Reading about the Warpriest, I find the Sacred Weapon class feature to be less than clear. The specific paragraphs I'm unclear about are:
At 4th level, the warpriest gains the ability to enhance one of his sacred weapons with divine power as a swift action. This power grants the weapon a +1 enhancement bonus. For every 4 levels beyond 4th, this bonus increases by 1 (to a maximum of +5 at 20th level). If the warpriest has more than one sacred weapon, he can enhance another on the following round by using another swift action. The warpriest can use this ability a number of rounds per day equal to his warpriest level, but these rounds need not be consecutive.
These bonuses stack with any existing bonuses the weapon might have, to a maximum of +5. The warpriest can enhance a weapon with any of the following weapon special abilities: brilliant energy, defending, disruption, flaming, frost, keen, and shock. In addition, if the warpriest is chaotic, he can add anarchic and vicious. If he is evil, he can add mighty cleaving and unholy. If he is good, he can add ghost touch and holy. If he is lawful, he can add axiomatic and merciful. If he is neutral (with no other alignment components), he can add spell storing and thundering. Adding any of these special abilities replaces an amount of bonus equal to the special ability's base cost. Duplicate abilities do not stack. The weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus before any other special abilities can be added.
The only things that seems clear to me are that enhancement bonuses from Sacred Weapon will stack with enhancement bonuses on the weapon itself and that enhancement bonuses can be "spent" for weapon special abilities instead.
The things I'm confused about:
- "These bonuses stack with any existing bonuses the weapon might have, to a maximum of +5." This says that the total stacked enhancement bonus has a maximum value of +5? This would seem to imply any bonuses above +5 should probably be spent on special abilities, correct?
- If I have a +2 longsword and a +2 Sacred Weapon bonus, I have a total of +4 enhancement bonus. Can I then decide to invest the +4 into a special ability like Brilliant Energy, which costs a +4 bonus?
- "The weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus before any other special abilities can be added." Does this mean that the weapon itself must have a +1 enhancement bonus or can the enhancement bonus gained through Sacred Weapon qualify for adding special abilities? Does the weapon have to retain at least a +1 bonus after special abilities have been added?
I suspect these questions could also apply to Sacred Armor as well since the rules are nearly identical.