I was creating a homebrew shortsword that a rogue could use in my friends campaign and was hoping on ideas on how to improve it or make changes so that it would be suitable.
A shortsword
"At the start of each day the wielder must take (their level) d6 worth of damage to keep the weapons abilities working the blade will often take it itself forcefully cutting the wielder. The weapon does +2 extra slashing damage on attacks and any poison applied to the blade lasts 1 d4 minutes longer. The on a critical hit the weapon does 2 d6 necrotic damage."
"To attune the weapon the user must take 3 d8 piercing damage and must be a rogue"
My idea is that the weapon would be gotten around level 8-10 or somewhere around there. I've added draw backs of it in terms of damage to the user (inspired by blood hunter class) and the main bonus being longer lasting poison and a boost to critical hit damage.
I wanted to find ways to balance the weapon where it is now and also add a way for it to be improved in the later stages of the player's level such as by the time they reach level 15 -17 the weapon gains a boost in power so that it can compete and stay powerful though it could gain higher drawbacks as well to help balance.
My ideas for eventually giving a boost in power to the weapon is through something like the player dealing the killing blow with it on a high level creature. The upgraded weapon would give the player the ability to use a bonus action to coat the blade in a creature's blood giving them advantage in attacking it for 10 mins to an hour (unsure for balance reasons) and the ability can't be used again until after a long rest.
I wanted help as I don't really know if this would be over or under powered or even if it is ok, I'm not really an experienced player but I find enjoyment in the creative process of this and wanted to seek help and assistance in making this something that could be used and even viable within a game.
This seems quite unbalanced. I am also a bit confused, as you said the person would take their level’s worth of d6 damage per day,but then also wrote that they would take 3d6 when attuned. Do both of these stack when attuning?
Assuming a 10th level person attuned to this, that means they are taking 10d6, averaged 30 damage, just to use it. That is quite a steep price to pay for a slight upgrade to a “Vicious Shortsword”. To compare, a Vicious Shortsword deals an extra 2d6 damage on a critical, with no penalties and no drawbacks. That weapon is a Rare weapon.
I would suggest instead of the “+2 slashing damage”, to simply say that it is a “+2” weapon, thereby giving a +2 to both attack rolls and damage rolls, and not muddying the calculations by specifying damage type (shortswords, surprisingly enough, are mainly stabby weapons not slashy).
Unless you or your DM plan to invest heavily in poison, the extra time on poison lasting is all but useless, as poison very rarely comes up often in games. I would suggest, for this ability, to have the player able to use an action to bring forth magical poison from he blade that lasts for a minute, say, and deals an extra maybe 1 or 2 d6 damage on hit.
The advantage ability, though, is extremely overpowered. I would recommend scrapping that thought and looking towards other abilities. Something to remember-not every benefit of a weapon needs to be in-combat. Weapons can cast spells out of them, they can give bonuses to ability checks, they can do plenty of weird stuff that is extremely useful without saying “you hurt more stuff better”.
Lastly; this weapon seems like it is either cursed or some sort of sentient weapon, or perhaps both. I’d recommend checking out the DMG for different cursed and sentient weapon examples (I think it’s the DMG anyway). Also remember that side-grading is a good thing for weapons, instead of upgrading, in order to prevent too much power creep. Give them a few different weapons by 15-17 that they can choose from to use, depending on the circumstances. That’s my two cents on all of this. Hopefully it helps, and if I came off sounding critical - sorry! I just want to help balance things as well as I can help.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
First of, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to look over my idea and respond to it and dont worry about "sounding critical" as that's what I was looking for. Honest feedback to help improve the item.
With the whole taking damage of their level at the start of the day I meant it as somethat occurs every 24hrs after attunment and had thought about lowering the dice roll to a d4 so if the player is level 10 they'd take on average 20 damage at the start of the day which could be healed easily and this could act as a curse for it. With the damage on attunment I had intended it to be a one time thing where they take 3 d6 damage once and the weapon is attuned (sort of a way to tell the user that it is cursed), it wouldn't stack with the curse type effect. I could alter this again to make it less costly if that still seems too high.
I think I will change the +2 slashing damage to regular +2 or possibly + 3 if that would help to improve the overall balance of it.
I gotta say, you're poison idea is way better than mine as it gives more of a magical quality to the weapon and makes it easier for the player. I will definitely use it.
At the moment the advantage thing was more of an idea on a way to heavily improve it in the late stages of a story such as when the player is about max level and I still wanted to find away to give it an improvement later on though I'm at a loss on how to do so. I wanted to find a way for the weapon to eventually gain an ability that fits it's theme of blood, poison and assassin styles though I can't think of anything and would appreciate any ideas on doing so. I've no idea what side-grading is and maybe a few examples may help (im kind of a noob tbh)
Overall I wanted to make a weapon that has some drawbacks though is able to give the player a slight advantage in situations, I wanted to try find a way for it to be strong without being OP and any ideas on doing so are very much appreciated.
Thank you again for taking the time to help with this and as a side note I will definitely steal that "I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?" thing next time I play a monk just saying.
What I meant by side-grading is to give the character multiple weapons that cover different situations: this one could be a pure damage against a single target weapon. There could be another one that provides utility, perhaps providing the wielded a climbing and swimming speed with some other out of combat abilities, and perhaps a third weapon could provide buff/debuff abilities for allies.
I do /love/ having a go-to weapon, but stacking it with more and more abilities at later levels tends to make it too powerful, even if all the abilities it gets aren’t great on their own.
As far as the written rules go, a “+3” is the highest a magical weapon can go, those are almost always Legendary. A “+2” weapon is considered very, very good still. Especially if it has other abilities with it.
If you wanted to go with the self damage for a good item route, you could add abilities that can only be activated by hurting yourself, such as the poison ability I mentioned in my first post (that would be *really* Bloodhunter style)
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
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I was creating a homebrew shortsword that a rogue could use in my friends campaign and was hoping on ideas on how to improve it or make changes so that it would be suitable.
A shortsword
"At the start of each day the wielder must take (their level) d6 worth of damage to keep the weapons abilities working the blade will often take it itself forcefully cutting the wielder. The weapon does +2 extra slashing damage on attacks and any poison applied to the blade lasts 1 d4 minutes longer. The on a critical hit the weapon does 2 d6 necrotic damage."
"To attune the weapon the user must take 3 d8 piercing damage and must be a rogue"
My idea is that the weapon would be gotten around level 8-10 or somewhere around there. I've added draw backs of it in terms of damage to the user (inspired by blood hunter class) and the main bonus being longer lasting poison and a boost to critical hit damage.
I wanted to find ways to balance the weapon where it is now and also add a way for it to be improved in the later stages of the player's level such as by the time they reach level 15 -17 the weapon gains a boost in power so that it can compete and stay powerful though it could gain higher drawbacks as well to help balance.
My ideas for eventually giving a boost in power to the weapon is through something like the player dealing the killing blow with it on a high level creature. The upgraded weapon would give the player the ability to use a bonus action to coat the blade in a creature's blood giving them advantage in attacking it for 10 mins to an hour (unsure for balance reasons) and the ability can't be used again until after a long rest.
I wanted help as I don't really know if this would be over or under powered or even if it is ok, I'm not really an experienced player but I find enjoyment in the creative process of this and wanted to seek help and assistance in making this something that could be used and even viable within a game.
This seems quite unbalanced. I am also a bit confused, as you said the person would take their level’s worth of d6 damage per day,but then also wrote that they would take 3d6 when attuned. Do both of these stack when attuning?
Assuming a 10th level person attuned to this, that means they are taking 10d6, averaged 30 damage, just to use it. That is quite a steep price to pay for a slight upgrade to a “Vicious Shortsword”. To compare, a Vicious Shortsword deals an extra 2d6 damage on a critical, with no penalties and no drawbacks. That weapon is a Rare weapon.
I would suggest instead of the “+2 slashing damage”, to simply say that it is a “+2” weapon, thereby giving a +2 to both attack rolls and damage rolls, and not muddying the calculations by specifying damage type (shortswords, surprisingly enough, are mainly stabby weapons not slashy).
Unless you or your DM plan to invest heavily in poison, the extra time on poison lasting is all but useless, as poison very rarely comes up often in games. I would suggest, for this ability, to have the player able to use an action to bring forth magical poison from he blade that lasts for a minute, say, and deals an extra maybe 1 or 2 d6 damage on hit.
The advantage ability, though, is extremely overpowered. I would recommend scrapping that thought and looking towards other abilities. Something to remember-not every benefit of a weapon needs to be in-combat. Weapons can cast spells out of them, they can give bonuses to ability checks, they can do plenty of weird stuff that is extremely useful without saying “you hurt more stuff better”.
Lastly; this weapon seems like it is either cursed or some sort of sentient weapon, or perhaps both. I’d recommend checking out the DMG for different cursed and sentient weapon examples (I think it’s the DMG anyway). Also remember that side-grading is a good thing for weapons, instead of upgrading, in order to prevent too much power creep. Give them a few different weapons by 15-17 that they can choose from to use, depending on the circumstances. That’s my two cents on all of this. Hopefully it helps, and if I came off sounding critical - sorry! I just want to help balance things as well as I can help.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
First of, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to look over my idea and respond to it and dont worry about "sounding critical" as that's what I was looking for. Honest feedback to help improve the item.
With the whole taking damage of their level at the start of the day I meant it as somethat occurs every 24hrs after attunment and had thought about lowering the dice roll to a d4 so if the player is level 10 they'd take on average 20 damage at the start of the day which could be healed easily and this could act as a curse for it. With the damage on attunment I had intended it to be a one time thing where they take 3 d6 damage once and the weapon is attuned (sort of a way to tell the user that it is cursed), it wouldn't stack with the curse type effect. I could alter this again to make it less costly if that still seems too high.
I think I will change the +2 slashing damage to regular +2 or possibly + 3 if that would help to improve the overall balance of it.
I gotta say, you're poison idea is way better than mine as it gives more of a magical quality to the weapon and makes it easier for the player. I will definitely use it.
At the moment the advantage thing was more of an idea on a way to heavily improve it in the late stages of a story such as when the player is about max level and I still wanted to find away to give it an improvement later on though I'm at a loss on how to do so. I wanted to find a way for the weapon to eventually gain an ability that fits it's theme of blood, poison and assassin styles though I can't think of anything and would appreciate any ideas on doing so. I've no idea what side-grading is and maybe a few examples may help (im kind of a noob tbh)
Overall I wanted to make a weapon that has some drawbacks though is able to give the player a slight advantage in situations, I wanted to try find a way for it to be strong without being OP and any ideas on doing so are very much appreciated.
Thank you again for taking the time to help with this and as a side note I will definitely steal that "I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?" thing next time I play a monk just saying.
What I meant by side-grading is to give the character multiple weapons that cover different situations: this one could be a pure damage against a single target weapon. There could be another one that provides utility, perhaps providing the wielded a climbing and swimming speed with some other out of combat abilities, and perhaps a third weapon could provide buff/debuff abilities for allies.
I do /love/ having a go-to weapon, but stacking it with more and more abilities at later levels tends to make it too powerful, even if all the abilities it gets aren’t great on their own.
As far as the written rules go, a “+3” is the highest a magical weapon can go, those are almost always Legendary. A “+2” weapon is considered very, very good still. Especially if it has other abilities with it.
If you wanted to go with the self damage for a good item route, you could add abilities that can only be activated by hurting yourself, such as the poison ability I mentioned in my first post (that would be *really* Bloodhunter style)
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?