Rule number 1: This is your world. Your rule. If you think that firearms would be common to the point of like, even the commoner protects his farm with a shotgun, hey..go for it!
Just keep in mind that you would have to make the guns Martial weapon instead of requiring a specific feat. So that any military-grade training will provide training with guns. Or maybe even simple weapon (depending if you use gunpowder or alchemical shells). Because it's not that hard to pull a trigger and point a certain direction.
Guns are really powerful in Pathfinder. I noticed that when I had two gunslingers at my table. I would throw them monsters with damage reduction and lots of touch AC..because your player will shoot and kill everything at range.
Also, if guns are that common, players shouldn't feel like they are the only guys in town with them right? If everyone has guns, even the goblins ambushing them on the road will be a really interesting encounter.
A weapon can't have a +11 or higher enhancement bonus total (between the +x, and any other enhancement bonuses), unless in an epic campaign.
Correct; except under the rules provided in the Epic Level Handbook, magic weapons are limited to a maximum of +10-equivalent-enhancement-bonus (and +5 actual Enhancement bonus).
Standard wealth guidelines would make it exceedingly difficult for a non-epic character to afford such a weapon, and the opportunity cost (other items you could not afford) would generally make it undesirable anyway. That said, note that it is possible to afford and obtain epic equipment, including epic weaponry, prior to actually becoming an epic character, if your campaign/setting/ruleset includes the epic rules (this is especially true in high-wealth campaigns, or in high-power campaigns that allow characters to abuse loopholes that generate money in excess of guidelines). So it doesn’t necessarily have to be an epic campaign per se, it just needs to use the rules from Epic Level Handbook.
A weapon can have a Prefix and a Suffix enhancement on it (As long as it still follows the first notion I posted.)
There is absolutely no notion of prefixes or suffixes in 3.5; that notion was popularized primarily (as far as I know) by the computer game Diablo.1 Any number of special weapon properties may be applied to any given weapon and in any given combination (so long as they respect the +10 limit in non-epic games and any particular rules given in the special ability’s description).
For actually naming a weapon, the standard in 3.5 statblocks seems to be to use all special properties as prefixes, but with more powerful weapons it’s more of just a list than an actual attempt to give the weapon a name. For example, I doubt any of the characters would talk about a +1 flaming-burst collision eager vorpal long sword because that “name” is absurd. They probably call it the “Flaming Sword of the Wrath of God” or something. Many of Wizards’ own “Specific Weapons” work this way, particularly when supplements provided modular effects that replicated previously-unique features.
An item can have the Masterwork, Enhancement bonus, Special Enhancement, AND Special material (Adamantine or similar), just merely has to be created with the additional costs.
Yes, but I want to comment on a few things. First, to have any magical properties (enhancement or special abilities), it must first be masterwork, and to have any special abilities, it must first have a +1 Enhancement bonus. Many special materials (adamantine and darkwood for weapons, adamantine, darkwood, dragonhide, and mithral for armors) also require masterwork status. So while yes, you can have all of these, there are relations between them such that they actually require each other in certain cases. You are not free to take exactly which you want all the time.
Also note that a weapon can only be (meaningfully) made of one material.
Specific Magical Items can be enhanced as well, as long as it is created within all legal formations as shown above.
Any existing weapon can have additional magical properties added to it. The cost to do so is the new value of the weapon, less the previous value of the item. For specific weapons, a bit of arithmetic is required to determine the new value; this is not actually detailed in the rules, but you can determine the value of any unique properties by subtracting the value of the item’s normal properties, and then add that value on to the value of the new base weapon.
This does not apply to masterwork status or special materials; items have to be crafted from scratch with those properties.
Assuming all of this is correct, I would like to request anyone whom can help me figure out a way to find enhancements
This is a bit unclear; if you mean finding them within the game, that depends heavily on your DM and the setting he is running. It could be anything from “buy it at this conveniently-located store” to “you will never find that item,” though I’d argue the game does not work particularly well at either extreme.
If you mean finding the rules for new special abilities, the Magic Item Compendium is the best single location, though almost every book included at least a few.
I was hoping for an SRD document with them all listed between the acceptable books, or if anyone has any methods easy for new players to find enhancement properties.
Outside of the SRD, which lists the properties from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Epic Level Handbook, and Expanded Psionics Handbook, it is not legal to put the full stats online. That said, there are numerous community “handbooks” that list, rate, and recommend items, pointing you to the book where each may be found. I recommend Bungo's Bargain Basement, Ernir's list of necessary items, Shax’s Indispensible Haversack, and the Utility Belt, as well as any handbooks for the class you’re playing.
1 Wizards of the Coast did print a few licensed Diablo books around the time of Diablo II’s release, which coincidentally was right around the time of D&D 3rd edition’s release. I have seen commentaries that 3rd edition was (or felt like it was) influenced heavily by Diablo, but I have no evidence that these were accurate (they sound similar to the accusations that 4e is too much like an MMORPG). At any rate, these books did include a prefix and suffix system for 3rd edition (as well as for AD&D, in the first licensed book), which I’ve heard good things about, but it is not a part of the usual 3.x rules.
Best Answer
OK, so there are basically two things going on here, and the wording used by the rules gets confusing. I use enhancement-equivalent as a term for weapon special abilities here, to emphasize their value and keep them distinct from true enhancement bonuses as well as special abilities that are not equivalent in value to an enhancement bonus.
Your magical weapon has an enhancement bonus, +1 to +5. This enhancement bonus is added to the attack rolls and damage rolls made with this weapon.
So if a 1st-level commoner with 10 Strength (BAB +0, Str +0) somehow got his hands on a +2 longspear, his attack rolls with it would be 1d20+2, and his damage rolls with it would be 1d8+2.
Your magical weapon may also have enhancement-equivalent properties, like flaming or bane or whatever. These are treated like enhancement bonuses for the purposes of how much they cost, but do not actually add an enhancement bonus to attack or damage rolls (or any of the other miscellaneous things that enhancement bonuses do, like increasing the object’s hardness).
So if we go back to that commoner, but this time give him a +1 flaming longspear, his attack rolls with it are 1d20+1 and his damage rolls with it are 1d8+1+1d6, where the final 1d6 is fire damage.
An item’s enhancement bonus plus the enhancement-equivalent value of its special abilities is called its modified bonus.
Keeping these two straight is crucial to understanding the answer to your question. Magical weapons have limits on how powerful they can get, and these limits are different for each.
Magical weapons cannot have more than a +5 enhancement bonus. Furthermore, their modified bonus (enhancement bonus plus the enhancement-equivalent cost of their special abilities) cannot exceed +10’s worth.
So, for example:
A +2 longspear and a +1 flaming longspear cost the same, because flaming is a +1-equivalent special ability.
A +6 longspear cannot exist, but
A +5 flaming longspear can, and costs as much as a hypothetical +6 longspear.
A +1 flaming shock frost corrosive thundering longspear can also exist, and also costs the same as a hypothetical +6 longspear (as those are all +1-equivalent properties).
A +5 vorpal longspear costs the equivalent of a hypothetical +10 longspear, because vorpal is a +5-equivalent bonus.
A +5 vorpal flaming longspear cannot exist, because its enhancement and enhancement-equivalent properties would be +11: higher than the +10 limit.
A +1 flaming shock frost corrosive vorpal longspear can also exist, as another +10-equivalent weapon. There is no requirement to actually get a +5 enhancement bonus; it is a maximum, not a minimum.
Finally, on to ammunition. When you use a magical projectile weapon to fire magical ammunition, you combine all the magic on the two together. However, the actual enhancement bonuses do not stack.
Let’s go to a second 1st-level commoner, this one proficient in slings instead of longspears. Like last time, 10 Strength, and we’ll also note 10 Dexterity since these are ranged attacks: +0 bonuses all around.
If this commoner uses a +2 sling to fire +2 stones, his attack and damage rolls gain a +2 enhancement bonus from the sling, and a +2 enhancement bonus from the stone. However, since both are enhancement bonuses, and bonuses of the same type do not stack, his actual attack rolls are 1d20+2 and his damage rolls are 1d4+2.
However, if he uses a +1 flaming sling to launch +1 frost stones, when he combines them he has two non-stacking +1 enhancement bonuses, but also +1d6 fire damage and +1d6 cold damage: he gets both of these on his attacks. So he rolls 1d20+1 attack rolls, and 1d4+1+1d6+1d6 damage rolls, where one of the d6 is fire damage and the other is cold damage.
Likewise, if he uses a +2 sling with those +1 frost stones, the +2 enhancement bonus on the sling beats out (but does not stack with) the +1 from the stones, but he gets to keep the cold damage too: 1d20+2 attack, 1d4+2+1d6 damage with the last d6 cold.
Now, the important thing to remember here is that the limits are on a single item, not on your actual attacks. So you can have a +5 flaming shock frost corrosive thundering sling and shoot +1 vorpal1 stones and have attacks that have +5 enhancement bonuses to attack and damage, deal all that extra energy damage, and are vorpal,1 even though +5 flaming shock frost corrosive thundering vorpal1 would be +15-equivalent.