Just remove dipping.
This is so unrealistic, even in the FR^^
At least your suggestion is better than what we actually have... But I'd rather find an awesome +1d4 fire damage sword, a +1D4 poison dagger or a +1d4 elec bow than being able to dip everything in every encounters...
I really hate that they'll balance the game arround such concept.
Irony, right? Dipping is unrealistic, even in FR, but give me a sword that does fire damage?
I can see lighting arrows on fire, they are, after all, wood. Even for the "I want realism, but only the realism I like" crowd, wood burns, and you can light it on fire with a match. Bonus points if you realized that some matches are even made out of wood. Melee weapons, on the other hand, I've never actually done it, because I don't see how it would actually work, depending on the weapon, anyway. If I had a quarterstaff, for example, maybe? This is yet another of those "non-issue issues", because anyone that truly believes it breaks the game can simply refrain from doing it. If I were to go off of just reading the forum, I would be left believing that every square inch of ground except a walking path was covered with barrels just waiting to be picked up or set on fire. Fortunately, I've played the game, and know better...
Can I set up this scenario? I definitely could. I could lay out all kinds of "traps" for NPCs. I saw a vid of the goblin fight at the grove where someone did just that. "but barrelmancy", except yeah, I did a fortress defense in NWN 2 that used a similar approach. Hey, I was watching a movie the other night, can't recall which one now, where they dug trenches and filled them with oil, and then lit them on fire when the enemy got in them. Damn that barrelmancy, spilling into other media, even though that media was out before barrelmancy was invented? What about castle defenses in RL, where they dumped burning oil on people trying to break down the gate? That's a tactic that's a few hundred years older than cRPGS...
