User talk:Luigifan18/Spiral Dagger (3.5e Equipment)

Ratings

Ganteka Future opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

Even though it's name implies, this isn't a dagger. It's closer in weight and damage to a short sword (a bit heavier though), except much costlier given that it is an exotic weapon. Whatever. It's also unreadably long and clunky making attempts to use it in combat ludicrously non-functional. It's a sharpened iron bar with what could be described as a non-optimal wood-lathe tip. It is not described as that, and without the picture, I'd probably still be confused. Get a small scythe, add a weapon template, reflavor. Boom, done, enjoy. Sandbox this.

	Spanambula opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Like the others said, needlessly long, needless extra mechanics. You need to worry less about being clever and worry more about being concise.

Surgo dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

It's a pretty solid exotic weapon that's pretty interesting. But the article is needlessly long. This could be edited down into the following text: You can use the spiral dagger to start a grapple by making a normal attack with a +4 bonus on the attack roll. If the attack hits, make a grapple check. If successful you embed the spiral dagger in the victim's flesh, beginning the grapple. You may then make a grapple check as an attack action; success deals normal attack damage. This attack results in a critical hit when a normal attack would (ie, on a natural 20 or a 19-20 with the improved critical feat). The dagger cannot be used for normal attacks until the grapple is ended. Like a regular dagger, the wielder of a spiral dagger gets a +2 bonus to Sleight of Hand checks to conceal it on their person. -- There. That's way shorter and more understandable. It's a bit different than what you've written, because there's no weird disarm or crafting mechanics, but those don't really add anything to this article. They just make it 10 times more confusing. Similarly, you don't need all the extra rules for pulling the dagger out of the person and when they should or shouldn't take damage. Just use the normal grappling rules. Those rules are weird enough without adding more special cases onto it.

	Undead Knave opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	You're joking, right?

	Ghostwheel opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	17-20 base crit range is a no-no.

The spiral dagger's supposed to be extremely fierce and menacing, so I don't want to nerf it. The biggest downside compared to the normal dagger is, in my opinion, the lack of piercing damage, which can be extremely useful (you're going to miss piercing damage a lot when you find yourself dealing with a monster whose damage reduction can only be bypassed by piercing attacks). However, it's not really hard to deal with if you know how to handle it (it's really fragile and is vulnerable to sundering, so just smash it and make your opponent cry). Really, the only things I can think of to "balance" it are increasing the cost and including a "grapple backfire" of some sort where the spiral dagger gets yanked out of your hands if you fail a grapple check badly enough.

Also, notice how easily the spiral dagger is sundered and broken, relative to its cost. Few things suck more than plunking down a lot of gold for an amazing new weapon, only to have it smashed and rendered useless before you can kill anyone with it. --Luigifan18 (talk) 01:23, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Dwarvencraft Hardening Adamantine Riverine.

You can do better than this. Balance, don't fanwank. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:29, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

It's certainly possible to offset a spiral dagger's inherent fragility by using the right materials and production processes when you craft it. This is intentional; as with any weapon (or anything, really), those who love to use it will want to make sure that it lasts them a long time. However, that's bound to be extremely expensive, and it'll still be more fragile than another weapon made using those same materials and production processes. And even with the right materials and processes, a spiral dagger still has penalties to resist being disarmed or sundered, making it more easily messed with than other weapons.

I am extensively reworking the spiral dagger to try to rebalance it (including a few "fun" new downsides, mostly involving the spiral dagger being a bit too good at its job and a victim being able to use that to their advantage), but the edit is taking a while. (Note that I am not nerfing the crit range or crit multiplier any more; I mean, just look at that spiral tip! It's going to hurt a lot if it hits you right, and that can happen pretty easily. The threat range and crit multiplier being a touch superior to a normal dagger is completely intentional.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 02:09, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

By the way, what's Riverine? --Luigifan18 (talk) 02:10, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

At any point where you can afford to worry about losing your super special +5 weapon to the "balancing factor" of fragility, you have long been able to afford making the weakness not a weakness at all. Assuming you run into someone with Improved Sunder, and willing to sunder (no one sunders, why would you destroy your own loot?), or willing to take an AoO and possibly lose their sunder attempt in the first place. I'm saying that this is no balancing factor at all. It's like what you were saying with the Megeko, "but they can be stabbed by knives!" Big whoop, they are weak to stabbing... like everything else. Even with higher hardness and hp, ALL weapons are weak to sunder unless they're made out of something special. The fact that everyone, not just fighters (who would do the sundering anyway) can reasonably sunder, isn't a factor.

With exotic weapons you can get away with more. Usually you can give it big numbers (which in this case are TOO big, even if this was the only factor), or you can give it something special (which you have actually). This weapon basically gives you Improved Grab. Well yeah, I'd burn a feat for Improved Grab. Big numbers are not needed at all, it was already worth it for that, and contains the flavor you need without also needing to say "it's sharper than the sharpest katana, as deadly as a battleaxe, and can be wielded with the ease of a switchblade". You simply have too much here.

You'd do fine dropping the big numbers, keeping the Improved Grab thing, and there you go.

As for Riverine... Stormwrack, weapon is basically made out of force, and is invulnerable (except to Disintergrate... easy way around that.). Oh, and I forgot Auronum, so you can repair things if it does break with no problems.

I think all of those things is more than enough to say Sundering is a non-issue of a non-issue. You can do better. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:21, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Pre-emptive assist! Higher cost and more text, NOT helping! -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:34, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Uh, then what am I supposed to do? I really don't want to lower either the damage or the crit range or the crit multiplier, as the point of this weapon is that its shape makes it much more damaging than a regular dagger. It's like a serrated sword versus a non-serrated sword; the former's shape allows it to do terrible, terrible things to the flesh, so someone cut with a serrated sword will be injured much more severely than someone cut with a non-serrated sword. (However, the serrated sword does have disadvantages, like being more difficult to create and maintain... just like the spiral dagger). Really, the grappling stuff is a secondary function that's a natural function of the spiral dagger's tip having a penchant for burying itself in the flesh of others. One could argue that it's more effective as a torture device than as a weapon. --Luigifan18 (talk) 03:27, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, the thing with the Mogeko is that they're weaker to stabbing. They're frail, hence the Constitution penalty. (Heck, it was originally going to be −4 Constitution and −2 Intelligence, but after watching a bit more of Mogeko Castle, I decided that the Mogekos aren't horrendously frail, but they are complete morons.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 03:30, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Well you gotta cut something. Even if the source material justified the insane stats (it doesn't), the mechanical balance is more important. I won't get into why the weapon is actually a bad idea from a logical standpoint since it doesn't matter; exotic weapons are the home for crazy stuff that doesn't work, so bring on the bearchucks and the chainsaw flails. But no matter how crazy, even if I make flamethrower double-spears, I need to make it mechanical balanced or no sane DM will ever allow your homebrew in. And having your stuff be used by someone is the point, right?

You have a perfectly viable weapon idea in here. Improved Grab is GREAT! It's a thing normally reserved for monsters and is almost impossible to get normally, so being able to grab it by a feat/item, good deal! High damage is irrelevant; most of your damage will come from strength if you are optimized for this task. With the clause about damaging the creature when it is pulled out, this is also another source of damage which already puts it up and above any other weapon even if it was at a 1d4. There is only one weapon with this mechanic, the Harpoon^Stormwrack. You should steal the wording directly from it, it would help, and make this the melee harpoon. With that crit range and that multiplier, you just invite crit fishing abuse en masse.

If it is a better torture device than a weapon, then that's even more reason that its weapon stats are lackluster combat stats, and probably some flavor ability to justify it. +4 to Intimidate checks, or something of that sort.

Complete side note: That's not weakness to stabbing, that's just weakness to everything. And more susceptible to disease. And saves vs death. And most polymorphs. And...

And you should see a pattern here that messing with ability scores directly actually influences a lot of things. If they were really weak to stabbing in particular, perhaps consider damage susceptibility, or the fear of needles flaw. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:04, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

One problem: I don't have Stormwrack. I'll have to look for a .pdf version of it to download. --Luigifan18 (talk) 04:42, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Here you go, the important part of the text involving ripping things out.

...The harpooned creature can pull the harpoon from its wound... ...and takes a full-round action to do so (you may want to drop to a standard or attack, daggers aren't as big as harpoons), but it deals damage to itself equal to the initial damage the harpoon dealt. A character who succeeds on a DC 15 Heal check can remove the harpoon without further damage.

So, recommendation. Kill the big numbers, make it a normal dagger base. 1d4, 19-20/x2. Slashing only in this case. You get as part of the deal; sweet Improved Grab, you can even shorten the text just by linking to Improved Grab. You get the bonuses to grapple to make up for the -4 for being a light weapon. If you grapple, it deals damage each round you remain grappled, and deals damage when you or the enemy rip it out (as harpoon). You can let the weapon go and leave it in them... they aren't grappled but take damage each round until removed. And something something scary torture weapon, something something intimidate bonus.

10/10, would consider for exotic weapon like this.

Also consider the text from the Masterslaying enhancement from Book of Vile Darkness. Remember, stealing the wording from pre-existing sources is good! -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:54, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Luigi, one thing I think you need to understand is that in D&D, things that are powerful are so because they are higher level. That's why the game has levels in the first place, as opposed to a level-less game like HERO. That applies to items as well: if you think the item requires these stats, then it should be a specific magic item that costs more money and is not otherwise enhanceable or upgradable in any way. Otherwise, literally everyone will be running around with spiral daggers because this weapon's stats are just straight-up ridiculous. Surgo (talk) 15:23, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

I noticed you reduced the damage from 1d8 to 1d6. That is really not what the problem is with this weapon. The problem is the crit range of 17-20/x3. The following crit ranges are all acceptable in terms of average damage:

• 18-20/×2
• 19-20/×3 (this is slightly stronger than the other two)
• 20/×4

Anything beyond these ranges is numerically overpowered. Surgo (talk) 23:48, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh ch-christ! I was just gone for a little bit! It's getting bigger! At this rate, with its expodential growth... carry the 2...

We will have a double kaiju event from the rift within a week.

Wait, wrong script. Ahem... The length of this article will dwarf the entire contents of the internet within a week!

Foot off the gas pedal Luigi! -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:13, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

The idea behind the crit range is that it's strictly superior to the crit range of a dagger, both in terms of crit range and multiplier, but only a little bit so. Admittedly, it is difficult for a multiplier to be only "slightly" better; having something like a ×2.2 multiplier would just be silly. But, yes, the idea was for the spiral dagger's critical hits to be amazing. After all, it's a weapon designed to dig deep into the flesh and carve it to ribbons. Getting hit by it in just the right manner is going to be extremely devastating. --Luigifan18 (talk) 00:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Then use 20/x4. That's what a scythe uses for the exact same reason. A 17-20/x3 is equivalent to 13-20/x2. That's just ridiculous. Surgo (talk) 00:37, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

That Crit

The weapon is neat and 1d8 light weapon is notable on its own, but that crit range is a baaaaad idea. Tone that down, you're making the Minotaur Greathammer cry. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Damage and crit is now fixed, yay!

We got to do something about that length though. When I finish reading in a few weeks, I'll see what I can do. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:59, 8 November 2015 (UTC)