Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Tectorman Oct 14, 2009 14:17:39	I'm wondering about the potential consequences of expanding the use of Ranged Weapon in the context of magic weapon enchantments to include thrown Melee weapons. Essentially, as I'm reading the terms, if an attack power says Ranged weapon, it means any weapon that can attack at range, whether it's in the Ranged category or if it's a Melee weapon with the Heavy Thrown or Light Thrown property.  However, I've also been reading the use of the phrase "Ranged weapon" for weapon enchantments as meaning "you may apply this enchantment to any weapon in the Ranged weapon category (and thus excluding the Thrown Melee weapons)". For the first time, however, I looked at my two usages of that phrasing and I can't help but think that I might be wrong. Is a Weapon Enchantment that says Any Ranged Weapon useful for a Melee Thrown weapon as well?  If not, what problems can arise from making that a houserule (specific enchantments that outright break Melee weapons, etc.)?
#2 Tony_Vargas Oct 15, 2009 0:21:42	AFAIK, yes, a thrown weapon is a ranged weapon - when you throw it.  If you want to be a stickler, a 'ranged only' magic weapon type aplied to a thrown weapon would only get it's various powers or propperties when it's being used as a ranged weapon:  in melee, it'd be like using a generic magic weapon.  That's about as stingy as I'd care to be with it.
#3 crugen-lon Oct 18, 2009 15:02:20	Is it in the ranged weapon table ? if not, it is not a ranged weapon.   EditL Thrown weapons have their own enchant
#4 AbdulAlhazred Oct 19, 2009 11:37:26	I think technically they're different types of weapons and "Any Ranged Weapon" doesn't apply to light or heavy thrown weapons. On the other hand there are enchantments that apply to weapon groups like "spear" which will apply to a javelin for example and presumably will work regardless of how its used.
#5 Tectorman Oct 19, 2009 12:47:14	Okay, but what about the second part of my question.  What problem enchantments are there if I expand the category? I'm thinking there wouldn't be any since an enchantment that says "Any Melee" can still be applied to any Thrown Melee weapon and either still apply in its entirety to the thrown application of the weapon, or just the enhancement bonus to attack and damage (depending on the wording of the enchantment's properties, if any.
#6 AbdulAlhazred Oct 19, 2009 13:03:07	Okay, but what about the second part of my question.  What problem enchantments are there if I expand the category? Well, personally I don't think the sky will fall. You MAY need to say "no, you can't do that" here and there. In general there are such a vast number of weapon enchantments in print now that it would be a rather large task to go through them all and try to find ones that would maybe cause issues. A lot of times its more likely a combination of an item and certain other items,feats, etc. Overall I'd say just go for it. I think you won't run into many problems and 95% of the weapons you can probably say "yeah, that will be OK".
#7 Tony_Vargas Oct 19, 2009 13:08:29	I would forsee no problems if you allowed throwable weapons to accept either 'any melee' or 'any ranged' enchanments, and just treated them as generic +n weapons when used in the alternate mode.  The worst thing you're doing is letting a PC maintain competative enhancement bonuses for both melee and ranged with only one magic weapon - which I don't see as a problem at all, quite the opposite, I think PCs who are forced to maintain sepparate melee & ranged weapons and/or implements are at more of a disadvantage than they need to be.