Weapon Rider Effects

[starship1]

I'm looking for a neat way of attaching minor magical effects to weapon attacks. However, I don't want the effects to be guaranteed or add another die roll to every single attack that the player makes.

I was thinking, what if some magical weapons had additional effects when an attack deals damage above a certain threshold?

For example:

Executioner's Axe
This magical Greataxe hisses with necrotic energy. If an attack with this weapon deals more damage than the target's Constitution score, the target takes additional necrotic damage equal to the difference.

or

Icy Burst
A strike with this weapon has a chance of exploding with ice. If an attack with this weapon would deal more damage than the target's Dexterity score, the damage's type is changed to Cold and the target's speed is reduced to 0 until the end of the target's next turn.

These effects would naturally trigger more often against weaker creatures and would be much more likely to occur on a critical hit (due to the double damage dice).

Is there a way to break this sort of effect wide open?

Is there a more elegant way to implement these incidental effects without slowing down the game?

What sort of effects do you think would work well for these "often on" magical weapons?

[J-H]

That's going to make you stop and check each monster hit each round by that weapon.

How about "If your successsful to-hit roll's D20 rolls a multiple of 3, add 3 lightning damage on hit." So if they roll and hit with a 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, then they get +3 damage. Otherwise, they don't.

The phrasing is clumsy to avoid Advantage being gamed for extra damage.

[stoutstien]

Could just give the weapons set charges. Like a axe that can do additional lighting damage 3 times/LR and the weapon becomes a nonmagical weapon until it is recharged.

[Seclora]

Bloodburn Dagger
On a Damage roll of 2 or 4, this dagger deals additional Fire damage equal to the damage roll. On a Damage roll of 1 or 3, the wielder recovers hit points equal to the number rolled.

Moonfire Bow
When used outdoors at night, this longbow deals radiant Damage and consumes no ammunition. If the target is a Lycanthrope, they are forced to transform.

Ignition Hammer
this Hammer gives off dim light in a 5ft radius. When you hit an enemy with this hammer, they give off Dim light in a 5ft radius for 1 round. When this effect ends, targets take Fire damage equal to half the damage dealt on your attack.

[firelistener]

For a magical martial weapon: If you roll an even number with the damage die, double it.
A 1d8 longsword with this "doubling" effect would jump from doing 4.5 damage on average to 7 damage on average. It's right between a +2 and +3 magical weapon in terms of average damage (6.5 and 7.5 average damage), but can deliver much more damage on a specific hit, meaning someone that's focused on getting critical hits would find the weapon especially useful.
Or, you could have the same "doubling" weapon, but double the result on an odd roll. This would change the average damage of a 1d8 longsword from 4.5 to 6.5, which is the same average damage as a +2 magic weapon. Again, this ignores critical hits, which would cause the damage output to jump dramatically.

If you want to keep things lower power and avoid power-gaming abuse, probably not the best weapon to give players, but definitely an interesting alternative to +2 weapons. You could also make the damage type change from slashing/piercing/bludgeoning to an element like fire or necrotic on those rolls as well, instead of the usual extra 1d6 fire or something.

[Lunali]

Could always have it do +x (insert element here) damage on crit with the hidden effect of that element also coming out during narration of deathblows.

[Joe the Rat]

For my home game, the party Paladin found a gem-studded warhammer called Lightbreaker. It had a potential prismatic burst on crits. It was charged up by smiting, with progressive charge points per color.
On a crit, you roll as d8. If you hit a color-number and it has enough charges, the hammer went off 20 points of element damage or banishment/petrification. The hammer lost the needed charges for that color. 8 is no effect.


The Sword of Wonder did something similar, building charges every time you hit. If the damage die is less than or equal to the number of charges, it goes off. Charges reset to 0 after 10 minutes.

[Bjarkmundur]

4e did have a couple of dragon's hoards worth of magic items you can draw inspiration from. Definitely check it out ^^

[Reevh]

My DM just gave me a +1 Greatsword that builds charges whenever I do more than 20 damage in a single swing (at my current level, that's impossible without a crit, and hard even with one, but when I get GWM that should become easier, if still not super common). It can hold up to 3 charges, and I can use those charges to restore up to 10 hit points per charge to someone I touch with the blade as an action. It also has an intensifying glow with each charge. I kind of wish he hadn't told me about the secondary effect until the blade lit up for the first time, but we can't have everything.

It's pretty simple to keep track of, since it's immediately noticeable if I do more than 20 damage in a single hit, while also adding a nice flavor to the weapon.

[Maelynn]

I wouldn't use procs that are based off enemy's ability scores. Those stats are not given out for a reason, and it would devalue class abilities like a Fighter's Know Your Enemy or a Rogue's Insightful Manipulator.

Some of the ideas here are great, using situational occurances like time of day, weather, amount of damage done. Personally I'd prefer something that would make a proc rather random, so it's not something a player can plan around too much. If you do want a guaranteed proc x in circumstance y, then make sure it's not something that happens often.

A few ideas of my own:

- weapon: any with 2 dice (greatsword, maul, etc). Effect: if you roll the same number on both damage dice, half of the damage done will leap to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it (based loosely on Chaos Bolt)

- weapon: any bow. Effect: you can attempt to guide the arrow/bolt with your willpower. Call out an area you wish to hit and roll a d6 along with your attack roll. If the d6 shows the area you called out, the respective effect takes place in addition to normal damage. You can use this ability once per short rest.

1 = head (turns damage into auto-crit, unless wearing helm)
2 = neck (stagger, target is pushed back 5 ft)
3 = sword arm (disarm, target drops weapon)
4 = other arm (target drops shield)
5 = either leg (cripple for 1d4 rounds)
6 = either foot (restrained, movement speed is 0 until action is used to remove the arrow)

[Bjarkmundur]

Weapon - An​y Thrown
As your dagger ricochets of your target, you teleport just in time to catch it mid-air, and deliver a secondary attack.
When you hit or miss with a thrown attack using this weapon, you can use your reaction to teleport to the closest unoccupied space within 5 feet of your target and make a single melee weapon attack against it. You have advantage on the secondary attack.


-> Rephrase to better fit 5e magic weapon phrasing.