Blood Flail

[Phoenix042]

I'm working on a magic weapon called the "Blood Flail." It's actually got the stats of a maul; it's a two-handed heavy weapon that does 2d6 bludgeoning damage.

Here's what I've got so far for features:

Reaper of Souls
When you reduce a creature to 0 hp with this weapon, you gain temporary HP equal to your level + your constitution modifier.
Chains of Blood
When you take the attack action, before making any attacks you can decide to take 10 points of damage to empower the flail. If you do, you can roll the weapon’s damage dice twice each time you deal damage with it during your turn, adding the rolls together.


The intention is that you can use some of the temporary HP from Reaper of Souls to fuel a use of Chains of Blood. I wanted to use untyped damage because I didn't want resistance or immunity to work against it, ever.

What do you think? Does this need tweaking? Can you think of a better name for the weapon than "Blood Flail"?

Any other ideas, comments, criticism?

[Demonslayer666]

Soul Smasher, Soul Crusher, Vitae Drinker, Essence Thrasher

A crit on every hit for only 10 damage seems a bit over powered when you look at what a 5th level fighter with Action Surge can do. Maybe base the damage off the number of attacks, or only allow it for the next attack.

[Phoenix042]

A crit on every hit for only 10 damage seems a bit over powered when you look at what a 5th level fighter with Action Surge can do. Maybe base the damage off the number of attacks, or only allow it for the next attack.

Well unlike a crit, you're only rolling the weapon damage twice, not all of the attack's damage (superiority dice, for example, aren't modified).

I mean, a flame-tongue is only Rare (I'm going for Very Rare), and does 2d6 extra damage on each hit for free. Admittedly that's fire damage, but I think the comparison tells us something.

I could maybe up the HP cost to something like "you take damage equal to your level" or something similar, if you think that's more appropriate, or else I could modify the text to explicitly say the damage is 2d6 instead of just double the weapons' damage dice.

[JNAProductions]

Looks fine to me. Should specify what type of damage it is, though-or just specify it's untyped and not subject to resistance or immunity.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Using HP is an interesting concept. What if you gave up hit dice instead of HP? Definitely a now or later trade. HP is cheap. HD is a little less so.

Did the concept come from the game Darkest Dungeon?

[JackPhoenix]

There's no such thing as untyped damage in 5e. You can always use the "This damage ignores resistance or immunity" clause evoker wizard's Overchannel has.

[Kurt Kurageous]

There's no such thing as untyped damage in 5e. You can always use the "This damage ignores resistance or immunity" clause evoker wizard's Overchannel has.

Maybe 2d6 BLU, second 2d6 NEC?

[Kane0]

Using HP is an interesting concept. What if you gave up hit dice instead of HP? Definitely a now or later trade. HP is cheap. HD is a little less so.

That sounds pretty good, burn a Hit Die for an extra 2d6 damage on all attacks on your turn. If you get a kill you get some temps to offset the loss.

[Phoenix042]

Okay, based on everyone's advice I've made a stab at rewriting the feature:

Chains of Blood
When you take the attack action, before making any attacks you can decide to take 10 necrotic damage to empower the flail. This damage ignores resistance and immunity. If you do, the weapon drinks in your blood and becomes frenzied, dealing an extra 2d6 bludgeoning damage to any creature it hits during your turn.

I'm a little concerned that I've made it a little too wordy.

[JNAProductions]

Okay, based on everyone's advice I've made a stab at rewriting the feature:

I'm a little concerned that I've made it a little too wordy.

You good. I see how it works.

[Phoenix042]

Using HP is an interesting concept.

Yea, the player is really attached to the theme. She played a character that made liberal use of Blade of Blood back in 3.5 along with an item that made the trade even more favorable, and so when we converted to 5th edition I promised I'd take a stab at working up a magic item that let her trade health for damage.

What if you gave up hit dice instead of HP? Definitely a now or later trade. HP is cheap. HD is a little less so.

I'm hesitant to do this simply because I don't want to disincentivize using those hit dice to recover during rests; I run my adventures very much set to a pace that allows short rests (6 - 8 encounters per day), and I count on the players taking advantage of those short rests to not run out of HP and resources by the end of the day. I don't really want to screw with that system and encourage the player to conserve hit dice and not properly recover during a rest.

I also want the trade to feel immediately dangerous; using this should make you immediately more vulnerable, not just wear you down faster and make it easier to "nova" all in one fight, as it were.

Basically I don't want to screw up the pacing of my game by making hit dice into a nova resource for the party's only bruiser / tank.

Did the concept come from the game Darkest Dungeon?

Nope. She came up with the concept for this character all on her own like 7+ years ago. We originally tried to build that concept in 3.5 and settled on blade of blood as a racial feature, using Warblade for the maneuvers to build an effective bruiser who could take and dish damage, amplified with blood magic.

I created this weapon to help the character transition into 5th a couple of years ago, and I've been trying to refine the wording and power set recently since we're going to play again soon.


The weapon also has two more minor / less combat focused powers (a power that lets her track creatures the weapon has damaged, and one that gives a large bonus on intimidate checks if she takes damage when making them).

[Kurt Kurageous]

I also want the trade to feel immediately dangerous; using this should make you immediately more vulnerable, not just wear you down faster and make it easier to "nova" all in one fight, as it were.

And with that concept, absolutely right it should take HP. Even better, you are likely to give up more HP than you take from the foe with 2d6. But it will feel so good to throw FOUR DICE!