One of my players made a Witchwarper with 10 str and 10 dex. They're finding guns basically useless, and it'd take a lot to get their dex up to snuff. I'd like to add an item to let them do sub-standard damage when they don't have spells available.
I was considering adding an item like this:
Wand of Hazards Mk1 (Level 3)
While wielded, this wand increases the damage of your Hazard cantrip by half your character level.
Wand of Hazards Mk2 (Level 6)
Changes the damage of the Hazard cantrip to 1d6
Wand of Hazards Mk3 (Level 9)
Changes the damage of the Hazard cantrip to 1d8
Wand of Hazards Mk4 (Level 12)
Changes the damage of the Hazard cantrip to 2d6
To be honest, I've been thinking about something similar. Some kind of magic item that boosts the damage of cantrips.
100% sounds good to me. I wouldn't even have the level 3 item - just bake half-level damage scaling into all cantrips for free.
100% sounds good to me. I wouldn't even have the level 3 item - just bake half-level damage scaling into all cantrips for free.
I can definitely see baking "weapon specialization" in, but I feel that 1d3 becomes basically negligible at higher levels. I might keep the wand idea for increasing the dice size of cantrips, but bake in the weapon specialization scaling.
I like having something occupying a hand to increase fairness and give them something to spend money on or find as loot.
Any ideas how I could make it less "Wand" and more sci-fi?
I was considering changing it to "Power Stone" to be evocative of the marvel infinity stones.
My own house rules were focused on making the change very light weight without other additions. Otherwise, agreed that adding the extra dice scaling and requiring a piece of equipment to get them seems fair. The few "pure" casters I've seen have had plenty to purchase between spell gems and general armor and armor upgrades, so I haven't found any need to give them something additional to buy.
I can imagine it taking the form of a magitech focusing device. Maybe something that looks like a kara kesh from Stargate.
As a big Stargate fan I'm ashamed to say I had to look it up. That does seem like a good option though!
It kind of sucks that the chance to land cantrips drops off so badly since spell level is factored into the DC. I might have to add an effect that boosts its effective spell level.
Any ideas how I could make it less "Wand" and more sci-fi?
I was considering changing it to "Power Stone" to be evocative of the marvel infinity stones.
Maybe a magitech item. The idea I had was a gauntlet with magic runes etched onto it.
Jafar power staff?
I haven't played a full spellcaster yet. What exactly is the problem? The wealth by level guideline expects you to buy a weapon anyway so why not buy a gun?
To use magic instead of guns for whatever reason. Sadly, you'd really want a house rule that cantrips use casting stat as the attack stat or the suggested item is still pretty bad for everyone but a witchwarper.
Personally I'd prefer some sort of magic gun equivalent with small arm damage that can charge off spell slots and using a casting stat as the attack stat over trying to scale cantrips with an item. I'd probably just scale cantrips as a house rule.
I haven't played a full spellcaster yet. What exactly is the problem? The wealth by level guideline expects you to buy a weapon anyway so why not buy a gun?
If you start with a 10 in both strength and dex, you will start *very* behind other characters and never catch up to a satisfying degree. We went through the same exercise with a player who started an Envoy with minimal attack stacks and was having zero fun trying to hit with small arms, which inevitably did peanuts damage when they did hit. We had to rebuild them with higher dex and longarms so they didn't hate the game.
So this new player fell into the same trap, thinking they'd primarily use magic. Now their options are: expend several feats and stat boosts to get up to less than par with something like longarms, or buy tons of spell gems and ignore weapons altogether.
I'd like to introduce another option, a weapon they can use with their spell-focused build that does minimal useful damage because of the lack of investment required, but isn't colossally useless at later levels like cantrips are currently.
The game does assume you'll have a gun, even as a caster. The player in question did not make the same assumption. Waterslethe is trying to solve the problem without forcing a rebuild, that's all.
For envoy, I'd probably go with an option that leans into the support role of envoy, a "gun" designed for aiding another from range, that gives bonus damage to successful attacks against that target. This lets a high cha envoy who has presumably decided to focus on the support/talking aspects of the class continue to do so without feeling that they can't engage in the weapon system.