bring back Decapitation!

[mmadsen]

... or Damage Reduction or Fast Healing or a contingency or...

Exactly. The point of a vorpal weapon is not to decapitate foes; it's to bypass all the mechanics that make high-level characters immune to ordinary weapons doing hit-point damage.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Exactly. The point of a vorpal weapon is not to decapitate foes; it's to bypass all the mechanics that make high-level characters immune to ordinary weapons doing hit-point damage.

Bah! Its for the pure enjoyment of snicker-snack!!

 

[mmadsen]

Bah! Its for the pure enjoyment of snicker-snack!!

Looking back at the original poem, it's not even clear that the vorpal blade beheaded the jabberwocky -- until it was already dead, that is:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.​

It took four sword strokes -- One, two! One, two! -- which might even have been thrusts to the body -- And through and through / The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! -- before he took off its head as a trophy -- He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back.

 

[the Jester]

Yea, lets put that vorpal blade in the hands of your enemies so that they can lop your head off on a 19 or 20.

YES!!!

Goose, gander, etc.

I say this as a pro-high-lethality dm and in all seriousness- I would love to see these things back in their classic form.

 

[foolish_mortals]

they make the game seem... cool. Not a game for people that can't take their characters getting butchered but something for people that thrive on the carnage of bloody ol dnd.

foolish_mortals