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If I were to enchant a composite longbow with two +1 enchantments, how much would it cost?

I have a masterwork longsword (315gp). I want to add the magic enchantments Keen and Bane to it. Both of those enchantments are a +1 price of 2000gp each. Would it cost 4000gp to enchant the longsword or would it have the cost of a +2 enchantment of 8000gp?

user17995
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DoomWolf
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1 Answers1

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Special properties are priced as if you were increasing the enhancement bonus of the item by that amount. So a +1 keen longbow costs the same as a +2 longbow and a +1 keen bane longbow costs the same as +3 longbow. All magic weapons must have at least +1, so a keen longbow or keen bane longbow would be impossible. Enhancement bonus costs scale quadratically, \$bonus^2 \times 2\,000\text{ gp}\$. So +1 is \$2\,000\text{ gp}\$, +2 (or +1 keen) is \$8\,000\text{ gp}\$, and +3 (or +1 keen bane) is \$18\,000\text{ gp}\$.

These rules are stated in the section on magic weapons:

Special abilities count as additional bonuses for determining the market value of the item, but do not modify attack or damage bonuses (except where specifically noted).

A weapon with a special ability must also have at least a +1 enhancement bonus.

Bob
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KRyan
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  • Since it has multiple enchantments on it, equaling the price of a +3, can it hit monsters that can only be hit/damaged with +3 enchantments, or that's just a cost thing, not a damage thing? – Jesse Cohoon Aug 07 '16 at 03:07
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    @JesseCohoon To my knowledge, there are no such monsters (DR pierced by specific amounts of enhancement bonus died in the 3.0 to 3.5 transition); what you may be thinking of is Pathfinder’s rule that allows higher enhancement bonuses to pierce DR normally vulnerable to certain materials and/or alignments. Assuming that is what you mean, then no, a +1 keen bane weapon would not pierce that. In general, it is just for calculating the cost. – KRyan Aug 07 '16 at 03:28
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    KRyan is correct, only the actual enhancement bonus allows you to overcome additional DRs, not the 'effective' bonus used for special quality pricing calculations. To bypass DR/adamantine you need a +5 weapon. – GreySage Aug 07 '16 at 03:42
  • @GreySage So it has to be a "+5 longbow" per say, not a "+3 keen bane longbow"? – Cyberson Aug 08 '16 at 04:09
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    Correct. The equivalency is only for price. – KRyan Aug 08 '16 at 04:12
  • Related, we have a question about the details of the DR system in Pathfinder here: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/13547/several-damage-reduction-clarifications-for-pathfinder – DuckTapeAl Aug 08 '16 at 19:49
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    Note that because a bane weapon does count as having a higher-than-usual enhancement bonus against certain creatures, it might actually count as being able to ignore the DR of those creatures as if it had a higher enhancement bonus... Maybe. The interaction of those two rules elements is open to debate. – GMJoe Aug 13 '16 at 10:53