PEACH my Weapon of Sharpness

[Beoric]

Please evaluate and critique honestly.

Weapon of Sharpness
Level 6 Uncommon
Weapon Slot
Weapon: Axe, Heavy Blade, Light Blade, Pick, Spear
Critical: +1d6 per plus
Property: Weapon attacks made with this weapon gain an item bonus to damage rolls equal to the enhancement bonus of the weapon.

There would also be level 1, 11, 16, 21 & 26 versions, but the level 6 version is given for better comparison to Iron Armbands of Power, which is a level 6 uncommon item.

Note IAoP apply to melee attacks with any weapon, but would not apply ranged attacks with light or heavy thrown weapons. This includes weapon or implement attacks if the weapon is used as an implement.

Weapon of Sharpness, as written, applies to attacks with a single weapon only, but includes ranged attacks if the weapon is heavy or light thrown. As written, it does not apply to implement attacks.

I created the item both for some retro flavour and to provide an option for freeing up the arms slot so that IAoP had some competition. There would be a corresponding "weapon of impact" for blunt weapons.

I am pretty sure I am in the ballpark for level and rarity, but am wondering if it could be knocked down to "common" given that it burns a weapon enchant and can only be used with a single weapon?

My second question is, if I want a greater version that applies to implement attacks as well, what does that do to level and rarity?

Other more general suggestions are welcome.

[masteraleph]

If I'm understanding correctly, the goal is to have this be a weapon enchantment that also eats up your arms slot, correct? If that's the case, drop the Arms slot from where it is now and put in a sentence about that fact in the properties.

If the goal is to only have it apply to melee weapon attacks, then say that.

For level- I think it's probably reasonable where it is, or maybe one level higher, though I don't think I'd put it in at 1+; just make it 6+. Staff of Ruin has that property as a 3+, but doesn't eat your arms slot. Radiant Weapon has that property as a 15+, but doesn't eat your arms slot and converts to Radiant. On the other hand, a Magic Weapon and Iron Armbands together requires two separate item slots, which is what makes me think 7+ might be a better level. It's hard to say- the balance is between, on the one hand, losing your arms slot and using your weapon enchantment, and on the other hand, getting the effect of IAoP without having to spend a loot package on it.

[MwaO]

Subtle Weapon is a level 3+ item, is basically identical, except Subtle Weapon requires CA and can work with non-weapon attacks. Staff of Ruin is also a 3+ item.

I'd probably call it a 4+ item due to Subtle Weapon and Staff of Ruin generally being a non-ideal weapon attack item.

[Beoric]

If I'm understanding correctly, the goal is to have this be a weapon enchantment that also eats up your arms slot, correct? If that's the case, drop the Arms slot from where it is now and put in a sentence about that fact in the properties.

Oops, no, it is supposed to be in the weapon slot. I will fix that ASAP.

If the goal is to only have it apply to melee weapon attacks, then say that.

No, the goal is to have it apply to all weapon attacks. Still on the fence about implement attacks (the flavour makes sense for monks, but not so much for many of the swordmage attacks).

@ MwaO, I note Staff of Ruin is objectively better than applying the Weapon of Impact version of this item to a staff: it applies to implement attacks, and has higher crit dice. Although it only applies to staves.

Hmm, now I'm thinking of making the enchant apply to weapon and implement attacks, but only if the attack does untyped damage, which is a significant gimp but gives me the flavour I want. And maybe making it a level 2+ uncommon, or maybe a 3+ common.

[MwaO]

@ MwaO, I note Staff of Ruin is objectively better than applying the Weapon of Impact version of this item to a staff: it applies to implement attacks, and has higher crit dice. Although it only applies to staves.

Right. Which is generally a sucky weapon choice and limited therefore mostly to implement attacks. And it is strictly better than subtle weapon.

[masteraleph]

Just make it a 9+ Uncommon and apply it to all attacks. That places it between Subtle/Staff of Ruin (some drawbacks) and Radiant (15+, but gets the Radiant conversion and the bonus).

[Yakk]

6 is inappropriate. 6 is for items with +2 enhancement and 1d6 per enhancement crit damage, and extremely minor additional effects at best.


Magic weapons have two ways to think about their level. You should think about *both*.

First you can think about them as absolute level. A level 27 item can be more impressive than a level 7 item.

Second, you should think of them as a delta against the baseline weapon of its tier. A level 7 weapon is "1 level above the baseline".

There are 5 "baseline deltas"; 6 7 8 9 10 are 0 1 2 3 4 above baseline.

Your weapon is a 0 above baseline. So it should have next to no benefits over a vanilla +2 weapon. A +2 item bonus to all weapon attacks is not "next to no benefits above a +2 enhancement weapon".

In fact, a +item bonus is quite large, as it replaces a must-have item in another item slot. The weapons that grant similar bonuses are top-tier weapons, like radiant.

Weapon of Sharpness
Level 10 Uncommon
+2 enhancement bonus (hit, damage)
Weapon: Axe, Heavy Blade, Light Blade, Pick, Spear
Critical: +2d6 per plus. Whenever you roll the maximium result of a critical damage die, reroll that die and add it to the result. Note this applies to high crit damage dice and similar.
Property: Weapon attacks made with this weapon gain an item bonus to damage rolls equal to the enhancement bonus of the weapon.

That is probably still overpowered, but it at least it is fun.

[Beoric]

Ok, getting pushed in a few different directions here.

Yakk, you've added stuff I don't want, notably much higher crit damage and a crit escalation mechanic. I'm not sure how to evaluate that.

When comparing the Weapon of Sharpness to the Staff of Ruin, as pointed out by MwaO, Staff of Ruin is, practically speaking, primary of use as an implement and not very useful as a weapon. My original conception of the WoS was only as a weapon, so I'm having trouble seeing how it would be much more expensive than SoR, if at all.

I'm now considering this writeup:

Weapon of Sharpness
Level 4+ Uncommon

Weapon: Axe, Heavy Blade, Light Blade, Pick, Spear
Critical: +1d6 per plus
Property: Weapon attacks made with this weapon, or implement attacks made with this weapon against targets within melee reach, gain an item bonus to untyped damage rolls equal to the enhancement bonus of the weapon.

I think that simulates the sorts of powers I want to be affected, and makes it of use to monks. My intention is that it work with powers that simulate actually physically hitting with the weapon; I don't want a "sharpness" enchant being used by resourceful magicians to increase the damage on some sort of psychic area burst, for example.

I wouldn't mind bumping the crit die (but without an escalation mechanic) but do want to keep the cost down.

[Yakk]

In general, making a weapon to match exactly what you want for your character is a bad plan to end up with a balanced weapon.

No magic item should be perfectly tailored for a character's needs.

"+1 item bonus for melee attacks, close burst 1 attacks, and ranged weapon attacks"?

In 3e and before, Sharpness was a Vorpral Jr. So the exploding dice was meant to evoke the 4e Vorpral mechanic (which also uses exploding dice, but it applies always).

The critical explosion was, quite honestly, flavor. Getting your enhancement bonus to damage twice is a top-tier ability on a weapon. In particular, Staff of Ruin applies to a crappy 2 handed weapon (the staff)/implement. Getting to apply it to a rapier or gouge or waraxe etc is much better than having it on a staff.

When in doubt, magic items should be fun. +1 item bonus is *strong* but not *fun*. So an encounter or daily or crit *fun* ability needs to be added.

Saying "I want this extremely strong low-fun effect on a cheap item" is a big red flag.

[MwaO]

I think that simulates the sorts of powers I want to be affected, and makes it of use to monks. My intention is that it work with powers that simulate actually physically hitting with the weapon; I don't want a "sharpness" enchant being used by resourceful magicians to increase the damage on some sort of psychic area burst, for example.

Who are all using Staffs of Ruin for Staff Expertise over any other option? Don't worry about specific builds. Worry about what happens when you use it.

I really want to point out here that Subtle Weapon basically does everything you want, you just need CA. If I were going to make items, I'd make arm items that made item damage bonus not so attractive. There's really no good competitors there and that's what makes elemental damage weapons so attractive.

[Beoric]

MwaO: Arms slot competition for Iron Armbands and similar items would be nice, but nothing comes to mind. The seed for the idea this item originally came from wanting to free up the arms slot so something other than Iron Armbands so that other existing arms slot items might have some value. Once I conceived of the "Weapon of Sharpness" I started thinking about how it would work if it was, you know, really sharp. "Really sharp but only when you have CA" doesn't appeal to me.

Yakk: You say "fun", I say, "more crap for my players to remember, or more likely forget, and slow down or roll back the combat while they sort it out". And to be clear, I'm not looking at a specific character or a specific build. I'm looking at how a weapon would look if it was really sharp. Higher crit dice would make sense to me (although I would rather not have the bother of exploding crit dice), as would an expanded crit range (which was part of the 1e Sword of Sharpness).

I'm not asking anyone to agree on what is my definition of fun. I am saying, here are the parameters and objectives of an item that I consider to be fun, please help me balance it and assign an appropriate cost.

I dislike conditional properties that may make sense from a balance perspective but offend my sense of verisimilitude. How does the sword know you have CA, and why does it care? Why is a more complicated item (needs to know if you have CA) cheaper to make than a simpler one?

I'm not sure why you think this item is so powerful. Iron Armbands are a level 6 uncommon item which grant a +2 item bonus to damage rolls for all melee attacks with any weapon you choose to use, whether they are weapon or implement attacks, and regardless of the type of damage.

For the equivalent bonus from my proposed Weapon of Sharpness, we are talking a level 9 or 10 uncommon item which grants a +2 item bonus to damage rolls for melee and ranged weapon attacks, and only certain targets of implement attacks, only with that weapon, and only if the damage is untyped. It uses a weapon slot for which there is plenty of competition, needs to be purchased twice or placed on a double weapon at the expense of a feat if you are a dual wielder, and can't be used for any damage type optimization.

In many ways it is worse than having Iron Armbands and some other weapon, but I want the option because I am tired of giving out Iron Armbands like candy. Really, IAoP are an "uncommon" item, but melee PCs with them are a dime a dozen.

I misspoke when I said I wanted to keep the cost down. What I should have been asking in that part of my post is: assuming this is a riff on Subtle Weapon/Staff of Ruin, which is lower heroic tier, how far can I increase the size of the crit die if I am not using an exploding crit mechanic?

[ThePurple]

I'm not sure why you think this item is so powerful. Iron Armbands are a level 6 uncommon item which grant a +2 item bonus to damage rolls for all melee attacks with any weapon you choose to use, whether they are weapon or implement attacks, and regardless of the type of damage.

Because it saves you using the IAoP in your arms slot but you don't seem to think that this provides *any* benefit over a basic magic weapon (aside from the minor increase in rarity from common to uncommon which still has no real effect upon players).

The lack of particularly good arm slot options (other than the IAoP and similar powers) is, in my opinion, more a problem with the magical arm slots than it is with weapons (there are some pretty decent shields that become a lot more appealing if you eliminate that major opportunity cost). I'd rather just homebrew all arm slots into IAoP (or bracers of archery) equivalents that scale every 5 levels, which you can do pretty easily, to give some actual variety to gearing the slot since the item bonus to damage rolls has become something of a standard function for the arm slot (I would also get rid of the specificity of the bonus and make it apply to all damage rolls, but that's just me).

[Yakk]

IAoP are among the best arm slot items in the entire game. Like top 2 or maybe 3, and possibly the strongest one. The fact that they are level 6 uncommon items is not very relevant.

Balacing new content based off of the best existing content much?

By far the easiest way you generate lots of damage in 4e is by stacking piles of small bonuses to your to-hit damage, then hitting often. This is why IAoP are strong; they provide a medium-sized per-hit damage bonus.

Radiant weapon is arguably better than your Sharpness weapon, as it both gives you elemental damage and an item bonus to damage. And elemental damage lets you exploit various feats and vulnerability cheese to get yet another per-hit damage bonus. But again, Radiant is one of the best weapon enchantments in the entire game.

And it is a level+4 enchantment; it costs almost as much as another +1 to hit (and +1 to damage). And it doesn't start at the +1 tier.

Your first attempt was a level +0 enchantment that started at the +1 tier. Consider the possibility that your sense of balance for 4e stuff is massively incorrect.

---

If you want to open things up, what I'd do is something more comprehensive.

Item bonus to damage Arm slot items all grant an item bonus to damage equal to (level/5) (rounded down) on damage rolls.

IAoP are now +1 item bonus, increasing to +2 on melee attacks. Now a weak item, instead of a strong one, but not completely useless.

A generic level 10 arm slot item grants +2 item bonus to everything.

[tcrudisi]

I'm not sure why you think this item is so powerful. Iron Armbands are a level 6 uncommon item which grant a +2 item bonus to damage rolls for all melee attacks with any weapon you choose to use, whether they are weapon or implement attacks, and regardless of the type of damage.

It is stupidly powerful. IAoP is almost the default arm item for 95% of melee characters. When an optimizer creates a melee character and is trying to decide on an arm item, the question always asked is, "Is there any reason for me to take anything other than IAoP?" And the answer is almost always no.

Why is a more complicated item (needs to know if you have CA) cheaper to make than a simpler one?

That's the way D&D has always worked. And I don't just mean 4e here ... I mean all editions. If you have a pair of winged boots that only work for 10 minutes after you sacrifice a virgin to them ... that will be easier to make than a pair of winged boots that only work for 10 minutes a day. Why? Well, if you made it where all the "simpler" items were cheaper ... there would never be any complicated items. That would greatly reduce the number of available items. (Whether that's a good or bad thing is another discussion.)

How does the sword know you have CA, and why does it care?

How does a sword know you crit and why does it care? The answer is basically the same thing: it doesn't. With a crit, you hit someone really well and do extra damage. With CA, you are more accurate. In the case of the Subtle Weapon, being more accurate means doing more damage. Really, that makes a lot of sense to me.

[Beoric]

So I take it that since this weapon is TOO POWERFUL, and it does essentially the same thing as Iron Armbands of Power, but less, and is higher level, that Iron Armbands are also too powerful, and you have all banned them from your games?

[Dimers]

So I take it that since this weapon is TOO POWERFUL, and it does essentially the same thing as Iron Armbands of Power, but less, and is higher level, that Iron Armbands are also too powerful, and you have all banned them from your games?

You seem upset in this post. I have reason to believe that the above posters were 'evaluating and critiquing honestly'.

Personally, I'm not that attracted to IAoP (not a good optimizer), and I think the version of Weapon of Sharpness currently in the first post looks fine. There are several ways to get an item bonus to damage, and as you say, this frees the arms slot for something more interesting.

[Meta]

I don't know what past versions of your weapon looked like, but the current iteration is fine.

Unless you're playing a game that is deliberately stingy with magic items, there's no point in designing bad items. You should be designing items that are competitive with other good choices and present a meaningful trade off and have a hopefully interesting design. Why would a player spend their gold, residuum, etc. on a bad item?

[Beoric]

I don't know what past versions of your weapon looked like, but the current iteration is fine.

Unless you're playing a game that is deliberately stingy with magic items, there's no point in designing bad items. You should be designing items that are competitive with other good choices and present a meaningful trade off and have a hopefully interesting design. Why would a player spend their gold, residuum, etc. on a bad item?

I agree, although I am considering changing the level a bit in line with MwaO's comparison to other weapon slot items. MwaO was comparing it to other items in the weapons slot, whereas I started out comparing it to other items that have a similar role or game effect. I'm thinking level 3+ or 4+ uncommon, or even nudging it a bit higher and bumping the crit die.