Stacking Flaming and Shocking?

[kreynolds]

Anyway, I'd rather have players have to turn off their weapons; but I'm not going to introduce a house rule just to force them to do it.

You're missing the point. The rules are clear. The weapon continues to cause energy damage. I don't need a house rule for this in my games. If you wanna stick a flaming weapon or frost weapon or acidic weapon or sonic weapon or electrical weapon down your shorts, go right ahead, but know that I'll make you suffer.

If, however, you want to sit down with me and figure out a way for your blacksmith or spellcaster to create a scabbard that can handle this weapon, then by all means let's do it. Ruling that a burning sword will set fire to your leather or wooden scabbard or heat up your metal scabbard to the point that it burns your thigh and sets your pants on fire is perfectly reasonable in my book. So my advice is don't do it.

 

[Xarlen]

Y'know, making magical sheaths isn't that harsh of a concept.

Get a regular sheath, enchant it with... say Endure Elements, or Resist Elements (Likely keyed into the energy type) and there y'go. Let your players have that always on weapon, but it has to be custom made, or come wiht the blade.

 

[kreynolds]

Y'know, making magical sheaths isn't that harsh of a concept.

Exactly!

 

[kreynolds]

Here's something interesting that I just thought of. Say you have a flaming/frost longsword (technically perfectly legal, and kinda cool too) and you have a special scabbard that was designed to allow the weapon to be left "on". Now, you sheathe your flaming/frost weapon while it's "on" and leave it in there for an hour or so. My question is this...if you leave it in there long enough, will the pressure caused by the steam build up enough that the sword will get shot out of the scabbard and sent flying across the room?

 

[Gromm]

Wood has a hardness of 5 and can never be set on fire by a flaming sword.

By this rule a torch wont burn either. Or a log.
Are you going to tell me wood doesn't burn?
Those rules handle instant effects well, but not ongoing effects (like say setting a piece of wood on fire). The scabbard might not be destroyed instantly, but rest assured that a piece of wood left in fire for a long period of time will catch fire.

Similar ideas apply for any sort of substance. The rules don't really handle long term exposure to adverse conditions on objects. Fortunately real life and science can explain most of them (as mentioned previously).

I like the idea of magical scabbards myself. Cool concept and a neat and unique item for a player to make/have made. After all Excalibur had a magic scabbard, why can't my sword?

 

[Crothian]

A flaming sword in a scabbard seems to require rules that aren't in the books I beleive. The sword does +1d6 per strike, but if left on that will be 6 seconds of constant flame per round. That's a little more then single strike.

 

[Gromm]

A flaming sword in a scabbard seems to require rules that aren't in the books I beleive. The sword does +1d6 per strike, but if left on that will be 6 seconds of constant flame per round. That's a little more then single strike.

Not in the rules per say (as in there currently aren't any items that do such a thing), but it falls under the domain of Crafting Magic Items. "I want to make a scabbard that would let me keep my flaming sword activated while it was sheathed so I don't have to use a standard action to light it up."
The DM then determines a cost and you spend so many days making it. All pefectly within the rules. After all the table in DMG isn't all you can do with magic items, it just gives costs for specific things (like stat bonuses, skill bonuses, etc).

Edit: DOH! I misread your post, my bad. Your correct there aren't any specific rules.

 

[kreynolds]

Ooo! I just had the perfect idea! A magic scabbard of antimagic! Any magical sword sheathed within the scabbard has it's magic suppressed. That way, you put it in, and the flaming ability is suppressed. Draw the sword and the darned thing just bursts to life! Cool....

 

[Crothian]

Ooo! I just had the perfect idea! A magic scabbard of antimagic! Any magical sword sheathed within the scabbard has it's magic suppressed. That way, you put it in, and the flaming ability is suppressed. Draw the sword and the darned thing just bursts to life! Cool....

That'll be nice a cheap. sixth level spell, 11th level to cast, permenant duration, an item that doesn't take up a slot. So, assuming that command word activated for the scabbard (I'm not sure really what is needed for a permant object like this, but it works for now) makes that 6*11*1800=118,800 times two becouse it doesn't use a slot makes that a cheap 237,600

of course those numbers might be wrong as I'm not the best at creating new magical items, but I'm sure we can all agree that using those numbers makes it worth while to place that 8,000gp sword +1 flaming in.

 

[kreynolds]

That'll be nice a cheap. sixth level spell, 11th level to cast, permenant duration, an item that doesn't take up a slot. So, assuming that command word activated for the scabbard (I'm not sure really what is needed for a permant object like this, but it works for now) makes that 6*11*1800=118,800 times two becouse it doesn't use a slot makes that a cheap 237,600

of course those numbers might be wrong as I'm not the best at creating new magical items, but I'm sure we can all agree that using those numbers makes it worth while to place that 8,000gp sword +1 flaming in.

Have I ever told you how much of a jerk you are?

Your numbers are correct rules-wise. Since many magic item prices are primarily decided upon by how useful the item is, I don't really think that this scabbard would be worth 237,600gp. First of all, let's consider the maximum potential use of the scabbard. A +1 flaming/shocking/acidic/frost/sonic weapon would cost a minimum of 72,000gp. Obviously, this scabbard isn't worth more than that. What do ya' think about pricing the scabard somewhere around 10,000gp to 20,000gp? Too cheap or too expensive?

Disclaimer: I have purposefully refrained from putting too much thought and planning into this magic item so as to encourage the wonderful and purposefull colaberative discussion that are meant to take place here. People helping people. Yeah, for some reason I'm feeling really hippy right this second.