Designing a Bittersweet Artifact Weapon

[supersonic29]

I've been working on some rules for this sword (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fgixHDO80WlhlEtfzfg7Z9xtRTGDCgvognNckW2qZdM/edit?usp=sharing). Originally I wanted to go for something D&D functional along the lines of the Monado from the Xenoblade series, but once I got running with some of the key bits of that I was loving how I could translate/adjust things for d&d.

That being said, there are bits of this document with (UGLY PARENTHESIS WITH CAPS AND ??'S) where I have yet to come up with how a couple things should be. In addition to that I'm sure as I'm not perfect that at least one thing on here is imba/exploitable. I wanted to throw this up here to receive suggestions for how to fill in blanks, rebalance things, and patch holes.

Also name pending. Every instance of "the sword" will be some kind of name one day.

Thanks in advance

[atemu1234]

You're probably better off making an artifact bastard sword. It'd work better.

[Leviting]

I put some imput on the doc, though the formatting was a bit... strange.

[supersonic29]

You're probably better off making an artifact bastard sword. It'd work better.

Why do you say that past one damage die higher?


I put some imput on the doc, though the formatting was a bit... strange.

Thanks for that, and yeah I apologize for my messiness, I hope points for through.

[atemu1234]

Why do you say that past one damage die higher?

You could cut most of the template, the weapon would be already-existing, and most of the stuff there is already bastard-swordy.

[supersonic29]

You could cut most of the template, the weapon would be already-existing, and most of the stuff there is already bastard-swordy.

Well the basic stats are straight up a longsword, it was intentional to not label that however. I wanted to not list it as a common weapon type so someone couldn't take Weapon Focus (Longsword) and benefit with this and other longswords. I might let players take weapon focus for this sword in particular because then they really have to commit, not just get good with all longswords and coincidentally this one.

[atemu1234]

Well the basic stats are straight up a longsword, it was intentional to not label that however. I wanted to not list it as a common weapon type so someone couldn't take Weapon Focus (Longsword) and benefit with this and other longswords. I might let players take weapon focus for this sword in particular because then they really have to commit, not just get good with all longswords and coincidentally this one.

Why not? The focus shouldn't just be on THIS BLADE. What if it gets hit with disjunction?

[supersonic29]

Why not? The focus shouldn't just be on THIS BLADE. What if it gets hit with disjunction?

Well since it's an artifact they would have a hard time and if they succeeded they would have a frightening chance of losing all spellcasting abilities, which they would probably know if they tried to disjunct it. Also I probably wouldn't throw disjunction in an encounter since the party only has 2 items it would affect and they're both artifacts.

[atemu1234]

Well since it's an artifact they would have a hard time and if they succeeded they would have a frightening chance of losing all spellcasting abilities, which they would probably know if they tried to disjunct it. Also I probably wouldn't throw disjunction in an encounter since the party only has 2 items it would affect and they're both artifacts.

Again, just because you wouldn't do it doesn't make it outside the realm of possibility. You've got to recognize that this can happen, even if it doesn't, and that the players should plan for it because in-game, it's a legitimate weakness.