's fair game to stack them.

[Frog Dragon]

Actually... I think that untyped bonuses stack... Except when it's the same spell. But if it's two different ones, then it's fair game to stack them.
Yes, but if you have spell x with gives you y bonus to z, you don't get double the bonus if you cast the spell again. Same reason why carrying 10 Reactive Daggers would not work.

[Soulblazer87]

That is actually up to debate. Y'see, a rules-lawyer could claim that since it's two different daggers, then it's two different effects. One could even go so far as to have different spellcasters enchant the dagger and claim that it's two different casters= two different spells since magic could be very subjective.

I'm sure you got the point. Which is why it's better to just make things clear to avoid foolishness like that.

[Frog Dragon]

I have put this clause in both Reactive and Brave: "A character may not have the benefit of more than one (reactive/brave) weapon at a time."

[Debihuman]

I think I have a slight problem with creating a "magical" weapon without a bonus. Yes, you could do this. However, it conflicts with rules for creating a magical weapons. BTW, it should be ENHANCEMENTS not ENCHANTMENTS.

From the SRD:

"A magic weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus to have any of the abilities listed on Table: Melee Weapon Special Abilities or Table: Ranged Weapon Special Abilities."

I think this must be said: Lesser Enhancements cannot stack with normal weapon enhancements, and no more than 1 lesser enhancement may be placed on a weapon at a time.

Debby

[Frog Dragon]

The whole point of this homebrew is to create enchantments for low level characters, and this requires not requiring the +1 bonus. Nothing more needs to be said.

As for the enchantment/enhancement dealie, magical weapon qualities are often called enchantments, there should be no confusion.

I also don't really see the point of disallowing multiple lesser enchantments.

[Debihuman]

As for the enchantment/enhancement dealie, magical weapon qualities are often called enchantments, there should be no confusion.

Actually, they aren't. It's in the glossary. That some people confuse the two is understandable.

An enchantment is a spell; specifically it is a spell which affects the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior. All enchantments are mind-affecting spells. An enhancement affects the effectiveness of a weapon.


This creates +0 enhancements with minor abilities.

Debby

[ericgrau]

A regular +1's main benefit is already bypassing DR/magic. If it weren't for DR/magic it'd often be better to hold on to a masterwork weapon and later skip straight to a +2 equivalent weapon because a mere +1 damage isn't worth it. You provide almost the same thing at half the price. +1 acid damage is just as good 95% of the time. Against low level monsters even fire damage would usually be just as good. I'd increase the prices a bit.

And can the weapon be further upgraded? What happens to these enchantments if it does? Normally it costs 38,000 gp to get a +10 equivalent weapon for a measly +1d6 energy damage. That averages out to almost 11,000 gp per +1 energy damage at high levels. At lower levels the same thing comes for as low as 1,700 gp per point of energy damage and perhaps it would be lower if that was all the weapon had; at most 1,300 gp.

So 1,300 gp is the upper limit for the cost of most energy damages. Maybe I'd do 800-900 gp for bypassing DR/magic and an additional 1,000 gp for +1 energy damage for 1800-1900 gp total. Again it's almost as good as a +1 weapon. If the weapon is ever upgraded then I would force the player to upgrade into full abilities. For example a fire touch weapon must become a +1 flaming weapon when upgraded. A weapon that bypass DR/good must become holy, etc. I like the concept of having weapons that are more interesting than a +1 though.

[Frog Dragon]

In that case, I see your point, all instances of "Enchantment" switched to "enhancement".

Edit @ Ericgrau: It is a tricky issue. A +1 enhancement bonus is fairly worthless honestly, but given that it is required for other enhancements, I see where you're coming from. However, I would like to bring a certain item from the Draconomicon to your attention. Dragonfang Weapons, which grant a nonmagical +1 to elemental damage of the same type the dragon had when it still had its teeth. All for the low, low price of 600+weapon price gp (that includes masterworking).

I could work some sort of upgrade system into this, but it would require a bit more brainstorming. It may come later. Perhaps I should add something to the effect of higher level enhancements superceding the mini-versions.

Edit 2: What if I add a clause saying that as a standard, they do not bypass DR/magic, making the Magical enhancement and the Lesser Bane enhancements the exception? Would that work?

[Lateral]

Edit 2: What if I add a clause saying that as a standard, they do not bypass DR/magic, making the Magical enhancement and the Lesser Bane enhancements the exception? Would that work?

Yeah, that oughta help.

[Frog Dragon]

I added a +1 sonic damage enchantment. It costs a bit more than the others because sonic resistance or immunity is disproportionally rare.

[ericgrau]

Edit 2: What if I add a clause saying that as a standard, they do not bypass DR/magic, making the Magical enhancement and the Lesser Bane enhancements the exception? Would that work?
Ya, +1 to what Lateral said.

I think at low levels all energy resistances are rare. In fact, fire might be the best because of monsters like trolls and arguably lighting fires as a standard instead of a full round action. Heck cold could chill your drink, etc. But at a mere +250 gp for sonic I'm splitting hairs.

[Frog Dragon]

Ya, +1 to what Lateral said.

I think at low levels all energy resistances are rare. In fact, fire might be the best because of monsters like trolls and arguably lighting fires as a standard instead of a full round action. Heck cold could chill your drink, etc. But at a mere +250 gp for sonic I'm splitting hairs.
You can get force damage to your weapon for a +1 bonus. All you lose is a die size or 1 damage per hit on average. I don't think +250 for sonic is that bad.

[fendrin]

I like the concept, but crystals have a significant advantage over these:
weapon independence.

Say I have a MW battleaxe with a (least) Crystal of Acid Assault. Cost: 600g. I can use it with any masterwork weapon at the time cost of only two move actions. That means if I know I am going to be facing skeletons I can move it from my axe to a MW warhammer. For that matter, say we find a +1 battleaxe on a defeated foe. I can move my crystal to the new axe.

If instead I have a MW battleaxe with Acid Touch. Same effect, but it costs 400g more, and if I am facing skeletons I can't move it to my warhammer, and if I find a +1 battleaxe I have to choose between the +1 and the Acid Touch.

In order to make these options attractive to players, they need to have either the same price and a slightly larger bonus (say +2 instead of +1), or cost less.

This is the case with the Lesser Bane options. The equivalent crystals(e.g. fiendslaying) cost the same, but only add the damage, not to bonus to hit. That means that a player might choose the enhancement to get the +1 to hit even though they lose the versatility of weapon independence. If they find a weapon upgrade, they will likely hold onto the Lesser Bane weapon, as it is still clearly superior to a +1 weapon, but only against the correct creature type.

[Frog Dragon]

I modified them to cost a bit more, but have +2 bonuses.

[fendrin]

I modified them to cost a bit more, but have +2 bonuses.

Hmm... that certainly makes them more appealing. They now fill the gap between a least crystal and a lesser crystal or regular enhancement.

Out of curiosity, what level were you thinking these would start to come into play?

The +1 has been truly relegated to being a base for further enhancement; for the same cost you can have Sonic Touch and Magic for the same cost and 99% of the time that would exceed the benefit of having a +1 weapon.

I think the relative value of crystals versus enhancements has to do with how often you switch weapons and how often you replace (as opposed to upgrade) your weapons. Swapping and replacing favor crystals.

[wayfare]

I really like what you've done here!

A couple of possible additions:

An enhancement that gives you 5 feet of reach, or adds 5 feet to your reach.

An enhancement that makes poison Save DCs harder (+1 or +2 at most)

An enhancement that adds 1 point to sneak attack damage per die (not sure if this is a +0 enhancement, but its cool)