Playing as a sentient weapon

[Greywander]

I recently heard a story about someone who played as a sentient weapon, and this got me thinking about how this could be implemented mechanically. What makes sense for me is to do it as a custom race; it's a bit weird to think about an item having class levels, but honestly I think that sounds like a good way to configure what your "magical properties" are.

For some of the base statistics, I'm wondering if it makes sense to count as both an object and a creature (construct). Size is probably Tiny; a lot of weapons are long, but narrow, and weigh only a few pounds. Speed is 0. I'm also thinking you're initially just a magical weapon with no bonus, but at 5th/11th/17th level you improve to a +1/+2/+3 item. You can also treat yourself as your own spellcasting focus (but should verbal and somatic components still be required?). You can also communicate telepathically (possibly restricted to a range of touch).

There are three ways I can see to make a sentient weapon playable as a PC. These could all be used together, or they could be subraces, or you might have to pick two.

• Flying Weapon. Since you can fly, you can move and act on your own. This is probably the easiest and simplest way to do it. You essentially work like an ordinary creature, but with your hands glued to your weapon. This one seems kind of boring to me, but if you were, say, a monk, it would be the only way to leverage your speed increases. Alternatively, taking any class that grants flight as a feature, e.g. sorcerer (Divine Soul or Storm, but not Draconic), you could essentially become this anyway.
• Symbiotic Weapon. You're unable to move and act on your own (maybe cast spells without somatic components?). While a friendly creature is wielding you, you essentially share their body, mechanically speaking. You each get your own turns and can act independently from one another (unsure if you'd be able to move your wielder). I could also see somehow sharing your own class features with the person wielding you (perhaps by spending your action to do so?). If an enemy picks you up, you can force them to make a saving throw; if they pass, you can't act on your turn as they suppress you, but if they fail then they can still wield you on their turn but you also get to act on your turn, allowing you to, for example, attack them. Alternatively, maybe both of you would make saves at the start of each of your turns to see if either of you can act.
• Parasitic Weapon. Similar to the symbiotic weapon, except that you can't take your own turn while another creature is wielding you. Instead, you can attempt to dominate a creature that is holding you. If they fail the save, they essentially become your PC while the domination lasts. To prevent abuse, this should probably be 1/long rest, or if a target passes their save they become immune for 24 hours. Alternatively, you can raise a zombie or skeleton (must be touching the corpse) and have them wield you. This might be 1/short rest.

Some alternatives to weapons:

• Shield/Armor. Your +1/+2/+3 bonus is to AC instead, both for you and your wielder. However, since you can't really use items yourself, you probably don't want to play a martial class (Tavern Brawler can help, though). Caster classes could do pretty well, and I think even a paladin might work well between your auras, Lay on Hands, and support spells.
• Spell Focus. Your +1/+2/+3 bonus is to spell attack rolls (and save DC?). Gets you a lot of bang for your buck if you're a caster class yourself, which you probably should be for the same reasons as above. Still, some spell foci can also be weapons, so you might be more viable as a martial or gish class.
• Other Item. I'm not really sure. At least with the above items, they're taking up a hand (or being worn as armor), but being something like a magic cloak or an alchemy jug would allow you to stack with other magic weapons/armor (for your wielder, not yourself). Maybe damage reduction (like with HAM)? Could boost saves, but that would be pretty strong, potentially moreso than an AC boost.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? What do you think of the ideas I've presented here? How would you implement this concept? What might be some things to watch out for/be aware of?

[solidork]

To me, the interesting thing about playing an intelligent weapon is all about the relationship between you and your wielder. If its a PC/NPC pairing, then you can do something where they willing give over control of their body to let you "drive" and use your powers to accomplish what they can't, but if its PC/PC, making that antagonistic by controlling/possessing them is shooting yourself in the foot. It's just... not fun. If you're possessing a mindless body then you don't need any kind of special rules besides how you form and take control of a new one, but thats not nearly as interesting to me.

Alternatively, you could just be a spellcaster trapped in a magic staff and act normally. Carry yourself around with Mage Hand if you absolutely must, but it works better if you're used by a real person you trust.

Really though, I'd just play, Gun & Slinger, a game designed specifically for this kind of story.

[Bobthewizard]

To stay within the 5e rules, I'd play a Hexblade Pact of the Blade with Improved Pact Weapon and pretend that you are the sword. All of the abilities belong to the sword and your owner is only bad fighter. The owner doesn't summon you, you appear when you want. The owner doesn't cast spells or have invocations, you do. You talk through your owner and have complete control of them.

You'd have to work with your DM about what happens if they fail 3 death saves. As a DM, I'd be fine with the party just needing to find you a new host.

So I guess this is a parasitic weapon but using the existing rules.

[Vogie]

I'd suggest basing it off of the Warforged race, but tiny with a 30 ft flying speed.

However, ask your DM that the rest of your party can treat you like an object, allowing them to grab you, use you as a weapon, throw you like an improvised weapon (unless the weapon normally had a different throw range).

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Easiest way as other have said is to play a warforged hexblade with pact of the blade. Refluff as needed. More than likely your DM will go along with this as there is no real mechanical balance issue to consider.

If you must play an actual sword then have a discussion with them to play as the Flying Sword monster with class levels. This will require some negotiation on what your DM is comfortable in allowing as it will involve some mechanics changes. But it would be the most direct path to what your wanting.

[Greywander]

I'd suggest basing it off of the Warforged race, but tiny with a 30 ft flying speed.

However, ask your DM that the rest of your party can treat you like an object, allowing them to grab you, use you as a weapon, throw you like an improvised weapon (unless the weapon normally had a different throw range).

I'm not planning to play one of these any time soon, I was just interested in possibly writing out some homebrew for this. Using warforged as a base for the design seems like a good place to start. It even occurred to me that since you can't use most items, armor included, it might make sense to go back to using the old warforged AC calculation where it depends on which armor proficiencies you have. This way, playing something like a fighter would still give you a meaningful AC boost over playing a wizard. Although, this does diminish the value of monk and barbarian.

Between the flying weapon, symbiotic weapon, and parasitic weapon, what are your thoughts between making a player pick one vs. getting all of them? Picking one can help you stick to a particular concept, as it's hard not to do something if you're able to, and there would certainly be situations where it would be beneficial to deviate from your chosen concept. On the other hand, getting all three gives you more freedom to mix and match as you please, swapping between different playstyles depending on the situation.

[Vogie]

I wouldn't bother with homebrew - that's taking something simple and making it over-complicated.

The Flying weapon is probably the best, most straightforward idea. If you need to really sell it to the DM, say you'll start off with either 3 levels of EK or 2 levels of Artificer - both have the ability to essentially make their weapon a part of them, undisarm-able. With the EK, it's part of Weapon Bond, and warforged artificers can use the Armblade infusion. If the DM doesn't require that of you, then you're fine. Using the armor proficiency-based shifting of the UA warforged (and the print version of everything else), that makes sense. Even if it is a sentient greataxe-barbarian or a sentient sickle-monk, you'd just use the Unarmored Defense feature to supplant that... just like you would with a normal Warforged Barbarian. Of course you'd have to be telepathic. Ghostwise Warforged? Grab a level in GOO lock?

The other two options are very different stories, ones that you wouldn't likely be able to easily tell on a DnD setting.

The Symbiotic Weapon, the way you describe it, is just a Sentient Weapon NPC in the strictest sense. This is actually seen recently in

Spoiler: for random sidequest in WDH

Show

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, where NPC Meloon Wardragon is the owner of Azuredge, a sentient battleaxe. However, since Meloon has been taken over by an Intellect Devourer, Azuredge refuses to attune to him - his stat block in the book even says as much. If spied upon, each morning the party will see Meloon actively struggle with the battleaxe, dancing around his flat.

That type of back and forth is a beautiful thing for a DM to write and interact with... but that's because the NPC-ness of it only comes up in the interesting parts. If you, the player, were a sentient weapon in that vein, you would spend the bulk of your time... in a sheath. If you'd like to stat one out, that'd be fine, but you'd likely have more luck using the Sidekick stat block design.

The Parasitic weapon, however, is a completely different story from the other two. Instead of being a tiny flying telepathic construct, or amusing sidekick and/or plot device, you'd be a cursed weapon who has taken over a poor unfortunate soul. This could be similar to the all-consuming Darkin weapons from League of Legends (Aatrox, Kayn and Varus) or the symbiotes based on Venom, the more empathic weapons such as the Witchblade or the Halo from Warrior Nun. There'd be a certain amount of moral ambiguity with the fact that the party includes (although perhaps not to their knowledge) a combination of what could be essentially an enslaved individual and the parasitic weapon-force. You could get around this by:

• Making the desires of the humanoid a non-issue, such as your parasitic weapon inhabiting the bodies of corpses or other soulless entities.
• Allowing the parasitic pairing to only connect to willing individuals, such as how the Tok'ra from Stargate SG-1 only are infested by the alien force by choice (typically in exchange for the healing factor and life-lengthening of the symbiote)
• Having the clash between the parasite and the host be a major plot point for the game, similar to White Wolf's Geist: the Sin-Eaters TTRPG, where the Bound is a human saved from death by the Geist, a Spirit that brought them back from the brink and provides them preternatural powers, but has a mind & personality of its own.
• Reversing the process, so the player starts as a normal PC, but is slowing giving themselves over to the spirit of the weapon for one reason or another, over the course of the campaign. This is the most easily shown by something like a PC starting as a Fighter, Bard, et cetera, starting with this mysterious weapon at session 1, and only taking levels in warlock going forward.

and so on.

[CTurbo]

This is almost on topic, but I played a two shot campaign as an Animated Armor Champion Fighter. It was a fun idea until you realize it's a 1 Int construct with no means of communication. To overcome those 2 limitations, the DM allowed a modified point buy for stats allowing me to start with 18 Str, 10 Dex, 18 Con, 10 Int, 13 Wis, and 3 Cha. Also, if I was worn by an intelligent character, I could communicate with them telepathically. The high Int Wizard wore me and we developed a means of communication via tapping similar to morse code that allowed for easier communication. Fun stuff.

I think it would be harder to play as a weapon. I think a Flying Sword could work with a bit of homebrew. Maybe you could communicate with an ally thats wielding you? I feel like you HAVE to do something about the 1 Int. I would want better stats than the CR 1/4 from the MM.

[rel]

Assuming the player wants something custom and doesn't just roleplay 'I am the sword' with a normal build I would go about it like this.

First, I'd avoid making the item independently animate in any meaningful way and keep the item characters power level well below that of a normal character.
Then pass it off to a PC. keep things personal. I see the item character functioning as something like a combined dedicated support and shoulder angel.

First off, no need for full stats. Keep things simple and freeform. The sword isn't likely to break but it may get stolen or simply not be very usefull.

The item needs to be able to talk and have a few neat at-will powers that define it's theme.

plus numbers are boring and problematic in terms of balance so I'd give them a miss but that's more personal preference than anything

The item needs some way to influence its wielder if only to prevent a wandering kobold thief from walking off with it.

Some neat utility powers for non-combat and some cool tricks to do in combat as well.

I see the item as having its own initiative and having actions it can take in combat which is where most of its power comes from. otherwise it's just a particularly nice piece of kit. Assuming it wants to be.

As the party levels up you simply add powers to the weapon as it gains a legendary reputation or its wielders unlock more of its latent power.

[chainer1216]

I have a half finished homebrew somewhere, where the magic item is a class of it's own, the base class focuses on the weapons growth of abilities specific to it, like gain enhancement bonus as you level, and choosing what other enchantments it gets, then at 3rd level you choose between two subclass options, Control or Partner, the former being about influencing and eventually dominating a host, and the latter focused its abilities on buffing its wielder.

The idea was that you could discard the subclasses and sentient part to bring in a 5e version of Legacy Weapons too if you wanted.

[Unoriginal]

Personally, I would just use the sapient weapon rules from the DMG.

Not the most independent character, obviously, but that is part of the theme.