How Many Daggers Is Too Many Daggers?

[John and KARSG!!!]

I have an Aasimar Unchained Rogue character who specialises in strength based two handed weapon fighting, but he also uses his high carrying capacity to carry 50 Daggers as a back up weapon, and a back up back up weapon, and a back up back up back up weapon and so on... so my question is, how many back up weapons are too many? Do you have any better options for back up weapons? Should I buy more Daggers? Buy better Daggers? What should I do?

[Name Violation]

How many of those 50 are actually able to be drawn? I would assume they're mostly in a back pack and not actually ready to pull out.
How many sheaths do you have?

Or are you walking around looking like some living knife golem with knives on every exposed body part?

[marcryser]

It depends on what you mean by 'too many.'

There are no rules (afaik) about placement of weapons and equipment on and about the character's body. The game has encumbrance and GM fiat... both of those can affect a decision.

As Name Violation said, how many you can carry is far different from how many can you use.

My personal answer to this kind of question is to draw (or get, or imagine) the character standing around or walking with all of their equipment. If they look ridiculous, ungainly, or otherwise strange I 'fix' it by removing equipment.

I have a knife master rogue in a home game. He carries 9 daggers/knives.
• Two are on the belt at the hip in the 'traditional' places for sword & dagger.
• One is in the small of the back.
• One is tucked into each boot.
• Two are in wrist sheaths on each forearm.
• Two are hidden where they might get by a careful search. One is sewn inside the lining of my cloak and another is sewn into a pouch. Neither is 'combat ready' but both can be gotten by tearing a few seams.
• The only other weapon he carries is a shortbow.

As far as 'what should you do' is concerned, that will depend on what problem you're trying to fix.
• A bow built for your strength is a better back-up weapon because it weighs less and has a greater range. It may also have a better rate of fire depending on how your GM rules drawing a dagger to throw. (It isn't ammunition so it isn't a free action to draw)
• Looking strange can be fixed by carrying fewer daggers, a bag of holding (or similar), or deciding to use shuriken instead.
• If you actually need 50 ranged attacks in a standard fight, returning daggers or a blink-back belt can help you a lot.

[Quixote]

A backup weapon is very different from effective ammunition for throwing weapons. A barbarian who has a bow for when his axe isn't going to reach is a backup weapon. A morningstar for when you need bludgeoning or piercing is a backup weapon. A wizard's quarerstaff, even if it's the only weapon they carry, is a backup weapon.

A couple javelins, darts or daggers could collectively be a backup weapon, but javelins #2-6 aren't backups of #1 any more than additional arrows are backups of the first.

The cost of magic weapons makes the Giant Assortment of Knives basically impossible to keep relevant at higher levels. But it's still a cool trope for the right character.
An NPC in one of my games, a highly skilled killer for hire, has a lot of knives. Like, a hundred. And each one has a name, and he fawns over them like they're pets.
I just assume that whatever two knives he's carrying are +2 keen daggers, and leave it at that.

But by normal rules? Enchant your primary weapon(s) and give your backup weapon just enough magic to make it valid. And get the goofy belt if you're throwing stuff.

[VoodistMonk]

Four is pretty much the maximum useful number of light weapons, because that is how many can hang from a Blinkback Belt.

Any more than that, and you are just fooling yourself...

And, unless you have infinite gold available to you, you likely cannot keep more than 4 daggers relevant past level 8... literally nobody cares about your mundane/nonmagical daggers at a certain point... might as well stick them in nature's pocket for all the good it will do you...

[Claxon]

The correct answer is, you buy 1 dagger with the sharding property for throwing, assuming you're trying to have throwing weapon.

In reality, the best "back up" weapon is going to be a potion of fly so that enemies that are out of normal melee reach are out of your reach. And if you're worried about losing your main weapon get a locked gauntlet and tie some weapon cords on.

Seriously it's prohibitively expensive to keep more than one weapon relevant after they start becoming magical.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Without exaggeration or hyperbole, here is what the paladin 5 in one of my games has either on his person or affixed to the saddle of his sacred mount:

+1 Warhammer, +1 longsword, +1 Quickdraw Light Steel Shield, sling and 30 Cold Iron Sling bullets, x2 Chakrams, Masterwork Halberd, Masterwork Dwarven Longhammer (he is a half-dwarf), 1 Masterwork Handaxe, Masterwork Lance, Masterwork Light Crossbow and 10 Cold Iron bolts, 10 Silver bolts, 2 +1 bolts.

His main style of fighting is either sword/hammer and shield, or reach weapon. His backups then are his ranged attacks. The other types of weapons are intended to get through a variety of DRs. He's also having Silversheen made for him, has the NPC cleric keep scrolls around of Ghostbane Dirge just in case they fight incorporeal undead and I'm sure will eventually either get weapon blanch to make something like adamantine or have an adamantine weapon crafted.

He ALSO wears a bandolier that carries 2 potions: Cure Medium Wounds, 2 flasks: holy water, 2 flasks: Alchemist's Fire and 2 flasks: Acid. Y'know, for swarms or against some undead.

[Heather 540]

Having a backup weapon is always good. My melee characters always have this set up - main weapon, backup melee weapon usually either a dagger or kunai depending on what damage type is needed for coverage, and a ranged weapon.

My natural attackers don't have a backup melee but they always have a ranged weapon.

My ranged attackers have a kunai and a sling as backups.

But 50 daggers? That's so many that I can't see how they can ever be used up even halfway. And are they even made of different materials or have different enhancements like frost on one and flaming on another? If not, do you really need that many?

[VoodistMonk]

At least 50 Kunai could be used as climbing pitons. Lol.

[Speaker for the Dead]

Hey, if you can spare 50lb of encumbrance for spare daggers, have at it. I’d say it’s more of a fetish at this point than backup but you be you!

[VoodistMonk]

Cold Iron Sawback Kunai is always part of my starting equipment, pretty much no matter what. It's a saw, a shovel, a crowbar, and a climbing piton... and it's Cold Iron.

I acquire a Morningstar and a Longspear or Bardiche, ASAP (assuming I don't start with at least one of them)... and they remain as part of my gear for the long haul. I will trade them out for MWK or magical versions as I find them.

Some odd ranged weapon I am proficient with, and a nest egg of ammunition of various types. Trade it for better versions of itself as I find them.

Whatever my main weapon happens to be... spend the big bucks on Adamantine... chasing that sweet +5 flat enchantment bonus... don't generally waste my time with +1 BS bells and whistles... just want that flat 5...

That's usually it.

[Coidzor]

Well, you probably want to get a Sap or two, just to have that as an option.

Your proficiency with Simple Weapons means that you can use (Spiked) Gauntlets, and those are pretty hard to disarm. Yeah, you'll have to remove them for delicate work like picking locks and disabling fine mechanisms, but you usually won't be mixing that with combat too often. Brass Knuckles or a Cestus are also worth consideration in that general vein.

Kunai and Wooden Stakes and Traveling Kettles would have the advantage of not necessarily looking like weapons at first glance. Especially if you store them near other mundane gear that they would appear to be related to. Clubs as well, to an extent.

Light Maces, Sickles, and Morningstars would be worth consideration for covering different damage types compared to Daggers.

[Artofregicide]

No such thing as too many daggers.

Build a dagger golem.

[Sysryke]

How many things that can die or otherwise be destroyed exist in your world? What is the total of all of those HP? (X) What is the minimum amount of damage you can do with a dagger? (Y) What is your chance to hit all of those things? (Z)

(X ÷ Y) × (1 ÷ Z) + 1 = #of daggers

That plus 1 is too many daggers.

[Sandslice]

Convince your local gnomish gunsmith to build a gatling gun that fires daggers.

Strap daggers to your pauldrons and pretend you're a World of Warcraft character.

Mythic Champions can choose "Fistful of daggers" as a 6th tier ability. As a full attack, you can throw daggers at everything within 30' of you with a single attack roll. Perhaps you won't embarrass yourself with a nat 1 when you do so! (Caveat: this can get expensive, since the attack counts as though from the WORST dagger used.)

[Mark Hoover 330]

If you're playing in a game whose power level necessitates Mythic Tier 6... you can probably afford some good daggers.

I say just make five big, 2-handed paddles or oars with 10 daggers each stuck through the heads and use these as Large sized improvised beatsticks. Each deals 10d4 when it hits, suffers a -4 penalty to attack and requires a Str of at least 13 to wield. If the wielder is Large sized, remove the -4 penalty.

Or just carry a bag full of 50 daggers and be a kineticist.

[TxSam88]

Sandslice wrote:

Convince your local gnomish gunsmith to build a gatling gun that fires daggers.

Strap daggers to your pauldrons and pretend you're a World of Warcraft character.

Mythic Champions can choose "Fistful of daggers" as a 6th tier ability. As a full attack, you can throw daggers at everything within 30' of you with a single attack roll. Perhaps you won't embarrass yourself with a nat 1 when you do so! (Caveat: this can get expensive, since the attack counts as though from the WORST dagger used.)

Just use a Sharding Dagger....