One of my players has found a homebrew item online that effectively gives them a breath weapon, but it is based in a 10 foot radius around them, deals force damage, and turns the area affected to difficult terrain until their next turn. As it stands, it follows cantrip progression (d10s) and can be used a number of times equal to Prof Bonus per a long rest. My concern is that the item is too strong to give to my level six party, but the idea works great for the campaign. Do you have any suggestions for weakening it a touch, or do you think it is good as is?
So easy way to cap it without neutering the effect would be to dial down the number of uses per long rest to one or two. It's hard to gauge how OP it is for your campaign - it really depends on how much other stuff the party has, and what type of encounters you throw at them.
But I'm not sure if i understood the cantrip progression? The magical item vary in strength with the user? E.g. if they are 6th level, it would do 2d10 whereas a first level character would do 1d10?
The other part is that a breath weapon is typically a cone or a line rather than a radius - so maybe adjust it since it seems odd that a breath weapon would spread out around the character (that might be more harmful to the rest of the party if they are close together!)
Scale back damage die by one - from d10 to d8, or maybe set the uses to 1 with a recharge of 6 (on a d6). Since this is an AOE, you could also include a save DC to mitigate half damage. it kinda depends on how you think the item is overpowered. Also, might be easier to give the item more power if it's underwhelming, than to nerf it if it's overpowered.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The item gives you a spell like ability, which gives the cantrip progression, so yes, 1st level is 1d10, the characters would do 2d10 at 5th and above, so on and so forth.
I think it was based off of the mechanics for the dragonborn's breath weapon, since it is nearly word for word the same.
I currently have them as a pretty standard campaign, ya know, kill some skeletons, shades, a chimera as a boss. It is some what mystery and intrigue based at the moment, which will end up with them discovering that they are in what amounts to an old colony settled by precursors, and are one of hundreds of settlements. The item is somewhat of a McGuffin that will get their minds ticking. I could make it inactive, but I believe that having it work would be more engaging. The player in question is an old friend who I had talked about the campaign with far too much to not let them know, they would guess the twist instantly, so they have been helping me.
Thank you for the feedback!
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One of my players has found a homebrew item online that effectively gives them a breath weapon, but it is based in a 10 foot radius around them, deals force damage, and turns the area affected to difficult terrain until their next turn. As it stands, it follows cantrip progression (d10s) and can be used a number of times equal to Prof Bonus per a long rest. My concern is that the item is too strong to give to my level six party, but the idea works great for the campaign. Do you have any suggestions for weakening it a touch, or do you think it is good as is?
So easy way to cap it without neutering the effect would be to dial down the number of uses per long rest to one or two. It's hard to gauge how OP it is for your campaign - it really depends on how much other stuff the party has, and what type of encounters you throw at them.
But I'm not sure if i understood the cantrip progression? The magical item vary in strength with the user? E.g. if they are 6th level, it would do 2d10 whereas a first level character would do 1d10?
The other part is that a breath weapon is typically a cone or a line rather than a radius - so maybe adjust it since it seems odd that a breath weapon would spread out around the character (that might be more harmful to the rest of the party if they are close together!)
Scale back damage die by one - from d10 to d8, or maybe set the uses to 1 with a recharge of 6 (on a d6). Since this is an AOE, you could also include a save DC to mitigate half damage. it kinda depends on how you think the item is overpowered. Also, might be easier to give the item more power if it's underwhelming, than to nerf it if it's overpowered.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The item gives you a spell like ability, which gives the cantrip progression, so yes, 1st level is 1d10, the characters would do 2d10 at 5th and above, so on and so forth.
I think it was based off of the mechanics for the dragonborn's breath weapon, since it is nearly word for word the same.
I currently have them as a pretty standard campaign, ya know, kill some skeletons, shades, a chimera as a boss. It is some what mystery and intrigue based at the moment, which will end up with them discovering that they are in what amounts to an old colony settled by precursors, and are one of hundreds of settlements. The item is somewhat of a McGuffin that will get their minds ticking. I could make it inactive, but I believe that having it work would be more engaging. The player in question is an old friend who I had talked about the campaign with far too much to not let them know, they would guess the twist instantly, so they have been helping me.
Thank you for the feedback!