Feedback on magic blowgun. 5E

[coalmaine]

Hi all.

I am considering adding a magic item to my OOTA game. in 5E.

It's a blowgun which doesn't roll to hit. It just hits.
Still has loading and ammunition property.
The damage remains 1 piercing (magical now of course.).
The no roll also removes chance to crit and other effects that key off attack roll. I.e rogue can't use adv on attack roll for sneak.
Sneak attack, poison and other mods to damage would still apply.

The part I'm trying to figure out is how to handle the range. I think maybe 100ft guaranteed hit is excessive.

So maybe it's limited to 20ft range.?
Or split difference to 50ft?

[Lalliman]

The question is, what are you trying to achieve with this? Why remove something so fundamental as the attack roll? Do you want to enable more reliable use of poison?

The range is mostly frivolous because the main way to exploit this is sneak attack. If an ally is next to the target, a rogue can use this to sneak attack automatically every round. He's only missing like 2.5 damage compared to a shortbow, which is a negligible price to pay for hitting all your attacks. So if there's a rogue in your party, they'll be strongly incentivised to use this weapon exclusively. The range doesn't really matter at that point because if your allies are in melee range of the enemy, then you're probably within walking distance too.

So I foresee some problems with this, but I don't think 100 foot range will make them any worse. If it's meant to be for poisonous stealth attacks, I'd keep the 100 foot range but add some additional requirement for the automatic hit to work. Like you need one action to aim it and a second action to shoot it, to limit its effectiveness in combat.

[coalmaine]

The question is, what are you trying to achieve with this?

Thank you for your help.


Mostly I've wanted to try and make the blowgun stand out. Yes I agree the synergy with sneak attack is very very strong. I have a rogue in my group. It is basically for them. I was thinking it would encourage more teamwork. The rogue is a thief so poison use would also happen.

Maybe I should scrap the auto hit approach in favour of a streamlined poison application system.
*This blowgun has a reservoir for poison once filled with poison it applies a dose to each piece of ammunition loaded. The poison remains fresh in the reservoir indefinitely. The dosage remains the same a vial coats 3 pieces of ammunition.*


In addition I would keep the magical attacks for the weapon.

Still synergies with rogue sneak attack quite well.

Maybe ill add no reveal from hiding on a miss?

Thank you for your time.