[RPG] How exactly does a magus arcane pool point, to enhance weapons, work

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I am playing a magus in pathfinder. I am new to this class so I need clarification with links to support.

I know that the pool point can enhance the weapon with shock, fire, keen, bonuses, etc. What I am not sure about is how many of these are able to be added at one time. I am seeing all over different forums conversations about having keen and flame. And, also adding keen, flame and shock at level 9. The description says the magus can add any of these enhancements and uses "or" within the list of enhancements. It doesn't use "and/or". Are combinations of enhancements house rules or are they actually accepted in official pathfinder gameplay?

Please use legit game rule links to back up your breakdown of this. It is a new class to our games so both myself and the DM are learning as we go.

Best Answer

You can add any combination of abilities, but you are limited by the sum of their equivalent enhancement bonuses.

For magic weapons, many special abilities have an equivalent enhancement bonus. Its equivalent enhancement bonus is measured by how much it increases the weapon's base price.

Some magic weapons have special abilities. 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 single weapon cannot have a modified bonus (enhancement bonus plus special ability bonus equivalents, including those from character abilities and spells) higher than +10. A weapon with a special ability must also have at least a +1 enhancement bonus. Weapons cannot possess the same special ability more than once.

Next let's look at the text of the magus's arcane pool feature. First, it tells us that we can increase the weapon's enhancement bonus, up to some limit. This limit is based on our magus level.

For every four levels beyond 1st, the weapon gains another +1 enhancement bonus, to a maximum of +5 at 17th level. These bonuses can be added to the weapon, stacking with existing weapon enhancement to a maximum of +5.

Additionally, there are a number of special weapon abilities that have equivalent enhancement bonuses. For example, the flaming weapon ability is equivalent to a +1 increase. So let's say we have a 9th level magus, and our arcane pool is capable of adding a +3 enhancement. But instead, we could add +2 flaming, because the total enhancement is equivalent to +3.

At 5th level, these bonuses can be used to add any of the following weapon properties: dancing, flaming, flaming burst, frost, icy burst, keen, shock, shocking burst, speed, or vorpal.

Adding these properties consumes an amount of bonus equal to the property’s base price modifier. These properties are added to any the weapon already has, but duplicates do not stack.

Note that it says "any", and not "any one". This means we can pick a combination of these special abilities, as long as the total of their equivalent enhancement bonuses is, at most, equal to the highest enhancement bonus our arcane pool can provide.

So rather than increasing the enhancement bonus by +3, we could instead add +1, flaming (equivalent to +1), and keen (also equivalent to +1). The total equivalent bonus is +3.

Here's a list of the equivalent enhancement bonuses:

  • +1 equivalent: +1, flaming, frost, keen, shock
  • +2 equivalent: +2, flaming burst, icy burst, shocking burst
  • +3 equivalent: +3, speed
  • +4 equivalent: +4, dancing
  • +5 equivalent: +5, vorpal

The limitation on stacking only applies to duplicate abilities. For example, let's say we already have a +1 weapon, and our arcane pool is capable of adding an additional +3. It is legal to turn our weapon into a +1 flaming frost shock weapon (+1d6 fire, +1d6 electric, +1d6 cold damage). But it is not legal to turn it into a +1 flaming flaming flaming weapon (which I suppose would add +3d6 fire damage).

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