crafting burst weapons

In TOEE you upgrade your weapon's value as +1, +2, +3 as it SHOULD be when crafting.
Is the same used for the "burst" variant of energy? that is, if I craft an item with "frost" (+1 enchantment), it will then upgrade to "icy burst" (+2 enchantment) at the cost of +1 for a total cost of +2? or will the total cost be +3 (and give me both abilities, and would they stack or not?)?

also, how are the rules implemented for max enchantment value of non plus enchantment on weapons? that is, how many "+1 equivalent" enchantments can I stack on a weapon?

 

Hi Taltamir
Elemental Bursts don't "upgrade" the way the pluses do. It is quite possible to craft a +1 weapon with an Elemental Burst without crafting the "non-burst" version first. For example you could take the +1 Holy Longsword that you get for marrying Melanie and add Icy Burst to it as soon as your crafter has the proper level, spell, and enough Experience Points. According to some of the rules geeks, ToEE crafting is implemented wrong, in that your caster has to be something like 9th or 10th Level to add Icy Burst, Shocking Burst, or Sonic Burst, and 12th Level to add Fiery Burst. The costs of adding Bursts are determined by how many pluses and elemental effects are already crafted into the weapon. The maximum number of effective bursts that you can add to a weapon is four. You can craft a +3 Holy, Frost, Shock, Fire, Icy Burst, Shocking Burst weapon if you want, but the only "bursts" that are going to do anything are the first four (in this case Holy, Frost, Shock, and Fire). I seem to recall reading somewhere on this site, that the same holds true with a Rogues Backstab also, so if you are planning on crafting a weapon for a Rogue, don't add more than two or three bursts (assuming your Rogue is going to do a lot of backstabbing). If you want more information on crafting in general you can download Lord Plotho's guide to crafting from http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/ToEE/index_tips.php (just scroll down a bit)
The Royal Canadian

 

I've read people recommend Anarchic and Axiomatic before but I always used bursts since they are near guaranteed damage. Are they all that useful?

 

Hi Termany
Axiomatic (requires a 7th Level Cleric with the LAW Domain) is more useful, unless of course you are planning on playing a Chaotic Evil party and trying to wipe out Hommlet. I have crafted Holy, Axiomatic weapons in previous sessions, but find it is much better to go with Holy and three other bursts (usually Shocking Burst, Icy Burst, and either Frost or Shock). The main reason I tend go more towards the "Elemental" bursts is that you tend to encounter a lot of monsters (especially in the Nodes) that are neither Chaotic or Evil (Elementals, Fire Toads and Galeb Duhrs) that with be unaffected by both Holy and Axiomatic. On the Other hand the only time Shocking Burst isn't effective is in when fighting Air Elementals which is no big deal.
The Royal Canadian

 

One thing though - if you're crafting bursts, you'd better craft "Keen" as well, or give the wielding chara the "improved critical" feat w/ the weapon. Bursts are useless if you can't score a crit. That's one reason I usually prefer for guaranteed damage over crit damage.

 

Thanks RoyalC. Yeah I go for holy + bursts as well but I was never quite sure if there are better options out there.

Ausdoerrt do keen and improved critical feat stack?

 

They should.

 

IIRC they, DON"T actually. I may be wrong though.

 

A keen rapier with the improved critical feat would have a crit range of (3 x 2 + 2) of 13-20. Do the weapon pluses or str/dex modifiers stack with that?

 

A regular elemental enchantment means your weapon does +1d6 damage per hit.

A burst enchantment means your weapon does +1d6 damage per hit, and +Xd10 damage on crit, where X is the damage multiplier on your weapon (x2 on greatsword, x3 on greataxe, x4 on scyth for example).

The CORRECT SRD implementation is that Flaming Burst is an upgrade to Flaming (and you can craft ANY enchantment as a "non upgrade" if you wanted, you don't have to enchant +1, then +2, then +3, you can just sit down and craft a +3 enchantment in one go... its just a matter of pricing it right)...

if in TOEE you can put Flaming AND Flaming Burst on a weapon and it costs +3 to do so (instead of +2 for the flaming burst and it supercedes the flaming), does that mean that you get a STACKING benefit of both?
that is, do you get +2d6 fire damage per hit and +xd10 fire damage on crit, rather then just +1d6 fire damage per hit?

PS. I was just discussing implementation. Strategy wise your choice on whether to add burst or not depends on the type of weapon you use. You want to maximize crit range and multiplier to optimize bursts, but if your wearpon sacrifices those to maximize another aspect (say, reach), then it might be better to have more elemental damage types. Speaking of, not all of them are implemented in TOEE. We should add sonic and acid damage.

 

Bursts add regular elemental damage? I though they only do extra damage on crit.

There used to be a sonic crossbow in Co8 at some point. IIRC, there were some issues with implementing sonic damage for melee wpns? Acid should totally be added in, as should be the ability to make poisoned weapons. Although frankly, before overpowering the weaponry, balance issues need to be fixed first

 

According to Plothos' crafting guide [ http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/589356/38053 ], burst effects in ToEE do stack with the standard elemental effects, doing 1d6 damage on a normal attack and 1d10 on a crit. I don't know if Co8 has changed this since the guide was written.

Also according to Plothos, it's ambiguous whether a burst should always do additional damage or only do damage on a crit. Looking at the rules [ http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm ], it seems to me that they should only do extra damage on a crit, but I can see how it could be read the other way.

 

As you can clearly see, a Flaming burst weapon functions as a flaming weapon, who ALSO bursts on a crit.
A Shocking Burst weapon is also a shocking weapon.
and an ice burst weapon is also a frost weapon.

All of those are incorrectly implemented in TOEE, costing +2 for the burst ability instead of a +2 for a burst + basic ability. It should also be upgradeable as per crafting rules posted elsewhere. So a flaming weapon (+1) should be upgradeably for a flaming burst (+2). for a total of +2 cost for both the +1d6 per hit and +xd10 per crit.

Actually what you just described is what happens if they do NOT stack.
Flaming gives +1d6 damage per hit.
Flaming Burst gives +1d6 damage per hit AND +Xd10 damage per crit.

If the two stacked you would have ended up with +2d6 damage per hit and +Xd10 damage per crit.

However, the guide seems to indicate that burst correctly includes the "regular" enchantment version in it... as according to that article a sword with 3 burst effects adds +1d6+1d6+1d6 on a regular hit and +1d10+1d10+1d10 on a crit. It just doesn't address the fact that you can craft a sword with both flaming AND flaming burst (normally illegal). And the guide could be wrong.

I would be testing it this very moment but last night my harddrive failed (don't worry, I have backups), and I have yet to reinstall any games...

Of fuck! I don't think I had my TOEE saves being backed up!

 

can anyone who has a working install test this?
give your wizard tons of XP and GP,

craft 3 swords:
1. Flaming
2. Flaming Burst
3. Flaming AND Flaming Burst

And see what happens when you hit something with each of those, and what happens when you crit with each of those?

Also, please try a weapon with 3x and 4x multiplier, they should add 2d10 and 3d10 on a crit (I made a mistake earlier, its xd10 where x is multiplier -1, not multiplier).

might want to have a level 10 fighter with the feat for crit improvement do the hitting, on the wizard... and have a level 10 cleric to heal too so you can do it longer.