Cold Iron Costs

[Bearchucks]

I get that cold iron weapons are double costed at creation.  "Also, any magical enhancements cost an additional 2,000 gp." is the tricky part.

Is the 2k per +1?  Per each enhancement, or just a flat one-time fee?  If you're getting a MW cold iron dagger made into a +1 Shock cold iron dagger...is that another 2k or 4k?

[kitep]

I would think the 2000 is a one time fee, paid the first time you magic the item.  Enhancements added later do not cost an extra 2000.

[StreamOfTheSky]

It's a one-time fee.  Once it's been made magical, it's magical.

For what it's worth, the FAQ said you pay each time.  But the FAQ is a pile of dog turn and should be ignored with a vengeance.

[Halinn]

I'd say that if you go directly from masterwork to +1 Shock, you pay just once, but if you decide to later upgrade it to +1 Shock Defending, you would have to pay again.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'd say that if you go directly from masterwork to +1 Shock, you pay just once, but if you decide to later upgrade it to +1 Shock Defending, you would have to pay again.

Why?

Why the hell should it matter if you incrementally increased it instead of all at once?

That's just backsliding almost all the way to the dark days of 3.0 when there was no such thing as incremental upgrades, and you were better off just selling your old +1 sword and paying fresh for a +2 than you were to upgrade it.  That's abhorrent.

Why do you think Cold Iron should be more costly than any other material in the game, even adamantine?

[kitep]

Well, if the FAQ says you pay everytime, then the rule is you pay everytime.  If you want to houserule it that you only pay once, that fine -- but it's a house rule, not the regular rules.

You could think of it like a housecall fee.  If the plumber charges $60 just to come to your house, and he fixes everything in 1 visit, you only pay the housecall fee once.  If you have him fix everything over the course of 3 visits, then you have to pay 3 times - even though the end fix is exactly the same.

In the case of cold iron, I guess you could say it cost 2000gp to make it ready to accept magic.  If you magic it all at once, you pay the fee once.  If you want to magic it over the course of 3 times, then you pay the fee 3 times.  If you want realism, then play something else

FWIW, I'm gonna play with the house rule that it's a one-time fee.  Not that it matters, since nobody in my group has ever magicked cold iron.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The FAQ is not "rules."  Only eratta is truly the rules.  FAQ is often (as it was in this case) wrong and contrary to what the rules say.

[Kremti]

SteamOfTheSky,

I hate to say this because I think it's a stupid rule, but I have to side with the FAQ on this one.  The reality is that it uses the language "any magical enhancements", which to me RAW you don't get to say "The first application of enhancements".  It just happens with all of them.

I also agree that it's stupid rule, and when I'm DMing, I'm probably just going to say "Nah, just pay once." to my players.  Or, actually, probably will say, "Bah, this is stupid.  Just slap Metalline on your weapon instead."

Still, this isn't the first time there was a stupid rule in D&D...and probably not the last time either 

-K

[Aradu]

It says "any magical enhancements cost an additional 2,000 gp", not "any magical enhancement costs an additional 2,000 gp", "all magical enhancements cost an additional 2,000 gp", or one of the other ways to phase it if it was meant to be payed multiple times. In contrast I can't think of any comparably small change that would make it clearer that only one payment was meant without making the sentence more unwieldy.

The "pay for every bonus" interpretation leads to contradictions, the "pay once" interpretation doesn't. How much does a single +3 enhancement like speed cost extra? Speed is a single enhancement, so it should cost at most 2k extra. But speed is also defined as costing as much as an extra +3 enhancement bonus. It's not clear which of those rules would count as the more specific if they were to conflict, and they don't conflict if you only pay once. If they had actually meant the cost to be payed multiple times they would have specified how it works, the core rules usually aren't edited so badly that they'd leave such an obvious and glaring hole open.