Weapon Enchantment: Spell Channeling

[Mr.Binx]

Made up a new weapon enchantment for my bastard sword-wielding abjurer. I think I've got it pretty well-balanced out, but I always like to dig for input. Got any criticisms for me?

Spell Channelling: This enchantment can only be placed on a melee weapon. A spell-channeling weapon allows a spellcaster to channel touch spells. When a touch spell is cast it is immediately transferred from the caster’s hand to the weapon as a free action and follows all the normal rules for touch spells including holding a charge and discharging a charge through physical attacks. If the weapon leaves the caster’s hand while a touch spell is being held then the transferred touch spell immdeiately dissipates and is wasted. The damage bonus of the weapon does not apply to any spells channelled through it. The weapon's damage bonus only applies to the weapon's damage itself. The bonus to the attack roll from the weapons bonus still applies to any touch attacks made, however.
Caster Level: 8th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Spectral Hand; Market Price: +1 bonus

Edit: Oops! I meant to post this on the House Rules board. Sorry.

 

[James McMurray]

A couple of thougts:

1) The abililty is more powerful than Spell Storing, the other weapon enhancement which allows spells being trnsferred via the weapon. This ability allows spells of any level. Granted, you lose the abililty to put non-touch range spells intot he weapon, but gain the free action part, the removal of time required to 'charge" the weapon, and the ability to put 9th level spells into it.

2) A an item which duplicates a class power (the Bladesinger in this instance) it probably should not be too cheap. Also, if it is cheap AND more powerful than the base ability it should be looked at twice as closely.

 

[Mr.Binx]

Well, actually all your doing is moving the touch spell from your hand to a weapon. You still have all the same options. You can choose to perform a simple touch attack with the physical touch causing no damage. You can choose to make a standard attack roll with the physical strike dealing normal normal weapon damage. If you cast a spell while holding a charge then the spell is wasted. Likewise, if the weapon is sheathed or touches anything the spell is immediately discharged. If the spell requires somatic gesutres then you must have one hand free at the time the spell is cast. Since the spell is transferred to the weapon at the time of casting that means that the weapon must be in one of your hands when the spell is cast. If the weapon is a two-handed weapon then you will not be able to attack with it until your next action unless you have more than two hands as a two-handed weapon requires two hands to use. I could easily enough put a limit on the level of spell it could channel if this seems unreasonable. The main reason I made this enchantment was because I wanted to be able to perform attacks with my abjurer's bastard sword by using spells such as Chill Touch without losing the extra touch attacks granted by the spell.

 

[James McMurray]

I hadn't looked at it that way. Perhaps change it to +1 enhancement allows 1st and 2nd level spells, +2 allows 3rd and 4th, etc. up to +5 allowing 9th and 10th. You could even keep going to allow extremely metamagiced spells to go in (+12 for 23rd and 24th level spells)

 

[Mr.Binx]

I dunno'... the XP cost of going over +1 on my existing weapon isn't really worth it to me. If I wanted to be cheesey I could just take my medium-size elemental familiar (who already has innate spell resistance, improved evasion, and a bonus to natural AC) and cast Enhance Familiar, Fortify Familiar, Bull's Strength, Mage Armor, Polymorph Other (Troll) on him then have him perform the touch attacks for me. I guarantee he would hit more often and do more damage than my wizard with the bastard sword would. After casting some spell that gives multiple touch attacks and designating my familar as the toucher, I would then cast Tenser's Transformation (the touch spell is not disrupted because the familiar is holding the charge, not myself), extend the ability to my familiar (making sure to stay within 5 feet at all times), go on the defensive myself using Expertise of defending to assist my familiar, and have my familiar go to town with it's claws. My abjurer just wants to wade into combat himself because he likes being in the fray. Granted, this also the reason he has died 4 times already as a 14th level wizard. Cheesey is easy to do. Making a character I enjoy playing is a bit harder. If I had to limit the effect, I would just stick it at 4th level to coincide with the spell storing ability and leave it at that if the gaming group thinks it's overpowered. You have the added negative effects of losing the spell storing weapon's ability to make spell attacks by range and returning weapons since the effect dissipates when the weapon leaves your hand with a spell channelling weapon (which is there for balance issues or you become able to imbue a weapon with a touch spell and let someone else use the weapon). In addition you are limited to an even smaller group of spells. In these aspects, spell channelling actually becomes weaker than spell storing if you keep the spell level restriction on it.