As a DM who's running a campaign with a few dragons in it (including the final boss of the second arc), I've only given a max of one per dragon encounter, and usually as a part of a hoard from another boss. Any more than that, and I feel like it really can trivialize what otherwise might be an exciting battle. It still feels really cool in the moment—look at all that damage!—but it also doesn't overshadow everything else that your other players can do, instead of only allowing one or two ranged attackers to shine.

Why not just use Bag of Devouring? It's not as rare.

Have a very high level magic user cast bane of x-creature on to a fancy arrow you made.....?

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i need that

 Me too

 me three

 me four

 me five

Quote from Brandonnukka >>

Okay stay with me on this. Picture: A level 20. 11 fighter levels, Arcane archer subclass. That's 3 attacks per action, action surge for a second action That's now 6 attacks. 3 rogue levels, assassin subclass, so you can crit on a surprise attack and get 2d6 sneak attack. 6 wizard levels so you can cast haste. Arcane archer uses dex and intelligence. So both should be at least 20 for +5. Haste grants another additional action, now 7 total in one round. All 7 shots, with dragon slaying arrows, an oathbow, sneak attack, sharpshooter feat. So it would be 1d8,(Bow damage) + 3d6(oathbow effect), + 2d6(sneak attack) + 6d10(dragonslaying arrow) + 10(sharpshooter)+ 5(dex bonus) then you do this same process minus the sneak attack 6 MORE TIMES! and that's not counting if you crit.

 Haste is an action to cast, meaning you waste an action setting this whole situation up unless you cast it beforehand (within 54 seconds). If you fail to do so you forfeit the assassin feature, rempvong the auto crit. Still pretty powerful though. Also, what sane DM would allow 7 or more [ ]slaying arrows anyway? Sheer insanity.

The "arrow with your name on it" made me think of The Man With the Golden Gun and how Scaramanga's girlfriend sent the bullet engraved with "007."

To make one, I would say you need something from whatever you want to kill, like dragon scales or zombie flesh.

who created it?

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i need that

 Me too

 me three

 me four

 me five

 i got it

We're bringing the Arrow of Red Dragon Slaying + Oathbow to a dragon fight in our session today. I'll let you know how it goes.

Quote from WillJewwel >>

As far as I know there's no set recipe for magic items. Some DMs might make you gather rare ingredients, while some may simply allow you to buy ingredients.

 In Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the star forge thing has some directions on magic item creation.

We had a great adventuring party that eventually realized that our adventures would have us dealing with one of each chromatic ancient dragon on our way to Tiamat herself. We had no thoughts of any arrows of slaying, but we ended up finding some. Oh yes. The green dragon (a major long time foe) had minions, including a high level ranger/rogue-assassin/archer, who had lovely arrows. One arrow for each of us with our name inscribed upon it. However, he really shouldn'tna, had'na, ought'na fired at the monk first. Nope. Shouldn't have done that. Perhaps he'll remember that lesson in his next life. When we found the arrows, we broke them then burned them.

Now for player question. When I read about arrows of slaying on here, I didn't think that an arrow could be made to target an individual. Realizing that DMs are ghods incarnate, it makes sense. What more could be done with this besides mere massive damage/death? For which adventurer worth their salt has not fallen dead at least once? Now a fine curse could be something inconvenient to the adventurer for some time, and much harder to rid themselves of. An epic curse not easily susceptible to Remove Curse.

If I were making the rules, the arrow would have to be made with something from the body of the individual (strand of hair, nail paring, sliver of skin). The perfect one would be inscribed with the full true name of the individual.

Comments?

Good for a assassin rogue.