Executioners know their station in the public eye and even play into the role. However behind closed doors in an Executioner’s Guild, Executioners also learn rigorous stances with their Executioner’s Blade to help defend themselves and their guild. 

Executioner’s Blade: A large, wide, two-handed Blade that is made specifically for an Executioner once he/she finishes an apprenticeship with an Executioner’s Guild. An Executioner’s Blade must be a slashing weapons that has either the two-handed or versatile property and must be wielded with two hands. In the hands of a trained Executioner an Executioner’s Blade can be used to provide the killing blow or withstand a killing blow. Each Executioner’s Blade is specific to the Executioner it was made for and its traits and bonuses cannot be passed to another weapon.  Therefore each Executioner prizes their Executioner’s Blade above all other possessions and will go to great lengths to protect it and keep it clean and safe.

Executioner’s Blade

Your Executioner’s Blade is a large, wide, two-handed blade made specifically for you. The different stances you can take with your Executioner’s Blade can be very offensive or defensive. Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, when you roll initiative or as a bonus action on your turn you can choose between +1 to attack and damage rolls with your Executioner’s Blade or +1 to your AC.  You cannot use this feature if you are wearing heavy armor.

This bonus increases to +2 at 7th level, +3 at 10th level, +4 at 15th level, and +5 at 19th level.

Graceful Brutality

Starting at 7th level, your Executioner’s Blade attacks are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Versatile Violence

Starting at 10th level, the bonuses provided to you by your Executioner’s Blade can be split between attack and damage bonuses or AC bonuses however you see fit and do not have to be specifically one or the other. 

Close Quarter Carnage

Starting at 15th level, if you hit an enemy with your Executioner’s Blade and that enemy is adjacent to another enemy still within your reach, your Executioner’s Blade cleaves into the second enemy.  If your initial attack role with your Executioner’s Blade also hits the second enemy it deals half of the damage your Executioner’s Blade dealt to the initial enemy.

Gruesome Beheading

At 18th level, your training at the headmen’s block can be seen in battle. If you roll a critical hit against an enemy with a defined head/neck area, and the enemy has less than 150 hit points, that enemy is decapitated and dead. This death cannot be stopped by resistances or magical means and can only be reversed by a true resurrection or a wish spell. If enemy does not have a defined head/neck area treat the critical hit as a normal critical hit.