Having honed your talents at the forge, you gain the following benefits:
- You gain proficiency with smith's tools. If you are already proficient with them, you add double your proficiecny bonus to checks you make with them.
- While crafting items using smith's tools, you can work in 10 gp increments, rather than 5 gp increments.
- Over the course of any short or long rest, you can sharpen one nonmagical melee weapon that does piercing or slashing damage and give it a bonus to damage rolls equal to your proficiency bonus. Once you have dealt damage witht he weapon a number of times equal to your level, the bonus goes away.
I like the idea of this, but I think it's a bit overpowered. The first 2 points seem fine, but giving you an extra 2 to 6 dmg per hit for 1 to 20 hits seems pretty OP. For example a level 5 Fighter would be able to do 15 extra damage in 3 turns. A level 20 fighter would be able to do 24 extra damage per turn, for 5 full turns.
From level 17 forward it would be +6, which is double the (normal) maximum of a magically buffed weapon.
Maybe if you wouldn't make it scale that fast it would be better. You could maybe do something like half your proficiency (rounded down) instead.
I would drop the third point in favour of a stat boost in STR or CON.
The mechanics of the added bonus damage is a little too complex as you have to keep track as if your melee weapon has ammunition. On top of that, like Ert2rule pointed out, it's too much bonus damage with no downside.
And lore wise it doesn't make sense: your weapons are already created by a blacksmith, how can you explain that you are now a master blacksmith who can improve weapons in a short span of time.
I like this feat a lot, but I think I would probably put some limitations on the final point of the feat. I wouldn’t get rid of it, but I would put some limits on how many times a person can use it on a single weapon. I’m thinking once per weapon makes sense, after which point the weapon becomes useless. My reasoning behind this is, based on my VERY limited understanding of smithing irl, that weapons become much more vulnerable to fracturing if they are made super sharp and have a finer edge. This definitely wouldn’t break the feat, because the feat lets the player produce more cheaply. But it helps in reigning it in a bit.
Strong thematically, poor mechanically.
Remove the 3rd benefit entirely, and add a +1 to con, or advantage on saves towards nonmagical heat.
"The mechanics of the added bonus damage is a little too complex" How so? How is it too complex to do simple math?
"it's too much bonus damage with no downside" Downside? Its a feat. There's not supposed to be a downside.
"Downside? Its a feat. There's not supposed to be a downside."
Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master allow you to increase your damage. +10 per attack, but, you have to take a penalty. -5 to the attack roll. These two feats are considered must have, despite the penalty.
It's not common, and it certainly isn't popular, but the sort of buff, such as this which is per short or long rest, probably should have a drawback.
I'll propose my own edits.
"Having honed your talents at the forge, you gain the following benefits:
There are checks provided in Xanathar's that use Smith's Tools proficiency and Intelligence.