D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Wounding blade broken?

[James McMurray]

To heck with the wounding, what about the Rapier of Puncturing. Its "all that and a bag of chips".

Also, since it is damage from a wounding weapon, doesn't a crit multiply it? Wouldn't those two crits have actually caused 4 Con loss (plus one for the third hit?)

 

[hong]

Re: Re: Re: re

Of course, energy weapons don't lower your saving throws, making you more susceptible to poisons, spells, death from massive damage, and other nastiness.

There are much better ways to force a -1 to -2 penalty to Fort, especially at levels where it really starts to matter.

 

[Super_Nerd]

No, a crit does normal 1 point of con dmg.

What changes could be made to fix/balance it?

 

[Moleculo]

maybe a save for the con loss? though thats kind of obvious.

 

[Stalker0]

You could require that the weapon do a minimum amount of damage to engage wounding, but that again makes it less appealing to low str characters, and lighter weapons.

Or do it like a fortification. You have a percentage chance of inflicting. Prob with that is a lot of extra die rolls at high levels.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

If you wanted to do the percentage, you could avoid extra die rolls by combining it with the damage roll. For instance:
50% chance=any time you roll more than half damage, the weapon also deals a point of con damage. . . .

You could require that the weapon do a minimum amount of damage to engage wounding, but that again makes it less appealing to low str characters, and lighter weapons.

Or do it like a fortification. You have a percentage chance of inflicting. Prob with that is a lot of extra die rolls at high levels.

 

[Dark Dragon]

Well, I think a wounding weapon is a quite nice thing. But so is a composite bow with icy burst in the hands of a level 5 deepwood sniper. Or a holy great sword avenger wielded by a paladin...

A wounding sword is fine in the hands of low-STR PCs (e.g. rogues) with weak melee combat abilities. If the DM buffs the party fighter with a +3 speed greater wounding (2 CON damage) weapon and is then surprised about his villains being killed quickly, it is his/her fault

BTW, a druid is able to deal 2d10 CON damage with a little 3rd level spell. It allows two saves to avoid damage (partially), but the save DC increases with druid level.

Not to forget some REALLY nasty spells that deal ability damage (like Touch of Idiocy, which is broken, IMHO).

 

[Dakkareth]

Imo it's a powerful weapon, but not overpowered for a level 12 fighter.

 

[dok]

Sorry, I'm going to have to cast my vote for "too powerful". I DM a group of three players, running evil characters, and we OK'd the Book of Vile Darkness for use. One of the weapon enhancements is "MarrowCrushing". +3 market value, deals 1 point of Con damage per hit, bludgeoning weapons only. It took me all of two combats to see how horribly, horribly wrong it was.

Here's the simplest reason why 1 point of Constitution damage per hit is too powerful:

Normal weapons deal a fixed amount of damage. Higher level characters gain iterative attacks to deal more damage, and higher CR monsters have more HD, which gives more HP, to take more damage. Weapon damage does not scale with level. It is a fixed constant.

Constitution damage, OTOH, does scale with HD, and thus with level & CR. Put another way, a 2 HD monster & an 18 HD monster that each take two points of Constitution damage suffer the exact same proportional loss of health.

Still not seeing my point? Look at other weapon enhancements: A flaming weapon deals +1d6 damage with every hit. That's 1 to 6 points, unless the creature has Resistances or immunities, which might reduce it, or vulnerabilities, which might increase it. Now compare that to Constitution damage, where every hit has a 50% chance to reduce the creature's total hp by one per HD. It might do no damage (odd Con score), but if it does do damage, it's not a fixed amount, but a fixed ratio based on the victim's HD. Hit a 10 HD creature, its hit point total drops by 10 and it takes the weapon damage. Hit a 20 HD creature, and you actually do more damage. That's right, you do more damage against tougher creatures. Go ahead & find me any other mechanic, anywhere in weapons, armor, spells, magic, or feats, where you will consistantly do more damage against tougher targets than you will against weaker ones. For that matter, find me a mechanic anywhere that has the character's die rolls being dependant on the target.


I didn't like this mechanic after I saw it playtested from the BoVD. I like it a lot less now that it's core.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm wondering why people keep talking about a wounding sword, when to me a wounding bow would be a lot more powerful. Or a halfling wielding a wounding sling. Rapid shot, manyshot, these are feats that could lead to MASSIVE Con damage in a single round.