Elemental Enhancement and Damage bonus

[Black Cat]

Hi,

Just wondering, does adding an Elemental Enhancement to an axe that already has some Elemental and Bludgeoning damage bonus (yes, Frindhal battleaxe) is supposed to override both the Acid damage and the Bludgeoning damage?

PS: It does replace both, but I'm wondering if that should be the case or not. I thought it should only replace the existing Acid damage.

[lonnarin]

It would replace both unfortunately.  And if any armor you own has any DR at all, the elemental dust will replace any and all previous DR properties.

The three added weapon enhancements that would stack properly however, would be silver, titanium and dwarfbane.  There is no physical way to make dwarfbane in game, I only saw it 5 years ago in the toolset.  I used to put it on the babies and hold them during post-quest breakdowns, often threatening Turor with a good baby-smiting.

Also note that the secondary damage enhancements do not stack with one another.  You can only have one set of elemental and one set of racial bane damage on a weapon if you apply it yourself.  Any other combo would require a custom item, which could possibly be a goal for a CDQ or WLCDQ.

[Black Cat]

So I could add a silver or titanium on Frindhal battleaxe without loosing the Acid enchant and bludgeoning damage?
I thought it was the other way round.. i.e. thought that adding a silver would override the existing bludgeoning damage, since both are physical damage bonuses, not that adding the acid would override both bonuses.

Should have tested it with something less rare than an acid enchant I guess.

[lonnarin]

Yeah, you definitely should pull a GM aside just to test it before doing anything permanent of that caliber to such a nice weapon.  Farros loves his as is, and added diamond dust evil polish.

[Aerimor]

Seconding what was said.

Damage type one that won't stack with each other is physical damage bonuses(peircing/bludg/slash/elemental.)

Damage type two is racial (Silver/Titanium.)

You can combine one from one and one from two.  If you weapon has anything from one (assassing's parasol, your axe, etc.) you can add nothing else from one (acid enhancement.)

Same is true for two.  You can not add titanium to a Staff of Light for instance.

Recently coded is the duelist + veserus everything additional piercing damage, it ignores the above rules and seems to stack with everything (as they intended.)

[jadewillow]

What about negative energy bonus like that from Lich Claws?

[ycleption]

What about negative energy bonus like that from Lich Claws?

Same as any other damage bonus, it won't stack with the elemental enhancements, but will with the bonus v. racial type (silver or titanium).
see [lore]item enhancements[/lore]

[jadewillow]

LORE: Damage Type

I am confused. Looks like negative is type 'Planar', not 'elemental'.

[Chongo]

Yeah Jade, it's really easy to get confused here on damage types.  Simplifying it, look at it like it is in the toolset on item creation.  You have a few menus for damage.

1) Damage bonus
2) Damage bonus vs. alignment
3) Damage bonus vs. racial type
4) Damage bonus vs. specific alignment

So... the overwrites happen on the plain old 'catch all' damage bonuses in one instance with rods, and then on the 'versus' damage in the other instance, with 'versus' rods (silver and titanium).

And also important to spare confusion, there are two other branches under each of these menu options.  Damage amount, and damage type.  Damage amount goes from 1 to 20, with all the xdx's inbetween.  Damage type goes through all the variants of damage: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, sonic, acid, fire, electrical, cold, divine, negative, positive, and magic.

Now, on these damage types - simplify it this way: they are a sub-branch underneath the menu option of 'catch all' and 'versus' damage.  So, it doesn't matter what damage type it is, the rods are catching the core branches above this sub-branch.

Examples would be a titanium rod overwriting a weapon that has 1d4 damage vs. evil.  The titanium is vs. racial, the weapon is vs. alignment... but they're both 'versus' damage bonuses.  Then you have a weapon with 1d6 positive damage and 1d4 divine damage on it (let me know where you find that one because I want in), and you apply an acid IV rod.  It is a 'catch all' damage bonus, so it overwrites it.  Now... if that 1d6 positive damage was vs. evil, then it'd turn into 1d8 acid with 1d6 positive vs. evil.  If you then put a silver enhancement on it... the 1d6 positive vs. evil would be gone.

If you get into the toolset and mess around with item creation, you quickly see the possibilities.  It just so happens that rods fall into two simple categories, catch all damage and versus damage.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Like Chongo says, Damage Type doesn't matter in terms of what gets overwritten.

[jadewillow]

Got it. When you explain it in terms of the tool's limitations, it makes complete sense. Thanks!

[Script Wrecked]

Okay... Here's another trap for young players:

If you apply an Elemental Resistance (in this case a Greater Resistance) to Mithril Half Plate, the elemental damage resistance wipes out the bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage resistances.

Given this is not rectifiable, I'm off to the Craft Hall to "ox" the armor and re-customise the appearance again... Gah!

As part of the description of the Elemental Damage and Resistance items, can a warning of what they don't stack with be included?

[miltonyorkcastle]

Though it would be nice for a note to be added to the IG item itself, [LORE]Item Enhancements[/LORE] does mention the fact that the resistance rods overwrite all other resistance.

[Script Wrecked]

Unfortunately, my poor, addled brain sections off elemental resistances from physical resistances; funny how associations work like that.