When is a magic attack, not a magic attack?

Apparently, whenever you use the spell, 'Magic weapon'!

Since ghosts are only susceptible to 'magic' attacks, you can imagine my surprise when after enchanting my unit with 'magic weapon', it had no effect on the ghost!

Lets examine this situation more closely:

A) Ghosts are only susceptible to magic attacks.... notice the use of the word 'magic' here.

B) Enchanting a non magic unit with the spell 'magic weapon'..... notice the use of the word 'magic' here!

C) WTF?

Sadly the Magic Weapon spell only increases the units attack property and also restores upto 4 ammo for units that have ammo. It does NOT give it a magic attack.

The spell FLAME BLADE, same school lvl 2, does what you want and gives the unit a Magic Attack as well as increasing attack.

I know they could have chosen a better name for the spell but it doesn't state in the description that it gives a magic attack, unlike how it does for Flame Blade.


EDIT: Just double checked the description for those 2 spells and it's as I thought. Sadly thinking a bit more it perhaps should have been made clear on the lvl 1 spell that it didn't grant magic but hindsight is always 20/20 right?

A 'magic' weapon is, as you may have guessed, one which deals magic damage. Mostly these come from spells or wands, although there are a few exceptions (I believe that the Master's sword is one, though I may have got my weapons mixed up). A magic weapon has the special property that its attacks can only be negated using resistance, and not armour, which can be a blessing and a curse. Either way, the 'magic weapon' spell doesn't make you deal magic damage, but increases your attack statistics, which is what the spell description shows.

For an 'in world' explanation, imagine that the (fairly low level) spell is enchanting the weapon to guide the wielder's hand to deal stronger and more damaging blows, as opposed to making it inject devastating magic into their enemy when they cut them. Obviously there's no benefit to guiding your blows better if there's nothing to guide them to anyway.

Thanks for the replies


So let me get this straight, ,, It magically increases the non magic attack using magic without being magical, ,,, oooook

What it can't Magically make your weapons better, ie... Sharper and perhaps harder to break? Neither of these things gives it "Magic" in and of itself just makes it a better normal weapon which can still be worn away time and use haha.

It is a weird spell, "might" be a translation thing, not sure. Not even because of the magical weapon thing, but it's a ammo replenisher/enhancer, so why does it affect swords...
In New Horizons they modified it to only replenish ammo that is really amo, not animal skills like slugger goo.

In the Russian language this spell is named as "Волшебное оружие". Magic school named as "Школа Волшебства". So, this spell should have name like "Sorcery weapon" or so. For comparison, magic damage is "магический урон".
You can look at this spell like on D&D spell, which gives +X to weapon for duration. Doesn't make your weapon to break through immunities in most cases (I recall that at +6 or so it is possible to ignore some resistances).

So by turning a normal weapon into a magical weapon it becomes a magical normal weapon with superior normal attack but is in no way magical despite now being specifically labelled a magical weapon?

Edit: well the bottom line is this, It is clearly a paradox, and it is fun to tease paradoxes

In D&D - depending on which version you're talking about - the weapon being "magic" allows it to bypass various weapon resistances/immunities, though not necessarily all of them.

However, the way Eador handles this is, in D&D terms, closer to special properties like "Ghost Strike" or specific damage types that ignore armor/physical protections, allow the weapon to strike incorporeal creatures as if they were solid, and so on.

Similar to D&D, Eador labels such weapons as having the "Magic Strike" property, but only some magical weapons have that specific property. Flame Blade provides it, but Magic Weapon does not. (Likewise, in D&D, giving a weapon a +X enhancement via a spell does not automatically give it Ghost Strike.)