i'm not sure if my players use dndbeyond forums much but just in case, if you're in legends of the lost world, go away ♥
i'm co-DMing a campaign, and one of our concepts is a weapon that takes a form that reflects the wielder. the idea is to create a very powerful weapon that only one person can use at a time, and give the party incentive to share it amongst themselves for unlimited awesome moments. we were also thinking about having it scale in power with our players as they level up, but haven't solidified it. we're about to start building this weapon and i was hoping to get some opinions from more seasoned DMs, since this is the first long-term campaign either of us have run. (we're not beginners to dnd, just longform DMing).
right now our party consists of two clerics (different domains), a fighter/rogue, a barbarian, and a fighter/sorcerer/warlock. the weapons we're looking at for each of them (respectively) are a shield, a scythe (like her spiritual weapon), a bow, a hammer, and a polearm of some kind.
my question is, how can we incentivize our players to trade the weapon around and not decide that it's best in the hands of one person? are there any other issues you can see us running into that we might not have considered? do you have any advice on how to start building this? we're both very excited about this idea and i want to make sure it ends up being as cool as i'm imagining. open to any thoughts.
Have you ever heard of a vestige of divergence? Maybe you guys can take a look at that as the concept is nearly as the same as what you have in mind. A transformation weapon has got to be incredibly hard to obtain and to create if it can transform into literally any kind (Maybe except for guns unless other wise), it will be easy to implement but the abilities it grants or has may be incredulous for your creative juice though I believe it is doable (but that's my opinion). Start with a weapon that can transform into all weapons and then have it only gain a bonus of plus 1 - 3 magic bonus at set player levels. Eg. 1 - 7 is +1 magic bonus, 8 - 14 is +2, 15 - 20 is +3 magic bonus. Just make it have that once activated it can only be used by that wielder for 24 hours before it reverts into its base form and is unable to be wielded again by the same person until another one has taken it.
my question is, how can we incentivize our players to trade the weapon around and not decide that it's best in the hands of one person? are there any other issues you can see us running into that we might not have considered? do you have any advice on how to start building this? we're both very excited about this idea and i want to make sure it ends up being as cool as i'm imagining. open to any thoughts.
The easy way to do this is to have some negative effect tied to prolonged possession. The longer someone has it, the more that effect builds up, whether it's levels of exhaustion, a penalty on certain checks and/or saving throws, hallucinations and nightmares, what have you. De-attuning and then re-attuning doesn't automatically clear the effect -- the person would have to let someone else have it for at least a day to reset their negatives to zero again
If you want to approach it from the opposite direction, give the item charges that do something fun, but the only way to renew the charges is to give the item to someone else, i.e., it has five charges for Aubrey, but if Aubrey blows through all five, they don't get any more unless they pass the item on to Blair, who then only gets five charges until they pass it along to Cameron or back to Aubrey, etc.
In terms of how to build it, if you aren't planning on making it public, the easiest way to homebrew it might be to make different items for each player, and to keep editing them on the back end as they grow in power if you go that route. Create one UltraMacGuffin for Aubrey, one for Blair etc., and when they equip the item on their DDB sheet, tell them to equip the version with their name on it, which could be completely different from anybody else's version. You'll have to keep an eye and make sure only one person at a time has it equipped if it offers any bonuses or effects just for possessing it or anything like that, but it's easier than trying to make one item with a gajillion options and contingencies
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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)
Would not do penalties if it were me. I'd do bonuses for switching, explicitly. No reason to beat around the bush. Or, if it was meant to be swapped in combat, and I was confident my players are mechanically savvy, I might let them figure it out, by making it something like this:
"A target struck by this weapon takes 2 additional damage for each other time it's been struck by this weapon since its last turn."
That way they can have the discovery of hot-swapping for maximum damage instead of me spelling it out for them. I might also include enemies that do something that would make them think of it, such as a gang of clever kobolds who all share the same scorpion-on-a-stick. Or a stuck-in-place weapon or trap that several enemies can use.
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i'm not sure if my players use dndbeyond forums much but just in case, if you're in legends of the lost world, go away ♥
i'm co-DMing a campaign, and one of our concepts is a weapon that takes a form that reflects the wielder. the idea is to create a very powerful weapon that only one person can use at a time, and give the party incentive to share it amongst themselves for unlimited awesome moments. we were also thinking about having it scale in power with our players as they level up, but haven't solidified it. we're about to start building this weapon and i was hoping to get some opinions from more seasoned DMs, since this is the first long-term campaign either of us have run. (we're not beginners to dnd, just longform DMing).
right now our party consists of two clerics (different domains), a fighter/rogue, a barbarian, and a fighter/sorcerer/warlock. the weapons we're looking at for each of them (respectively) are a shield, a scythe (like her spiritual weapon), a bow, a hammer, and a polearm of some kind.
my question is, how can we incentivize our players to trade the weapon around and not decide that it's best in the hands of one person? are there any other issues you can see us running into that we might not have considered? do you have any advice on how to start building this? we're both very excited about this idea and i want to make sure it ends up being as cool as i'm imagining. open to any thoughts.
Have you ever heard of a vestige of divergence? Maybe you guys can take a look at that as the concept is nearly as the same as what you have in mind. A transformation weapon has got to be incredibly hard to obtain and to create if it can transform into literally any kind (Maybe except for guns unless other wise), it will be easy to implement but the abilities it grants or has may be incredulous for your creative juice though I believe it is doable (but that's my opinion). Start with a weapon that can transform into all weapons and then have it only gain a bonus of plus 1 - 3 magic bonus at set player levels. Eg. 1 - 7 is +1 magic bonus, 8 - 14 is +2, 15 - 20 is +3 magic bonus. Just make it have that once activated it can only be used by that wielder for 24 hours before it reverts into its base form and is unable to be wielded again by the same person until another one has taken it.
Are you wanting them to pass out around during combat? Or during rests? Or what?
The easy way to do this is to have some negative effect tied to prolonged possession. The longer someone has it, the more that effect builds up, whether it's levels of exhaustion, a penalty on certain checks and/or saving throws, hallucinations and nightmares, what have you. De-attuning and then re-attuning doesn't automatically clear the effect -- the person would have to let someone else have it for at least a day to reset their negatives to zero again
If you want to approach it from the opposite direction, give the item charges that do something fun, but the only way to renew the charges is to give the item to someone else, i.e., it has five charges for Aubrey, but if Aubrey blows through all five, they don't get any more unless they pass the item on to Blair, who then only gets five charges until they pass it along to Cameron or back to Aubrey, etc.
In terms of how to build it, if you aren't planning on making it public, the easiest way to homebrew it might be to make different items for each player, and to keep editing them on the back end as they grow in power if you go that route. Create one UltraMacGuffin for Aubrey, one for Blair etc., and when they equip the item on their DDB sheet, tell them to equip the version with their name on it, which could be completely different from anybody else's version. You'll have to keep an eye and make sure only one person at a time has it equipped if it offers any bonuses or effects just for possessing it or anything like that, but it's easier than trying to make one item with a gajillion options and contingencies
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)
Would not do penalties if it were me. I'd do bonuses for switching, explicitly. No reason to beat around the bush. Or, if it was meant to be swapped in combat, and I was confident my players are mechanically savvy, I might let them figure it out, by making it something like this:
"A target struck by this weapon takes 2 additional damage for each other time it's been struck by this weapon since its last turn."
That way they can have the discovery of hot-swapping for maximum damage instead of me spelling it out for them. I might also include enemies that do something that would make them think of it, such as a gang of clever kobolds who all share the same scorpion-on-a-stick. Or a stuck-in-place weapon or trap that several enemies can use.