I apologize if I am missing the thread that already exists about this in my searches, but it seems like there is something missing in Homebrew Creator when it comes to weapons: For the Way of Kensai Monk subclass, the heading of the list of available Kensai weapons is "Choose a melee weapon". When adding a modifier to a homebrew weapon (nunchuks), I cannot find what I need to change to designate it as a Kensai weapon. I've tried twice, once starting from the base weapon of "club" and once from "short sword", and no matter what I do, I cannot get my homebrew weapon to show up under the list of available Kensai weapons.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!!
PS: If you're wondering why I don't just reskin a club or short sword, neither has the exact properties I (as someone who actually practices with nunchuks IRL) want it to have. They should be light, bludgeoning finesse weapons. You should be able to use your Dex bonus and dual wield them. I couldn't find an existing weapon with those properties.
You can't homebrew new weapon types so features like Weapon Proficiencies and the Kensei Weapon, which rely on the base weapon types, won't recognise any magic items you create using the homebrew tools.
Just build it from a club with the modifiers you want, then select club as your Monk's Kensei Weapon.
According to the suggestions in the DMG*1 regarding this they recommend a Flail for use as nunchaku. According to the Monk’s Martial Arts feature, they recommend a Club*2 instead. (You could always split the difference and use a Mace instead) If you want to use your nunchucks for dual wielding as default then the club is your best bet as it has the light property by default. If you think it reasonable to require more specialized training to dual-wield them and think they should do more than 1d4 damage, use either the Mace or Flail and then it would take the addition of the Dual-Wielder feat to use them for two-weapon fighting, a reasonable trade-off IMO.
Any which way you do it, you don’t need to add finesse to the item because a Club is a Monk weapon by default and as for the other two suggestions, when you designate one of them as a Kensei weapon it will become a Monk weapon*3 for you as part of that designation. If you look at the rules for Martial Arts*2 again, you can see the following:
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons.
That means, anything you designate as a Kensei weapon will automatically allow you to use Dex instead of Str for attack and damage rolls.
But even if you did take a flail and add the finesse and light properties and name it “Nunchaku,” it would still count as a flail in the system, so you would still need to select “flail.” Make sense?
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. What you said confirms what I was thinking in re: how it should treat the Kensai weapons. I just didn't see it immediately reflected on the sheet when I tried it and wanted to make sure I was going about it the correct way.
As for which weapon to use as the base (club or flail), here's my logic, having fought (and been hit) with sticks, clubs, and nunchuks: It hurts WAY more to get hit with nunchuks than it does with just a club. The string/chain (properly called "himo" if it's a rope or "kusari" if it's a chain) amplifies (I know it's an oversimplification of the physics involved) the force of the hit. For that reason it makes sense to me that nunchuks SHOULD do more damage than just a club, but that they should also be Martial weapons by default, since they generally require more training to use properly.
For the sake of it, it's also worth saying that nunchuks are not ACTUALLY that old of a weapon, and were not historically used in really any of the settings that the generalized DnD concept of Monks (Shaolin temples, for example) were taken from. For more accuracy, the two - or three - section staff would be the closest historical equivalent (can confirm - those also hurt but are even harder to use!). But this is a fantasy game, so we're allowed to handwave some historical accuracy for the sake of fun, right? :-)
Anyway, thanks again for all the helpful comments!
can you tell me what you entered and how - i don't fully understand where to add what
I was trying to use Longswords / Longbow (i first tried to add "any simple/martial weapon without special or heavy attribute - but i can't even find the option to just add sword and bow)
can you tell me what you entered and how - i don't fully understand where to add what
I was trying to use Longswords / Longbow (i first tried to add "any simple/martial weapon without special or heavy attribute - but i can't even find the option to just add sword and bow)
Are you talking about adding them as Kensai weapons to your character, or adding them to a Homebrew? You can’t add a Longbow to your character as a Kensai weapon, it has the heavy property.
can you tell me what you entered and how - i don't fully understand where to add what
I was trying to use Longswords / Longbow (i first tried to add "any simple/martial weapon without special or heavy attribute - but i can't even find the option to just add sword and bow)
Are you talking about adding them as Kensai weapons to your character, or adding them to a Homebrew? You can’t add a Longbow to your character as a Kensai weapon, it has the heavy property.
I use this guide as orientation. It's for personal use only so i was just asking what to add in the Editor, that when i choose that subclass at level 3, i'd like a dropdown menu with 2 choices where i can pick a simple/martial weapon excluding special/heavy (with the exception of longbow: Kensei Weapons "The longbow is also a valid choice.") properties - and then one additional choice at 6th, 11th, and 17th level...
TLDR edit: I just used way of the elements to take a look how that was done... can it be that I have to specify everything separately?
I don’t know why you would use Elements since they don’t get Kensei weapons. You should use the way of the Kensei.
I don't think you understand what i am asking...^^ It's about how to USE the creation tool itself - and i made a COPY of the Elements Subclass to LOOK how the features are added.
I don’t know why you would use Elements since they don’t get Kensei weapons. You should use the way of the Kensei.
I don't think you understand what i am asking...^^ It's about how to USE the creation tool itself - and i made a COPY of the Elements Subclass to LOOK how the features are added.
Ahh. I honestly don’t think it’s currently possible to add a Kensei Weapon. That requires a specific Modifier, and I’m not seeing it on the current list.
I apologize if I am missing the thread that already exists about this in my searches, but it seems like there is something missing in Homebrew Creator when it comes to weapons:
For the Way of Kensai Monk subclass, the heading of the list of available Kensai weapons is "Choose a melee weapon". When adding a modifier to a homebrew weapon (nunchuks), I cannot find what I need to change to designate it as a Kensai weapon. I've tried twice, once starting from the base weapon of "club" and once from "short sword", and no matter what I do, I cannot get my homebrew weapon to show up under the list of available Kensai weapons.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!!
PS: If you're wondering why I don't just reskin a club or short sword, neither has the exact properties I (as someone who actually practices with nunchuks IRL) want it to have. They should be light, bludgeoning finesse weapons. You should be able to use your Dex bonus and dual wield them. I couldn't find an existing weapon with those properties.
Clear your cache, reload the sheet, wait 20 minutes, then reload the sheet.
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You can't homebrew new weapon types so features like Weapon Proficiencies and the Kensei Weapon, which rely on the base weapon types, won't recognise any magic items you create using the homebrew tools.
Just build it from a club with the modifiers you want, then select club as your Monk's Kensei Weapon.
According to the suggestions in the DMG*1 regarding this they recommend a Flail for use as nunchaku. According to the Monk’s Martial Arts feature, they recommend a Club*2 instead. (You could always split the difference and use a Mace instead) If you want to use your nunchucks for dual wielding as default then the club is your best bet as it has the light property by default. If you think it reasonable to require more specialized training to dual-wield them and think they should do more than 1d4 damage, use either the Mace or Flail and then it would take the addition of the Dual-Wielder feat to use them for two-weapon fighting, a reasonable trade-off IMO.
Any which way you do it, you don’t need to add finesse to the item because a Club is a Monk weapon by default and as for the other two suggestions, when you designate one of them as a Kensei weapon it will become a Monk weapon*3 for you as part of that designation. If you look at the rules for Martial Arts*2 again, you can see the following:
That means, anything you designate as a Kensei weapon will automatically allow you to use Dex instead of Str for attack and damage rolls.
But even if you did take a flail and add the finesse and light properties and name it “Nunchaku,” it would still count as a flail in the system, so you would still need to select “flail.” Make sense?
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Thanks everyone for the suggestions. What you said confirms what I was thinking in re: how it should treat the Kensai weapons. I just didn't see it immediately reflected on the sheet when I tried it and wanted to make sure I was going about it the correct way.
As for which weapon to use as the base (club or flail), here's my logic, having fought (and been hit) with sticks, clubs, and nunchuks: It hurts WAY more to get hit with nunchuks than it does with just a club. The string/chain (properly called "himo" if it's a rope or "kusari" if it's a chain) amplifies (I know it's an oversimplification of the physics involved) the force of the hit. For that reason it makes sense to me that nunchuks SHOULD do more damage than just a club, but that they should also be Martial weapons by default, since they generally require more training to use properly.
For the sake of it, it's also worth saying that nunchuks are not ACTUALLY that old of a weapon, and were not historically used in really any of the settings that the generalized DnD concept of Monks (Shaolin temples, for example) were taken from. For more accuracy, the two - or three - section staff would be the closest historical equivalent (can confirm - those also hurt but are even harder to use!). But this is a fantasy game, so we're allowed to handwave some historical accuracy for the sake of fun, right? :-)
Anyway, thanks again for all the helpful comments!
can you tell me what you entered and how - i don't fully understand where to add what
I was trying to use Longswords / Longbow (i first tried to add "any simple/martial weapon without special or heavy attribute - but i can't even find the option to just add sword and bow)
wut?
Are you talking about adding them as Kensai weapons to your character, or adding them to a Homebrew? You can’t add a Longbow to your character as a Kensai weapon, it has the heavy property.
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I use this guide as orientation. It's for personal use only so i was just asking what to add in the Editor, that when i choose that subclass at level 3, i'd like a dropdown menu with 2 choices where i can pick a simple/martial weapon excluding special/heavy (with the exception of longbow: Kensei Weapons "The longbow is also a valid choice.") properties - and then one additional choice at 6th, 11th, and 17th level...
TLDR edit: I just used way of the elements to take a look how that was done... can it be that I have to specify everything separately?
wut?
I don’t know why you would use Elements since they don’t get Kensei weapons. You should use the way of the Kensei.
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I don't think you understand what i am asking...^^ It's about how to USE the creation tool itself - and i made a COPY of the Elements Subclass to LOOK how the features are added.
wut?
Ahh. I honestly don’t think it’s currently possible to add a Kensei Weapon. That requires a specific Modifier, and I’m not seeing it on the current list.
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