How to: Sword of Sharpness?

[The Shadowdove]

Hey peeps me again,

I am considering giving the villain my group has been bumping into said item of limb removal.

I'm curious as to how to actually go about doing so! Here are the questions I have, feel free to answer any variety of them:

1)Does it count as a +1 magical weapon, all other properties aside?

2)How to determine when/which limbs are severed. Fairly?

3)How do I determine the health of items? This is assuming the weapon is intended to slice through inanimate items as well as weapons, armor, and wielded assorted magicky things of big bad guy bane!

4)If the villain doesn't manage to lop off any limbs or slice through any items before he departs the wonderful world of make-believe, does his weapon just look like any atypical weapon that is (Assumedly) a +1?

5)Any other advice you may have.

Also, here is the weapon's description from the DMG:

"SWORD OF SHARPNESS
Weapon (any sword that deals slashing damage), very·
rare (requires attunement)
When you attack an object with this magic sword
and hit, maximize your weapon damage dice against
the target.
When you attack a creature with this weapon and
roll a 20 on the attack roll, that target takes an extra 14 slashing
damage. Then roll another d20. If you roll a 20
you lop off one of the target's limbs, with the effect of
such loss determined by the DM. If the creature has no
limb to sever, you lop off a portion of its body instead.
In addition, you can speak the sword's command word
to cause the blade to shed bright light in a 10-foot radius
and dim light for an additional 10 feet. Speaking the
command word again or sheathing the sword puts out
the light."

Thanks in advance people, you're always so helpful!!!!

-Dove

[Shaofoo]

Hey peeps me again,

I am considering giving the villain my group has been bumping into said item of limb removal.

I'm curious as to how to actually go about doing so! Here are the questions I have, feel free to answer any variety of them:

1)Does it count as a +1 magical weapon, all other properties aside?


It counts as a magic weapon but it doesn't matter anyway since there is no damage resistance where the bonus affects it now (there is no resistance to all weapons that don't have a +3). Of course you can put in a bonus if you wish.


2)How to determine when/which limbs are severed. Fairly?

Roll a dX where X is amount of limbs and assign a number to a limb. It just says limbs so head and torso should be safe.


3)How do I determine the health of items? This is assuming the weapon is intended to slice through inanimate items as well as weapons, armor, and wielded assorted magicky things of big bad guy bane!

That is up to you, the DMG is supposed to be suggestions for you, not hard rules to follow. You can say that there could be a potential for items to block the effect.


4)If the villain doesn't manage to lop off any limbs or slice through any items before he departs the wonderful world of make-believe, does his weapon just look like any atypical weapon that is (Assumedly) a +1?

That is up to you if the players can tell through knowledge checks or magic detection that this item is a sword of sharpness.


5)Any other advice you may have.

Check to see if your players are okay with their characters being permanently altered. You don't have to spoil the surprise but test the waters by putting wacky magical trap alters the hair color or race of a character or any harmless but permanent change, if they are okay with it then they'll probably deal if their arms are chopped off but if they can't deal with their character having neon green hair then they might raise a stink if their legs are sliced off.

[coredump]

[The weapon is a magical weapon that always does max damage from the weapon dice. (but not other damage dice, Sneak attack, hunters mark, etc.)] I misread the above, this is not correct.


It is not a +1 weapon.

[The Shadowdove]

The weapon is a magical weapon that always does max damage from the weapon dice. (but not other damage dice, Sneak attack, hunters mark, etc.)

It is not a +1 weapon.

Wait, is there a part in the DMG that specifies weapons like this do not do damage dice from other effects? I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the items description.

It just looks like it does:

1)extra 14 damage on a crit
2)roll again on crit, if 20 lop off a limb
3) max damage to 'objects'
4)emit light

[coredump]

Wait, is there a part in the DMG that specifies weapons like this do not do damage dice from other effects? I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the items description.

It just looks like it does:

1)extra 14 damage on a crit
2)roll again on crit, if 20 lop off a limb
3) max damage to 'objects'
4)emit light

Sorry, I misread the post, didn't note the first ability was only for objects.

nevermind...

[Shining Wrath]

It has a 1 in 400 chance of severing a limb. If a battle lasts 10 rounds, you need to fight this BBEG 40 times to remove one limb. I'm pretty sure this is not the magic weapon you want to give a BBEG.

If it DOES remove a limb, you have to choose which limb, and how much of that limb. Roll D8: (1=R. hand, 2=R. arm, 3=L. hand, 4=L. arm, 5=R. foot, 6= R. leg, 7=L. foot, 8=L. Leg).

Removal of either leg probably kills the PC outright through blood loss unless massive healing is applied within a round or two. Fantasy world or no, those are some major blood vessels. The other 6 possibilities merely mean the character is useless or of greatly diminished utility until Restoration can be cast. Does the party have access to magic of that level? If not, you are looking at rolling up a new character.

[Ziegander]

My suggestion would be to make it a +1 weapon that scores a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20, deals + 1[W] on any successful hit, and deals a further + 2[W] on any critical hit (for a total of 6[W] + modifier damage on an actual critical hit). It automatically overcomes damage resistances and thresholds of objects. Then, base the severing of limbs, digits, etc on the damage done by any individual hit. A critical deals much more damage than usual and is thus more likely to lop a limb off, however, any normal attack might sever something minor like a finger. Make severing a head only possible on a very high damage crit, and scale everything else down from there. Chopping an arm off should be harder than a hand. Chopping a hand should be harder than a finger, and chopping a leg off should be harder than chopping an arm off. It would be a very powerful weapon indeed, perhaps worthy of legendary status.

[Shining Wrath]

My suggestion would be to make it a +1 weapon that scores a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20, deals + 1[W] on any successful hit, and deals + 2[W] on any critical hit (for a total of 6[W] + modifier damage on an actual critical hit). It automatically overcomes damage resistances and thresholds of objects. Then, base the severing of limbs, digits, etc on the damage done by any individual hit. A critical deals much more damage than usual and is thus more likely to lop a limb off, however, any normal attack might sever something minor like a finger. Make severing a head only possible on a very high damage crit, and scale everything else down from there. Chopping an arm off should be harder than a hand. Chopping a hand should be harder than a finger, and chopping a leg off should be harder than chopping an arm off. It would be a very powerful weapon indeed, perhaps worthy of legendary status.

Hit points are a combination of toughness, experience, and luck, per the PHB. If we're going to change the DMG version, I'd say it severs a limb on a critical hit which also reduces the target to 0 HP or fewer. You don't lose a limb until your luck runs out, so to speak.

[Ziegander]

Hit points are a combination of toughness, experience, and luck, per the PHB. If we're going to change the DMG version, I'd say it severs a limb on a critical hit which also reduces the target to 0 HP or fewer. You don't lose a limb until your luck runs out, so to speak.

If it only severed a limb on a critical hit which reduced its target to 0 HP, then the sword cannot be said to be all that sharp can it? The odds on that have got to be excruciatingly low as well. Considering we're talking about a very rare or legendary magical weapon here, I'm not too concerned with it superseding the normal treatment of hit points as laid out by the PHB. Specific beats general, after all.

[Shining Wrath]

If it only severed a limb on a critical hit which reduced its target to 0 HP, then the sword cannot be said to be all that sharp can it? The odds on that have got to be excruciatingly low as well. Considering we're talking about a very rare or legendary magical weapon here, I'm not too concerned with it superseding the normal treatment of hit points as laid out by the PHB. Specific beats general, after all.

OTOH, I think it interferes with verisimilitude to sever someone's right leg and have them still near max hit points and, per RAW, fully functional in combat. We're doing Holy Grail's Black Knight, which I would like to point out is intended to be ridiculous.

[Ziegander]

OTOH, I think it interferes with verisimilitude to sever someone's right leg and have them still near max hit points and, per RAW, fully functional in combat. We're doing Holy Grail's Black Knight, which I would like to point out is intended to be ridiculous.

Alright, so add a Bleed effect to it, when an arm or a leg is severed, with the added drawback of falling immediately prone, speed reduced to 5ft, and greater Bleed when a leg is severed.

As far as "max hit points" are concerned, it would all depend on the damage thresholds. Let's say the sword can only chop a head off on a 50 damage attack (and all of this limb severing should still allow a Constitution save to negate). Then a whole leg should require at least 40, likely 45 damage. Maybe you could allow only the bottom half of the leg to be severed around 40 damage. That still brings the toughest of characters down to 0 or single digit hit points around 5th character level. Even at 20th level, it's usually close to a quarter of their max hit points.

Losing a head would kill instantly on a failed saving throw, but losing an arm might inflict 10 bleed damage per round. Losing a leg could be 20. That's going to kill you very quickly, yes. Any verisimilitude would just depend on the details.

[Easy_Lee]

I'd just have it sever a limb anytime it reduced a target to 0 hit points, and at the wielder's choice cause decapitation any time it kills a target.

[Ziegander]

I'd just have it sever a limb anytime it reduced a target to 0 hit points, and at the wielder's choice cause decapitation any time it kills a target.

How about this + the object damaging effect + any damage dealt by the sword also lowers the target's maximum hit points by an equal amount until they take a long rest (no save)? Lowering max hit points seems like a suitably abstracted way to model hacking parts of creatures off.

[Easy_Lee]

How about this + the object damaging effect + any damage dealt by the sword also lowers the target's maximum hit points by an equal amount until they take a long rest (no save)? Lowering max hit points seems like a suitably abstracted way to model hacking parts of creatures off.

Interesting. Depending on how strong OP wants it to be, it could be some combination of these:

+X
Ignores damage resistance
Ignores up to X points of damage reduction
Damage dealt by this weapon is subtracted from the target's maximum hitpoints until the target finishes a long rest
If this weapon reduces a target to 0 hit points, it hacks off a limb. Roll 1d8: 1-2 = a hand, 3-4 = a foot, 5-6 = an arm, 7-8 = a leg. A creature who has lost a limb automatically fails death saving throws.
If this weapon kills a target, the weilder may choose to decapitate the target

[coredump]

Many of these changes are things that will be fairly useless once owned by a PC. Lopping off a hand as you kill something isn't much of a benefit, same with reducing max hit points, since most of the time you will be killing them right then anyway.

Instead, why not just increase the chance from 1:20 to maybe 5:20 on a crit.

[Easy_Lee]

Many of these changes are things that will be fairly useless once owned by a PC. Lopping off a hand as you kill something isn't much of a benefit, same with reducing max hit points, since most of the time you will be killing them right then anyway.

Instead, why not just increase the chance from 1:20 to maybe 5:20 on a crit.

I was assuming this was a thing to be held by a big bad. If PCs are lopping off opponent's limbs on crits, that's more reasonable. But one wouldn't want a big bad to do it to the PC in the middle of a fight, at least I wouldn't.