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Force weapon pricing

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Tiburon Silverflame		#21	[-]
Posts: 8178 (06/11/09 10:41:00) Enigma Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The augment crystal approach does work when the effect has relatively narrow utility, but here, I think the utility is not that narrow...either the "hit incorporeal" or "bypass DR" will apply rather often. By comparison to making the weapon adamantine...the comparison doesn't work, for the same reason. Making one's weapon adamantine certainly has no disadvantages, but it rarely gives an advantage. The force weapon effects give an advantage any time the DR is bypassed (which also covers every case where adamantine helps, as well as many more) OR against an incorporeal. It also makes every other material non-competitive, because special materials only bypass materials-related DR. Oh, and if we assume the force blade, as a magical effect, can't be sundered, then that eliminates the other occasional minor advantage. (Mithral's weight reduction so rarely is a factor, that I'm discounting it completely.) If you also give it a static cost increase, you don't limit whatever else is gonna be put onto it. I'd rather that this had a significant opportunity cost, by being a +2 or +3 MPB. That said, if you want to make it a "special material"...I'd suggest adapting the Cold Iron rule, that it's a "+1 MPB" because of the material. Heck, that makes more sense here than it, to me, than it does for cold iron.
Confused Jackal Mage		#22	[-]
Posts: 6733 (06/13/09 15:05:28) Iron Liege Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The augment crystal approach does work when the effect has relatively narrow utility, but here, I think the utility is not that narrow...either the "hit incorporeal" or "bypass DR" will apply rather often. The creators of the augment crystals would disagree with you, as the Ghost Touch augment crystal is only 5k, moderately priced for an augment. I agree that bypassing all DR is pretty significant, and would come up quite often, and I don't think a force weapon should do so. I also disagree that it should be unsunderable. As I formulated it before, it's immune to energy damage (or perhaps DD's mod where it's immune to any energy damage that doesn't destroy it outright), but I see no good reason for it to be immune to sundering in general. Consider it as disrupting the generator, when it has to work hard to maintain integrity against an assault. Actually, something that I think I might like is to give it a relatively low Hardness, like 5, and medium HP, but say that it's immune to any damage that doesn't destroy it outright. This way you can push it hard enough to overwhelm the effect, but if you don't it restores itself to full potency. This is sort of a different take on "tough to destroy" than what adamantine does, and I think it meshes well with the idea of a magical effect being projected from the hilt. That said, if you want to make it a "special material"...I'd suggest adapting the Cold Iron rule, that it's a "+1 MPB" because of the material. Heck, that makes more sense here than it, to me, than it does for cold iron. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Cold Iron just adds an extra 2k to any magical enhancements. There's no magical bonuses, effective or actual, implied or expressed. Imagine the culture we would live in now if, instead of a dead corpse on an instrument of torture, our signifier was a child staring in wonder at the stars.
Tiburon Silverflame		#23	[-]
Posts: 8182 (06/15/09 08:28:39) Enigma Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The creators of the augment crystals would disagree with you, as the Ghost Touch augment crystal is only 5k, moderately priced for an augment. In what way would they disagree? Ghost Touch's applicability is fairly narrow, therefore making for a good augment crystal by my argument. I agree that bypassing all DR is pretty significant, and would come up quite often, and I don't think a force weapon should do so. Whether it's a good idea or not, the comment about the inadvisibility of this effect, implemented along the lines of an augment crystal, or any non-scaling fixed price approach, was based that it does bypass DR. We can argue the wisdom of whether it should or not, but that's a separate discussion. Actually, something that I think I might like is to give it a relatively low Hardness, like 5, and medium HP, but say that it's immune to any damage that doesn't destroy it outright. This way you can push it hard enough to overwhelm the effect, but if you don't it restores itself to full potency. This is sort of a different take on "tough to destroy" than what adamantine does, and I think it meshes well with the idea of a magical effect being projected from the hilt. If it's a magical effect being projected from the hilt, that does force damage, isn't it a Force effect? The most common force effects that we have, are immune to damage from physical objects...Wall of Force and Mage's Sword both have this. Indeed, checking back, Spiritual Weapon is also immune to damage. Both the "can be sundered, and doesn't automatically bypass DR" work conceptually work much better, when it's a kind of 'aura' around the physical weapon itself. They don't work when the effect is the weapon itself, because you're completely into the spell effect rules. Either the "the effect creates a weapon" a la Spiritual Weapon, or the "the weapon creates an aura that...." approach, more closely akin to what Ghost Touch does, is fine with me; what I don't like, is the rules confusion of "it's a magical effect but I want it to work mostly like a weapon so I'm using mostly weapons rules." That's a bad approach. It's even worse here, because they're not even standard weapons rules.
Dan C Davis		#24	[-]
Posts: 353 (06/15/09 10:31:01) Minimum 1 pt, right? Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	There seems to be a big grey area around force effects and dealing damage with them. The spiritual weapon spell ignores damage reduction, specifically because it's striking as a spell, while mage's sword doesn't mention damage reduction. The bow of force I posted earlier ignores damage reduction, but the energy bow makes no mention of it. I think the best way rules-wise to get a force weapon would be to take either spiritual weapon or mage's sword and add it to an already-existing weapon as a x/day ability. At least that way there would be rules to cover how it works. Make the world a better place; slap someone who needs it.
Tiburon Silverflame		#25	[-]
Posts: 8183 (06/15/09 12:46:30) Enigma Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Mage's Sword is a spell effect, tho. DR never applies to a spell effect. The fact that Mage's Sword requires an attack roll...that doesn't change anything. The 'blade' of the mage's sword is a spell effect, therefore no DR...case closed. The problem, IMO, is the usual confusion because they put in the unnecessary text into Spiritual Weapon...making it look like it's a special case, when it's not. Same comment applies WRT the energy bow; no mention about bypassing DR is given, because none is necessary. There is no physical 'weapon' involved, and DR only applies to real, physical weapons. The bow of force does not act this way; it takes a normal, physical arrow and plays games with it. Thus, it does require the statement...because the arrow is a physical weapon. The energy bow parallels the notion of "magical effect being projected from the hilt." The bow of force parallels the notion of "an aura enveloping a physical weapon."
Confused Jackal Mage		#26	[-]
Posts: 6743 (06/17/09 10:59:05) Iron Liege Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	In what way would they disagree? Ghost Touch's applicability is fairly narrow, therefore making for a good augment crystal by my argument. You specifically said that the augment crystal approach wouldn't be good here. If it's a magical effect being projected from the hilt, that does force damage, isn't it a Force effect? The most common force effects that we have, are immune to damage from physical objects...Wall of Force and Mage's Sword both have this. Indeed, checking back, Spiritual Weapon is also immune to damage. All right, that's a good argument for being unsunderable, then. Both the "can be sundered, and doesn't automatically bypass DR" work conceptually work much better, when it's a kind of 'aura' around the physical weapon itself. They don't work when the effect is the weapon itself, because you're completely into the spell effect rules. Either the "the effect creates a weapon" a la Spiritual Weapon, or the "the weapon creates an aura that...." approach, more closely akin to what Ghost Touch does, is fine with me; what I don't like, is the rules confusion of "it's a magical effect but I want it to work mostly like a weapon so I'm using mostly weapons rules." That's a bad approach. It's even worse here, because they're not even standard weapons rules. That's if it's doing Force damage. I don't think it should. It should do ordinary P/S/B damage, but as a Force effect, which allows it to damage ethereal/incorporeal. This isn't a spell effect, either, or else the various weapon enhancements that add P/S/B damage would bypass DR. (Rather, I have no problem with it doing Force damage, but then it's much more difficult to price as it is an energy type, and thus bypasses DR automatically. Keeping it within the standard physical types still makes sense, and allows us to price this much more reasonably.) Imagine the culture we would live in now if, instead of a dead corpse on an instrument of torture, our signifier was a child staring in wonder at the stars.
Tiburon Silverflame		#27	[-]
Posts: 8186 (06/17/09 11:54:34) Enigma Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	That's if it's doing Force damage. I don't think it should. It should do ordinary P/S/B damage, but as a Force effect, which allows it to damage ethereal/incorporeal. This isn't a spell effect, either, or else the various weapon enhancements that add P/S/B damage would bypass DR. Then in what significant way, would it different from Ghost Touch? Why do we need 2 qualities that have such a high degree of overlap, for the same very narrow special defense? (Flaming and Flaming Burst obviously have tons of overlap, too, but of a different nature.) Once you say "it's striking as a force effect" you immediately bypass DR, IMO. Ghost Touch doesn't make the assertion; it doesn't say how it strikes, it just says you do. That's often a Good Thing. If you don't want it to bypass DR, fine...then don't say it strikes as a force effect. What you're trying to do, is weasel the language...and, no, I don't mean that as an insult, just as a description...so you get the result you want, whether it makes sense within the system mechanics or not. "Oh...it kinda sorta strikes like a force effect...but not entirely." That's the horrible, waffling language that created so many problems in 3.0, which in many cases were cleaned up in 3.5. Now, to be sure, there's also many cases where the lack of a statement creates ambiguity of meaning, but here, the default situation (for Ghost Touch) is, the weapon can be sundered, the weapon still respects DR, and so on. Note that you can say "does +1d6 Force damage"...without making all the damage into Force damage...and things are different. You can

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