Seeking advice & feedback on a demonic weapon awakening

Hello all!

In my campaign, the Artificer and the Barbarian conspired to take abyssal steel from the shells of demons they were fighting and forge it into a hammer-axe. I have been narrating how, on a critical hit, the axe deals an additional 1d8 necrotic damage, and seems to absorb all blood it is soaked in. The Barbarian player recently twigged that this might be something to do with what they made it out of!

I have made a rough idea of how I plan for the axe, named Bjorn, to progress (Cheese Chasers, please avert thy eyes!):

 The curse levels are because the traditional D&D Curses suck, so Remove Curse can be up-cast to remove higher level curses, like dispel magic. It's that simple - can't believe that WotC didnt use this as a system.

The final state I haven't statted up yet, but it'll be unpleasant, to say they least!

What do you think? (Please be aware that the party knew there might be unexpected consequences to using this metal, so this is foreshadowed somewhat).

This is a really cool arc, although I feel like there might be two issues with it:

• 50 Critical hits is a lot. For a single player, it might be pretty difficult to get even to the first level of Bjorn. I would recommend either lowering the prerequisite to something much much smaller, possibly 5 and 10, or something along those lines. Perhaps just something different entirely, like slain enemies, which can be much more common than critical hits.
• The curse seems much more impactful than what the weapon actually does. I think that most players would probably know something's up when the weapon start changing appearance and whispering, and will likely counteract the curse or work around it. I would suggest adding few more benefits to the weapon, like bonuses to attack rolls and damage rolls like a +whatever weapon and a benefit for the player while they are raging, leaning into the bloodthirsty nature of the weapon. Perhaps a bigger damage boost when they Reckless Attack, again more of the "thirst for blood".

It should require attunement. Probably it does and you didn’t write it down, but just in case.

Does remove curse remove it permanently, or just suppress it for a time? Typically, remove curse just lets you un-attune from a weapon.

Have you worked out the math on how quickly the thing will evolve? As in, if you get 1 point per hit, 2 attacks a round, the barbarian could easily get 6-10 points in a single fight. So, depending on how often combat happens, you could get a sense for how long before it will hit each level. Though if you need 50 crits before it starts going up on every hit, they could well never get there. You figure 1 crit every other fight and you’re looking at 100 fights before it happens.

Also, I’d throw in more benefits as they hit higher levels, things to make it a tougher choice if they should keep it or not. Maybe an extra damage dice, maybe it gets the thrown and returning property, or a choice of a second weapon mastery.

I agree with Xalthu, if you want this to be a plot arc in the campaign, you should adjust the rate of cursification because as is, it would likely take until level 14+ before the curse seems at all bad.

Thanks all for the responses!

I realise now that I have missed the key bit out - when the axe gets a critical hit, it deals 1d8 necrotic damage and gains that much blood - so it's not needing 50 critical hits to get started (unless they have a really bad string of luck with those dice rolls). The Axe is already on 10 blood from the last session.

The barbarian is already very attached to the weapon, forgoing a much more potent weapon ( a greatsword which deals 3d6 damage when raging) to use it, so the benefits vs cost thing isn't too high of a problem I don't think. If I add more to it, it can't be too much. 

Yes, the axe requires attunement and removing the curses only allows you to unattune.

Party just hit level 14.

Considering the comment on how quickly it will go up once all hits contribute, I think that's what I want - the axe should start to accelerate once it starts growing stronger. The curses will also be semi-secret, so the player will know about some of them (EG reluctance to part with the weapon) but not others.

I have a very similar cursed weapon situation going on my campaign. I created a sword that draws blood and once it hits X stacks of blood (1 blood = 1 damage, so once the player has dealt X damage with the weapon against creatures that have blood) it awakens. Originally it's a +1 sword and awakened form is a +2 with some added mechanics. The party hasn't received the item yet and won't receive it for another good while, but I'm already thinking about the scaling of the weapon, whether it will awaken "in time".

But I never really thought of scaling the curse. I really like the idea. I'm curious whether the scaling curse is directly in the item card (i.e. available for the player) or only in your DM's notes?

Quote from Scruvy >>

I have a very similar cursed weapon situation going on my campaign. I created a sword that draws blood and once it hits X stacks of blood (1 blood = 1 damage, so once the player has dealt X damage with the weapon against creatures that have blood) it awakens. Originally it's a +1 sword and awakened form is a +2 with some added mechanics. The party hasn't received the item yet and won't receive it for another good while, but I'm already thinking about the scaling of the weapon, whether it will awaken "in time".

But I never really thought of scaling the curse. I really like the idea. I'm curious whether the scaling curse is directly in the item card (i.e. available for the player) or only in your DM's notes?

The curse scaling is partially for me, and partially for the player. to wit:

At level 1, the player knows that their character is now reluctant to part with the weapon.

At level 2, this will be DM knowledge until the player figures it out - then I'll tell them the wording of the curse, but not the level.

At level 3, the curse is DM knowledge, which the player will work out (fairly quickly, I think).

Level 4 is entirely DM knowledge - the player won't even know that the weapon has awoken further. However, it may start egging the character on to pick fights that the weapon knows they can't win...

Fun thing I also realised - one of the main methods the party has for finding out about things is Legend Lore, which will be useless because it will tell them that this weapon was built by their Artificer about 6 months ago!

Maybe have it so each crit gives you 5 blood.