D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Micah Sweet]

While item is cool, from practical side, it does 5 more damage. Bonus to hit is better in long run since +2 gives you 10% more chance. It's trade off, but some people value more smaller damage that's more reliable than higher damage with less chance to land. Resistance to psychic sounds cool, but in reality, it's among rarest types of damage in the game. Now, if it gave resistance to all physical damage (BPS) or if you are in campaign fighting mindflayers, that would be another story.

Makes you want to just stop having accuracy bonuses be a part of magic weapons. Too tempting.

 

[rmcoen]

That's right! Thank you for the correction.

I think it would mesh well. Your weapons and armor have a quality. It could be as simple as having a crit fail reduce the quality, or receiving a critical hit for an armor. When it's at 0 quality it's broken. It can be repaired. You might find equipement that's already damaged in dungeons.

But I think I'd like for it to be more frequent.

I would love this, my players would range from "meh" to "ugh" to "I didn't remember to track that". And under it all, "F No!" unless there was a similar mechanic that limited/impaired the magic users (all flavors).

 

[Lanefan]

I would point you in the direction of The Griffon's Saddlebag - Reddit - The heart of the internet - there are a mountain of really interesting magic weapons there. For example, one I gave out in my Phandelver campaign was a magic axe that negates Incorporeal for 1 minute. A minor magic item - uncommon IIRC. But, so much more interesting for a character that was focused on undead hunting than a flaming sword.

/edit to add. Poke for @Lanefan. Here's one of the, IMO, best repositories of magic items out there. This is all I ever use.

Early returns on the irst dozen or so I can see (I have neither a reddit nor patreon account and don't really want either) look great! I've already yoinked one item outright and am scooping ideas for lots of others.

I mean, I gave a helmet to the party that lets you pull off your own head and fly around, headless horseman style while breathing burning hands spells. To me? That's a MAGIC item.

A one-use magic item, I'd think, given that removing one's head tends to slay one in the process.

 

[Lanefan]

This. I mean, if you, as a designer, decide "character of level X needs Y attack bonus"* then just give that to them. Don't introduce the possibility that someone could end up struggling because they didn't get the +2 weapon at whatever level. Magic items are one of the coolest things about D&D, but ever since the very beginning, a powerful item or lack of one at a given level of play has always been problematic.

3rd level character with +3 plate? Problem. 17th level character whose most powerful item is a Bag of Tricks? Potential problem.

3rd level character with +3 plate isn't a problem if items can be destroyed; sure it'll keep the character safe for a while but sooner or later it'll inevitably go boom or get disenchanted somehow.

And high-level characters with no magic soon enough restock themselves, as I've seen recently as both player and DM when characters have lost everything to the Talons card. In the meantime, one is certainly forced to use one's wits.

**there's also C), something I ran into recently. The Fighter in my game has a +2 magic weapon, which isn't really an issue because he so rarely misses it's really just a couple extra points of damage. But when they found a powerful magic weapon, the Mindsword, that granted resistance to psychic, could be summoned to hand like an Eldritch Knight's bonded weapon and inflicted 7 additional psychic damage on a hit (14 on a crit), the Fighter decided it wasn't worth it because "it doesn't have a bonus to hit"! (?!)

Were I playing that Fighter, if I had the cash to afford it I'd claim the Mindsword but I'd also keep me ol' trusty +2, and use them siuationally. If I was forced to choose one or the other it'd be a tough one, and would probably depend on how many times the character had previously been hammered in his career by psychic damage.