Serpent Weapons are Broken

[Thoth_Amon]

(Sorry about the title, I could not help myself.)

I posted this at Nifty, but given all of the posting here about fighters and being weaklings I thought it might be interesting to post here as well. fbmf, sorry about the spamming.

I picked up the new FR book on the Serpent Kingdoms and was a might bit dissapointed.

The recent Dragon Magazine on the Yuan-Ti had been fleshed out into an entire book.

One of the things that raised a warning light on my policing of broken magic tiems was the "Many Fanged Dagger"

When striking, this magic dagger brings into existance phantom blades that whirl about it such that it inflicts quadruple damage on every hit and quintuple damage on a critical. (32,302 gp, the dagger is a +1 weapon)

[Note, I do not mean this is a +1 enhancement, the dagger is +1 and this enhancement makes up the difference in cost so I assume it could be reverse engineered and applied to other slashing weapons.]

Now a Strength Fighter might certainly consider going the Two Weapon fighting route if this was an option instead of the tired two handed fighting style.

Broken?

TA

[RandomCasualty]

Um yeah... that's very broken. Inflicting an automatic x4 critical on a normal hit is about as ridiculously crazy as you can get.

I'm thinking what they meant to say with that weapon was that you get an extra +3d4+3 with each hit, instead of x4 damage. Then it'd be about the same as an elemental damage weapon.

[Thoth_Amon]

But they specifically say x4, x5 on a critical. So they used the same terminology to describe the effects. It is was a mistake it seems a bit eggregious.

TA

[Username17]

I'm pretty sure they mean x4 damage. Or rather, since this is D&D, they mean that it adds a +x3 damage multiplier all the time.

All I can say is... meh. It's a +1 Dagger, and in the hands of someone who invested in Weapon Specialization, or three kinds of rage, or Divine Favor, it could be pretty good.

Heck, if your strength bonuses and luck bonuses, and all that, come out to +20 or so, you're going to be handing out about 94 points of damage per hit - which probably sounds like a lot, and it is. But where are you getting +20 to damage?

More likely you are looking at a strength bonus of about +10, a Morale bonus of +2, a Luck bonus of +1 or +2, and of course - the weapon itself (3.5 points of damage). Then you quadruple it all and do 70 points of damage. And an off-hand attack is doing about 50 points of damage.

And you are about 10th-12th level to be pulling this off, and an 11th level Rogue is doing only 37 points of damage with every blow from their much cheaper +3 Longsword.

---

So is it "broken"? Probably not, actually. It's a lot of damage, but not enough damage to make the game explode or anything. The only rel objection I have to it, actually, is that it is a Dagger - I would be much happier with it if it was in some way limited in who could use it (there are no classes outside of savage progressions which are not proficient in the dagger). Possibly making it a Kama, for instance.

It probably should go against DR four times instead of only once, and it should probably be an exotic weapon of some kind. Other than that, I just can't really care that much. The only way to really break it is to be a Cleric Archer of Vecna - and I honestly think that's cool enough that I would be more likely to let that slide than the standard Elven Cleric Archer of Owning your Face.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

The point is that however broken it is on a dagger, it'd be worse once people break it down and figure out how to put it on other weapons. How about a Many-Fanged Greataxe, dong 4d12+four times whatever, in the hands of a raging barbarian?

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

1091546576[/unixtime]]
So is it "broken"? Probably not, actually. It's a lot of damage, but not enough damage to make the game explode or anything.

Huh? You cast a GMW on it, and you've got basically the equivalent of a +20 weapon, and that doesn't even count bonuses from other stuff you're getting.

It's the equivalent of having a weapon with a 2-20/x4 critical rating, only this is better because you don't have to confirm it and you can get normal criticals.

All for 32,000 and no restrictions, This thing is the best weapon in the game and there are so many ways to break it. Paladin with smite evil being the most obvious one.

[canamrock]

From how it's worded, it would be just like saying, "This weapon is cool enough to grant an additional 3X to damage per hit, where X is the damage normally dealt by the weapon. This value does not multiply on a critical hit."

Given that it's a +1 dagger, it looks like this ability is a +3 bonus. I say this since a +4 dagger would cost 32,302 gp as well, and this ability improves with the increased enhancement bonus. Compare that with a +1 speed weapon.

I suspect the designers were trying to just increase the weapon's base damage, but who can tell for sure. That'd only give at most +3d12, but for every attack regardless of energy resistance and such.

[Username17]

Huh? You cast a GMW on it, and you've got basically the equivalent of a +20 weapon, and that doesn't even count bonuses from other stuff you're getting.

OK, at 20th level, you can cast GMW on it, and it does +20 damage - instead of the +5 damage it would do anyway. So it does fifteen extra points of damage. At 20th level. On every attack.

Sorry, but really who gives a fvck? Seriously, at 20th level people do a lot of damage. This is one of the most efficient forms of damage infliction I've yet seen, but melee damage infliction is one of the least effective ways to bring death to your enemies at 20th level.

Melee combat is really dangerous, and even if you are inflicting a hundred, or even two hundred points of damage in a hit - who cares? Maybe it will do enough damage to actually kill a dragon, but since they are walking in with half a dozen hundreds of hit points - I wouldn't exactly start holding my breath about it (assuming of course, that you can get into melee with one of those things at all).

It's really a lot of damage, and the actual mechanics probably aren't doing what the author thought they were. But really, you could put that thing in the hands of a 20th level Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger/Whatever and he would still be the weak sister of the party - so what difference does it make?

The point is that however broken it is on a dagger, it'd be worse once people break it down and figure out how to put it on other weapons.

Because it would inflict possible as much as four more points of damage!? I think we should all start holding our breath until I give a damn about people applying this to other light weapons. Heck, if they applied it to other slashing weapons (which may or may not be possible), then it would do ten more points on top of that by being put on a great sword.

And you know what? I still don't really care. It's just damage. Even if your melee attacks at fifteenth level were so brutal that they removed any opponent from the battle on any hit - that still wouldn't be particularly different from the Mass Charms and Weirds that are actually available to Spellcasters.

Really, high level combos to do a lot of damage don't matter to me at all in the context of the game system as currently presented, because high level damage infliction is currently the retarded younger brother of a real combat style.

-Username17

[User3]

I' ve always wondered why they didn't drop all these asstastic mods on weapons and just have a "sharp/heavy as fvck" mod with X damage per +1 that stacks with itself.

Better yet, ability damage. At high level you should be able to eat your enemy's soul with your weapon.

I mean, lets face it, we want fighters to only be able to fight with an artifact sword. If we didn't, fighters would have better class abilities and +5 swords wouldn't exist.

Fare enough. Just give 'em some decent mods to put on said sword rather than let them say "its a fire, ice, lightning, sonic, acid, subdual, keen, yet another damage type, sword.

PS. Anyone ever notive how the "common" magic sword of 3e has the same stats as the "artifact" swords of 2e and lower.

[RandomCasualty]

1091561287[/unixtime]]
It's really a lot of damage, and the actual mechanics probably aren't doing what the author thought they were. But really, you could put that thing in the hands of a 20th level Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger/Whatever and he would still be the weak sister of the party - so what difference does it make?

Well for one, the cleric is the guy you're really worried about getting ahold of this thing. He's the guy with GMW, divine favor, divine power, divine might and a possible smite attack from a domain that might get quadrupled.

And forget about all the stuff about damage infliction is a weak style, because that's really irrelevant. The point is that it's hands down better than any other weapon you could buy. x4 damage? On every hit. It's almost the equivalent of saying "you get 4 times your normal number of attacks", which is crazy powerful. And actually it's better than that because you can use it to get 4x your smite damage too.

I just don't see how you can state the concept that granting extra attacks is a bad idea mechanically, as you have spoken out against monsters with multiple arms and so forth, and yet somehow you support this thing. This thing is doing the same thing, only there's only one dice roll for all 4 attacks.

[Username17]

And forget about all the stuff about damage infliction is a weak style, because that's really irrelevant. The point is that it's hands down better than any other weapon you could buy.

And the Adept is hands down the most powerful NPC class - what's your point?

This dagger all by itself is very nearly the equal of somebody fighting with a Lance and Pounce, although without the formiddable defensive bonuses. And let me remind you - Lances and Pounce is core.

I mean, lets face it, we want fighters to only be able to fight with an artifact sword.

Yes and no. Mostly yes, but as soon as you put it that way, people start backpeddling hard.

The problem, of course, is that only the Fighter has this set-up. If everyone could only fight with an artifact (cloak of invisibility, for example, from the D&D cartoon), I wouldn't have a problem with it at all.

Fare enough. Just give 'em some decent mods to put on said sword rather than let them say "its a fire, ice, lightning, sonic, acid, subdual, keen, yet another damage type, sword.

That's not enough. You'd also need to acquire artifact wands or spellbooks to cast groovy high level magic, then the paradigm would actually work.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1091567818[/unixtime]]
This dagger all by itself is very nearly the equal of somebody fighting with a Lance and Pounce, although without the formiddable defensive bonuses. And let me remind you - Lances and Pounce is core.

Yeah, pounce is core, but having a lance and pounce is not, at least not barring a monstrous PC with huge amounts of LA.

Pounce is very poorly worded as well. It really needs something saying you only get your charge benefits on the first attack and that's it, to prevent cavalier cheese, since the charge abilities are based around the fact that you're only getting one attack off a charge, and pounce ignores those abilities entirely.

But either, way, sure the cavalier with pounce can do that kind of insane damage, as can the hulking hurler/war hulk, and all kinds of other mass damage "gimmick" builds. More than anything these builds simply exploit poorly written rules, broken PrCs or both. But those aren't the norm, and they certainly don't balance that dagger out because of their existence.

A weapon like that is inherently unbalanced. I mean, it's saying that the double strike is essentially a +3 equivalent bonus, and that that weapon should be equal to a +4 dagger, and clearly it's not, it blows away the +4 dagger completely. Citing that someone could abuse the rules with pounce doesn't change that fact.

[Username17]

But those aren't the norm, and they certainly don't balance that dagger out because of their existence.

Actually, they do. Balance doesn't mean "equal to some arbitrary thing you think it should be equal to" (such as your +4 dagger example), it means "equal to itself".

So if you could already do it, and you can, then it doesn't matter. The damage values you pop out of the Serpent Dagger are very big, but not bigger than the damage values you can already get out of things already in the game. So it doesn't matter, and isn't more broken than the game already is - so it's not "broken".

In short, for something to be broken, an object would have to disrupt a game-play equilibrium in a manner such that the game was no longer fun. Since you can already do comparable damage with other builds, it doesn't disrupt any game equilibriums, so it's not "broken" by any reasonable definition of the term.

---

Are there better ways of handling damage? Hell yes there are. If we were actually using any of them, would the Serpent Dagger be there? Almost certainly not.

But we aren't doing something better, we are still using the same tired old Hit Point system that doesn't work for crap and the same massive set of inequalities within the available means of taking enemies out of action. And in the context of what we are actually doing the Serpent Dagger doesn't mean shit.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1091720191[/unixtime]]
Actually, they do. Balance doesn't mean "equal to some arbitrary thing you think it should be equal to" (such as your +4 dagger example), it means "equal to itself".

Well a +4 dagger is going to cost you 32k, and this dagger costs you 32k, so comparing to a +4 dagger isn't arbitrary, in fact it's the closest comparison you can get. Since they're both light weapons, simple weapons and have the same cost.

In short, for something to be broken, an object would have to disrupt a game-play equilibrium in a manner such that the game was no longer fun. Since you can already do comparable damage with other builds, it doesn't disrupt any game equilibriums, so it's not "broken" by any reasonable definition of the term.

The problem with basing things off of "comparable builds" is that those builds are rather in the minority. Yeah, I can do millions of damage with a hulking hurler, I don't dispute that. But to use those as a basis for other things is inherently problematic, because you're assuming that these builds are balanced. But first you've got to ask yourself the question of whether you think the hulking hurler should be doing that kind of damage.

Because by the definition of "so long as you're under the maximum damage caused by other builds, it's ok", then wizards could have a spell at about 7th level that deals 1000 damage no save, because the hurler can do just that and more. And IMO that's a poor balance paradigm to go to, because it allows a few broken PrCs to totally redefine game balance. Not to mention comparing an item to a PrC or feat ability is like comparing apples and oranges.

You can get either a +4 dagger or this serpent dagger for the same amount of money, therefore they should be about equal in power. I think that's the best balance comparison you can possibly get. And I mean remember, there's no reason a cavalier couldn't use a serpent dagger too.

[Essence]

The flaw in your logic, Frank, is that it's fully possible, in the same way that it's possible to make Celestial Full Plate, to make a Manyfang Lance, and have your Lance+Pounce character suddenly quadruple his already-insane damage for the low, low cost of 35,000 gp.

The brokenness doesn't come from the dagger. It comes from the enchantment, and the fact that the enchantment can be moved onto any similar weapon.

[RandomCasualty]

Yeah, just think of a frenzied berserker with that thing. -1:+4 ratio power attack, and then with an x4 crit normally, that actually becomes -1:+16 power attack.

[Username17]

The flaw in your logic, Frank, is that it's fully possible, in the same way that it's possible to make Celestial Full Plate, to make a Manyfang Lance, and have your Lance+Pounce character suddenly quadruple his already-insane damage for the low, low cost of 35,000 gp.

Maybe yes, maybe no. While it's unambiguously legal to make Celestial Mithral Fullplate, it is not unambiguously legal for you to make Celestial Adamantite Fullplate. That is, that while you can always transfer a specific item to another item in the same exact category, it's essentially DM option as to whether you can move a specific item to a similar item - or at least that's the best interpretation I can come up with out of them saying that you can't make Lion's Armor, but you can make a Lion's Shield out of some shield that isn't a Large Steel Shield.

So, since the guidelines for this sort of thing are essentially non-existant, and the weapon categories in 3.5 are so very very dumb - it's possible to rule that the best object you can put this enchantment on it a Short Sword. So the boogy boogy about "what if they put it on a lance?" is sort of disengenuous - because the DM is perfectly within their rights to restrict this to Light, Piercing, Melee Weapons, which is the category that the item finds itself in.

I can't actually think of anything in that category that I'd get all that excited over it being put on. You could also rule that you could put it on any Percing Weapon, any Melee Weapon, or simply any Weapon - but that decision is out in crazy land where the rules don't actually make any sense or have any consistency, so you can't really announce that something is broken bcause of what you can do here unless you're using the most restrictive possible interpretation (of which using it on a Lance is not).

Basically, the "specific weapons/armor" sections were just about the worst piece of legacy garbage ever, and make our heads explode.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1091982376[/unixtime]]
So, since the guidelines for this sort of thing are essentially non-existant, and the weapon categories in 3.5 are so very very dumb - it's possible to rule that the best object you can put this enchantment on it a Short Sword. So the boogy boogy about "what if they put it on a lance?" is sort of disengenuous - because the DM is perfectly within their rights to restrict this to Light, Piercing, Melee Weapons, which is the category that the item finds itself in.

And it's also possible to rule that celestial armor can only be applied to chainmail too, or any medium armor, or whatever. The point is that you can put on any restrictions you want, but since they aren't even there, to say that one thing can be reverse engineered but another cannot, when neither has any guidelines, is rather nonsensical.

And the fact that you're pulling restrictions out of your ass to prevent many fanged lances only further proves the point that the enchantment is unbalanced. If it's so balanced it shouldn't matter what weapon we put them on. I mean seriously, I can have a +1 flaming dagger, or a +1 flaming greatsword, it doesnt' make a difference. The only real restrictions are flavor ones, because we don't want vorpal clubs beheading people, but balance wise, there isn't a problem with a vorpal club.

[User3]

1091995162[/unixtime]]
we don't want vorpal clubs beheading people, but balance wise, there isn't a problem with a vorpal club.

I would, however, like to see a 'vorpal' club that made heads explode.

[The_Hanged_Man]

1091720191[/unixtime]]The damage values you pop out of the Serpent Dagger are very big, but not bigger than the damage values you can already get out of things already in the game. So it doesn't matter, and isn't more broken than the game already is - so it's not "broken".

It's obviously overpowered b/c it's now part of standard cheese. There are soooo many ways to break the Serpent Dagger. Things that normally would be stupid, but at first glance cool, now come into their own.

Oversized weapons now start to make sense. That x4 and power attack makes the -4 for using a huge dagger pretty palatable. Now standard part of caster power attack cheese.

Add it to charges + pounce. Now a standard part of charge cheese.

Add it to extra limb attacks. Now a standard part of multiattack cheese. Makes monks palatable, if you'd let them use it as a special monk weapon.

Almost any damage multiplier verges on overpowered. Multipliers w/ no real downside are overpowered. This is one of them.

[MrWaeseL]

I agree that this thing is overpowered. If HP damage isn;t a viable system, this dagge would be balanced if it was of a certain power level such that it would make it viable when it would normally stop being so, but not overpowered when it is still viable.