Thoughts on my first homebrewed magic items?

[Cissero]

Planning on hosting a session tomorrow, and I'm hoping to show off my first homebrewed magic items. Details not fully finalized on either yet, but the basic premise behind both is they are specialized for vampire and lycan slaying, originally being wielded by two prominent Night Slayers (a faction in our campaign devoted to hunting and killing such creatures of the night).

The first of the two weapons will be a warhammer called "Daybreak". Forged from silver, once a day the wielder will be able to bring the hammer down on a foe causing a blast of fire (as per the spell Flame Strike); subjects within a 10-ft radius will need to make a Fort DC 12, or suffer blindness for one round.

Thoughts? Too powerful/weak? Tips for improvement? Thank you in advance.

[Dasrak]

What is the level of the party? What is the caster level of the flame strike effect? What enhancement level does the weapon have? It's hard to judge without that information.

[Cissero]

APL is 5 going into this session. The caster level would be 4th level, seeing as it's the minimum CL for that spell, and I was thinking no more than a +2 enhancement bonus.

[Dasrak]

The minimum caster level for flame strike is actually 7, since the lowest it appears is as a 4th level druid spell and druids need to be 7th level to use 4th level spells. Nothing is stopping you from setting it to CL 4, however, if you feel that's the right balance for your custom item. In any case a +2 Warhammer on its own is a strong weapon at 5th level, and the once-per-day effect is pretty decent the combination of 4d6 damage and chance to inflict blindness. However, the 1-round duration on the blindness should keep it under control. So definitely a strong weapon but not overpoweringly so.

[doomman47]

Seems like a very flavorful item, may I suggest having the cl tied to the users hit die instead of having it be a flat cl that way it's not to out of hand at low levels but it scales with the user so that its still useful at higher levels.

Tying the save dc to the users wisdom stat would probably be a good alteration that would keep its effect still worth wile at the late game as well.

I would also suggest making more lore to go behind the weapon such as but not limited to notable kills, how long its been in existence, a detailed description of what the weapon looks like.

[Kazk]

doomman47 wrote:

Seems like a very flavorful item, may I suggest having the cl tied to the users hit die instead of having it be a flat cl that way it's not to out of hand at low levels but it scales with the user so that its still useful at higher levels.

Tying the save dc to the users wisdom stat would probably be a good alteration that would keep its effect still worth while at the late game as well.

I would also suggest making more lore to go behind the weapon such as but not limited to notable kills, how long its been in existence, a detailed description of what the weapon looks like.

I agree with this! On one hand, it is certainly powerful, but as the players level, they will have more options and tricks up their sleeve, so even if nobody wants to constantly wield it as a weapon, a free flamestrike a day is a fun flashy effect that will remain pretty useful.

[Kayerloth]

... any effect to the wielder as they are almost certain to be within the radius unless I'm misunderstanding your intent. Maybe wielder immune to Fire and Blindness until the beginning of their next turn when they declare the SA (as well as damage from the divine power portion).

Perhaps double damage to undead?

I do like the idea of the weapon scaling up as its wielder gains levels.

[doomman47]

Kayerloth wrote:

... any effect to the wielder as they are almost certain to be within the radius unless I'm misunderstanding your intent. Maybe wielder immune to Fire and Blindness until the beginning of their next turn when they declare the SA (as well as damage from the divine power portion).

Perhaps double damage to undead?

I do like the idea of the weapon scaling up as its wielder gains levels.

So it really all depends what they mean by bring the hammer down on a foe, if it requires them to actually be in melee then there would be an issue however there are plenty fantasy abilities which would call down a golden flaming hammer from the sky on to a particular enemy or area and maybe that's what they were going for? All in all I say we still need more flushed out details on how the weapon would work, also really interested in seeing what the other magic item could be since they mentioned 2 but we only have 1 so far.