D&D General Sandbox style: Rumors say a +1 sword is in a cave nearby. Go get it?

[Lanefan]

And once they've acquired it, they need to know what to put on their character sheet anyway.

That's what the Identify spell is for.

 

[Lanefan]

Even so, +1 hit increases damage by more than 5%.

Let's say you need to roll a 10 to hit. +1 makes that a 9, which means out of 20 attacks you hit (on average) 11 times instead of 10, for a 10% increase in damage.

Which is true regardless of whether the requirement to hit was 5 and now it's 4 or was 16 and now it's 15: your odds of hitting have gone up by 5%.

And when you do hit, your damage is going up by a percentage based on what damage the weapon normally does. In the case of a longsword that normally does d8 damage you're adding 12.5% by tacking a +1 on there.

 

[Lanefan]

Although I agree that it's really wonderful to have the "in-game" fiction be far more evocative than just a "+1 sword", this discussion does remind me of this classic piece of text from an 1979 AD&D adventure:

"Stop before you pick me up. I confer the following powers upon my wearer: invisibility, haste (8 charges), I act as a +1 ring of protection, confer 100% protection from charm, flying once per day, spell turning (10 charges), treasure finding (6 charges), and one wish. The only drawback Is that I eat one hit point per year permanently. But I must be put on before leaving this room, as I must be worn for me to leave. However, once I am removed from the finger, all my powers are lost. So you must decide right now who will wear me permanently."

It's the most explicit use of game terminology for an in-game-world discussion I can think of at present.

I haven't named the adventure, because I know there will be a few who will enjoy naming it!

I own a whole bunch of 1e modules and don't recall seeing this anywhere, so I'm curious as to whence it came.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

One rumor says a cave full of monsters has a magic (+1) sword hidden somewhere inside. Is it worth it to you to seek out this sword? You are level 1 and have no magic items. Plus, who knows what's in the other areas to explore. It's JUST a +1 sword after all.

Depends on the source of the rumor. Are they trustworthy? Are they someone I want to gain favor with? How funny is the NPC's accent? I'm not doing anything because of some random tavern rumor no matter how powerful the item supposedly is

Now if some random NPC with a funny voice wants me to brave the depths of Schmargonrog to retrieve his grandfather's hammer, count me in

 

[Bill Zebub]

Which is true regardless of whether the requirement to hit was 5 and now it's 4 or was 16 and now it's 15: your odds of hitting have gone up by 5%.

Come on, this is middle school math arithmetic.

If you only needed a 2 to hit, and now you need a 1, you go from hitting 19/20 to 20/20 (ignoring if a 1 is an auto-miss), so you've only increased your damage by 1/19th, or just over 5%.

On the other hand, if previously you needed a nat 20, now you hit on a 19 or a 20, so you've doubled your damage.

Yes, your odds of hitting "go up by 5%", but what determines the damage increase is the ratio of that 5% to your previous chance of hitting.

And when you do hit, your damage is going up by a percentage based on what damage the weapon normally does. In the case of a longsword that normally does d8 damage you're adding 12.5% by tacking a +1 on there.

Yeah, but you multiply the increases. So if you increase your damage by 10% from hitting more often, and 12.5% from getting bonus damage, your overall increase is 1.1 * 1.125 = 1.2375, so that's almost a 24% increase in damage. Just from that +1/+1. At least against targets that you would have a 50% chance of hitting without the bonus.

 

[GrimCo]

Incentive to go trough monsters to get +1 sword is highly setting dependent. In Dark Sun, it's pretty darn big one for regular steel sword, let alone magic one. In FR, where +1 swords are so common you could pick one up at your local grocery store, not so much.

But, if DM uses it as a hook to get game going, i'll be a good sport and go for it. It's as good as any other reason to go into the wild and do something ( as in, play actual game).

 

[overgeeked]

As others have mentioned, I probably wouldn't frame it as "+1 sword", your players might assume it is only a +1 sword on account of them being 1st level. Whether you give it a name and history or just bait the hook with something like "a sword which never tarnishes sits within these caves" at 1st level, of course I'd want to go in and get it, it's the first step in gstting geared up and I would not be disappointed to learn that it is a +1 sword, since the power of the sword doesn't matter at 1st level.

And there’s always items that level with the PCs.

 

[Gus L]

Rumors aren't about ensuring the party explores everything, they are about quickly providing opportunities/options to the party. A magic sword may or may not be interesting to your players, but if you are committed to running an open world that's their decision to make. It doesn't matter if they need that magic sword to fight some scary threat or if the sword gives clues to another dungeon ... the players are the ones deciding what rumors to follow. So make the rumors interesting...

"+1 sword in a cave" is not an interesting rumor.

Part of this is as others have said ... +1 swords are boring. They are also not especially useful as a concept unless you are running a OD&D style game that focuses on demesne management and skirmish combat. In an RPG style game with a more granular scale you can offer more interesting stuff. There was a sort of a fad about 10 years ago on OSR blogs to offer "+1 sword replacements" - which is to say swords that don't have pluses but provide other minor benefits.

I'll add that rumors themselves should be interesting - they don't need a huge amount of backstory but they are another place where designers and referees can easily add setting flavor. This is also a rumor that there are magic swords in a cave.

"The chariot kings of old rest uneasy in their stone line barrows ... their tomb blades, clenched in skeletal hands are fat with the unstable power of blood and souls whisper them awake ... The swords yearn to be released from centuries of dark silence and again reap red ruin on the fields of war."

Don't worry if this sort of thing will draw your players in - they don't have to clear the map or something, they just have to adventure somewhere.... plus the rumors they ignore can grow. The chariot kings can wake - driven to conquest by the mad souls trapped in their blood quenched blades ... and what fantasy game doesn't benefit from an army of undead bronze age warriors roaming about making trouble?

 

[Horwath]

"So....maybe 5% faster?"

well, ackhtually:

1d8+7, 60% hit rate vs 1d8+8, 65% hit rate

6,9 vs 8,125
about 17,8% faster

 

[Bill Zebub]

well, ackhtually:

1d8+7, 60% hit rate vs 1d8+8, 65% hit rate

6,9 vs 8,125
about 17,8% faster

"Oh, 17.8% faster! Why didn't you just say it was a +1 sword? Let's go get it!"