I am hoping for some feedback for a weapon I am planning on introducing to a campaign. Any critique or criticism is welcome, hopefully constructive!
Weapon (greatsword), very rare (requires attunement)
Thirst for Blood. While holding the sword, you can use a bonus action to gain a +1, +2 or +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls for 1 minute. When you use this feature you choose the bonus and take necrotic damage equal to 5 times chosen number. This damage cannot be reduced in any way.
Cursed. This sword is cursed, and becoming attuned to it extends the curse to you. As long as you remain cursed, you are unwilling to part with the sword, keeping it within reach at all times. You also have disadvantage on attack rolls with weapons other than this one, unless no foe is within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear.
In addition, while the sword is on your person, you must succeed a DC 15 Charisma saving throw whenever you reduce a creature to 0 hit points. On a failed save, you are overcome with bloodlust and must use your action each turn to attack a creature within 30 feet of you. If there are multiple creatures to choose from you can choose the target of each attack. If you can make extra attacks as part of the Attack action, you use those extra attacks. This bloodlust ends if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a creature since your last turn or taken damage since then.
In general I find it hard to provide feedback on items unless I know all about the setting, for example your item above might be an artifact in one game and a novelty in another. But having said that,
1) Ask yourself how powerful is taking damage (5xbonus) for an attack and damage bonus for 1 min? In general the damage taken is not significant the more HP you have and if you have access to lots of healing.
2) The Curse; is this a big deal and I do not understand the "...unless no foe within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear" part. Why? well it lets the wielder use attacks at range without penalties which seems to me go against the "this is the only weapon or if it is your intent the only way the wielder will do damage" part of the magic item.
3) Part 2 of the Curse, the "In addition..." seems to me as setting up the wielder to possibly attack the party or make the party be away from the weapons wielder because they do not want to be attacked.
In general in my games magic items that have curses are meant to be destroyed and not used or have the curse portion removed and the item cleaned before use, I have seen in quite a few games that GM's use cursed items in their games as they do not like magic items in general or even as a way to punish players rationalized as "I am just trying to generate drama in my game".
So I would ask yourself, why is the item cursed in a meta game explanation and how did it become cursed by the rules I use in the game? Also as stated above I generally ask myself what is the best case an item I just created has on my game and what is the worst impact or impacts can it have on my game. Then after answering that do I still want to create the item as is or do I want to change it in some way.
Thank you for the feedback! You have raised some great questions that I will try to answer.
The item is going to be given to a party that are still quite low level, probably level 5 by the time they find it. I'm hoping it will cause some conflict as one of them is eventually going to lash out and attack their allies and also be reluctant to give up the weapon. It's intended to be more of a plot hook than a long term item. Fun for a bit but long term goals will be to seperate the PC from the item or remove the curse altogether.
1) I think it is pretty powerful to have a +3 weapon in a fight, even at the cost of hit points. The party has some healing so they can offset the cost and make good use of the feature. The issue comes in when the powered up sword makes their friend start hurting them too.
2) This is in keeping with other cursed items. The PC doesn't want to part with it and is relucant to use anything else unless they have no other option e.g. the bad guy is too far away. Maybe I will change this though.
3) That is exactly the point. The weapon will cause tension because one of their allies might become a danger to them and need to be subdued. The group aren't against being challenged or having a bit of PVP so my hope is that they see the fun side of it.
1)I had was if it is planed for a PC what is the chance they will fail the save?
2) What happens if the players do not use the item?
3) Are you going to use a technique to mask the curse so the group does not know about it or is the curse going to show up when the party does an identify?
4) Why would people heal the person with the weapon if they realized they were in danger or dyeing from them? Or does the group have a way or neutralizing the PC that has the sword? ie the PC can chose to fail a hold person spell (or other such spell) for the entire time the group is in danger so your curse is not really a curse.
5) In the past I have seen GM's have more social type encounters with items like yours above that eventually lead to combat encounters and then it puts the PC and group in a potentially bad situation. ie the whole group is put into prison or is killed for 1 PC's actions...but again if that is your and your groups gaming style have at it and smile.
It sounds like you and your group are ok with some of the issues I have seen groups trouble with in the past, so in general go for it and see how it plays out.
I did think of another exception to my above comments, berserkers vs modern-day rage (ie anger power ups) were thought to frenzy and have trouble identifying friends from foes, if you game is like this then the other PC's expect their comrade to possibly attack them (in most games I have seen their are some sort of rules such as a save per round and or maybe an antidote to the substance that induced such a frenzy state (in the case of magic it might be a word or object).
Also, in your game why would someone create such an item in the first place? In some games and settings curses are focused on specific families or persons in specific offices or who fulfill a specific list of curse qualifications.
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I am hoping for some feedback for a weapon I am planning on introducing to a campaign. Any critique or criticism is welcome, hopefully constructive!
Weapon (greatsword), very rare (requires attunement)
Thirst for Blood. While holding the sword, you can use a bonus action to gain a +1, +2 or +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls for 1 minute. When you use this feature you choose the bonus and take necrotic damage equal to 5 times chosen number. This damage cannot be reduced in any way.
Cursed. This sword is cursed, and becoming attuned to it extends the curse to you. As long as you remain cursed, you are unwilling to part with the sword, keeping it within reach at all times. You also have disadvantage on attack rolls with weapons other than this one, unless no foe is within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear.
In addition, while the sword is on your person, you must succeed a DC 15 Charisma saving throw whenever you reduce a creature to 0 hit points. On a failed save, you are overcome with bloodlust and must use your action each turn to attack a creature within 30 feet of you. If there are multiple creatures to choose from you can choose the target of each attack. If you can make extra attacks as part of the Attack action, you use those extra attacks. This bloodlust ends if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a creature since your last turn or taken damage since then.
In general I find it hard to provide feedback on items unless I know all about the setting, for example your item above might be an artifact in one game and a novelty in another. But having said that,
1) Ask yourself how powerful is taking damage (5xbonus) for an attack and damage bonus for 1 min? In general the damage taken is not significant the more HP you have and if you have access to lots of healing.
2) The Curse; is this a big deal and I do not understand the "...unless no foe within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear" part. Why? well it lets the wielder use attacks at range without penalties which seems to me go against the "this is the only weapon or if it is your intent the only way the wielder will do damage" part of the magic item.
3) Part 2 of the Curse, the "In addition..." seems to me as setting up the wielder to possibly attack the party or make the party be away from the weapons wielder because they do not want to be attacked.
In general in my games magic items that have curses are meant to be destroyed and not used or have the curse portion removed and the item cleaned before use, I have seen in quite a few games that GM's use cursed items in their games as they do not like magic items in general or even as a way to punish players rationalized as "I am just trying to generate drama in my game".
So I would ask yourself, why is the item cursed in a meta game explanation and how did it become cursed by the rules I use in the game? Also as stated above I generally ask myself what is the best case an item I just created has on my game and what is the worst impact or impacts can it have on my game. Then after answering that do I still want to create the item as is or do I want to change it in some way.
Good Luck
Thank you for the feedback! You have raised some great questions that I will try to answer.
The item is going to be given to a party that are still quite low level, probably level 5 by the time they find it. I'm hoping it will cause some conflict as one of them is eventually going to lash out and attack their allies and also be reluctant to give up the weapon. It's intended to be more of a plot hook than a long term item. Fun for a bit but long term goals will be to seperate the PC from the item or remove the curse altogether.
1) I think it is pretty powerful to have a +3 weapon in a fight, even at the cost of hit points. The party has some healing so they can offset the cost and make good use of the feature. The issue comes in when the powered up sword makes their friend start hurting them too.
2) This is in keeping with other cursed items. The PC doesn't want to part with it and is relucant to use anything else unless they have no other option e.g. the bad guy is too far away. Maybe I will change this though.
3) That is exactly the point. The weapon will cause tension because one of their allies might become a danger to them and need to be subdued. The group aren't against being challenged or having a bit of PVP so my hope is that they see the fun side of it.
Thanks for the info.
Other thoughts you may want to ask yourself:
1)I had was if it is planed for a PC what is the chance they will fail the save?
2) What happens if the players do not use the item?
3) Are you going to use a technique to mask the curse so the group does not know about it or is the curse going to show up when the party does an identify?
4) Why would people heal the person with the weapon if they realized they were in danger or dyeing from them? Or does the group have a way or neutralizing the PC that has the sword? ie the PC can chose to fail a hold person spell (or other such spell) for the entire time the group is in danger so your curse is not really a curse.
5) In the past I have seen GM's have more social type encounters with items like yours above that eventually lead to combat encounters and then it puts the PC and group in a potentially bad situation. ie the whole group is put into prison or is killed for 1 PC's actions...but again if that is your and your groups gaming style have at it and smile.
It sounds like you and your group are ok with some of the issues I have seen groups trouble with in the past, so in general go for it and see how it plays out.
I did think of another exception to my above comments, berserkers vs modern-day rage (ie anger power ups) were thought to frenzy and have trouble identifying friends from foes, if you game is like this then the other PC's expect their comrade to possibly attack them (in most games I have seen their are some sort of rules such as a save per round and or maybe an antidote to the substance that induced such a frenzy state (in the case of magic it might be a word or object).
Also, in your game why would someone create such an item in the first place? In some games and settings curses are focused on specific families or persons in specific offices or who fulfill a specific list of curse qualifications.