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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Homebrewed 5e magic weapon; is this balanced?



Platypusbill
2018-04-05, 08:06 AM
BLACKTHORN

This magical obsidian dagger has an amazingly sharp blade that can cut through almost anything in skilled hands. The edge quickly becomes dull with use, but magically sharpens itself over time.

You have a bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this weapon equal to your proficiency bonus (minimum 2). The Blackthorn has 6 uses, and 1 use is expended each time a succesful attack roll is made with it. With 3 uses left, the bonus to attack and damage rolls is reduced to half (rounded down); with 0 uses left, it is reduced to 0. The Blackthorn regains 1 use each hour after it has fewer than 6 uses left.

My players will be at level 5 when I hand this out. I intend to give this weapon to the party rogue, who typically uses two-weapon fighting with a rapier and dagger*.


The reason I tied the attack/damage bonus to proficiency is that I want it to scale up if the party reaches higher levels; this way, the initial bonus will be approximately twice as much as that of an ordinary +X magical weapon at a given tier of play (e.g. by the time the party is likely to obtain +2 weapons, proficiency will be +4); after a few uses, it's equivalent to a typical magic weapon, and eventually becomes a basic dagger except for its ability to overcome damage resistances. Do you consider this balanced vs a normal magical weapon?


*RAW this is not possible without Dual Wielder, but I allow it because it has the same average damage as two shortswords; it's only marginally advantageous in that the dagger can be thrown and the rapier does more damage than a shortsword if the bonus action is used for something other than an offhand attack.

nickl_2000
2018-04-05, 10:12 AM
It could be problematic to be honest.

Considering that on the average adventuring day you will get to use it 6+11=17(ish) times. The average combat lasts 10 rounds or so and the thief has 2 attacks per round. If I were playing with it, I would attack first with the rapier see if I hit and sneak attack. If I do, I will use my bonus action to dash/disengage/hide/rogue bonus action rather than attack, which would conserve my uses of this dagger. If I miss, then I attack with the dagger using the extra + to hit.

Given that play style, it will actually be rare that you don't get the Prof bonus to the attack. So, know that coming in and you will likely be fine.



My suggestion, don't tell that player that it gets better with proficiency at first. Have them discover it later on. If the dagger becomes problematic you can modify it without taking anything away from the player (since they didn't know that it did that to begin with).

Platypusbill
2018-04-05, 07:00 PM
First of all, thanks for the feedback.



If I were playing with it, I would attack first with the rapier see if I hit and sneak attack. If I do, I will use my bonus action to dash/disengage/hide/rogue bonus action rather than attack, which would conserve my uses of this dagger. If I miss, then I attack with the dagger using the extra + to hit.


That's what I figured; offhand attacks without the TWF fighting style would only deal 5.5 average damage even with the +3 bonus, so using it to ensure that a Sneak Attack lands each turn would be by far the most efficient way of using it.


It could be problematic to be honest.
Given that play style, it will actually be rare that you don't get the Prof bonus to the attack. So, know that coming in and you will likely be fine.


TBH I may have underestimated how long those uses will last if it's used in the way you described.

EDIT: I did a crude calculation in Excel; it takes about 25 rounds of doing this until all the uses have been expended. By contrast, a +1 rapier and normal dagger (with both being used each turn) would deal about 10-15% more damage in that timespan, but this is obviously an unrealistically prolonged scenario, and the bonus action would never be free to do something else.

I'm not going to go into the fluff behind the weapon, but suffice to say I really like the concept of it, and I want to retain the general idea of "super powerful, but needs to be used sparingly". I also want it to scale with levels, because I don't want it to become obsolete, and it would feel dumb if the party would get progressively better versions of the supposedly unique weapon as the game progresses. As a result, I'm mostly attempting to tweak the mechanics that limit its uses.



My suggestion, don't tell that player that it gets better with proficiency at first. Have them discover it later on. If the dagger becomes problematic you can modify it without taking anything away from the player (since they didn't know that it did that to begin with).

That shouldn't be an issue. If one player overshadows the others because I accidentally gave him too much power, it makes the game less fun, and the guy's mature enough to understand that.

Requilac
2018-04-05, 10:08 PM
[I]
BLACKTHORN

This magical obsidian dagger has an amazingly sharp blade that can cut through almost anything in skilled hands. The edge quickly becomes dull with use, but magically sharpens itself over time.

You have a bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this weapon equal to your proficiency bonus (minimum 2). The Blackthorn has 6 uses, and 1 use is expended each time a succesful attack roll is made with it. With 3 uses left, the bonus to attack and damage rolls is reduced to half (rounded down); with 0 uses left, it is reduced to 0. The Blackthorn regains 1 use each hour after it has fewer than 6 uses left.



For a level 5 party, this seems a little overpowered, but it should be easy to fix. The most major thing you need to worry about is how it recharges 1 use after every hour. Not only is this hard to keep track off, but it could also be very dangerous if your player's are intelligent enough to use their time properly. I would have it so that 1 charge is restored at the end of a short rest and all the charges are restored at the end of a long rest. That seems much more elegant to me, and is less prone to breaking. I would also decrease the number of total charges to 4, as 6 seems to be pushing it a little but 2 is not strong enough. This weapon should not be a severe problem, but I would recommend toning it down.