Witcher oils?

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DustBunny
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Witcher oils?

Post by DustBunny »

Playing through the witcher 3 (again :mrgreen: ) I started toying with the idea of importing witcher blade oils and bombs into Ravenloft.

The video game catagories of oil-to-creature type are fairly easy to translate - necrophage oil (zombies, ghouls, ghasts, etc), spectre oil (incorporeal undead), cursed oil (lycanthropes), elemental oil (elementals and golems).

From a gameplay point of view they help solve the bugbear of excessive magic items required to defeat (or defend from) supernatural foes, and allows low levels and 0 level NPCs to have a (slim) chance of living. It also allows a DM to restrict the ingredients to control supply of special oils.

From a mechanical point of view, would it be better to allow blade grease to bypass damage reduction, or apply additional damage? I am leaning towards the first as the second could potentially be abused - stacking oil damage with a magic weapon, combat bonuses, etc.
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Ender
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Re: Witcher oils?

Post by Ender »

What edition are you using?
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Re: Witcher oils?

Post by DustBunny »

Ender wrote:What edition are you using?
Primarily 2E but with a fair amount of 3.5E thrown in.

Call it 3.5, as I can translate backwards, and if it is of any use to others 3.5 appears the most common reference point for now.
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Re: Witcher oils?

Post by Ender »

I'm not certain how 2E handled it, but if you're reverse-engineering 3.5 material, take a look at the Alchemical Weapon Capsules from Complete Arcane, specifically the Ghostblight and Quicksilver substances. AWCs let you crack open a capsule affixed to the blade and coat the weapon with an alchemical substance that lasts for a few rounds. Ghostblight allows the weapon to ignore the miss chance of an incorporeal creature while Quicksilver treats the weapon as silver vs. damage reduction. Libris Mortis has Ghostoil that treats a weapon coated with it as a Ghost Touch weapon for a couple rounds. I suspect some other books may have similar options. I've always liked the idea of using alchemical substances as a way to replicate magical items with limited results either in duration or efficacy. I have no doubt Pathfinder has even more options because of the Alchemist class.

ADDENDUM: To address your specific question at the end, my personal opinion is to avoid flat bonuses to damage. This is for a few reasons, but primarily because there are plenty of ways to deal extra damage and stacking those runs the risk of becoming imbalanced and just plain boring. I always aim for more unique effects if possible.
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