I'm almost afraid to ask...

In respect to 3; that wouldn't be allowed. While you can make cosmetic changes to items without any issues, mechanical changes are strictly prohibited. IOWs, you could either use the item as a cosmetically altered weapon, or a cosmetically altered musical instrument (but not both). In respect to a weapon - it also needs to be clearly identifiable as a weapon. Concealing a weapon in the hilt wouldn't be allowed - as that is essentially a permanently hidden weapon (which doesn't yet exist in 5e).

I could however see the item functioning as a cosmetically altered mace, esp. if the heads were made of metal and had sharpened edges (that too seems decidedly creepy). But yeah, the character would not be able to change the mechanics of the item in any way, nor combine two items in order to gain a mechanical advantage (wielding the combined item in a single hand instead of an item in each hand).

As with all cosmetic alterations (with the exception of reflavoring one weapon as another type of real-world equivalent, such as a longsword being reflavored as a bastard sword, dao, or katana) - your DM can disallow the modification at their table. The more extreme the cosmetic alteration, the more likely that a DM will take issue with it and ask you to use it as a regular musical instrument / weapon / etc.

My leprechaun (forest gnome) character for example, is treated as a forest gnome by everyone else. He asserts he is a Leprechaun, but people tend to ignore him as if he is mentally unhinged and refer to him as a gnome all the time.... that or they humor the strange crazy gnome and call him a "leprechaun" as he asserts.

Permanently hidden weapons do, in fact, exist in 5E, but not in a player resource. At least, in that sense. There is no mechanical difference in how they operate as far as I can tell.

[sblock]Rictavio (aka van Richten) has a sword cane in Curse of Strahd, which operates as both a club or a short sword, depending on what he does with it.[/sblock]

TwinPeaksGuy said:

Here's the weird part: his Entertainer routine is actually built around puppet shows and ventriloquism. This character is unlikely to ever draw a weapon, and if that ever happens it's a dagger or hand crossbow so motion economy is probably never an issue.

Is there really a hard requirement that the spell focus be a musical instrument, could a puppet or dummy be a substitute? I am really liking the twisted creepy absurdity of having spells seem to be coming from an angry abusive puppet.

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So you're going to be Elan the Bard from Order of the Stick?

Kalani has the details right; we hashed this out on the WotC boards back when someone was planning to create a 'lute-axe' that was both a musical instrument and a weapon. The consensus boiled down to, you can have an axe that looks like a lute but can't be used as a spellcasting focus (since no other weapon can be used as a spellcasting focus), or you can have a lute that you can use as an improvised weapon, and if the DM approves, you can use your proficiency bonus when attacking because the lute resembles an axe (SRD 5.0, p.65).

In this case, if the puppet is 'carrying' the actual musical instrument that counts as the focus, I'd require the bard to use the same number of hands to wield the puppet as would be required to wield the instrument -- so a lute-bearing puppet would require two hands to operate, since you need two hands to play a lute. Otherwise you're getting a mechanical benefit from re-flavoring your focus, which violates the spirit of the re-flavoring rules.

--
Pauper

kalani said:

In respect to 3; that wouldn't be allowed. While you can make cosmetic changes to items without any issues, mechanical changes are strictly prohibited. IOWs, you could either use the item as a cosmetically altered weapon, or a cosmetically altered musical instrument (but not both). In respect to a weapon - it also needs to be clearly identifiable as a weapon. Concealing a weapon in the hilt wouldn't be allowed - as that is essentially a permanently hidden weapon (which doesn't yet exist in 5e).

I could however see the item functioning as a cosmetically altered mace, esp. if the heads were made of metal and had sharpened edges (that too seems decidedly creepy). But yeah, the character would not be able to change the mechanics of the item in any way, nor combine two items in order to gain a mechanical advantage (wielding the combined item in a single hand instead of an item in each hand).

As with all cosmetic alterations (with the exception of reflavoring one weapon as another type of real-world equivalent, such as a longsword being reflavored as a bastard sword, dao, or katana) - your DM can disallow the modification at their table. The more extreme the cosmetic alteration, the more likely that a DM will take issue with it and ask you to use it as a regular musical instrument / weapon / etc.

Click to expand...

Ainulindalion said:

Permanently hidden weapons do, in fact, exist in 5E, but not in a player resource. At least, in that sense. There is no mechanical difference in how they operate as far as I can tell.

[sblock]Rictavio (aka van Richten) has a sword cane in Curse of Strahd, which operates as both a club or a short sword, depending on what he does with it.[/sblock]

Click to expand...

Pauper said:

Kalani has the details right; we hashed this out on the WotC boards back when someone was planning to create a 'lute-axe' that was both a musical instrument and a weapon. The consensus boiled down to, you can have an axe that looks like a lute but can't be used as a spellcasting focus (since no other weapon can be used as a spellcasting focus), or you can have a lute that you can use as an improvised weapon, and if the DM approves, you can use your proficiency bonus when attacking because the lute resembles an axe (SRD 5.0, p.65).

Click to expand...

So, a metal bauble- again, something that actually exists- heavy enough to be a club/mace with bells attached would be a no-no? So NPCs can conceal weapons in canes, but a PC can't have a dagger sheathed in a bauble? Items that are both simple weapons and simple instruments aren't just fantasy, they exist...but not in 5th?

These responses make my inner child cry...and my outer adult less interested in this latest iteration of the game. Yech. Y'all killed it- it's clearly not for me.

Dannyalcatraz said:

So, a metal bauble- again, something that actually exists- heavy enough to be a club/mace with bells attached would be a no-no?

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If you want a club/mace that looks like a harlequin cane, go for it. You just can't also use it as a spellcasting focus, because there is no existing item that does that**, and creating one would be creating an item that's better than every other item of its type in the game. Why would anyone take a club or mace when they could take that thing instead?

So NPCs can conceal weapons in canes, but a PC can't have a dagger sheathed in a bauble?

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That's correct; in 5th Edition, NPCs explicitly do not follow the same rules for character construction and attacks as PCs do. (See, for example, the Mad Mage in Curse of Strahd: if he followed the same rules as a PC for his spellcasting -- specifically number of spell slots -- he'd be an overwhelming, possibly unbeatable challenge.)

Items that are both simple weapons and simple instruments aren't just fantasy, they exist...but not in 5th?

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If rules ever get published in a player resource for these things, then sure, go ahead. Until then, there's a reason those things don't exist in 5E.

--
Pauper

**Edit: the closest thing to an exception to this is an item that isn't called out in rules, but is generally allowed by DMs (to the best of my knowledge, anyway) -- characters with a staff spellcasting focus should use those foci as improvised weapons in melee combat, but some DMs don't bother with that, mainly because wizards tend not to be optimized for melee combat anyway, so it's not seen as game-breaking to allow them to add their proficiency bonus and do a tiny bit of extra damage when they do decide to swing the staff for damage. Strictly speaking, though, a staff purchased as an arcane focus is "a specially constructed staff", not a quarterstaff.

Despite AL's insistence that DMs cannot make 'house rules', no prohibition on the house rule that allows wizards to use their staff foci as quarterstaves has been issued.

Dannyalcatraz said:

So, a metal bauble- again, something that actually exists- heavy enough to be a club/mace with bells attached would be a no-no? So NPCs can conceal weapons in canes, but a PC can't have a dagger sheathed in a bauble? Items that are both simple weapons and simple instruments aren't just fantasy, they exist...but not in 5th?

These responses make my inner child cry...and my outer adult less interested in this latest iteration of the game. Yech. Y'all killed it- it's clearly not for me.

Click to expand...

Just not in AL. Home games can do whatever you want.

AL is built around the assumption that AL characters will be jumping from table to table, whether its because your players and DM have a busy schedule, preventing you from having the same group every time, or it's because you heard of a nearby Epics event and want to attend with the character you've been playing as. As a result, a mostly consistent base of rulings is required to prevent a character that would be allowed at one table from being vetoed at another. This baseline is the Rules as Written + some AL specific stuff, like story origins. As such, it prevents things that couldn't be done with RAW regardless of how much sense it makes.

If you're not playing by AL rules, there's no reason why something that makes sense can't be done, aside from a disagreement on if it's reasonable. You're not worrying about having a character from another store hop in and play a session with a dubious character, so you get the freedom of doing whatever it is you want.

You can use any item as an improvised melee weapon (p147 of the PHB IIRC). Most improvised weapons deal 1d4 damage. If however, the item resembles a weapon - you deal that much damage instead (an arcane staff resembles a quarterstaff and so should be used as an improvised quarterstaff in combat, rather than a typical d4 weapon).

Your DM determines whether the item resembles another weapon (and which one), and whether you can add your proficiency bonus to it. Expect table variation.... While I suspect that 99.9% of DMs would treat an arcane focus (staff) as an improvised quarterstaff, and the majority of those letting you add your proficiency bonus to hit - a harlequin rod might be treated as a mace, club, light hammer, or anything else the DM determines it resembles.

Musical instruments do not look like weapons however - so they would always deal d4 damage (of the appropriate type), and would never gain proficiency bonus to hit (unless the character has the tavern brawler feat).

Incidentally, characters with the tavern brawler feat can use an arcane staff as an improvised weapon and also make the grapple check indicated in the feat.

TwinPeaksGuy said:

Sarcasm, aimed at Saelorn. Kalani, your suggestions have been quite constructive and well grounded in the RAW.

I agree the way it gets played needs to work for everyone at the table. That's a very reasonable point to make. Rather than make a reasonable point reasonably, Saelorn seemed to just be throwing rocks at the whole idea out of hand and only very belatedly making a point that could have been made without the dismissal and condemnation. The idea that nobody should ever re-skin anything from an RP standpoint seems pretty extreme.

In case anyone cares, the DM and FLGS owner thought it was an interesting idea that they didn't object to, and I've already opened a discussion with them on setting tone to match the table. I can pretty easily roll with things like having the puppet and puppeteer seem to have different personalities or have the puppet seem to be in charge in a weird and creepy way, or have the puppet have a slightly manic insanity like the Joker. We'll see what shakes out from brainstorming.

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I say go the Batman route where the puppet is in charge amd the PC is an abused lackey. Maybe mount a small hand crossbow on the puppet.

Not speaking for anyone else here, but: As I look the the sample list of musical instruments, I don't think I see any that can be both played and held in a single hand. For the sake of keeping that motion economy, I'd rather my reflavored focus be a marionette, which like the more common lute of flute instruments could be held in a single hand but not operated in any meaningful way with less than two. A ventriloquist's dummy or sock puppet using a single hand to hold and operate puts that idea out (except maybe with the pouch mentioned earlier). A kazoo focus with a sock puppet required for Somatic (Mr Punch, right?) might have been another route to take that would leave a hand free for other things, but I have sympathy for the opinion that a kazoo is really a distortion of the voice and not entirely an instrument in and of itself.

So V spells don't require the puppet at all, V,S and V,S,M, spells require two hands operating the puppet, and any V,M spells might possibly allow for an off hand weapon like a dagger. I think I've got that right. The RP and descriptions (fluff) might get respun (Dominate person might have the target's actions slaved to the puppet maybe) but the crunch is untouched.

I may RP at the table with a sock puppet, but the PC is puppeteering with both hands and rarely touches a weapon, that was always part of the concept. All this talk of weaponizing the focus is off-topic IMO. As a musician myself, the weaponizing of an instrument I find most plausible is a sharpened end on a flute, making it in essence a huge syringe (1d4 piercing sounds ok). I have some sympathy that bagpipes might do psychic damage, but Again, getting off-topic.

I've narrowed on the back story: The marionette is a depiction of Baba Yaga, who imprisoned this bard's wife some time ago. Her abusive dialog is the Bard's way of expressing his rage and frustration, as he's otherwise a fairly nice person, if unfortunately driven to seek power and revenge to eventually rescue his wife. I'll probably do a Tevye (fiddler on the roof) impression for the bard and the witch from snow white (disney) with a dash of Gilbert Gottfried for the puppet. He's just too sad and angry to really be funny now that the character's starting to come into focus. His puppet depicts a creepy person he hates, and allows him to vent and mock her and anyone in his way.

TwinPeaksGuy said:

his Entertainer routine is actually built around puppet shows and ventriloquism. This character is unlikely to ever draw a weapon, and if that ever happens it's a dagger or hand crossbow so motion economy is probably never an issue.

Is there really a hard requirement that the spell focus be a musical instrument, could a puppet or dummy be a substitute? I am really liking the twisted creepy absurdity of having spells seem to be coming from an angry abusive puppet.

Click to expand...

In principle, I'd allow the puppet-as-focus in a heartbeat. Other DMs may not, and I'm far from sure how AL would view it.

Having said that...

Saelorn said:

You said it yourself - this idea is absurd.

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I'd think very, very carefully before allowing the concept as a whole. Partly because it runs the risk of being a comedy character entirely at odds with the tone of Ravenloft. Partly because the Gur have a key role to play in the storyline, and a Gur PC may very well be problematic in light of that.

And partly because I was in a Ravenloft game that was killed in a single word, by a player who chose to call her character 'Jigglypuff'.

I wouldn't like to say "no" out of hand. But I'd definitely want to speak to the player ahead of time to make sure they were going for the right tone - that is, creepy rather than slapstick.

(But, again, the structure of AL imposes some different constraints than would simply apply at my table. So that concept may very well be simply a no-no there. Though if you also use the Spell Component Pouch I don't see any space for there to be an issue.)