Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

Alternative traditional Magic Weapons

The gap identified

The gap I have that really started me thinking about other alternative traditional magic weapons is the old roleplay story. Your player may have been gifted the bow from their teacher and asked to look after it just before they went to fight a dragon – of which they never returned. Since then the character has always used this bow and felt a strong connection to their mentor when they use it.

This roleplay aspect that drives elements of the story forward, and a times drives many decisions the PC would make is what has me focused tonight. This concept is similar to ancestral weapons where a weapon grows while you wield it and unlock its secret but the emphasis is on player grown and it fuelling the weapon.

For this purpose I have a ‘Parasitic’ and ‘Symbiotic’ alternative to an ancestral blade.

Parasitic

The parasitic alternative traditional magic weapons is as the name suggests. Probably found in weapons that consume ammo or ‘charges’ these items consume a hit dice from who its attuned to to return or generate either a random or a pre-determined number of charges for an item. This means that at level one the item may be quite weak and able to be used once per long rest (depending on the charge mechanic) but at higher levels it could be truly spectacular.

Take the Emberborn wand for example – created by a wizard that spend most of their time studying in volcanic lands.

The wand has three spell effects, Burning hands (1st level) , Scorching Ray (2nd level) and Stinking Cloud (3rd level). To cast Burning hands at 1st level its a single Charge, and then its 2 additional for 2nd level and a further 3 for 3rd level (and so forth.) the cost to increase the level of spell slot available it accumulative.

• 1st level spell slot – 1 charge
• 2nd level spell slot – 3 charges
• 3rd level spell slot – 6 charges
• 4th level spell slot – 10 charges
• etc.

As an action you can spend 1 hit dice to generate d6 charges. (or 3 charges flat) which expire after a long rest. This means that a magical item like this will scale with player level and may find more use as the party progress onwards. The alternative is that it always starts with 7 charges but to ‘feed’ into it to keep it stated and charged it takes 1 hit dice from your pool and rolls that to regain spent charges.

Symbiotic

Now the symbiotic alternative to traditional magic weapons is a bit different but the same principle. Instead of fuelling charges you push the hit-dice into the weapon (or item) to ‘level it up’ for the day. The item then is powered at the level it absorbed hit dice from its attuned wielder which may get better every ‘rank up’ or, they will get better every odd number (which aligns with class features, normally…)

These effects would stack to ensure that there is a sense of worthwhile investment in the blade but they reset on dawn (end of long rest-esque period).

As an example the same wizard created the Emberborn Blade (a short sword).

• Level 1 (Power: 1) – +1 to attack rolls
• Level 2 (Power: 3) – Attacks deal an extra 1d6 fire damage, the blade also sheds light in the same manner as a torch
• Level 3 (Power: 5) – +1 to attack
• Level 4 (Power: 7) – Upon landing a successful hit the wielder can cause an eruption of ash and cinders in a 15ft cone starting at the point of impact. Creatures in this must make a DC 15 constitution saving throw or take an additional 2d6 fire damage and are blinded until the end of their next turn.

This blade was designed to be balanced, mostly, from 1 Hit dice = 1 charge and gives a strong advantage to the wielder if they are willing to live life a bit riskier by not having any hit-dice to heal during a short rest… Or fuel other magic items that is.