Arelith

An analysis of the impact of templates on ammunition shows that Vlos'Khaliiz bolts, while a neat cookie for assassin and evil characters in the past, are no longer worth crafting or using, and need help. Below I'll compare the effort needed in terms of crafting vs yield and damage.

Crafting analysis:

Bundle of Damask Bolts

• DC: 30
  Craft Points sunk: 40
  Materials:
  • 1 Arrow Shafts
    4 Coal
    4 Rock Chunk (Iron)
    2 Rock Chunk (Silver)
    1 Casting Mold
  Yield: 3 (or 5?) sets of 99 +3 damage bolts
  
  Template usable.
  
  Typical set of 99 post template(standard template used for data) use:
  • 1d6 _X_ damage
    1d8 _X_ damage
    1d6 _X_ damage
    +3 piercing

---------

Vlos'Khaliiz Bolts

• DC: 20
  Craft points sunk: 95
  Materials:
  • 2 Flask of Oil
    99 Bolts (Iron)
    4 Rock Chunk (Nitharite)
  Racial requirement: Drow smith
  Class requirements: Ranger/Assassin/Blackguard
  
  Yield: 1 set of 99 bolts.
  
  • Damage Bonus 2d8 Acid
    Damage Bonus 4 Piercing
    Alignment Restriction: Evil
    Race Restriction: Elf

--------

Craft points spent per 99 shots:

• Damask Bolt Bundle: 13.333R
  Vlos'Khaliiz Bolts: 95

Winner: bolt bundle

Cost per set:

• Damask bolt bundle: Variable, due to versatility of ammunition properties, but usually trivial thanks to Archer Path bundle generation and yield size of ammo
  Vlos'Khaliiz: ~300gp for iron bolts from NPC vendor, 500-1000gp per flask of oil from PC crafters or 600 from tinkers.

Winner: bolt bundle

Damage:

• Damask bolt bundle: +3+1d6+1d6+1d8+temp essence(damage types variable and thus more versatile against different opponents)
  Vlos'Khaliiz: +4+2d8 +temp essense (Base limited to only acid elemental damage, which is commonly resisted in PvE and almost always resisted in PvP thanks to players using essences to defend against acid from baator and the slime temple, among other things. Acid resistance is ubiquitous to high level play. Effective result is that the acid damage is resisted entirely 25% of the time)

Winner: Bolt bundle

Playing a drow assassin, I am VERY heavily incentivized to never use my character's own racial and class based ammunition at this moment. I go through the ammunition too quickly, its a pain to craft because I go through it so fast, my ammo is generally weaker than template bolts, and it is inefficient to spend money on. Thats not a good thing.


Its my personal belief that Vlos'Khaliiz bolts should, no... NEED, to be given help, either in the form of a bundle to drastically increase the number crafted when made, or with the addition of a permanent poison that isn't fishing for 1s. Perhaps a template of their own that lets poisons be applied permanently to the ammo.

Its a neat concept, but has been rendered completely obsolete and irrelevant by cheaper, better, and more plentiful mundane ammunition.

/discuss

The current state of Vlos'Khaliiz Bolts makes me sad. Especially because crossbow is a weapon that is currently nowhere near the power of a bow.

I’ve actually posted a suggestion for this in the past.
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=20465&p=165798#p165798

If the Vlos’Khaliz recipe yielded an irreparable assembly template with 5 charges and the acid damage (plus 4 slashing, maybe?) it could nonetheless be worth the effort to craft.