A Moonblade is a legendary weapon of elvish making. It bonds with its wielder and gets infused with their essence, strengthening the blade whenever it is wielded by a new owner. Usually the weapons are bound to a specific elvish noble House of the ancient world, passed down from parent to child, but it does happen that other wielders can claim them if the weapon deems them worthy and usually only if the lineage it is bonded to has ended.
This makes a flavorfully significant and possibly strong weapon. But what does it do?
Well a Moonblade have no inherent properties aside from being sentient. It can perceive the world around it (better than most mortals) and it can pass feelings of emotion to its attuned wielder, warning of ambushes or perhaps discovering something the wielder is searching for. It can also create images in dreams when the wielder is dreaming or in trance. Finally the Moonblade has a number of additional properties that is determined by how many wielders it has had before, each wielder granting a property to the blade, with some stacking and some being unique. As the DM you can choose to either pick the properties you want for the blade or leave it up to rolling random properties from a table.
As the title imply when randomizing the properties of a Moonblade, the results... can be rather poor. Which kinda surprised me when looking on lists of some of the best magical weapons that D&D 5e has to offer, the Moonblade is highly regarded. And I get it, when the DM gets to pick and choose, there's a lot of flexibility and strengths to be found in the table of properties that can be added to a Moonblade. However when we go by a fully randomized version... it tends to be a rather low selling item on par with a sentient Sun Blade.
A randomized Moonblade has 1d6 + 1 runes / improvements - averaging 4-5 runes. We're assisted in the way that the first rune is always a +1 magical enhancement. Then we're down to 40% chance for another +1, another 40% for a minor property and the remaining 20% is an array of properties ranging from neat, to very good, to fantastic. The +1 can stack up to +3 in total, rerolling any additional such rolls. The vast majority of the minor properties described in the DMG are very niche, borderline useless, or outright cursed. The array of good stuff include stuff like Spell Storing, acting like a Vorpal Blade, have improved critical range and a handful of others.
Now I've made simulations of quite a few randomized versions (like 40) and it happens quite often that you get something like a +2 weapon with 2-3 minor properties and then maybe once in every 5, you get one of the top 20% choices instead of a +1 or a minor property. However that's talking averages. There's also plenty of 2-3 rune variants that are basically just +1 or +2 weapons with some minor properties - and because there's no cap on the number of minor properties, I have also quite a few 4-5 and a few 6 runes blades that are all minor properties and then +1 or +2. Hardly worth mentioning in the same breath as other legendary items like a Defender, Dawnbreaker or Holy Avenger. The top contender I randomized was a +3 sword with Vorpal properties, +1d6 slashing and two minor properties, and another with +2, Finesse, Spell Storing and 2 minor properties. I have also gotten a +1 Defender variant with 3 minor properties.
So why is this weapon regarded so highly, when the randomized versions are frequently not that impressive? The answer is most likely that the DM picks and choose from the table and leaves very little up to pure chance - or they roll and then may reroll if they end up with a poor choice. Additionally there have been some homebrew additions to the table of minor properties you can find scattered on the internet to increase and possibly improve on the selection of minor properties.
However I feel like the Moonblade randomized table could make do with a more fitting table of probability and possibly more/other properties to make a randomized Moonblade worthy of a legendary. Therefore an attempt at a revised table:
Roll d100: Property
1 - 40 : Increase the bonus to attack and damage rolls by 1, to a maximum of +3. Reroll if the moonblade already has a +3 bonus
41 - 60 : The moonblade gains a randomly determined minor property (see "Special Features" in the Dungeon Master's Guide)
61 - 70 : The moonblade gains the finesse property.
71 - 75 : The moonblade gains the thrown property (range 20/60 feet).
76 - 80 : The moonblade gains the light property.
81 - 84 : The moonblade scores a critical hit on a roll one lower than the lowest die result that results in a critical hit for you. (Typically you only roll a critical hit on a 20, so this property increases that chance to a 19 or 20 on that roll.)
87 - 90 : When you hit with an attack using the moonblade, the attack deals an extra 1d6 slashing damage.
91 - 94 : When you hit a creature of a specific type (such as dragon, fiend, or undead) with the moonblade, the target takes an extra 1d6 damage of one of these types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder. (One type of creature and damage is selected when chosen)
95 - 96 : You can use a bonus action to cause the moonblade to flash brightly. Each creature that can see you and is within 30 feet of you must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or become blinded for 1 minute . A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. This property can't be used again until you take a short rest or long rest while attuned to the weapon.
99 : You can use an action to call forth an elfshadow, provided that you don't already have one serving you. The elfshadow appears in an unoccupied space within 120 feet of you. It uses the statistics for a shadow from the Monster Manual, except it is neutral, immune to effects that turn undead, and doesn't create new shadows. You control this creature, deciding how it acts and moves. It remains until it drops to 0 hit points or you dismiss it as an action.
Reroll any duplicates of properties with the exception of the bonus to attack and damage rolls, and the minor properties. Still considering the limit of +3 on the bonus to attack and damage rolls.
It could be considered to make a completely separate table of minor (to moderate) properties for the Moonblade and that could even include the weapon properties like Finesse, Thrown, and Light, absorbing their probability percentile.
Table of Moonblade minor properties:
Roll d20 : Property
01 : Guardian. The moonblade whispers warnings to its bearer, granting a +3 bonus to initiative if the bearer isn’t incapacitated.
02 : Gleaming. The moonblade never gets dirty. Roll another d20 - can only roll one additional d20 per rune.
03 : Harmonious. Attuning to the moonblade takes only 1 minute and can happen anywhere.
04 : Sentinel. Choose a kind of creature that is an enemy of the item’s creator. This item glows faintly when such creatures are within 120 feet of it.
05 : Strange Material. The moonblade was created from a material that is bizarre given its purpose. Its durability is unaffected. Roll another d20 - can only roll one additional d20 per rune.
06 : Temperate. The bearer suffers no harm in temperatures as cold as −20 degrees Fahrenheit or as warm as 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll another d20 - can only roll one additional d20 per rune.
07 : Illusion. The moonblade is imbued with illusion magic, allowing its bearer to alter the item’s appearance in moderate ways. Such alterations don’t change how the item is worn, carried, or wielded, and they have no effect on its other magical properties. For example, the wearer could make the moonblade appear as a walking stick/cane, a staff, a dagger or another oblong object and could change the colors and texture of the item. The item reverts to its true appearance when no one is carrying or wearing it for more than 5 minutes. Roll another d20 - can only roll one additional d20 per rune.
08 : Bulwark. If the moonblade is in the bearer’s possession for the entirety of a long rest, the item grants the bearer temporary hit points equal to 4 + their proficiency bonus at the conclusion of that rest. If not used, these hit points fade in 24 hours.
09 : Gloom-Sight. If the bearer of this item possesses darkvision, the effective distance of that darkvision increases by 20 feet while the item is on the bearer’s person. It does not, however, grant darkvision to a bearer who does not already possess it. Roll another d20 - can only roll one additional d20 per rune.
10 : Resuscitator. If the moonblade is in the bearer’s possession, the bearer gains a +2 bonus to the first death save made that day. This power resets at dawn. Roll another d20 - can only roll one additional d20 per rune.
11 : Adaptive form. The wielder of the moonblade can have the weapon change form as part of the attunement process to any melee weapon with a blade (this excludes any weapon with bludgeoning damage such as hammers, and it excludes whips, lances, morning stars, war picks and similar weapons without a blade, and it includes spears, axes, etc.). It attains any weapon properties and damage type normally associated with that weapon form such as reach and piercing damage for a spear or the two-handed property and slashing damage for a greataxe as long as it remains in that form. If the form has the two-handed and/or reach property, treat the properties versatile, finesse, thrown, and light property the weapon might otherwise have as dormant or non-existent unless that weapon form has that property normally.
12 - 15 : The moonblade gains the finesse property.
16 - 17 : The moonblade gains the thrown property (range 20/60 feet).
18 - 19 : The moonblade gains the light property.
20 : Reroll the die, then roll another d20 - can only roll one additional d20 per rune (max. two properties per rune).
Reroll any duplicate property.
Now... many of the minor properties in that table have the "roll another d20 die" tacked onto it, because by themselves they don't feel truly impactful when comparing to a +1 magical enhancement bonus or bonus damage, actions, spell storing or whatever. They are mostly some additional flavor and thus gets a freebie additional property. This means rolling a minor property will occasionally result in more than one property ~35% of the time. You will often get a lesser property (one who grants another d20 roll) and another property with a heavier weighting on weapon properties like finesse, thrown, and light. These three don't actually add any additional power to the item, but it helps make it available to a broader audience. Similarly I included the likely controversial "adaptive form" that can make your Moonblade into a Halberd, Greataxe or perhaps just change it to a Scimitar. The change is an attunement locked shift - so you cannot use it willy nilly to change form all the time. Additionally I included the Harmonious property because Moonblades requires attunement in the throne room of an elven regent or in a temple dedicated to elven gods. That's not something you come across all too often or will be allowed to perform the ceremony (depending on your setting) - so the ability to quickly attune is worth the property. Technically you could use it to combine with the adaptive form property to change form a bit willy nilly - but I assume the DM will quickly make the weapon shun a potential "abuser".
The re-rolls would often result in getting the weapon property finesse, and to a lesser extend thrown, and light. The finesse makes a lot of sense since the moonblades are naturally light and the elves have a tendency to favor Dexterity attacks (Elven Accuracy) which makes finesse a miss that the moonblade doesn't have naturally - at least when compared to a Sun Blade. However it should be quite attainable with the 40% chance to hit a minor property on the main table and then a 20% chance to hit finesse on the minor property table with 35% chance to hit a reroll option in its stead. And the more minor properties you hit on the main table the less options you can bounce around on the minor property table.
Of course this will result in a lot of Moonblades to have a degree of shared minor properties, but I hardly think that's a problem. Consider it the same as the shared properties that two Dawnbreakers have, but the Moonblades have a little variety in the mix.
I'll just shortly touch on the changes I made to existing properties; improved critical range: Well it functions the same but grants a very significant interest for characters who already have improvements on their critical range - like a Fighter: Champion. Most of the minor properties, I have stolen straight from the DMG or this alternative list of minor properties and a few I touched up on: Guardian's bonus to initiative changed from +2 to +3. Harmonious attunement now says it can happen anywhere (to avoid the special moonblade attunement requirement). Illusion now can disguise the weapon as something similar in size (like a cane), whereas the original states that only minor changes can happen (which makes it difficult to utilize in a roleplay fashion). Bulwark is changed from granting +5 temporary HP, to now granting 4 + proficiency bonus (usually that means around 8-10 given it's a legendary item) but HP in that stage is... not terribly useful but still useful.
Lastly I would consider the number of runes on the Moonblade to have a bump up to increase the lowest power of a Moonblade - you can end up with a 2 rune Moonblade that results in a sentient, +1 Longsword with the Thrown property - is that a Legendary right there? Either this can be to change the flat bonus to the rune count from a +1 to a +2 (so minimum rune count goes to 3) or that rolling a 1 or 2 on the d6 have you reroll the die and pick the higher (much less chance of a low power Moonblade). Otherwise I would suggest that a Moonblade with just 2 or 3 runes, have the player select one property of their desire when attuning (this can include a minor property from the moonblade list), with the exception of the defender, spell storing, elf-shadow and vorpal functions. Those you cannot select. You can however forfeit your choice and just roll for it. The flavor for the choice being that the blade is not yet a myriad of powers, so you have more influence over what powers it gains from you.
I don't think you can have a bad Moonblade per se but depending on the number of runes, it can have more properties for greater utility powers that the DM can either choose or roll instead, which I'm fine with though the only time i drop one in any of my campaigns i did choose them.
I hard disagree that you cannot have a bad Moonblade - it's a legendary item, which has certain expectations to it. It's perfectly within chance to get a 2-3 rune Moonblade with +1 and 1-2 minor properties that doesn't do anything - like Gleaming (it never gets dirty) and Strange Material (made of a bizarre material but otherwise functions the same). Even with its sentience, that is not a good legendary weapon. It might be a flavorful and unique weapon, but it doesn't qualify as a good weapon. If a Moonblade had brackets like a 2-3 runes = rare, 4-5 runes = very rare, 6-7 runes = legendary, then it would better fit with the randomized results - a DM who picks and choose can obviously pick the properties matching the level of item they want to create and ignore the number of runes. For instance I imagine a player would be quite happy with a +1 Moonblade with Spell Storing and Elf Shadow. However the odds of that happening by chance... is incredibly low (1:5000).
When comparing to other legendary weapons like a Defender, which is a +3 weapon with the defender function which is equivalent to a 4 runes Moonblade, and one of the more rare properties (a 2% chance). Getting a Defender equivalent as a Moonblade is actually quite hard when randomizing the results. Hell even getting a Sun Blade equivalent is hard - that's +2, Finesse, additional damage to a specific creature type (and technically the Beacon / torch-equivalent minor property).
Or if we compare to a Dawnbreaker, which also is sentient and a +2 longsword with finesse and the ability to cast Lesser Restoration once per day. It also deals additional damage against undead and can function as a torch (it's a Sun Blade + sentience + Lesser Resto). If we're being a bit generous that's 5 runes at least (one of them being equivalent to the minor property Beacon) with the spell casting being halfway to a 6th rune or at least cementing it as a 5 runes equivalent Moonblade - and that's 5 fairly good runes (ignoring the Beacon property but counting the spell casting).
Your last sentence is exactly my point: You generally pick and choose from the table rather than leaving it up to chance. You might roll for the number of runes and then select the ones you want and then roll for the remainder. But I'm specifically talking about fully randomized Moonblades. If you try that approach I'll find it hard to believe that you wont come up with variants (surprisingly many actually) where the legendary status doesn't seem to fit the item. If you gave your players such a weapon at tier 4 (lvl 17-20) or even late into tier 3 (lvl 15+)... I doubt they'll use it. It can still function as an early warning system, being sentient, but that's a really low point for a legendary item.
I get that the item is kinda in the gamble section with high highs and low lows. However the way the probability table is made, I find that you generally roll lows a significant amount of times compared to highs. Also lets be clear that changing the table of probability will not impact the slightest for DMs who opts to choose and pick. Hell I think even if the DM rolls both a Vorpal, Spell Storing, +3 weapon... they're likely going to reroll one of the first two, just to keep it in line. I'm just suggesting changes that increases the low bar of a randomized Moonblade. And... I also suggest that you cannot stack any of the damage properties like the bonus 1d6 slashing damage - which is not prohibited under current rules, same as rolling 6x Vorpal blade - that just wont matter. The new minor property table, the light weapon property and the change to critical hit range will obviously change existing choices. I ain't married to the idea of changing the critical hit range, nor adding light weapon property, and the minor property table could be an optional rule, defaulting to the minor property table in the DMG.
You can find better legendary magic items that the Moonblade depending how many bells and whistles one has, but you're comparing items with set powers with one that possibly has an element of randomness to it. But even a bare minimum +2 or +1 sentient weapon with minor property or greater powers will be legendary because rarity not only provides a rough measure of an item’s power relative to other magic items but also reflect how plentiful or rare it is and a sentient magic item is by nature legendary and unique personality that function as NPCs under the GM’s control.
Bottom line is the DM can decide just how much power such weapon has, or go randonly which by nature will inevitably vary in power, but that's by design.
You can find better legendary magic items that the Moonblade depending how many bells and whistles one has, but you're comparing items with set powers with one that possibly has an element of randomness to it. But even a bare minimum +2 or +1 sentient weapon with minor property or greater powers will be legendary because rarity not only provides a rough measure of an item’s power relative to other magic items but also reflect how plentiful or rare it is and a sentient magic item is by nature legendary and unique personality that function as NPCs under the GM’s control.
Bottom line is the DM can decide just how much power such weapon has, or go randonly which by nature will inevitably vary in power, but that's by design.
I agree. The challenge with the Moonblade from the OPs perspective is that you can find Moonblades that aren't powerful. However, the D&D rarity system ISN'T only a measure of power. It is massively inconsistent if you try to use rarity as a stand in for assessing an item's "power". The rarity system is a mish mash of item power and lore regarding how famous/unusual/unique important magic items might be.
Some examples:
Ioun Stone of Regeneration is Legendary: Regeneration (Legendary). You regain 15 hit points at the end of each hour this pearly white spindle orbits your head, provided that you have at least 1 hit point.
Ring of Regeneration is Very Rare: While wearing this ring, you regain 1d6 hit points every 10 minutes, provided that you have at least 1 hit point. If you lose a body part, the ring causes the missing part to regrow and return to full functionality after 1d6 + 1 days if you have at least 1 hit point the whole time.
The ring of regeneration restores 6d6 hit points every hour - average of 21 - it will also regrow body parts. The Ioun stone can be attacked and destroyed, it orbits your head where it can be grabbed by anyone, it heals fewer hit points and doesn't regenerate lost limbs ... yet the Ioun Stone is Legendary and the Ring is very rare. This would make no sense if the rarity assignments were strictly related to the power and utility of the items.
In the case of the Moonblade, it is a special magic item, passed down through elvish families, attuned for life via a special ceremony in an elvish court. It's entire description is "Legendary" ... Moonblades ARE the heart of legends but some could be more powerful than others if their properties are determined randomly. Also, not every Moonblade is an ancient heirloom ... new ones are made from time to time for new bearers. A brand new Moonblade is just a +1 sword with no other properties. The item is still Legendary for its backstory, not for its "power" since it is still just a +1 sword - which is an uncommon item.
Anyway, the objection of the OP seems to be more with the system used to assign the rarity tags like Legendary (which is NOT based on the relative powers of the items) rather than the fact that you can have less powerful moonblades. It is just a question of what "legendary" or "very rare" etc is meant to mean in 5e.
<snip> rarity not only provides a rough measure of an item’s power relative to other magic items but also reflect how plentiful or rare it is and a sentient magic item is by nature legendary and unique personality that function as NPCs under the GM’s control.
Bottom line is the DM can decide just how much power such weapon has, or go randonly which by nature will inevitably vary in power, but that's by design.
I agree. The challenge with the Moonblade from the OPs perspective is that you can find Moonblades that aren't powerful. However, the D&D rarity system ISN'T only a measure of power. It is massively inconsistent if you try to use rarity as a stand in for assessing an item's "power". The rarity system is a mish mash of item power and lore regarding how famous/unusual/unique important magic items might be.
I suppose you're right David. My issue is partly the rarity tag. Mainly because the tag is mostly used to determine at what stage in the game a certain item can be found. Legendaries are often referenced to belong to tier 4 level of play or rarely in tier 3 levels. With an inexperienced DM you mostly follow these rules/guidelines until you get a better sense for power level for your campaigns. Typically an inexperienced DM would default to utilize the randomized results, which is likely to fall below the power level of any item that a DM who picks their powers will have. With a Moonblade being legendary it is unlikely that you'll find it early, so it "has" to compete with other legendary weapons (like a Holy Avenger) because it is comparable to other legendary items.
My ire is partly because we have similar items with increasing amounts of power between variants that do scale in rarity. The Belt of Giant Strength is the more prominent case - to not draw upon standard +1 to +3 magical weapons. I know that the Belts (and other similar scaled items) depending on their rarity have a set amount of power, but there's no reason why a similar system couldn't be utilized for Moonblades and the amount of runes, at the very least to assist people in better determining what level of power it symbolizes. For all I care the weapon can still have the legendary tag.
Partly my issue is the fact that this weapon with extremely specific attunement requirements and awesome history... can end up not exciting the players at all. If you roll a 2 runes Moonblade with +1 and the Wicked minor prop (higher urge to do selfish or malevolent actions), most players would consider it bad or cursed. Not to mention that the blade itself is supposed to attune to neutral good characters - which an experienced DM might consider reason to reroll the Wicked property. A Moonblade will naturally only be attuned by a neutral good elf or half-elf but can under certain circumstances be claimed by others if the elven house/lineage who claimed the blade has become extinct and the new heir is deemed worthy (the personality trait of the blade will judge if the character desires to advance and protect elvenkind) AND if they are allowed to perform the ceremony in the halls of an elven regent or in a temple dedicated to elven gods. With how jealously guarded the weapons are, it is very likely that non-elves carrying such a blade will be demanded to hand it over by more prominent elves - believing it to be stolen or looted.
There's a lot of conditions for this weapon and it just might end up being weak if we let its powers be up to the systems randomization. That's why I want to change how that randomization system works.
If we compare to something like a Luck Blade that similarly can end up with a randomized number of 0 charges of the Wish-spell - the primary reason the weapon is coveted (however that's 25% chance). The blade still remains a +1 weapon with the ability to reroll one attack roll, ability check, or saving throw once per day. That's not terribly powerful for a legendary but it is still useful. Besides the weapon still functions as long as it is being carried, so you don't even need to wield or hold it to get the reroll ability. And it doesn't have any requirements but simple attunement. I want to more reliably get over into this territory than a +1 or +2 weapon with a couple of minor properties (which is the most likely scenario for a randomized Moonblade).
As for the comparison between a Ring of Regeneration and a Ioun Stone of Regeneration - I don't know if there's enough situations where there's a benefit to not specifically wearing a ring compared to having a stone orbit your head - like Druid Wild Shape or Wizard Polymorph.
You did also pick up the least impressive legendary variant of the stones with the other variants being freely stored Counterspells against spells targeting you, canceling up to a level 8 spell (with a limit of max. canceling 50 levels worth of spells before the stone expires and turns non-magical) or Mastery; increasing your proficiency bonus by +1. I don't know what measures of power went into the rarity determination of these variants, but likely they are not tested very thoroughly and on a surface level, I would agree that the Regeneration variant is not legendary worthy - again depending on what scenarios the stone orbiting is preferable to an equipped ring. The two others though... very much so. The stone variants at very rare are mostly granting bonuses to an ability score by +2 and there's two at rare that either increases AC by +1 or grants 3 levels worth of Spell Storing. I'd say only the Regeneration variant is out of touch with its rarity tag and the ability scores with a cap of 20 is prone to be deprioritized by better magical items that advances the characters existing strengths, but can easily be stored and utilized in non-combat situations where you can easily make an attunement shift to get a temporary boost in a stat to pass a certain check.
I don't find the randomized Moonblade has a similar baseline of power or utility, partially because the minor properties are so niche but yet so likely to take up a rune slot, partially because attunement is very demanding, so it doesn't make sense to not utilize as your main weapon - and then it has to be worth it when you get that late into the game, for which many randomized variants is unlikely to fulfill.
Personally in the campaign I'm in with my play group right now, I've been gifted a Moonblade (or rather reclaimed it for my lineage). I'm only level 12 and I'm quite certain the DM has selected its powers (I don't know them yet) but I'm also certain they have limited its powers to fit that level of play - and that's a strength for the design of Moonblades (it can be very flexible). However there's no indication in the DM's creation of a Moonblade how to approach its creation from a level of play perspective without comparing it one-to-one to other weapons of similar level of play - and a randomized version will often require many runes, to be equivalent to a very rare or legendary weapon in terms of power.
Finally I was not aware that Moonblades could potentially still be forged in the present day. I imagine there's some reason, some limited material that means you cannot produce the swords in larger quantity - something like costing the soul of the first wielder to be bound to the blade for eternity and never pass into the afterlife. Considering how prized the blades are in elven society, I would imagine any prominent elven house would have at least one blade created for them unless it was impossible or near impossible to actually forge. Additionally I would argue that the ancient Moonblades are legendary, but any newer creations are not by definition legendary, unless their very creation is something unique and spectacular, like being gifted their power from the elven gods during a ceremony or ritual - for which I have no evidence of either way. I interpret that the ancient Moonblades are legendary because there's history associated with each blade and because new creations are impossible or near impossible - they are a thing of legend. There's no history directly associated with a freshly forged blade, thus it doesn't make sense for it to be legendary due to its history because it has none. And it cannot be legendary due to its powers because it has few. It would be legendary only in association to the "real deal".
Personally in the campaign I'm in with my play group right now, I've been gifted a Moonblade (or rather reclaimed it for my lineage). I'm only level 12 and I'm quite certain the DM has selected its powers (I don't know them yet) but I'm also certain they have limited its powers to fit that level of play
Additionally I would argue that the ancient Moonblades are legendary, but any newer creations are not by definition legendary,
A Moonblade 's rarity is always legendary, so are most if not all sentient magic items. At least from a Rules and Mechanics perspective.
I sense some uncertainty or frustration about your new item or how DM handle it and you focused entirely on the powers but what makes it truly unique in a roleplaying game like D&D is the intelligence and personality such sentient items have.
There's no limit to magic item at level 12, even getting a +1 weapon iis okay even though there's better, but magic items are not all valued to sheer power alone and some have other dimensions. I'd be mor einterested to learn about the blade personality, it's history what makes it tick.... These thing can literally be plot engine!
Personally in the campaign I'm in with my play group right now, I've been gifted a Moonblade (or rather reclaimed it for my lineage). I'm only level 12 and I'm quite certain the DM has selected its powers (I don't know them yet) but I'm also certain they have limited its powers to fit that level of play
Additionally I would argue that the ancient Moonblades are legendary, but any newer creations are not by definition legendary,
A Moonblade 's rarity is always legendary, so are most if not all sentient magic items. At least from a Rules and Mechanics perspective.
I sense some uncertainty or frustration about your new item or how DM handle it and you focused entirely on the powers but what makes it truly unique in a roleplaying game like D&D is the intelligence and personality such sentient items have.
There's no limit to magic item at level 12, even getting a +1 weapon iis okay even though there's better, but magic items are not all valued to sheer power alone and some have other dimensions. I'd be mor einterested to learn about the blade personality, it's history what makes it tick.... These thing can literally be plot engine!
Not at all. Like I said I don't know the properties of my Moonblade yet and I joined the group late, so I don't have that much in terms of magical gear, so the DM is likely giving it to me to increase my power - which is why I believe they selected the weapon's properties and not leaving it up to chance. It was a frontloaded reward for a quest the group is taking on, I got to know the location of my lineage's lost Moonblade. So the group traveled to a section of Cormanthor and eventually found it inside an enchanted Dragonleaf tree, where only my character was allowed to enter without harm. Inside was a sarcophagus and atop it was the blade.
When my character was told of the location of the Moonblade, I looked it up and decided for fun to roll a few random attempts... and lets just say the results were coming up short. That's when I built a model (just in a regular Excel) to simulate rolling a Moonblade. The more I rolled, the more I came to realize that the probability table was indirectly skewed to make a much less impressive weapon than most similar legendary weapons - comparing mostly to a Dawnbreaker (a Sun Blade+), a Defender or even just a regular Sun Blade - so not even what is considered high on the "tier list" of legendary items. Then I found several "tier lists" of 5e's legendary weapons where the Moonblade is very highly regarded - but that clashes heavily with the results from randomized properties. So I decided to make this opinion piece and see if there were others who felt the randomization made for bad or rather unworthy legendary Moonblades - randomized legendary garbage.
And as for sentience... the Moonblade cannot communicate outside images in dreams/trance or in the moment giving a sense of tingling. That's not much to go on for communication. It's mainly limited to be a 120 ft. dark vision sentry, which is not bad, but the blade only attunes to elves or half-elves, so the dark vision itself is not as valuable as for a human. And as for plot device, it has been "lost" a long time, so it's unlikely that it has any secret knowledge appropriate to the task at hand. Not to say that it wont come in handy later in some other fashion, but I wouldn't expect the DM to shoehorn some secret knowledge into the blade regarding this task. Additionally I wouldn't hope the DM will pay too much attention to the sentience or personality of the blade, as it is not fun for the rest of the group that my character has a side-chat with their weapon. That's mainly fun on a weapon with a curse, a trickster personality, or something where there's "conflict" between the weapon and the wielder. That shouldn't be the case for most, if any, Moonblades or it wouldn't have deemed the person worthy to bond to. As soon as a Moonblade is attuned it will remain loyal to its wielder, even if they fall short of elven ideals. Moonblades are often claimed with a specific task inscribed in its essence. That will have some impact to our story I imagine.
My play group don't have significant leisure time, so the pacing needs to be relatively fast and focused on gameplay action - not necessarily combat, but action, moving the plot along.
In terms of magical items, you're expected to have picked up a +1 weapon somewhere between level 1-10. Rares (+2) can be found somewhere between 5-10. Very rares (+3) can be found from lvl 11 with rares being somewhat more common. Legendaries are mainly kept for lvl 17+. That's the DMG's advice. And depending on the rarity of magic items in general in the setting this can be modified. I don't know exactly which setting my group is at, but I think one of the others have a Staff of Power... so I imagine it is a high magic setting.
It's evident that randomly determined runes means most powerful Moonblade are more rare.
There's a possibility for one to speak and understand a language with a Minor Property. The one i gave did from memory it was +2 finesse longsword that could crit on 19 with for Minor Properties Language (elvish) and Guardian (+2 init)
If you think your DM may go random, you can always express your concerns and suggest your inputs presented in your thread or somehow limit the number of result ex. reroll if the blade already has a Minor Property etc
While it's hardly the most consistent item, the simple fact that it can potentially imitate several legendary weapons at once is a decent justification for the tag, if only so the DM understands the scope of power they're potentially inviting when they bring the weapon in. I know there's "variable" rarity items as well, but those are usually because the items in question either exist in several separate fixed iterations or are meant to gradually progress through the capabilities.
Keep in mind too that per the lore the blade has one rune/power per bearer; which means you can make a solid argument that it should gain a new one when you bond to it -- so maybe pitch to your DM that you be allowed to pick one power (or at least one gets selected that fits well with your character) and the rest can be random/DM's choice, if you're worried about getting one that's underpowered for the campaign
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Keep in mind too that per the lore the blade has one rune/power per bearer; which means you can make a solid argument that it should gain a new one when you bond to it -- so maybe pitch to your DM that you be allowed to pick one power (or at least one gets selected that fits well with your character) and the rest can be random/DM's choice, if you're worried about getting one that's underpowered for the campaign
It explicitly does already.
"If the blade accepts you, you become attuned to it and a new rune appears on the blade."
It's all well and good to say that rarity shouldn't be used as a stand-in for power level, but that's ignoring the fact that rarity is explicitly a stand-in for power level, both in practice (because the game supplies no better alternative) and in the text itself, with rarer items coming from more challenging monster hoards and higher level quests, and DMs being advised to distribute items comparing rarity to character level.
OP is right -- if you're going to gamble, you should probably have roughly equal chances to get something better than average vs worse than average. Changing which average you're comparing to would be a simple way to achieve this: just downshift the rarity.
Ultimately though, I can hardly imagine caring less.
Perhaps you just don't get the "fun" of randomization. It's not a gamble if all the results are good. You need to have OMGbroken abilities for that 100 roll and you need to have garbage for the bad rolls, regardless of rarity.
To me, there's nothing fun about a single gambling roll with such powerful, long-term consequences. The result of a great or terrible roll should be momentary, while the longer-term game should be more stable and less about what you happened to roll 8 sessions ago. But this is pretty equivalent to rolling for stats which most people still seem to love, so I feel like I'm probably in the minority here.
It's evident that randomly determined runes means most powerful Moonblade are more rare.
There's a possibility for one to speak and understand a language with a Minor Property. The one i gave did from memory it was +2 finesse longsword that could crit on 19 with for Minor Properties Language (elvish) and Guardian (+2 init)
If you think your DM may go random, you can always express your concerns and suggest your inputs presented in your thread or somehow limit the number of result ex. reroll if the blade already has a Minor Property etc
Let us know what your blade is i'm curious.
I'd say you have gifted your player with a moderate but ultimately very useful weapon - exactly what I would like to see on average for a Moonblade. What level is this particular PC? I imagine they are a Dex-user so the finesse property grants a benefit?
However I would like to point out that those two minor properties are among the 4 good variants described in the DMG (being Guardian +2 init, Harmonious easy attunement, Language, and Sentinel glow in 120 ft. of enemy race) - Harmonious possibly being disqualified due to the special nature of a Moonblade attunement ritual. The Key and Hidden Message minor properties are DM plot devices that technically doesn't make the item stronger and therefore is not that exciting for a player to use. They need to be treated the same way a MacGuffin would; it moves the plot along but it could just as well have been a separate item. The ones that concerns themselves with the wielder's personality/mind are roleplay gimmicks that is borderline curse-like. The rest are so niche or useless that it's just flavor. Flavor is cool, but at the expense of power it is likely to remove or dull the excitement from the player who receives it.
And I believe people are putting too much value into the sentience of items. Again it ends up being possible plot devices for the DM and not power for the player - it's not exciting to be a puppet for the DMs exposition or keys to the plotline. It could just as well have been information given some other way in the campaign. And it's a DM trap to vest too much into such an item as the wielder might die with no means (or motivation) to resurrect them or replace the wielder, resulting in a dead-end plotline. This forces the DM to make circumventions that just as well could have been implemented into the story and not hinge on whether the character survives until their MacGuffin item can serve the plotline.
It turns out that my DM has kinda opted for a possible third option for a Moonblade: The weapon cannot be attuned to before a long time has passed where the essence of my forefathers who have bonded with the blade can judge me and find me worthy/unworthy, and after my character take upon them the task that is sworn into the blade when first claimed by my lineage. It is possible that that might happen later down the campaign or not at all within this campaign. It is also possible that the blade may "grow" with my character, so I gain access to more and more abilities of the blade as my character increase levels/proves their worth - a rather elegant way to grant the weapon to me at level 12 and not become obsolete when I find a weapon with a higher magical enhancement. However the "normal" weapon properties are active, meaning at this moment it equals a +2 Longsword with Finesse and it has a Ward against Darkness feature (it emits a silvery glow and repels darkness and can dissolve illusions and reveal invisible creatures/objects near the blade) - homebrew I imagine. Exactly what the gameplay purpose of that ward is, is still a bit unclear to me. Otherwise it is a very relevant item upgrade for my character who is a Dex-user. In the following gameplay session after finding the Moonblade, we found a +3 Rapier that I would have swapped out for if not for its weapon specific proficiency. At least until I found reasons to value the Moonblade's properties over it (and partially because the +3 weapon wouldn't remain a +3 for very long in that campaign).
While it's hardly the most consistent item, the simple fact that it can potentially imitate several legendary weapons at once is a decent justification for the tag, if only so the DM understands the scope of power they're potentially inviting when they bring the weapon in. I know there's "variable" rarity items as well, but those are usually because the items in question either exist in several separate fixed iterations or are meant to gradually progress through the capabilities.
I feel like this is a similar line of logic as granting a player a Ring of Three Wishes with all three wishes spent (I know that's not how the item is described but lets just assume the DM has chosen that) and still claiming it's a legendary item. It could have been but as it stands, it is not. It's actually a mundane ring. Just because there's a chance that a Moonblade could both be a Defender and a Vorpal blade, doesn't make it anywhere near as powerful as a whole, when by chance it only happens once in 31,250 instances on a 5 rune blade. I ain't competent enough in statistics to calculate the actual odds for additional runes but assume it is slightly more likely.
Keep in mind too that per the lore the blade has one rune/power per bearer; which means you can make a solid argument that it should gain a new one when you bond to it -- so maybe pitch to your DM that you be allowed to pick one power (or at least one gets selected that fits well with your character) and the rest can be random/DM's choice, if you're worried about getting one that's underpowered for the campaign
I was actually assuming that is why the number of runes is determined as 1d6 + 1 (you/the new wielder being that +1).
I think people are homing a little too much in on that I'm worried about the Moonblade my character is granted in my campaign. If I was granted a Moonblade that was pure chaos rolls that resulted in a weapon without finesse and some rather insignificant powers, I would just shrug and "discard" the item as it wouldn't be a gameplay-wise improvement. Roleplay wise I would keep it and bring it home to my family - but I wouldn't use it, as it would be detrimental to my character's ability to keep up with the group and meet the challenges in the campaign.
My concern is that this item utilize a property list with probabilities and using it to randomize its features can range between an uncommon item in terms of power to one of the best legendary weapons in the game (the odds of that happening being less than 1 in 5,000 to something like less than 1 in 250,000). And like ChoirOfFire says, rarity is used to give a rough estimate of an item's level of power and is also used to advice DMs to limit rarity groups for certain levels of play. There's a disconnect between the average randomized Moonblade and the Legendary rarity-tag it comes with. There's two way to go about improving this: Increase the average of a random roll to better fit a legendary item (the suggestion in the OP is one such way) or make DMs more aware of the relative item power of the Moonblade they roll (rarity brackets), so they can match it to the item level they want to give their player. The actual rarity tag on the item can remain legendary. As long as the DM is aware that the item they give is equivalent to an uncommon item in terms of power. Either way it's only something that will affect the DMs who choose to roll the blades, whereas it seems like a (vast?) majority don't do that and pick the properties they deem fit for the item they give. Introducing a revised probability table would harm none of those. Introducing a revised minor property table as an optional rule would harm no one. Alas I see a lot of people who either shows care or feign care that they don't want changes. And I'd wager for most who feel that way, this change is unlikely to impact them at all (because they or their DMs don't roll).
Perhaps you just don't get the "fun" of randomization. It's not a gamble if all the results are good. You need to have OMGbroken abilities for that 100 roll and you need to have garbage for the bad rolls, regardless of rarity.
To me, there's nothing fun about a single gambling roll with such powerful, long-term consequences. The result of a great or terrible roll should be momentary, while the longer-term game should be more stable and less about what you happened to roll 8 sessions ago. But this is pretty equivalent to rolling for stats which most people still seem to love, so I feel like I'm probably in the minority here.
The "fun" of randomization is ultimately only for the DM. The player just gets the results. If you give me the choice between a predetermined legendary item (that is appropriate for my character) and a Moonblade that's 100% randomized, I will 100% of the time pick the predetermined legendary. It's either 100% chance to get a Defender or a very low chance to get something better with a Moonblade. Also a Moonblade is not really a gamble item - I just used that term because that is what it feels like with the current rules. I'd prefer to look at it as a flexible and varied item, which also gives a level of fairness as to why it has such strict attunement requirements. However it has far too many low points when rolled compared to being a legendary item.
And lets be real, none of the properties of a Moonblade are individually OMGbroken. Even a Vorpal Sword has many scenarios where the bonus feature is reduced to its + 6d8 slashing damage and it still only happens 5% of the time (as it doesn't hook into the critical hit trigger), averaging +1.35 damage per weapon attack. The Elfshadow requires an action to summon a 16 HP shadow that deals 2d6 + 2 necrotic damage & 1d4 strength drain that is likely to blow up at the first major AoE that hits your group or any directed hit. Ring of Spell Storing is a rare item that is mainly a way to squeeze some more spells out of your Wizard, either to amp their own spell slot count or to give spellcasting abilities to non-spellcasters, mostly used for utility like Fly. In other words a Moonblade is partially a collection of very good properties with very low probabilities, but they are not broken. Otherwise the items it derives its properties from are broken, and I don't believe that's a sentiment that many share.
Back to the choice between a Defender or a randomized Moonblade: The revised probability table is more likely to produce a better average Moonblade, but it ain't enough to make me pick it over a Defender.
Adding the revised minor property table for a Moonblade is at least going to make me consider it. But I'll likely still pick the safe and strong item.
Adding all or some of the rune specific improvements (like rerolling the number of runes if you roll a 1 or 2 just once) will likely have me strongly consider the Moonblade, as the average is finally starting to look on par with a Defender. It might still end up worse, but there's also a non-insignificant chance that it can be stronger.
Giving someone a completely empty Ring of Three Wishes is an entirely separate matter; it’s more like the difference between having a Ring with 1 Wish as opposed to 3. The latter is far more potent than the former, but the system does not provide a scale of sufficient granularity to codify the distinction. A Moonblade is a bit more swingy, but the principle still applies that it can accumulate enough properties to put it in or beyond the Legendary zone, so that’s where it’s classed.
I was actually assuming that is why the number of runes is determined as 1d6 + 1 (you/the new wielder being that +1).
Oh. I figured it was because the first rune is always a +1 bonus, so d6+1 ensures you get at least one roll on the table when generating its initial properties
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Iteration152 The PC in my campaign was an elf rogue 10. Your Moonblade is homwbrewed with houserule for attunement so you will have to wait and see how it end up being but the fact it will grow with you is a good indication that it will get more power over time. For now though, it's still good as it is you found a +2 finesse longsword with a light power that has additional effect.
PS A Ring of Three Wishes with 0 wish doesn't exist as it becomes nonmagical when you use the last charge.
Okay, your blade seems to fit the level of play for the player you gifted it to.
I also believe I said it was a fine weapon I got, although it's a +2 weapon with finesse, so a +3 weapon with finesse would be an upgrade - so that's why I said if I could swap it out with the other gear we found, I likely would have for that portion of the campaign.
I'm also well aware that a Ring of Three Wishes with all charges spent turns non-magical. It was merely to make a point; that just because an item has potential to be strong, doesn't mean jack shit if it turns out that it isn't strong. If a merchant tries to sell a player a Ring of Three Wishes and it turns out all charges are spent, then there's going to be some frustration, some brow beating and possibly bloodshed about to happen.
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A Moonblade is a legendary weapon of elvish making. It bonds with its wielder and gets infused with their essence, strengthening the blade whenever it is wielded by a new owner. Usually the weapons are bound to a specific elvish noble House of the ancient world, passed down from parent to child, but it does happen that other wielders can claim them if the weapon deems them worthy and usually only if the lineage it is bonded to has ended.
This makes a flavorfully significant and possibly strong weapon. But what does it do?
Well a Moonblade have no inherent properties aside from being sentient. It can perceive the world around it (better than most mortals) and it can pass feelings of emotion to its attuned wielder, warning of ambushes or perhaps discovering something the wielder is searching for. It can also create images in dreams when the wielder is dreaming or in trance. Finally the Moonblade has a number of additional properties that is determined by how many wielders it has had before, each wielder granting a property to the blade, with some stacking and some being unique. As the DM you can choose to either pick the properties you want for the blade or leave it up to rolling random properties from a table.
As the title imply when randomizing the properties of a Moonblade, the results... can be rather poor. Which kinda surprised me when looking on lists of some of the best magical weapons that D&D 5e has to offer, the Moonblade is highly regarded. And I get it, when the DM gets to pick and choose, there's a lot of flexibility and strengths to be found in the table of properties that can be added to a Moonblade. However when we go by a fully randomized version... it tends to be a rather low selling item on par with a sentient Sun Blade.
A randomized Moonblade has 1d6 + 1 runes / improvements - averaging 4-5 runes. We're assisted in the way that the first rune is always a +1 magical enhancement. Then we're down to 40% chance for another +1, another 40% for a minor property and the remaining 20% is an array of properties ranging from neat, to very good, to fantastic. The +1 can stack up to +3 in total, rerolling any additional such rolls. The vast majority of the minor properties described in the DMG are very niche, borderline useless, or outright cursed. The array of good stuff include stuff like Spell Storing, acting like a Vorpal Blade, have improved critical range and a handful of others.
Now I've made simulations of quite a few randomized versions (like 40) and it happens quite often that you get something like a +2 weapon with 2-3 minor properties and then maybe once in every 5, you get one of the top 20% choices instead of a +1 or a minor property. However that's talking averages. There's also plenty of 2-3 rune variants that are basically just +1 or +2 weapons with some minor properties - and because there's no cap on the number of minor properties, I have also quite a few 4-5 and a few 6 runes blades that are all minor properties and then +1 or +2. Hardly worth mentioning in the same breath as other legendary items like a Defender, Dawnbreaker or Holy Avenger. The top contender I randomized was a +3 sword with Vorpal properties, +1d6 slashing and two minor properties, and another with +2, Finesse, Spell Storing and 2 minor properties. I have also gotten a +1 Defender variant with 3 minor properties.
So why is this weapon regarded so highly, when the randomized versions are frequently not that impressive? The answer is most likely that the DM picks and choose from the table and leaves very little up to pure chance - or they roll and then may reroll if they end up with a poor choice. Additionally there have been some homebrew additions to the table of minor properties you can find scattered on the internet to increase and possibly improve on the selection of minor properties.
However I feel like the Moonblade randomized table could make do with a more fitting table of probability and possibly more/other properties to make a randomized Moonblade worthy of a legendary. Therefore an attempt at a revised table:
Reroll any duplicates of properties with the exception of the bonus to attack and damage rolls, and the minor properties. Still considering the limit of +3 on the bonus to attack and damage rolls.
It could be considered to make a completely separate table of minor (to moderate) properties for the Moonblade and that could even include the weapon properties like Finesse, Thrown, and Light, absorbing their probability percentile.
Table of Moonblade minor properties:
Reroll any duplicate property.
Now... many of the minor properties in that table have the "roll another d20 die" tacked onto it, because by themselves they don't feel truly impactful when comparing to a +1 magical enhancement bonus or bonus damage, actions, spell storing or whatever. They are mostly some additional flavor and thus gets a freebie additional property. This means rolling a minor property will occasionally result in more than one property ~35% of the time. You will often get a lesser property (one who grants another d20 roll) and another property with a heavier weighting on weapon properties like finesse, thrown, and light. These three don't actually add any additional power to the item, but it helps make it available to a broader audience. Similarly I included the likely controversial "adaptive form" that can make your Moonblade into a Halberd, Greataxe or perhaps just change it to a Scimitar. The change is an attunement locked shift - so you cannot use it willy nilly to change form all the time.
Additionally I included the Harmonious property because Moonblades requires attunement in the throne room of an elven regent or in a temple dedicated to elven gods. That's not something you come across all too often or will be allowed to perform the ceremony (depending on your setting) - so the ability to quickly attune is worth the property. Technically you could use it to combine with the adaptive form property to change form a bit willy nilly - but I assume the DM will quickly make the weapon shun a potential "abuser".
The re-rolls would often result in getting the weapon property finesse, and to a lesser extend thrown, and light. The finesse makes a lot of sense since the moonblades are naturally light and the elves have a tendency to favor Dexterity attacks (Elven Accuracy) which makes finesse a miss that the moonblade doesn't have naturally - at least when compared to a Sun Blade. However it should be quite attainable with the 40% chance to hit a minor property on the main table and then a 20% chance to hit finesse on the minor property table with 35% chance to hit a reroll option in its stead. And the more minor properties you hit on the main table the less options you can bounce around on the minor property table.
Of course this will result in a lot of Moonblades to have a degree of shared minor properties, but I hardly think that's a problem. Consider it the same as the shared properties that two Dawnbreakers have, but the Moonblades have a little variety in the mix.
I'll just shortly touch on the changes I made to existing properties; improved critical range: Well it functions the same but grants a very significant interest for characters who already have improvements on their critical range - like a Fighter: Champion. Most of the minor properties, I have stolen straight from the DMG or this alternative list of minor properties and a few I touched up on: Guardian's bonus to initiative changed from +2 to +3. Harmonious attunement now says it can happen anywhere (to avoid the special moonblade attunement requirement). Illusion now can disguise the weapon as something similar in size (like a cane), whereas the original states that only minor changes can happen (which makes it difficult to utilize in a roleplay fashion). Bulwark is changed from granting +5 temporary HP, to now granting 4 + proficiency bonus (usually that means around 8-10 given it's a legendary item) but HP in that stage is... not terribly useful but still useful.
Lastly I would consider the number of runes on the Moonblade to have a bump up to increase the lowest power of a Moonblade - you can end up with a 2 rune Moonblade that results in a sentient, +1 Longsword with the Thrown property - is that a Legendary right there? Either this can be to change the flat bonus to the rune count from a +1 to a +2 (so minimum rune count goes to 3) or that rolling a 1 or 2 on the d6 have you reroll the die and pick the higher (much less chance of a low power Moonblade). Otherwise I would suggest that a Moonblade with just 2 or 3 runes, have the player select one property of their desire when attuning (this can include a minor property from the moonblade list), with the exception of the defender, spell storing, elf-shadow and vorpal functions. Those you cannot select. You can however forfeit your choice and just roll for it. The flavor for the choice being that the blade is not yet a myriad of powers, so you have more influence over what powers it gains from you.
I don't think you can have a bad Moonblade per se but depending on the number of runes, it can have more properties for greater utility powers that the DM can either choose or roll instead, which I'm fine with though the only time i drop one in any of my campaigns i did choose them.
I hard disagree that you cannot have a bad Moonblade - it's a legendary item, which has certain expectations to it. It's perfectly within chance to get a 2-3 rune Moonblade with +1 and 1-2 minor properties that doesn't do anything - like Gleaming (it never gets dirty) and Strange Material (made of a bizarre material but otherwise functions the same). Even with its sentience, that is not a good legendary weapon. It might be a flavorful and unique weapon, but it doesn't qualify as a good weapon.
If a Moonblade had brackets like a 2-3 runes = rare, 4-5 runes = very rare, 6-7 runes = legendary, then it would better fit with the randomized results - a DM who picks and choose can obviously pick the properties matching the level of item they want to create and ignore the number of runes. For instance I imagine a player would be quite happy with a +1 Moonblade with Spell Storing and Elf Shadow. However the odds of that happening by chance... is incredibly low (1:5000).
When comparing to other legendary weapons like a Defender, which is a +3 weapon with the defender function which is equivalent to a 4 runes Moonblade, and one of the more rare properties (a 2% chance). Getting a Defender equivalent as a Moonblade is actually quite hard when randomizing the results. Hell even getting a Sun Blade equivalent is hard - that's +2, Finesse, additional damage to a specific creature type (and technically the Beacon / torch-equivalent minor property).
Or if we compare to a Dawnbreaker, which also is sentient and a +2 longsword with finesse and the ability to cast Lesser Restoration once per day. It also deals additional damage against undead and can function as a torch (it's a Sun Blade + sentience + Lesser Resto). If we're being a bit generous that's 5 runes at least (one of them being equivalent to the minor property Beacon) with the spell casting being halfway to a 6th rune or at least cementing it as a 5 runes equivalent Moonblade - and that's 5 fairly good runes (ignoring the Beacon property but counting the spell casting).
Your last sentence is exactly my point: You generally pick and choose from the table rather than leaving it up to chance. You might roll for the number of runes and then select the ones you want and then roll for the remainder. But I'm specifically talking about fully randomized Moonblades. If you try that approach I'll find it hard to believe that you wont come up with variants (surprisingly many actually) where the legendary status doesn't seem to fit the item. If you gave your players such a weapon at tier 4 (lvl 17-20) or even late into tier 3 (lvl 15+)... I doubt they'll use it. It can still function as an early warning system, being sentient, but that's a really low point for a legendary item.
I get that the item is kinda in the gamble section with high highs and low lows. However the way the probability table is made, I find that you generally roll lows a significant amount of times compared to highs. Also lets be clear that changing the table of probability will not impact the slightest for DMs who opts to choose and pick. Hell I think even if the DM rolls both a Vorpal, Spell Storing, +3 weapon... they're likely going to reroll one of the first two, just to keep it in line. I'm just suggesting changes that increases the low bar of a randomized Moonblade. And... I also suggest that you cannot stack any of the damage properties like the bonus 1d6 slashing damage - which is not prohibited under current rules, same as rolling 6x Vorpal blade - that just wont matter.
The new minor property table, the light weapon property and the change to critical hit range will obviously change existing choices. I ain't married to the idea of changing the critical hit range, nor adding light weapon property, and the minor property table could be an optional rule, defaulting to the minor property table in the DMG.
You can find better legendary magic items that the Moonblade depending how many bells and whistles one has, but you're comparing items with set powers with one that possibly has an element of randomness to it. But even a bare minimum +2 or +1 sentient weapon with minor property or greater powers will be legendary because rarity not only provides a rough measure of an item’s power relative to other magic items but also reflect how plentiful or rare it is and a sentient magic item is by nature legendary and unique personality that function as NPCs under the GM’s control.
Bottom line is the DM can decide just how much power such weapon has, or go randonly which by nature will inevitably vary in power, but that's by design.
I agree. The challenge with the Moonblade from the OPs perspective is that you can find Moonblades that aren't powerful. However, the D&D rarity system ISN'T only a measure of power. It is massively inconsistent if you try to use rarity as a stand in for assessing an item's "power". The rarity system is a mish mash of item power and lore regarding how famous/unusual/unique important magic items might be.
Some examples:
Ioun Stone of Regeneration is Legendary: Regeneration (Legendary). You regain 15 hit points at the end of each hour this pearly white spindle orbits your head, provided that you have at least 1 hit point.
Ring of Regeneration is Very Rare: While wearing this ring, you regain 1d6![]()
hit points every 10 minutes, provided that you have at least 1 hit point. If you lose a body part, the ring causes the missing part to regrow and return to full functionality after 1d6 + 1![]()
days if you have at least 1 hit point the whole time.
The ring of regeneration restores 6d6 hit points every hour - average of 21 - it will also regrow body parts. The Ioun stone can be attacked and destroyed, it orbits your head where it can be grabbed by anyone, it heals fewer hit points and doesn't regenerate lost limbs ... yet the Ioun Stone is Legendary and the Ring is very rare. This would make no sense if the rarity assignments were strictly related to the power and utility of the items.
In the case of the Moonblade, it is a special magic item, passed down through elvish families, attuned for life via a special ceremony in an elvish court. It's entire description is "Legendary" ... Moonblades ARE the heart of legends but some could be more powerful than others if their properties are determined randomly. Also, not every Moonblade is an ancient heirloom ... new ones are made from time to time for new bearers. A brand new Moonblade is just a +1 sword with no other properties. The item is still Legendary for its backstory, not for its "power" since it is still just a +1 sword - which is an uncommon item.
Anyway, the objection of the OP seems to be more with the system used to assign the rarity tags like Legendary (which is NOT based on the relative powers of the items) rather than the fact that you can have less powerful moonblades. It is just a question of what "legendary" or "very rare" etc is meant to mean in 5e.
I suppose you're right David. My issue is partly the rarity tag. Mainly because the tag is mostly used to determine at what stage in the game a certain item can be found. Legendaries are often referenced to belong to tier 4 level of play or rarely in tier 3 levels. With an inexperienced DM you mostly follow these rules/guidelines until you get a better sense for power level for your campaigns. Typically an inexperienced DM would default to utilize the randomized results, which is likely to fall below the power level of any item that a DM who picks their powers will have. With a Moonblade being legendary it is unlikely that you'll find it early, so it "has" to compete with other legendary weapons (like a Holy Avenger) because it is comparable to other legendary items.
My ire is partly because we have similar items with increasing amounts of power between variants that do scale in rarity. The Belt of Giant Strength is the more prominent case - to not draw upon standard +1 to +3 magical weapons. I know that the Belts (and other similar scaled items) depending on their rarity have a set amount of power, but there's no reason why a similar system couldn't be utilized for Moonblades and the amount of runes, at the very least to assist people in better determining what level of power it symbolizes. For all I care the weapon can still have the legendary tag.
Partly my issue is the fact that this weapon with extremely specific attunement requirements and awesome history... can end up not exciting the players at all. If you roll a 2 runes Moonblade with +1 and the Wicked minor prop (higher urge to do selfish or malevolent actions), most players would consider it bad or cursed. Not to mention that the blade itself is supposed to attune to neutral good characters - which an experienced DM might consider reason to reroll the Wicked property. A Moonblade will naturally only be attuned by a neutral good elf or half-elf but can under certain circumstances be claimed by others if the elven house/lineage who claimed the blade has become extinct and the new heir is deemed worthy (the personality trait of the blade will judge if the character desires to advance and protect elvenkind) AND if they are allowed to perform the ceremony in the halls of an elven regent or in a temple dedicated to elven gods. With how jealously guarded the weapons are, it is very likely that non-elves carrying such a blade will be demanded to hand it over by more prominent elves - believing it to be stolen or looted.
There's a lot of conditions for this weapon and it just might end up being weak if we let its powers be up to the systems randomization. That's why I want to change how that randomization system works.
If we compare to something like a Luck Blade that similarly can end up with a randomized number of 0 charges of the Wish-spell - the primary reason the weapon is coveted (however that's 25% chance). The blade still remains a +1 weapon with the ability to reroll one attack roll, ability check, or saving throw once per day. That's not terribly powerful for a legendary but it is still useful. Besides the weapon still functions as long as it is being carried, so you don't even need to wield or hold it to get the reroll ability. And it doesn't have any requirements but simple attunement. I want to more reliably get over into this territory than a +1 or +2 weapon with a couple of minor properties (which is the most likely scenario for a randomized Moonblade).
As for the comparison between a Ring of Regeneration and a Ioun Stone of Regeneration - I don't know if there's enough situations where there's a benefit to not specifically wearing a ring compared to having a stone orbit your head - like Druid Wild Shape or Wizard Polymorph.
You did also pick up the least impressive legendary variant of the stones with the other variants being freely stored Counterspells against spells targeting you, canceling up to a level 8 spell (with a limit of max. canceling 50 levels worth of spells before the stone expires and turns non-magical) or Mastery; increasing your proficiency bonus by +1. I don't know what measures of power went into the rarity determination of these variants, but likely they are not tested very thoroughly and on a surface level, I would agree that the Regeneration variant is not legendary worthy - again depending on what scenarios the stone orbiting is preferable to an equipped ring. The two others though... very much so.
The stone variants at very rare are mostly granting bonuses to an ability score by +2 and there's two at rare that either increases AC by +1 or grants 3 levels worth of Spell Storing. I'd say only the Regeneration variant is out of touch with its rarity tag and the ability scores with a cap of 20 is prone to be deprioritized by better magical items that advances the characters existing strengths, but can easily be stored and utilized in non-combat situations where you can easily make an attunement shift to get a temporary boost in a stat to pass a certain check.
I don't find the randomized Moonblade has a similar baseline of power or utility, partially because the minor properties are so niche but yet so likely to take up a rune slot, partially because attunement is very demanding, so it doesn't make sense to not utilize as your main weapon - and then it has to be worth it when you get that late into the game, for which many randomized variants is unlikely to fulfill.
Personally in the campaign I'm in with my play group right now, I've been gifted a Moonblade (or rather reclaimed it for my lineage). I'm only level 12 and I'm quite certain the DM has selected its powers (I don't know them yet) but I'm also certain they have limited its powers to fit that level of play - and that's a strength for the design of Moonblades (it can be very flexible). However there's no indication in the DM's creation of a Moonblade how to approach its creation from a level of play perspective without comparing it one-to-one to other weapons of similar level of play - and a randomized version will often require many runes, to be equivalent to a very rare or legendary weapon in terms of power.
Finally I was not aware that Moonblades could potentially still be forged in the present day. I imagine there's some reason, some limited material that means you cannot produce the swords in larger quantity - something like costing the soul of the first wielder to be bound to the blade for eternity and never pass into the afterlife. Considering how prized the blades are in elven society, I would imagine any prominent elven house would have at least one blade created for them unless it was impossible or near impossible to actually forge.
Additionally I would argue that the ancient Moonblades are legendary, but any newer creations are not by definition legendary, unless their very creation is something unique and spectacular, like being gifted their power from the elven gods during a ceremony or ritual - for which I have no evidence of either way. I interpret that the ancient Moonblades are legendary because there's history associated with each blade and because new creations are impossible or near impossible - they are a thing of legend. There's no history directly associated with a freshly forged blade, thus it doesn't make sense for it to be legendary due to its history because it has none. And it cannot be legendary due to its powers because it has few. It would be legendary only in association to the "real deal".
A Moonblade 's rarity is always legendary, so are most if not all sentient magic items. At least from a Rules and Mechanics perspective.
I sense some uncertainty or frustration about your new item or how DM handle it and you focused entirely on the powers but what makes it truly unique in a roleplaying game like D&D is the intelligence and personality such sentient items have.
There's no limit to magic item at level 12, even getting a +1 weapon iis okay even though there's better, but magic items are not all valued to sheer power alone and some have other dimensions. I'd be mor einterested to learn about the blade personality, it's history what makes it tick.... These thing can literally be plot engine!
Not at all. Like I said I don't know the properties of my Moonblade yet and I joined the group late, so I don't have that much in terms of magical gear, so the DM is likely giving it to me to increase my power - which is why I believe they selected the weapon's properties and not leaving it up to chance. It was a frontloaded reward for a quest the group is taking on, I got to know the location of my lineage's lost Moonblade. So the group traveled to a section of Cormanthor and eventually found it inside an enchanted Dragonleaf tree, where only my character was allowed to enter without harm. Inside was a sarcophagus and atop it was the blade.
When my character was told of the location of the Moonblade, I looked it up and decided for fun to roll a few random attempts... and lets just say the results were coming up short. That's when I built a model (just in a regular Excel) to simulate rolling a Moonblade. The more I rolled, the more I came to realize that the probability table was indirectly skewed to make a much less impressive weapon than most similar legendary weapons - comparing mostly to a Dawnbreaker (a Sun Blade+), a Defender or even just a regular Sun Blade - so not even what is considered high on the "tier list" of legendary items.
Then I found several "tier lists" of 5e's legendary weapons where the Moonblade is very highly regarded - but that clashes heavily with the results from randomized properties. So I decided to make this opinion piece and see if there were others who felt the randomization made for bad or rather unworthy legendary Moonblades - randomized legendary garbage.
And as for sentience... the Moonblade cannot communicate outside images in dreams/trance or in the moment giving a sense of tingling. That's not much to go on for communication. It's mainly limited to be a 120 ft. dark vision sentry, which is not bad, but the blade only attunes to elves or half-elves, so the dark vision itself is not as valuable as for a human. And as for plot device, it has been "lost" a long time, so it's unlikely that it has any secret knowledge appropriate to the task at hand. Not to say that it wont come in handy later in some other fashion, but I wouldn't expect the DM to shoehorn some secret knowledge into the blade regarding this task.
Additionally I wouldn't hope the DM will pay too much attention to the sentience or personality of the blade, as it is not fun for the rest of the group that my character has a side-chat with their weapon. That's mainly fun on a weapon with a curse, a trickster personality, or something where there's "conflict" between the weapon and the wielder. That shouldn't be the case for most, if any, Moonblades or it wouldn't have deemed the person worthy to bond to. As soon as a Moonblade is attuned it will remain loyal to its wielder, even if they fall short of elven ideals.
Moonblades are often claimed with a specific task inscribed in its essence. That will have some impact to our story I imagine.
My play group don't have significant leisure time, so the pacing needs to be relatively fast and focused on gameplay action - not necessarily combat, but action, moving the plot along.
In terms of magical items, you're expected to have picked up a +1 weapon somewhere between level 1-10. Rares (+2) can be found somewhere between 5-10. Very rares (+3) can be found from lvl 11 with rares being somewhat more common. Legendaries are mainly kept for lvl 17+. That's the DMG's advice. And depending on the rarity of magic items in general in the setting this can be modified. I don't know exactly which setting my group is at, but I think one of the others have a Staff of Power... so I imagine it is a high magic setting.
It's evident that randomly determined runes means most powerful Moonblade are more rare.
There's a possibility for one to speak and understand a language with a Minor Property. The one i gave did from memory it was +2 finesse longsword that could crit on 19 with for Minor Properties Language (elvish) and Guardian (+2 init)
If you think your DM may go random, you can always express your concerns and suggest your inputs presented in your thread or somehow limit the number of result ex. reroll if the blade already has a Minor Property etc
Let us know what your blade is i'm curious.
While it's hardly the most consistent item, the simple fact that it can potentially imitate several legendary weapons at once is a decent justification for the tag, if only so the DM understands the scope of power they're potentially inviting when they bring the weapon in. I know there's "variable" rarity items as well, but those are usually because the items in question either exist in several separate fixed iterations or are meant to gradually progress through the capabilities.
Keep in mind too that per the lore the blade has one rune/power per bearer; which means you can make a solid argument that it should gain a new one when you bond to it -- so maybe pitch to your DM that you be allowed to pick one power (or at least one gets selected that fits well with your character) and the rest can be random/DM's choice, if you're worried about getting one that's underpowered for the campaign
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It explicitly does already.
It's all well and good to say that rarity shouldn't be used as a stand-in for power level, but that's ignoring the fact that rarity is explicitly a stand-in for power level, both in practice (because the game supplies no better alternative) and in the text itself, with rarer items coming from more challenging monster hoards and higher level quests, and DMs being advised to distribute items comparing rarity to character level.
OP is right -- if you're going to gamble, you should probably have roughly equal chances to get something better than average vs worse than average. Changing which average you're comparing to would be a simple way to achieve this: just downshift the rarity.
Ultimately though, I can hardly imagine caring less.
Perhaps you just don't get the "fun" of randomization. It's not a gamble if all the results are good. You need to have OMGbroken abilities for that 100 roll and you need to have garbage for the bad rolls, regardless of rarity.
To me, there's nothing fun about a single gambling roll with such powerful, long-term consequences. The result of a great or terrible roll should be momentary, while the longer-term game should be more stable and less about what you happened to roll 8 sessions ago. But this is pretty equivalent to rolling for stats which most people still seem to love, so I feel like I'm probably in the minority here.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I'd say you have gifted your player with a moderate but ultimately very useful weapon - exactly what I would like to see on average for a Moonblade. What level is this particular PC? I imagine they are a Dex-user so the finesse property grants a benefit?
However I would like to point out that those two minor properties are among the 4 good variants described in the DMG (being Guardian +2 init, Harmonious easy attunement, Language, and Sentinel glow in 120 ft. of enemy race) - Harmonious possibly being disqualified due to the special nature of a Moonblade attunement ritual. The Key and Hidden Message minor properties are DM plot devices that technically doesn't make the item stronger and therefore is not that exciting for a player to use. They need to be treated the same way a MacGuffin would; it moves the plot along but it could just as well have been a separate item. The ones that concerns themselves with the wielder's personality/mind are roleplay gimmicks that is borderline curse-like. The rest are so niche or useless that it's just flavor. Flavor is cool, but at the expense of power it is likely to remove or dull the excitement from the player who receives it.
And I believe people are putting too much value into the sentience of items. Again it ends up being possible plot devices for the DM and not power for the player - it's not exciting to be a puppet for the DMs exposition or keys to the plotline. It could just as well have been information given some other way in the campaign. And it's a DM trap to vest too much into such an item as the wielder might die with no means (or motivation) to resurrect them or replace the wielder, resulting in a dead-end plotline. This forces the DM to make circumventions that just as well could have been implemented into the story and not hinge on whether the character survives until their MacGuffin item can serve the plotline.
It turns out that my DM has kinda opted for a possible third option for a Moonblade: The weapon cannot be attuned to before a long time has passed where the essence of my forefathers who have bonded with the blade can judge me and find me worthy/unworthy, and after my character take upon them the task that is sworn into the blade when first claimed by my lineage. It is possible that that might happen later down the campaign or not at all within this campaign. It is also possible that the blade may "grow" with my character, so I gain access to more and more abilities of the blade as my character increase levels/proves their worth - a rather elegant way to grant the weapon to me at level 12 and not become obsolete when I find a weapon with a higher magical enhancement.
However the "normal" weapon properties are active, meaning at this moment it equals a +2 Longsword with Finesse and it has a Ward against Darkness feature (it emits a silvery glow and repels darkness and can dissolve illusions and reveal invisible creatures/objects near the blade) - homebrew I imagine. Exactly what the gameplay purpose of that ward is, is still a bit unclear to me. Otherwise it is a very relevant item upgrade for my character who is a Dex-user.
In the following gameplay session after finding the Moonblade, we found a +3 Rapier that I would have swapped out for if not for its weapon specific proficiency. At least until I found reasons to value the Moonblade's properties over it (and partially because the +3 weapon wouldn't remain a +3 for very long in that campaign).
I feel like this is a similar line of logic as granting a player a Ring of Three Wishes with all three wishes spent (I know that's not how the item is described but lets just assume the DM has chosen that) and still claiming it's a legendary item. It could have been but as it stands, it is not. It's actually a mundane ring. Just because there's a chance that a Moonblade could both be a Defender and a Vorpal blade, doesn't make it anywhere near as powerful as a whole, when by chance it only happens once in 31,250 instances on a 5 rune blade. I ain't competent enough in statistics to calculate the actual odds for additional runes but assume it is slightly more likely.
I was actually assuming that is why the number of runes is determined as 1d6 + 1 (you/the new wielder being that +1).
I think people are homing a little too much in on that I'm worried about the Moonblade my character is granted in my campaign. If I was granted a Moonblade that was pure chaos rolls that resulted in a weapon without finesse and some rather insignificant powers, I would just shrug and "discard" the item as it wouldn't be a gameplay-wise improvement. Roleplay wise I would keep it and bring it home to my family - but I wouldn't use it, as it would be detrimental to my character's ability to keep up with the group and meet the challenges in the campaign.
My concern is that this item utilize a property list with probabilities and using it to randomize its features can range between an uncommon item in terms of power to one of the best legendary weapons in the game (the odds of that happening being less than 1 in 5,000 to something like less than 1 in 250,000). And like ChoirOfFire says, rarity is used to give a rough estimate of an item's level of power and is also used to advice DMs to limit rarity groups for certain levels of play.
There's a disconnect between the average randomized Moonblade and the Legendary rarity-tag it comes with. There's two way to go about improving this: Increase the average of a random roll to better fit a legendary item (the suggestion in the OP is one such way) or make DMs more aware of the relative item power of the Moonblade they roll (rarity brackets), so they can match it to the item level they want to give their player. The actual rarity tag on the item can remain legendary. As long as the DM is aware that the item they give is equivalent to an uncommon item in terms of power.
Either way it's only something that will affect the DMs who choose to roll the blades, whereas it seems like a (vast?) majority don't do that and pick the properties they deem fit for the item they give. Introducing a revised probability table would harm none of those. Introducing a revised minor property table as an optional rule would harm no one. Alas I see a lot of people who either shows care or feign care that they don't want changes. And I'd wager for most who feel that way, this change is unlikely to impact them at all (because they or their DMs don't roll).
The "fun" of randomization is ultimately only for the DM. The player just gets the results. If you give me the choice between a predetermined legendary item (that is appropriate for my character) and a Moonblade that's 100% randomized, I will 100% of the time pick the predetermined legendary. It's either 100% chance to get a Defender or a very low chance to get something better with a Moonblade. Also a Moonblade is not really a gamble item - I just used that term because that is what it feels like with the current rules. I'd prefer to look at it as a flexible and varied item, which also gives a level of fairness as to why it has such strict attunement requirements. However it has far too many low points when rolled compared to being a legendary item.
And lets be real, none of the properties of a Moonblade are individually OMGbroken. Even a Vorpal Sword has many scenarios where the bonus feature is reduced to its + 6d8 slashing damage and it still only happens 5% of the time (as it doesn't hook into the critical hit trigger), averaging +1.35 damage per weapon attack. The Elfshadow requires an action to summon a 16 HP shadow that deals 2d6 + 2 necrotic damage & 1d4 strength drain that is likely to blow up at the first major AoE that hits your group or any directed hit. Ring of Spell Storing is a rare item that is mainly a way to squeeze some more spells out of your Wizard, either to amp their own spell slot count or to give spellcasting abilities to non-spellcasters, mostly used for utility like Fly.
In other words a Moonblade is partially a collection of very good properties with very low probabilities, but they are not broken. Otherwise the items it derives its properties from are broken, and I don't believe that's a sentiment that many share.
Back to the choice between a Defender or a randomized Moonblade:
The revised probability table is more likely to produce a better average Moonblade, but it ain't enough to make me pick it over a Defender.
Adding the revised minor property table for a Moonblade is at least going to make me consider it. But I'll likely still pick the safe and strong item.
Adding all or some of the rune specific improvements (like rerolling the number of runes if you roll a 1 or 2 just once) will likely have me strongly consider the Moonblade, as the average is finally starting to look on par with a Defender. It might still end up worse, but there's also a non-insignificant chance that it can be stronger.
Giving someone a completely empty Ring of Three Wishes is an entirely separate matter; it’s more like the difference between having a Ring with 1 Wish as opposed to 3. The latter is far more potent than the former, but the system does not provide a scale of sufficient granularity to codify the distinction. A Moonblade is a bit more swingy, but the principle still applies that it can accumulate enough properties to put it in or beyond the Legendary zone, so that’s where it’s classed.
Oh. I figured it was because the first rune is always a +1 bonus, so d6+1 ensures you get at least one roll on the table when generating its initial properties
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You do either way. 1d6 is at least a 1, then plus 1 = 2 runes minimum. The first is always a +1, and then another property, at minimum.
Iteration152 The PC in my campaign was an elf rogue 10. Your Moonblade is homwbrewed with houserule for attunement so you will have to wait and see how it end up being but the fact it will grow with you is a good indication that it will get more power over time. For now though, it's still good as it is you found a +2 finesse longsword with a light power that has additional effect.
PS A Ring of Three Wishes with 0 wish doesn't exist as it becomes nonmagical when you use the last charge.
Okay, your blade seems to fit the level of play for the player you gifted it to.
I also believe I said it was a fine weapon I got, although it's a +2 weapon with finesse, so a +3 weapon with finesse would be an upgrade - so that's why I said if I could swap it out with the other gear we found, I likely would have for that portion of the campaign.
I'm also well aware that a Ring of Three Wishes with all charges spent turns non-magical. It was merely to make a point; that just because an item has potential to be strong, doesn't mean jack shit if it turns out that it isn't strong. If a merchant tries to sell a player a Ring of Three Wishes and it turns out all charges are spent, then there's going to be some frustration, some brow beating and possibly bloodshed about to happen.