D&D 5E CoS: Blood Spear OP?

[Paul Farquhar]

Deleted, cursed image.

 

[Raduin711]

Regarding killing squirrels, compare this to the Warlock's invocation that allows you to cast false life at will. There isn't anything stopping you from spamming that spell until you get the maximum roll of 4.

If your players want to go find a squirrel, that's why God invented encounter tables.

If they are getting so bad as to expect hit points for squashing bugs, a requirement that the target have a challenge rating might be in order.

 

[Mandriser]

For the record, my DM gave my vengeance paladin the Blood Spear. We agreed that the intent of the 2D6 was for use on humanoids, so an entity 50 times smaller than a human is gonna give you a 50th of the life force. It equated to each rat/squirrel only gave me 1 THP max.

 

[Mandriser]

For the record, my DM gave my vengeance paladin the Blood Spear. We agreed that the intent of the 2D6 was for use on humanoids, so an entity 50 times smaller than a human is gonna give you a 50th of the life force. It equated to each rat/squirrel only gave me 1 THP max.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm a little dumbstruck, honestly.

Would it have struck a better chord with you if he had said his payers would rather crush elves?

 

[ccs]

I was looking at the stats for the Blood Spear in Curse of Strahd. It says, "When you "hit with a melee attack using this magic spear and reduce the target to 0 hit points, you gain 2d6 temporary hit points."

There's no cap on the maximum number of hit points and no requirement for the target to be any certain level. So in the hands of a munchkin player, I could see this leading to "Before our next battle, I get up early and go out in the woods and kill squirrels until I have triple HP." It would be cheesy as all get-out, but there's nothing to actually prevent that, right?

Well, as others have pointed out, there is that rule about how Temp HP works.

BUT: Even if WoTC 101% fully intended the thing to work in some insane way? And told you in person? The final check & balance is..... THE DM. Weather or not there are free squirrels or whatever handy to kill is completely up to the DM.

 

[Weiley31]

"Before our next battle, I get up early and go out in the woods and kill squirrels

DM: At that moment, upon killing the 5th squirrel in the woods, Squirrelatoroth, The Supreme Squirrel Lord of the Cosmos, descended upon your exact spot in the Multi-Verse. It's divine will and immaculacy incinerates you instantly as it revives the squirrels you've slain. You are then reincarnated as a wooden wheel in the next life.

Player: Oh yeah? Well I'll just go after that rabbit over there then with my Blood Spear then.

DM: The Bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail then proceeded to behead you with one Vorpal Bite. And now it has a nice, new, and shiny spear to use to knock grenades, thrown at it, away. Nice job breaking it for everybody you idiot.

 

[jayoungr]

Well, as others have pointed out, there is that rule about how Temp HP works.

Yes, that answered the question for me.

Strangely enough, after all my worry, nobody in the party even wanted to wield the darn thing! We have three fighters, but two are TWF and one is a Rune Knight, and nobody cared much about the temporary HP because we also have a glamour bard who hands out THP like candy.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

My character had the thing for five sessions before he actually dealt a single killing blow with it. He then dealt his second killing blow with it the next round but rolled lower on temp HP so no effect. He then took no damage for the remainder of the day. The character is a heavily optimized PAM Battlemaster/Barbarian designed to get as many attacks as possible, usually with advantage, and still getting in actual killing blows when he needs them is too streaky to amount to much of anything.

I guess I could go look for trouble with it to try to top up temp HP, but going looking for trouble in Barovia seems ill advised. Generally I don't think many DMs are inclined to make danger free, no resource requirement encounters available at will.

 

[Mandriser]

Yes, that answered the question for me.

Strangely enough, after all my worry, nobody in the party even wanted to wield the darn thing! We have three fighters, but two are TWF and one is a Rune Knight, and nobody cared much about the temporary HP because we also have a glamour bard who hands out THP like candy.

How are those TWF fighters working out? The way they designed TWF in 5e really irks me, and fighters got dealt the worst hand with it.