Level Up (A5E) Crafting Vicious Weapons

[zen_cat]

Hi all,

I'm looking for advice from the community regarding non-magical weapon properties, specificially Vicious (Page 313 of the Adventurer's Guide). This expands a weapon's critical range by 1, and one of my players recently asked if they could either craft a Vicious weapon themselves, or purchase one from a skilled craftsperson. This shouldn't be confused with the magical Vicious property in Trials and Treasures, which adds bonus damage dice. As far as I can see, the only weapon in the system with the Vicious property is the Elven Thinblade (p. 314, AG), and interestingly not the Katana, which at least thematically fits with that property. Different weapon properties (eg Range, Parrying Immunity, etc) don't all make sense as properties that could be added, but I feel like Vicious could be added as an option under Customizing Armaments (p. 321, AG).

How would you add this as a homebrew rule? My current thought is to add it as an Armament Customisation, limit it to masterwork weapons, and add that it doesn't stack with magical increases to critical hit range. Would you rule it differently? Am I missing a crafting rule somewhere?

 

[W'rkncacnter]

customizing armaments mentions:

You may also use a combination of the weapon or armor properties and the additional properties listed here to create functionally distinct gear.

so you could definitely add it as an armament customization. it should be noted that, besides having the vicious property, the only difference between a rapier and a thinblade is that the thinblade is twice the price (25 gp vs 50 gp), so if anything adding it as an armament customization might be overvaluing it a bit, let alone imposing further limits on it. it's your campaign, though, so go with whatever you think is best there.

 

[zen_cat]

customizing armaments mentions:

so you could definitely add it as an armament customization. it should be noted that, besides having the vicious property, the only difference between a rapier and a thinblade is that the thinblade is twice the price (25 gp vs 50 gp), so if anything adding it as an armament customization might be overvaluing it a bit, let alone imposing further limits on it. it's your campaign, though, so go with whatever you think is best there.

Thanks, it made sense that I missed something.

 

[Tessarael]

A couple of things to note:

• A weapon with the vicious property is a rare weapon, and takes training to become proficient in.
• "If you already have a feature that increases the range of your critical hits, your critical hit range increases by 1 (maximum 17–20)" per LUA5E page 313.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

• A weapon with the vicious property is a rare weapon, and takes training to become proficient in.

where is this stated? i can't find it anywhere.

 

[Tessarael]

where is this stated? i can't find it anywhere.

Sorry, my bad. It was my assumption based on Cultural Weapons on page 314 being next to Rare Weapons on page 315. As a DM, I'd be inclined to make weapons with additional non-standard properties be rare, hence requiring training, for game-balance reasons.