Hey everyone, I have a buddy who's starting to DM, and he's been running some homebrew stuff past me recently to discuss my thoughts on whether or not what he's coming up with seems balanced.
Most recently, he came up with ideas for a couple Legendary magic items for a Tier 3 campaign he wants to run for some friends. One of them posed an interesting question. Basically, he wanted a weapon that grew more powerful as it slayed more enemies (read: damage bonus on the weapon increases by +1 each time it kills something). When he showed that to me, I gave the advice that he should cap the damage bonus, and have it reset during a rest (could be short, could be long, depended on how powerful he wanted it to be).
However, I think he wanted to try to find a way to make the damage bonus permanent. He first mentioned he wouldn't be running horde battles at all, but I pointed out players will always find a cheesy way to kill stuff to make the weapon more powerful. So then he proposed the idea of making it dependent on enemy CR (e.g. the damage only increases if it kills something CR 4 or higher).
I recommended against this approach for 2 reasons (quoting from our chat):
" 1) Extra bookkeeping. Players typically won't know the CR of monsters they're fighting (unless they're all experienced DMs, which is unlikely), so that means both you and the player have more to remember, on top of keeping track of how many souls were devoured.
2) Depending on who you play with, players may feel that you're taking away a bit of their agency since you're effectively controlling how many souls can go into their sword, by controlling the CR of monsters they fight. Plus, similar to what I mentioned above, it's not a very transparent system. If this is just with a group of players that you're really good friends with and you all have a decent amount of trust between you, this may not be all that relevant. But if you're like me and you're meeting new people that you're DM'ing for, then mechanics like this can run this risk of becoming an obstacle between DM/player trust.
That being said, the most important thing is how your players feel about it. If they think a CR based approach is cool as ****, then do it! "
This got the gears turning in my head a bit though, and I was curious about what other people thought about something like this. So, I'll pose the question to everyone here: do you think I was caught up with insignificant concerns? Or do you think this is a mechanic best avoided?
Man, this takes me back. Back in the early 90s, I played on a MUD that had a class of swordsmen whose swords grew in power as they devoured enemy souls. I loved that class.
OK, so let's think about how this would apply to D&D. Are you guys running an XP-based or milestone-based experience campaign? If it's XP-based, then someone is already tracking XP for monsters killed. You might decide that tracking CR isn't so difficult. I mean, that's not for me, but maybe someone else wouldn't mind. As for devouring souls based on CR, you have to admit that four CR4 monsters are going to be a lot easier to kill than one CR16 monster. I'm just not feeling CR-based growth. But let's take another look at XP tracking.
The class on the MUD had a weapon that grew in three ways. One way was the size of the dice. Another way was the number of dice. The third way was the bonus stacked on the end. If he were so inclined, he could make three tables of XP costs to upgrade the weapon. Then let players "cash in" XP to upgrade the weapon based on the costs on the table. Size of dice would be cheapest (but still quite expensive). Bonus stacked on the dice would be even more expensive. Finally, number of dice would be tremendously expensive. And you can put some caps on the weapon to keep things from getting out of hand. Decide what the most powerful weapon he can tolerate would be. Maybe 3d12+5? That's a MONSTER weapon, but if he's cool with that, then its a thought.
Another way would be to tie the growth of the weapon to the PC's level. This would be far easier to track. Then he only needs to make a 20 level table with weapon stats for each level and then advance the weapon as he advances the player. Something I just thought of that could be kind of neat would be to make the weapon a d4 dagger until level 6, when it becomes a d6 shortsword. Then at level 8, it might become a d8 longsword, a d10 pike at level 10, and then a d12 greateaxe at level 12. You could then give it a +1 at certain level milestones as well.
Or maybe the first time it kills a CR6 monster, it grows to a d6 weapon. The first time it kills a CR8 monster, etc. But that strategy falls apart once you get past a CR12 monster. The DM would have to look at starting to add pluses and stuff to account for higher CR creatures and keep the weapon's power in line with other weapons a character of that level and power would be likely to have. It could be done, but the DM would definitely want to make a table of CR1 through CR25 and what the weapon's power level would become at each increment.
I'm not sold on either of these strategies as being appropriate for 5e without some serious work, but I do enjoy the concept and if the DM is willing to put in the effort, then go for it.
I just had another idea. What if the weapon had a berseker bloodlust element to it? Like when it killed a monster, it got a +1 to damage for the next minute, and then if it killed another monster within that minute, the timer restarted and it became a +2 and so on. I'm just spitballing this idea. It would be pretty situational and would only become supercharged in situations where there were lots of enemies.
Hey hey I appreciate all this input. I happen to be the buddy OP was referring to. I just wanted to reach out and thank you for all these different angles on this concept for balancing sake.
I really like the idea of independent item level growth. Say have it gain the same XP that the user does and set level up points. One thing is I was hoping to do this leveling up by more a milestone system than purely XP based. While obviously those overlap a seems to me to be a lot more numbers to keep track of for the XP system, at least it seems that way to me. ha. That's why I had envisioned this as a "defeat tough enemy get stronger" sort of idea.
What about a CR milestone system like "after slaying 20CR worth of enemies this item levels up" sort of thing. I like the idea of a challenge rating threshold a lot, but that can definitely also be lost in the numbers just like XP. This is most similar to how I had envisioned it in my head. Don't put them against many High CR monsters, rather hordes at first in the path to the boss, then have them gain power upon finishing the boss (the Boss being above said CR threshold allowing the soul to be absorbed thus increasing its power)
Sidenote, this is NOT going to be AL legal and purely homebrew, so I'm not terribly worried about it "being appropriate for 5e without some serious work"... So honestly, if it lets my player feel super powerful, then I'm happy. I just don't want to ruin the battles/encounters by making them a demi-god with a single item haha.
So far my balancing of this item (with a_hat's general balancing tips//guidelines) has led me to a simplified version. It is a +1 weapon (to hit and damage) then each enemy slain (brought to 0 hp, not counting enemies hit by non-lethal damage already knocked unconscious by teammates -- to help avoid damage funneling) increase this items damage by +1 up to a cap of 5 souls. When not stacked it is + 1to hit and +1 to damage. When Fully stacked it is +1 to hit, and +6 to damage. These soul charges (reset upon short/long rest or ) reset each day Dawn. (When you sleep you lose stacks basically)
Also, this and other weapons of similar magical abilities will be wielded by said bosses prior to the party defeating/looting them, so I have to keep it somewhat in check or it'll just start to obliterate my party members.
Thanks again for you help and interest in this weapon design concept!
It's funny you should circle back to this. After posting in this thread, I couldn't get the idea of a bloodthirsty weapon out of my mind. I ended up making a homebrew item that had a variation of this concept. Here's the method I felt worked best for me:
Bloodlust. When Serpent's Fang takes a life, it thirsts for more blood. For 1 minute, it gains an additional +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. If you kill another foe, the minute starts over and the sword gains yet another +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. This continues to increase for as long as the sword keeps killing. If the sword reaches +3 or higher, then you become exhausted after 1 minute when the effect ends. The level of exhaustion you take is equal to the bonus of the sword, but the sword will never kill you with exhaustion. Finishing a long rest magically removes all exhaustion caused by the sword.
I was always in love with the idea of an evil sword that grew in power as it took more lives. I'm glad some of the ideas I wrote down inspired you to go after it your own way.
Bloodlust. When Serpent's Fang takes a life, it thirsts for more blood. For 1 minute, it gains an additional +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. If you kill another foe, the minute starts over and the sword gains yet another +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. This continues to increase for as long as the sword keeps killing. If the sword reaches +3 or higher, then you become exhausted after 1 minute when the effect ends. The level of exhaustion you take is equal to the bonus of the sword, but the sword will never kill you with exhaustion. Finishing a long rest magically removes all exhaustion caused by the sword.
I was always in love with the idea of an evil sword that grew in power as it took more lives. I'm glad some of the ideas I wrote down inspired you to go after it your own way.
I really enjoy this concept for a magic item, actually. Lot's of fun, but doesn't outright break the game. If a munchkin gets it, they can't abuse other stuff to buff the weapon in ways you didn't intend ("I run into the forest and slay <insert damage bonus cap> creatures to max out my damage bonus"). If you're fighting a horde battle, you can mow down the enemies, but without being too OP (since increasing your single-target damage is less helpful in hordes where you probably kill the enemies in one hit anyway), and the bonus will be gone in time for the next battle. Plus, the user runs the risk of getting exhausted by a horde if they go nuts, weakening them for the rest of the day. Bookkeeping is easy too, since it's really only on a per-encounter basis, and there's nothing ambiguous about when you do/don't get the bonus.
I also like GrifGrif's caveat of "you must reduce the target to 0 HP and kill the target." The damage funneling may be a limited problem (you're just wasting actions if you're feeding unconscious enemies to another ally rather than killing them outright, and odds are the wasted actions probably aren't actually worth the bonus), but it "feels" like the optimal strategy, so people would probably be tempted to do it anyway. Adding the caveat tacitly encourages less meta-strategy in encounters (or rather, the kind of meta-strategy it discourages is the kind that tends to make encounters more fun for one person and less fun for everyone else), which is always good to avoid.
Cool ideas everyone, I'll keep these in mind for the future if I'm homebrewing items myself!
I know it's been over a month, but once you put this idea in my head, I couldn't stop thinking about it now and again. I ended up building a subclass of fighters who are infernal knights that have a special sword that grows in power as they use it to defeat more enemies and absorb more souls. The concept of a bonded weapon that becomes more powerful alongside its user has a certain appeal to me.
There exists a group of fighters who are willing to seek ultimate power at any cost. These fighters discovered long ago that the Nine Hells are full of devils willing and ready to grant them the power they seek in the form of a profane infernal weapon that hungers for the souls of those it slays. This weapon is said to grow in power along with its wielder as it kills more and stronger enemies. These fighters, bound by their damnation and the fiery weapons they wield, are known as Infernal Knights. Powerful Infernal Knights are capable of using their blades to inflict not only grievous physical damage to their foes, but also to channel the fires of hell itself through the blade using magical spells.
At Level 3, you perform a forbidden ritual, offering to trade your soul to a greater devil of the Nine Hells in exchange for increased combat power in your mortal life. There is always a devil waiting for such an offer who infuses its infernal essence into a beautifully-crafted longsword, which then appears before you. When you take the longsword in your hand and wield it for the first time, you are magically bonded to the weapon and the contract is sealed. After that point, if anyone else attempts to wield your bonded infernal blade, it is treated as a common nonmagical longsword.
Once you are bonded to your infernal blade, It becomes the only melee weapon you are able to use.
You always have disadvantage when using any other melee weapon, regardless of other modifiers which may otherwise negate disadvantage.
As a bonus action, you may summon or dismiss your infernal blade. It appears in your grasp. If you have no free hands, you drop at least one held item to make room for the blade.
While you are wielding your infernal blade, any creature you strike that is immune to slashing damage is treated as having resistance instead. This applies only to your attacks.
You may choose to wield your infernal blade in one hand or in both hands.
If you chose archery, great weapon fighting, or two weapon fighting as your fighting style at level 2, you may now change that selection one time only.
Though you have sold your mortal soul, revivify and other resurrection spells work as normal.
Absorb Soul
When you slay a creature, your infernal sword hungers to consume its soul. As an action, you may absorb the soul of a creature you slew within the last 1 minute. When you do this, you recover hit points equal to the CR of the creature you slew. Creatures with a CR less than 1 provide no healing. Constructs have no souls, so they may not be absorbed.
Blade Advancement
Your blade grows in power as you defeat stronger enemies. The level of your blade is equal to the CR of the strongest soul your infernal blade has absorbed. If you absorb the soul of a creature whose CR is higher than your character level, the sword matches your current character level until level 18, when the limit expires. As your blade grows in power, it becomes a more formidable weapon. Blade advancement follows the following table:
Blade Level
1h Base Damage
2h Base Damage
1
1d8
1d10
2
1d8
1d10
3
1d8
1d10
4
1d8
1d10
5
1d10
1d12
6
1d10
1d12
7
1d10
1d12
8
1d10
1d12
9
1d12
1d8+1d6
10
1d12
1d8+1d6
11
1d12
1d8+1d6
12
1d12
1d8+1d6
13
1d8+1d6
2d8
14
1d8+1d6
2d8
15
1d8+1d6
2d8
16
1d8+1d6
2d8
17
2d8
4d4
18
2d8
4d4
19
2d8
4d4
20
2d8
4d4
21
4d4
3d6
22
4d4
3d6
23
4d4
3d6
24
4d4
3d6
25
3d6
5d4
26
3d6
5d4
27
3d6
5d4
28
3d6
5d4
29
5d4
6d4
30
5d4
6d4
Infernal Condition
As an Infernal Knight, you are bolstered by aspects of the evil fiend within your blade. While you are wielding your infernal blade, you are resistant to fire damage, but you are vulnerable to radiant damage.
Hellfire Blade
Beginning at 7th level, your blade attacks are always considered magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance. As a bonus action, you can invoke an incantation that ignites your blade with infernal hellfire. On a successful hit, your blade does an additional 1d6 fire damage. This effect lasts for 1 minute.
You may use this invocation once per long or short rest.
Release Soul
At 10th level, you learn how to work with the souls of slain enemies absorbed into your sword. When you absorb a soul, you have 1 minute to touch an ally with your blade as an action and release the soul's energy into them as healing for hit points equal to the CR value of the absorbed soul. No soul under CR 1 provides any healing.
Hellfire Burst
At 15th level, you gain the ability to release an explosive burst of hellfire upon your enemies. As an action, you can point your sword to a location you can see within 150 ft and cause a fireball to explode there. You may only do this once per long or short rest.
Infernal Magic
Starting at 18th level, you have access to some rudimentary fire magic. Though you are no spellcaster, your mind comprehends the methods of calling a fire shield or a wall of fire, either of which you may cast as an action. Once you cast each of these spells, you may not do so again until you have taken a long or short rest.
This is still a rough draft and I'm sure I'll go back and fix some descriptions and maybe tweak some of the abilities, but I tried to make it interesting and balanced.
This sounds really cool! A couple observations/suggestions:
The damage progression when I first looked at it seemed a little OP. However, after further inspection, it seems to be about on par with the Brute that's currently in Unearthed Arcana (actually, maybe just a smidge weaker by 0.5-1 points of damage on average). On the flip-side, this weapon has a more regular growth pattern. Even looking at when it's a level 30 weapon, it seems to be roughly on par with Legendary magical weapons. So maybe damage progression is fine.
It seems that the class is solely oriented towards combat. I think it'd be cool to work in some stuff from the other two pillars (Social and Exploration) as well. Maybe getting advantage on intimidation checks, and getting improved darkvision (or some form of limited truesight). Giving the sword some sentience could be a cool option as well (actually, you could probably design it so that ALL social/exploration aspects of this subclass are based around the sword's sentience).
Rather that it being a common nonmagical weapon for other people, it seems like it'd be cool if it was detrimental to people when they tried to use it. Like, maybe it saps their health or they have disadvantage.
Another idea I had was to make the souls in the sword expendable. For example, every soul it absorbs increases its level by an amount equal to the CR of the creature you killed (still ignoring constructs and CR < 1), with a max level equal to your level (and the max could still increase to 30 when you hit level 18). While the sword is charged with souls, maybe you get some kind of smaller passive benefit. But you can also choose to expend those souls on a variety of actions (extra damage on hit, akin to the Paladin's Divine Smite, or the healing features you already wrote, but a bit more potent). All of the other features you wrote, actually, could work by requiring you to expend a certain number of levels from the sword, rather than recharging at a rest.
Last observation was that I was worried the subclass was too heavily skewed towards evil characters. However, I think with the right player and DM, this could set up a really cool personal story for the character. Like, they're forced to make the pact out of desperation, and once they reach levels 18+, they're faced with a choice: give up their soul in accordance with the bargain (effectively causing the player to lose their character), or find a way to get out of the deal (maybe they have to kill the devil they made the bargain with).
Anywho, those were just some initial thoughts. I really like it overall, and I think it's already pretty solid!
You're right of course that it seems slanted toward combat. This draft was almost entirely combat-oriented. That was the first thing I wanted to try to balance, since it's a fighter subclass after all. But we cannot overlook the other two pillars of a balanced character. Your ideas are good and they gave me some ideas on how to implement them. But first, I want to talk about this:
Another idea I had was to make the souls in the sword expendable. For example, every soul it absorbs increases its level by an amount equal to the CR of the creature you killed (still ignoring constructs and CR < 1), with a max level equal to your level (and the max could still increase to 30 when you hit level 18). While the sword is charged with souls, maybe you get some kind of smaller passive benefit. But you can also choose to expend those souls on a variety of actions (extra damage on hit, akin to the Paladin's Divine Smite, or the healing features you already wrote, but a bit more potent). All of the other features you wrote, actually, could work by requiring you to expend a certain number of levels from the sword, rather than recharging at a rest.
This is a great idea. I have made it a main goal to add as much functionality as i can without making this process too math-heavy or adding complexity that could bog down the game and break immersion for the players at the table. My concern was that the more I add, the more complicated the class becomes and that seems to be counter to the streamlined spirit of 5e. But what you're suggesting is super cool and I think I came up with a simple solution that unlocks a lot of options. I'm going to make the blade like a wand. Every day at dawn, it recovers a number of charges equal to its blade level. As the blade levels up, it gets more charges. And the more powerful the feature, the more charges it uses. I can go through and remove just about all of the short rest / long rest requirements on abilities now and replace them with a cost of X number of charges per use.
With that in mind, let's circle back to what you were talking about with abilities that are not directly combat-related. You mentioned darkvision or a limited version of truesight. It turns out that warlocks have something right in between and it's already called Devil's Sight :) How perfect is that? Fighters aren't warlocks, so their version of it shouldn't be as strong. I cut the range in half and gave it a time limit. As an action, you may spend 1 charge from your blade to invoke a limited version of Devil's Sight, meaning you can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 60 feet for 10 minutes. Intimidation is another candidate for this treatment. At level 7, you have started to come to terms with the powers of your blade and the effect it can have on you and on those around you. As an action, you may spend 1 charge from your blade to enhance the most sinister aspects of your appearance. You gain advantage on intimidation checks for 1 minute. That works for me. I'll spend some time thinking of a few more appropriate non-combat abilities I can stack onto the sword, especially at levels 10, 15, and/or 18.
It's funny you mention the subclass appears at first glance skewed toward evil characters. I think you're going to get that lean any time you invoke devils in your imagery. Originally, I had text in the description along the lines of "Many infernal knights are tempted toward evil ways by the presence of a devil within their swords. There are those tho resist the temptation and rise up to walk the path of good. These characters may choose to slay the wicked, the condemned, and evil monsters who threaten innocent people." Ultimately i removed it because it felt like I was trying to coach players who picked the subclass. But I'm glad you saw opportunities for non-evil characters to take on this subclass as it was my hope to make it appropriate for as wide a range of characters as possible.
I have worked really hard on this nearly every day because I've become quite passionate about it.
However...
I simply cannot get past the fact that this subclass is so thematically similar to Hexblade Warlocks. In the end, I shelved the subclass (maybe I'll dust it off in the future) and now I'm working on the sword by itself as a legendary weapon.
That's some sweet art. I like the Bonded Blade too. I mean, reading this thread, my memory was screaming "Elric of Melnibone!" at me. Your sword does some more things...I think. It's been a looooooong time since I read those books. But the idea of it essentially being a curse is right along with Mournblade and Stormbringer, the swords from those books. How is it working in-game?
That's really cool! And the artwork is fantastic! I can't wait to hear how it works in practice. What level/class is the PC that got it? And what does the party as a whole look like?
The PC who got it is a level six minotaur blood hunter of the Order of the Lycan. He attuned to it by pledging his soul to Baphomet, which created some tension in the party (in a good way) since the party is not primarily evil. Baphomet was a very good choice for this character given his race and the nature of his class. I'm looking forward to being able to play it into the larger story going forward.
The rest of the party is also level six and they are:
A dwarf forge cleric
A gnome arcane trickster rogue
A tiefling draconic sorcerer
A half elf valor bard
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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Hey everyone, I have a buddy who's starting to DM, and he's been running some homebrew stuff past me recently to discuss my thoughts on whether or not what he's coming up with seems balanced.
Most recently, he came up with ideas for a couple Legendary magic items for a Tier 3 campaign he wants to run for some friends. One of them posed an interesting question. Basically, he wanted a weapon that grew more powerful as it slayed more enemies (read: damage bonus on the weapon increases by +1 each time it kills something). When he showed that to me, I gave the advice that he should cap the damage bonus, and have it reset during a rest (could be short, could be long, depended on how powerful he wanted it to be).
However, I think he wanted to try to find a way to make the damage bonus permanent. He first mentioned he wouldn't be running horde battles at all, but I pointed out players will always find a cheesy way to kill stuff to make the weapon more powerful. So then he proposed the idea of making it dependent on enemy CR (e.g. the damage only increases if it kills something CR 4 or higher).
I recommended against this approach for 2 reasons (quoting from our chat):
" 1) Extra bookkeeping. Players typically won't know the CR of monsters they're fighting (unless they're all experienced DMs, which is unlikely), so that means both you and the player have more to remember, on top of keeping track of how many souls were devoured.
2) Depending on who you play with, players may feel that you're taking away a bit of their agency since you're effectively controlling how many souls can go into their sword, by controlling the CR of monsters they fight. Plus, similar to what I mentioned above, it's not a very transparent system. If this is just with a group of players that you're really good friends with and you all have a decent amount of trust between you, this may not be all that relevant. But if you're like me and you're meeting new people that you're DM'ing for, then mechanics like this can run this risk of becoming an obstacle between DM/player trust.
That being said, the most important thing is how your players feel about it. If they think a CR based approach is cool as ****, then do it! "
This got the gears turning in my head a bit though, and I was curious about what other people thought about something like this. So, I'll pose the question to everyone here: do you think I was caught up with insignificant concerns? Or do you think this is a mechanic best avoided?
Man, this takes me back. Back in the early 90s, I played on a MUD that had a class of swordsmen whose swords grew in power as they devoured enemy souls. I loved that class.
OK, so let's think about how this would apply to D&D. Are you guys running an XP-based or milestone-based experience campaign? If it's XP-based, then someone is already tracking XP for monsters killed. You might decide that tracking CR isn't so difficult. I mean, that's not for me, but maybe someone else wouldn't mind. As for devouring souls based on CR, you have to admit that four CR4 monsters are going to be a lot easier to kill than one CR16 monster. I'm just not feeling CR-based growth. But let's take another look at XP tracking.
The class on the MUD had a weapon that grew in three ways. One way was the size of the dice. Another way was the number of dice. The third way was the bonus stacked on the end. If he were so inclined, he could make three tables of XP costs to upgrade the weapon. Then let players "cash in" XP to upgrade the weapon based on the costs on the table. Size of dice would be cheapest (but still quite expensive). Bonus stacked on the dice would be even more expensive. Finally, number of dice would be tremendously expensive. And you can put some caps on the weapon to keep things from getting out of hand. Decide what the most powerful weapon he can tolerate would be. Maybe 3d12+5? That's a MONSTER weapon, but if he's cool with that, then its a thought.
Another way would be to tie the growth of the weapon to the PC's level. This would be far easier to track. Then he only needs to make a 20 level table with weapon stats for each level and then advance the weapon as he advances the player. Something I just thought of that could be kind of neat would be to make the weapon a d4 dagger until level 6, when it becomes a d6 shortsword. Then at level 8, it might become a d8 longsword, a d10 pike at level 10, and then a d12 greateaxe at level 12. You could then give it a +1 at certain level milestones as well.
Or maybe the first time it kills a CR6 monster, it grows to a d6 weapon. The first time it kills a CR8 monster, etc. But that strategy falls apart once you get past a CR12 monster. The DM would have to look at starting to add pluses and stuff to account for higher CR creatures and keep the weapon's power in line with other weapons a character of that level and power would be likely to have. It could be done, but the DM would definitely want to make a table of CR1 through CR25 and what the weapon's power level would become at each increment.
I'm not sold on either of these strategies as being appropriate for 5e without some serious work, but I do enjoy the concept and if the DM is willing to put in the effort, then go for it.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I just had another idea. What if the weapon had a berseker bloodlust element to it? Like when it killed a monster, it got a +1 to damage for the next minute, and then if it killed another monster within that minute, the timer restarted and it became a +2 and so on. I'm just spitballing this idea. It would be pretty situational and would only become supercharged in situations where there were lots of enemies.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Hey hey I appreciate all this input. I happen to be the buddy OP was referring to. I just wanted to reach out and thank you for all these different angles on this concept for balancing sake.
I really like the idea of independent item level growth. Say have it gain the same XP that the user does and set level up points. One thing is I was hoping to do this leveling up by more a milestone system than purely XP based. While obviously those overlap a seems to me to be a lot more numbers to keep track of for the XP system, at least it seems that way to me. ha. That's why I had envisioned this as a "defeat tough enemy get stronger" sort of idea.
What about a CR milestone system like "after slaying 20CR worth of enemies this item levels up" sort of thing. I like the idea of a challenge rating threshold a lot, but that can definitely also be lost in the numbers just like XP. This is most similar to how I had envisioned it in my head. Don't put them against many High CR monsters, rather hordes at first in the path to the boss, then have them gain power upon finishing the boss (the Boss being above said CR threshold allowing the soul to be absorbed thus increasing its power)
Sidenote, this is NOT going to be AL legal and purely homebrew, so I'm not terribly worried about it "being appropriate for 5e without some serious work"... So honestly, if it lets my player feel super powerful, then I'm happy. I just don't want to ruin the battles/encounters by making them a demi-god with a single item haha.
So far my balancing of this item (with a_hat's general balancing tips//guidelines) has led me to a simplified version. It is a +1 weapon (to hit and damage) then each enemy slain (brought to 0 hp, not counting enemies hit by non-lethal damage already knocked unconscious by teammates -- to help avoid damage funneling) increase this items damage by +1 up to a cap of 5 souls. When not stacked it is + 1to hit and +1 to damage. When Fully stacked it is +1 to hit, and +6 to damage. These soul charges (reset upon short/long rest or ) reset each day Dawn. (When you sleep you lose stacks basically)
Also, this and other weapons of similar magical abilities will be wielded by said bosses prior to the party defeating/looting them, so I have to keep it somewhat in check or it'll just start to obliterate my party members.
Thanks again for you help and interest in this weapon design concept!
It's funny you should circle back to this. After posting in this thread, I couldn't get the idea of a bloodthirsty weapon out of my mind. I ended up making a homebrew item that had a variation of this concept. Here's the method I felt worked best for me:
Bloodlust. When Serpent's Fang takes a life, it thirsts for more blood. For 1 minute, it gains an additional +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. If you kill another foe, the minute starts over and the sword gains yet another +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. This continues to increase for as long as the sword keeps killing. If the sword reaches +3 or higher, then you become exhausted after 1 minute when the effect ends. The level of exhaustion you take is equal to the bonus of the sword, but the sword will never kill you with exhaustion. Finishing a long rest magically removes all exhaustion caused by the sword.
I was always in love with the idea of an evil sword that grew in power as it took more lives. I'm glad some of the ideas I wrote down inspired you to go after it your own way.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I really enjoy this concept for a magic item, actually. Lot's of fun, but doesn't outright break the game. If a munchkin gets it, they can't abuse other stuff to buff the weapon in ways you didn't intend ("I run into the forest and slay <insert damage bonus cap> creatures to max out my damage bonus"). If you're fighting a horde battle, you can mow down the enemies, but without being too OP (since increasing your single-target damage is less helpful in hordes where you probably kill the enemies in one hit anyway), and the bonus will be gone in time for the next battle. Plus, the user runs the risk of getting exhausted by a horde if they go nuts, weakening them for the rest of the day. Bookkeeping is easy too, since it's really only on a per-encounter basis, and there's nothing ambiguous about when you do/don't get the bonus.
I also like GrifGrif's caveat of "you must reduce the target to 0 HP and kill the target." The damage funneling may be a limited problem (you're just wasting actions if you're feeding unconscious enemies to another ally rather than killing them outright, and odds are the wasted actions probably aren't actually worth the bonus), but it "feels" like the optimal strategy, so people would probably be tempted to do it anyway. Adding the caveat tacitly encourages less meta-strategy in encounters (or rather, the kind of meta-strategy it discourages is the kind that tends to make encounters more fun for one person and less fun for everyone else), which is always good to avoid.
Cool ideas everyone, I'll keep these in mind for the future if I'm homebrewing items myself!
I know it's been over a month, but once you put this idea in my head, I couldn't stop thinking about it now and again. I ended up building a subclass of fighters who are infernal knights that have a special sword that grows in power as they use it to defeat more enemies and absorb more souls. The concept of a bonded weapon that becomes more powerful alongside its user has a certain appeal to me.
There exists a group of fighters who are willing to seek ultimate power at any cost. These fighters discovered long ago that the Nine Hells are full of devils willing and ready to grant them the power they seek in the form of a profane infernal weapon that hungers for the souls of those it slays. This weapon is said to grow in power along with its wielder as it kills more and stronger enemies. These fighters, bound by their damnation and the fiery weapons they wield, are known as Infernal Knights. Powerful Infernal Knights are capable of using their blades to inflict not only grievous physical damage to their foes, but also to channel the fires of hell itself through the blade using magical spells.
At Level 3, you perform a forbidden ritual, offering to trade your soul to a greater devil of the Nine Hells in exchange for increased combat power in your mortal life. There is always a devil waiting for such an offer who infuses its infernal essence into a beautifully-crafted longsword, which then appears before you. When you take the longsword in your hand and wield it for the first time, you are magically bonded to the weapon and the contract is sealed. After that point, if anyone else attempts to wield your bonded infernal blade, it is treated as a common nonmagical longsword.
Absorb Soul
When you slay a creature, your infernal sword hungers to consume its soul. As an action, you may absorb the soul of a creature you slew within the last 1 minute. When you do this, you recover hit points equal to the CR of the creature you slew. Creatures with a CR less than 1 provide no healing. Constructs have no souls, so they may not be absorbed.
Blade Advancement
Your blade grows in power as you defeat stronger enemies. The level of your blade is equal to the CR of the strongest soul your infernal blade has absorbed. If you absorb the soul of a creature whose CR is higher than your character level, the sword matches your current character level until level 18, when the limit expires. As your blade grows in power, it becomes a more formidable weapon. Blade advancement follows the following table:
Infernal Condition
As an Infernal Knight, you are bolstered by aspects of the evil fiend within your blade. While you are wielding your infernal blade, you are resistant to fire damage, but you are vulnerable to radiant damage.
Hellfire Blade
Beginning at 7th level, your blade attacks are always considered magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance. As a bonus action, you can invoke an incantation that ignites your blade with infernal hellfire. On a successful hit, your blade does an additional 1d6 fire damage. This effect lasts for 1 minute.
You may use this invocation once per long or short rest.
Release Soul
At 10th level, you learn how to work with the souls of slain enemies absorbed into your sword. When you absorb a soul, you have 1 minute to touch an ally with your blade as an action and release the soul's energy into them as healing for hit points equal to the CR value of the absorbed soul. No soul under CR 1 provides any healing.
Hellfire Burst
At 15th level, you gain the ability to release an explosive burst of hellfire upon your enemies. As an action, you can point your sword to a location you can see within 150 ft and cause a fireball to explode there. You may only do this once per long or short rest.
Infernal Magic
Starting at 18th level, you have access to some rudimentary fire magic. Though you are no spellcaster, your mind comprehends the methods of calling a fire shield or a wall of fire, either of which you may cast as an action. Once you cast each of these spells, you may not do so again until you have taken a long or short rest.
This is still a rough draft and I'm sure I'll go back and fix some descriptions and maybe tweak some of the abilities, but I tried to make it interesting and balanced.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
This sounds really cool! A couple observations/suggestions:
The damage progression when I first looked at it seemed a little OP. However, after further inspection, it seems to be about on par with the Brute that's currently in Unearthed Arcana (actually, maybe just a smidge weaker by 0.5-1 points of damage on average). On the flip-side, this weapon has a more regular growth pattern. Even looking at when it's a level 30 weapon, it seems to be roughly on par with Legendary magical weapons. So maybe damage progression is fine.
It seems that the class is solely oriented towards combat. I think it'd be cool to work in some stuff from the other two pillars (Social and Exploration) as well. Maybe getting advantage on intimidation checks, and getting improved darkvision (or some form of limited truesight). Giving the sword some sentience could be a cool option as well (actually, you could probably design it so that ALL social/exploration aspects of this subclass are based around the sword's sentience).
Rather that it being a common nonmagical weapon for other people, it seems like it'd be cool if it was detrimental to people when they tried to use it. Like, maybe it saps their health or they have disadvantage.
Another idea I had was to make the souls in the sword expendable. For example, every soul it absorbs increases its level by an amount equal to the CR of the creature you killed (still ignoring constructs and CR < 1), with a max level equal to your level (and the max could still increase to 30 when you hit level 18). While the sword is charged with souls, maybe you get some kind of smaller passive benefit. But you can also choose to expend those souls on a variety of actions (extra damage on hit, akin to the Paladin's Divine Smite, or the healing features you already wrote, but a bit more potent). All of the other features you wrote, actually, could work by requiring you to expend a certain number of levels from the sword, rather than recharging at a rest.
Last observation was that I was worried the subclass was too heavily skewed towards evil characters. However, I think with the right player and DM, this could set up a really cool personal story for the character. Like, they're forced to make the pact out of desperation, and once they reach levels 18+, they're faced with a choice: give up their soul in accordance with the bargain (effectively causing the player to lose their character), or find a way to get out of the deal (maybe they have to kill the devil they made the bargain with).
Anywho, those were just some initial thoughts. I really like it overall, and I think it's already pretty solid!
You're right of course that it seems slanted toward combat. This draft was almost entirely combat-oriented. That was the first thing I wanted to try to balance, since it's a fighter subclass after all. But we cannot overlook the other two pillars of a balanced character. Your ideas are good and they gave me some ideas on how to implement them. But first, I want to talk about this:
This is a great idea. I have made it a main goal to add as much functionality as i can without making this process too math-heavy or adding complexity that could bog down the game and break immersion for the players at the table. My concern was that the more I add, the more complicated the class becomes and that seems to be counter to the streamlined spirit of 5e. But what you're suggesting is super cool and I think I came up with a simple solution that unlocks a lot of options. I'm going to make the blade like a wand. Every day at dawn, it recovers a number of charges equal to its blade level. As the blade levels up, it gets more charges. And the more powerful the feature, the more charges it uses. I can go through and remove just about all of the short rest / long rest requirements on abilities now and replace them with a cost of X number of charges per use.
With that in mind, let's circle back to what you were talking about with abilities that are not directly combat-related. You mentioned darkvision or a limited version of truesight. It turns out that warlocks have something right in between and it's already called Devil's Sight :) How perfect is that? Fighters aren't warlocks, so their version of it shouldn't be as strong. I cut the range in half and gave it a time limit. As an action, you may spend 1 charge from your blade to invoke a limited version of Devil's Sight, meaning you can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 60 feet for 10 minutes. Intimidation is another candidate for this treatment. At level 7, you have started to come to terms with the powers of your blade and the effect it can have on you and on those around you. As an action, you may spend 1 charge from your blade to enhance the most sinister aspects of your appearance. You gain advantage on intimidation checks for 1 minute. That works for me. I'll spend some time thinking of a few more appropriate non-combat abilities I can stack onto the sword, especially at levels 10, 15, and/or 18.
It's funny you mention the subclass appears at first glance skewed toward evil characters. I think you're going to get that lean any time you invoke devils in your imagery. Originally, I had text in the description along the lines of "Many infernal knights are tempted toward evil ways by the presence of a devil within their swords. There are those tho resist the temptation and rise up to walk the path of good. These characters may choose to slay the wicked, the condemned, and evil monsters who threaten innocent people." Ultimately i removed it because it felt like I was trying to coach players who picked the subclass. But I'm glad you saw opportunities for non-evil characters to take on this subclass as it was my hope to make it appropriate for as wide a range of characters as possible.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I have worked really hard on this nearly every day because I've become quite passionate about it.
However...
I simply cannot get past the fact that this subclass is so thematically similar to Hexblade Warlocks. In the end, I shelved the subclass (maybe I'll dust it off in the future) and now I'm working on the sword by itself as a legendary weapon.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I told you I couldn't get the concept out of my head. I finished off the sword and it recently popped up in my campaign.
So here's the bonded blade. My friend Bill McBee drew it up to give a visual to go with the description.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Wow!! This is beautiful art and well-created item damage, I'm going to suggest this with my next DM!! This is so cool! Thank you!
That's some sweet art. I like the Bonded Blade too. I mean, reading this thread, my memory was screaming "Elric of Melnibone!" at me. Your sword does some more things...I think. It's been a looooooong time since I read those books. But the idea of it essentially being a curse is right along with Mournblade and Stormbringer, the swords from those books. How is it working in-game?
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
That's really cool! And the artwork is fantastic! I can't wait to hear how it works in practice. What level/class is the PC that got it? And what does the party as a whole look like?
The PC who got it is a level six minotaur blood hunter of the Order of the Lycan. He attuned to it by pledging his soul to Baphomet, which created some tension in the party (in a good way) since the party is not primarily evil. Baphomet was a very good choice for this character given his race and the nature of his class. I'm looking forward to being able to play it into the larger story going forward.
The rest of the party is also level six and they are:
"Not all those who wander are lost"