Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 TheBigBZ Oct 15, 2014 4:39:06	I ran the Dragon Hatchery last night for my party and felt that the treasure was a bit bland so I added in a 'Dagger' that our Thief sleight of handed (natural 20!) after he picked the trap on the chest.  I want this to be a magic dagger but I don't want it just to be Dagger +1, partly cause that's boring and partly for bounded accuracy balance reasons so I'm looking for other ideas?  I was thinking that it could be an Evil Ritual Knife type of thing so that if you use the bonus (to hit/damage) you pay a consequence...  Loss of hitpoints?  Something else?   Any thoughts?  Any other ideas?   Cheers!
#2 Theros Oct 15, 2014 4:56:38	It’s great that you want to reward your thief with a nice dagger, but I don’t think you need to monkey around with stats to make it special.   Giving it a history and making it visually distinct should be plenty. My recommendation is to leave it as a +1 Dagger.   Inside the chest you see a small blade wrapped in purple velvet. Pulling aside the covering you see a beautifully crafted dagger with a large serrated blade with a red and gold cross guard. The metal doesn’t appear to be steel and reflects a multitude of colors when held up to the light. The name Saloneous is edged into blade.   There you go, "Sal" the +1 Dagger is born.
#3 Bloodscythe Oct 15, 2014 17:26:01	An alternative could be a dagger that deals an extra 1d4 or 1d6 in necrotic damage or poison damage... if you want it to be sinister.  You could make it a sentient weapon like the greatsword in HotDQ.  Or you could leave it a dagger +1 and just add an interesting trait to it, like the Hew axe in the starter kit adventure... Hew is a +1 axe that deals maximum damage to plants and plant creatures.   If you want to keep a theme of dark ritual dagger, I'd consider the bonus necrotic or poison damage since that won't affect the to-hit aspect of the weapon, or maybe even an alternation to Hew... a +1 dagger that deals maximum damage to draw first blood maybe?  Maximum damage if the target is maximum hp.  I'd avoid introducing a sentient weapon, at least until the DMG comes out.
#4 Nevvur Oct 17, 2014 0:15:14	TheBigBZ wrote:
#5 TheBigBZ Oct 16, 2014 6:48:46	Thanks guys, those are really good suggestions - the necrotic damage one is ex army the type of thing I was thinking about.  I suppose my concern was that I find my group are quite powerful already and didn't want to unbalance them but now that I see there's a Dagger of Poison in a later episode I'm going to steal it and give it to the rogue now for simplicity.    Thanks guys!
(Reply to #3) Thorgeir	Very Good Suggestion !     Bloodscythe wrote:
(Reply to #5) Redbeard2	TheBigBZ wrote:
#8 abs1nth Oct 16, 2014 22:14:27	The HotDQ supplement has the Dagger of Venom that I thought was quite cool:   Dagger of Venom Weapon (dagger), rare You have a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls for attacks you make with this magic weapon. If you apply poison to the dagger, other than its own poison, its saving throw DC increases by 2. Once per day, you can use an action to cause thick, black poison to coat the blade. The poison remains for 1 minute or until you hit with an attack using this weapon. When you hit a creature with the poisoned dagger, the target must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target becomes poisoned for 1 minute and takes 2d10 poison damage.