Ninja Weapons
Ouch. That is not an especially auspicious start to an assassin’s career. Nevertheless, I hope you will all join me in welcoming Ninja to the main comic. What could lure him out of hiding in the back alleys of the Handbook of Erotic Fantasy? Well, aside from following his on-again, off-again boyfriend Warlock into the PG-13 version of Handbook-World, our aasimar hitman-for-hire has his eyes set on a major contract. Asked to choose the identity of Ninja’s victim, our Quest Giver patrons decided to put the hit out on Elf Princess. (So rest easy Aristocrat, Quest Giver, and Lady Duplicity! You guys are safe for now.)
Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I think about rolling up a ninja the first place my brain goes is the wacky weaponry. All those glorious sais, nunchucks, kusarigama, and sianghams get me itching to try out an unconventional fighting style. It may be super mall-ninja of me, but whenever I walk through the local Discount Import Gifts and see one of these things on display, I immediately start flipping through the old mental rolodex for feats.
Of course, making an exotic weapon build work can be tough to pull off. Feats are scarce for most classes, and learning how to swing that glaive-guisarme-guisarme-glaive properly means you’re delaying other important advancements. That makes gaining access to esoteric cutlery a balancing act. How long do you delay it? Does it hurt your character concept to use something else in the meantime? Is there a world in which (like Ninja) you’re willing to eat that non-proficiency penalty for the sake of the cool weapon?
For today’s discussion, what do you say we swap a few of our less-common war stories? What’s the weirdest weaponry you’ve wielded in a game? Was it an effective build, or would you have been better off using a more conventional sidearm? Tell us all about those seven-branched swords, rope darts, and crystal chakram builds down in the comments!
THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!
My Desnan inquisitor had a starknife as a matter of deference, but his main weapon was an adamantine heavy pick. Had to spend a feat on martial weapon proficiency and everything. Before that he was using a heavy flail thanks to the city-born alt half-orc racial ability. When one of your party members is a witch with the slumber hex, that high crit modifier is just -juicy- for all those free coups-de-grace.
Had a half-orc fighter-turned-dragonrider who used his family’s double axe as a matter of pride. Even took master craftsman and craft magic arms and armor so he could keep upgrading it.
Had at least one archer who had to fall back on spiked gauntlets when cornered.
Does a ridden deinonychus count as an unusual weapon?
I always appreciate when the whole “this is my father’s sword” thing actually works out in a game.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/c7/4e/b3c74e3a60cbc4b6316cd5f240e1def4.jpg
It’s kind of a necessity when you’re using unusual weapons. Magic orc double axes don’t exactly turn up too often in adventures.
Ooh, I hope this comic and the Handbook of Erotic Fantasy don’t share continuity or that injury could have some debilitating effects…
As far as exotic weapons go, I’m planning to eventually make a build for Pathfinder 2E around the Aldori dueling sword, but I can’t decide which class I want to base it on. Fighter and Swashbuckler both get some nice support for one-handed dueling builds and I haven’t decided which package I want to build around yet.
I dunno:
Ninja: I have a booboo
Warlock: Oh, poor baby! Want me to kiss it better?
I think they’re fine 😛
Bonk.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/033/758/Screen_Shot_2020-04-28_at_12.21.48_PM.jpg
Kéké (a french animator) did an animated version of that:
https://twitter.com/kekeflipnote/status/1333168114062807043
They don’t. Not really. Well… Sometimes if you turn your head and squint.
I’m not familiar. What’s it do?
They’re actually just Advanced weapons, not Exotic, and statistically they’re kind of a hybrid between longswords and rapiers (Finesse, d8 damage die, versatile P/S.) There are also feat sets and I think maybe an archetype designed around becoming an Aldori Swordlord that require or at least strongly encourage using the dueling sword. So it’s less about the Exotic weapon feat taxes and more about the fact that the swords are supposed to be somewhat difficult to acquire and that it’s sort of a “I can do this one thing” kind of build.
I remember the sword lord from 1e:
https://aonprd.com/PrestigeClassesDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Aldori%20Swordlord
I guess it’s basically the same idea here. I always thought it was neat to have the archetypal sword ace as a class setting-specific class.
Half the time, this comic doesn’t share continuity with itself.
They finally get me! :’D
The weirdest weaponry I have wielded was this sword whip hybrid made of bone, animal teeth and sinew (the sword had segments that could dethatch from each other with the sinew in between) it was also undead and moved somewhat on it’s own according to my will which was an important part of it working at all.
It was an exalted game and thus worked very much on rule of cool, so it worked out very well.
In dnd/pathfinder the most exotic weapons I have used where those funky triangle knives Thri-keen have for 3.5 (worked fine for my Thri-keen but likely wouldn’t if the game had been higher optimization), and one of those minotaur double crossbows for pathfinder.
The latter had it’s own individual name and picture and was made of darkwood because my Bolt Ace “gun”slinger was a very fancy man (and also a bit of an upper-class-twit which was very fun). It worked wonderfully, at least once I got my feats up and running (and got to add dex to damage), though it was honestly OK right from the start due to the lower requirements for OK at the very lowest of levels.
I don’t remember how exactly the details worked and how many shots I got to make with it when every round when the build came “online”, but I think that at level one (with rapid reload) it was 4 shots every 3 rounds. (start with it loaded, turn 1) standard to fire 2 shots, move to reload one shot, Turn 2) move to reload other shot, standard to fire, Turn 3) double move to reload both, then repeat, at some point switch to firing one a round by only reloading one of the shots).
That was only slightly behind someone with a longbow and rapid shot!
What?
What!?
I suspect ima get an education in this thread. :/
I think he’s talking about chatkchas (funky throwing weapons for funky bug-men) and a Pathfinder weapon that shoots two bolts at once (in the same direction, which is more effective at the cost of being less hilarious).
Yeah, Chatkchas that’s what they are called, these things here:
https://i.imgur.com/s1oVZSl.jpg?1
(the small dagger like thing wielded by the bug-person (Thri-keen), not the polearm)
Here’s some pictures of how they are gripped and various materials.
https://i.imgur.com/tebpVZu.jpg?1
The traditional is the last one which is kinda made from a hardened mixture of sand and the Thri-keen spit/poison.
They can be thrown, but my character mostly used them in melee.
They are originally from Dark Sun.
For the Minotaur Double Crossbow, I found the image on the internet I used. (though in a lower resolution).
https://tinyurl.com/yyhquw6k
(in a tiny-url form since unlike the other two it was enormous).
Mechanically it allowed you to shoot two bolts as a single attack roll though with a -2 penalty.
Oh and also that the Minotaur Double Crossbow shouldn’t be confused with it’s far inferior variant the bog-standard Double Crossbow from the Advanced Player’s guide. (If I remember correctly the main difference is that with Crossbow Mastery you could reload the superior minotaur design as a swift action for both bolts or a free action for one bolt or something like that, while the advanced players guide only allowed you to reload both as a move action, meaning that you could never fire the thing more than once a round no matter what).
FYI, the owner of scabbard.com doesn’t allow hotlinking to that image. Or possibly any images, the error page didn’t explain their full policy.
Oh, sorry about that, it worked when I did a quick test but clearly that wasn’t throughout enough.
Let’s try a quick rehost on imgur.
https://imgur.com/a/Y23oIY6
Favourite unusual weapon? An anvil on a chain.
Unsurprisingly, this was Exalted. The Twilight caste in question was a blacksmith, and since hammer-wielding blacksmiths is a bit cliché, this one had an orichalcum anvil… which he wielded as a massively-oversized flail. Not suitable for confined spaces, but no problem… such spaces would quickly cease to be confined once he started swinging it.
Not exactly a ninja weapon, admittedly.
Depends on the ninja.
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Oinkbane
“TOO SUBTLE” is the new “you fool”
I always had this thought provoking question: “If a barbarian grabs the wizard and uses them to hit someone, does the wizard count as a magical weapon?”
See Handbook of Heroes #2153:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/magic-weapon
As much as your magic shield would. Which is to say, “only if you enchant it separately as a magic weapon”.
I leave the question of how you enchant wizards as an exercise for the reader.
“I leave the question of how you enchant wizards as an exercise for the reader.”
Cautiously.
They may enchant you back. Or just fireball themselves.
On the plus side, as the Barbarian is flinging the Wizard around and hitting things with them, the Wizard has to succeed on Concentration checks to manage to get a spell off.
Now, does being flung around by a Barbarian count as a vigorous motion or a violent motion?
I would say both vigorous and violent…
Heh. Vigorous.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/7ccde286ce2e6a1f9a595f47c0002085/tumblr_mjh9uyaiVv1qb40t4o4_r1_250.gifv
Oh and another player’s 14 year old barbarian in our campaign had a brick, tied to a piece of rope so it can be pulled back after throwing. When we gave him a longsword we looted, he was happy – and he used it to throw at enemies, while using the brick-on-a-leash in melee.
Brick on a rope is also a serious trap-finding aid.
We’re talking about the person who accidentally found the local thieves’ guild when he wasn’t looking for them. His way of finding traps was usually to walk into them (and come out the other end unharmed).
When I design loot for my campaign, I do roughly a 75/25 split on random table and custom-built wierdness. I know a lot of the weirdness will get sold off or stuffed in the hands of a henchman, but I like throwing odd things at the wall and seeing what sticks.
One that particularly sticks in my mind that a player took up and run with is something I called ‘the screaming eagle’. Image a combination between a statuette of an eagle, a tennis racquet, and a cheese grater, all that claimed to be a mace. The eagle gripped on the end of a short hilt, with it razor-sharp beak extended like a warpick tip, and its wings outstretched, the sharpened feathers providing two extremely painful flat surfaces, and causing a shreiking sound effect as the air ran between the feathers as it was swung. I honestly can’t remember its effects now, but I know it did a ton of damage, and applied a fear effect on those struck with it.
One of the party fighters took a liking to it, and paid the Exotic Weapon Proficiency tax, which is I think the only time I have ever seen a player do so at a table I have played or DMed.
Alright. It looks like we have an early front-runner for weirdest weapon. O_O
I have found that on the topic of exotics, only assign them to weapons that are actually inherently difficult to use. For example, I know from personal experience how many times you injure yourself with nunchucks when trying to use them, but a hand crossbow? That’s almost just a gun!
And don’t get me started on the historical inaccuracies of making all guns “exotic”…
Don’t forget having to get exotic weapon proficiency to use a bastard sword as a bastard sword.
“Fun” fact: with a longsword, you might actually want two different sets of techniques depending on whether you are wielding it single-handed or two-handed, and that’s before you get to half-swording which is the best way to fight when both you and your opponent are in full plate (this is technically polearm fighting done with swords, but it’s in the manuals as legit longsword usage).
Where a lot of RPG materials relate skill to the name of the weapon, realistically there’s a lot of transferrable skill within a certain type of usage, and less using the same weapon in a different way.
For example, if you studied sword-and-buckler fencing, you would be able to make that work with anything from an ancient Greek xiphos to a modern sabre, provided you also have access to a smallish shield. Likewise if you know half-swording, you can apply that to a migration-era sword, a Zweihander, or any of a range of polearms.
The reason we don’t do that is probably because we tend to abstract away the techniques, and focus on the name. It simplifies the rules and lowers barriers to entry (anyone can match the name of the weapon to the appropriate skill on their character sheet, whereas “if he’s striking overhand, I’ll Zwerchau and transition into the Helicopter of Death” requires quite a bit of technical fencing knowledge all round).
However, I die a little inside every time a game depicts a two-handed sword as being slow.
Have you seen the weights in the book? 45 lbs for a tower shield?
Not to mention the incredibly high armor check penalties. And sleeping in full plate is actually quite comfy!
I think that some of those exotic ranged weapons have more to do with reloading rather than with the using.
Of-course EWP are a poor representation of that since lacking it makes hitting harder, but doesn’t do anything about reloading.
The whole point of guns was that they were way easier to give to gangs of peasants and aim them at the opposing army. Longbows needed years of training, gunmen took weeks.
I agree, different weapons should have different non-proficiency penalties. Like your gun example; since the whole point of guns is that anyone can fire them they shouldn’t have a penalty for non-proficient firing. However they might instead have a non-proficiency penalty on reload speed, increased attack bonus drop off when firing multiple shots per round due to recoil, and maybe a chance to burn your thumb on gases escaping from the cylinder gap
I dunno, man. Those things are heavier than they look. You get tried in a hurry swinging them around one-handed.
Fun fact: My script called for a “complicated chain weapon.” I had imagined some ridiculous multi-pronged chain whip. Laurel put in a nunchuck. We compromised on the chain kama.
Hand crossbows would need ridiculous draw strength to deal any damage at all. So there’s that I guess.
Then that is a STR requirement, not “needs special technique.”
Historically speaking, not so much; work smarter, not harder. That’s what goat’s feet are for. (Note: Do not use actual goats’ actual feet.)
Still doesn’t resolve how all guns are intrinsically hard to use. I can get spiked chain, but this is antithetical to the whole poont of guns.
My primary campaign has me playing as a Fighter. I stubbornly refuse to cave and pick up Great Weapon Master because I don’t want him to specialize in any weapon.
I can tell you about the 5e weapons I’ve homebrewed though!
Peasant Flail/Agricultural Flail: 1d12 bludgeoning, heavy, two-handed
Mangual (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-CKv7tjxOg):1d10 bludgeoning, heavy, two-handed, reach. Only one of these I consider genuinely weird.
Falchion: 1d8 slashing, finesse.
Demi-lance: 1d8 piercing, reach, gains benefits of a lance without the weaknesses.
Partisan: 2d6 piercing, heavy, two-handed.
Shortspear: new name for the spear in the rules. The term spear is instead applied to a simple weapon with a base 1d6 damage, Versatile (d8), and Reach.
This was my strat last time I played a pf1e frontliner. I figured that that ability to use any gear we came across was a pretty good “feat” all on its own.
I feel like this should have some sort of drawback as an improvised weapon. After a quick double-check on the 5e improvised rules, however, I guess never mind. 😀
In 3.5 I played a fighter with a gyrspike, which is a longsword with a flail attached to the end. I’m not kidding It makes zero sense, but then again the character deliberately went out and found the most bizarre exotic weapon he could find to master, thinking it would make him more interesting.
I appreciate that my google search brought a thread titled “stupidest weapon in 3rd Edition.”
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?94742-stupidest-weapon-in-3rd-Edition-the-Gyrspike
Flails are pretty stupid weapons to begin with, to the point that they didn’t really exist as seen in typical fantasy media (https://acoup.blog/2019/06/07/collections-the-siege-of-gondor-part-v-just-flailing-about-flails/). It’s no surprise that going all RWBY with them would result in stupid weapons.
I suppose it’s fitting that I’d mention that show twice on a comic about exotic weapons. (Though I’m not sure I’d have mentioned it once if I hadn’t watched hbomberguy’s video on the series last night.)
In every game I run, sooner or later my players can expect to find the Frying Pan of Bonking. It’s a regular frying pan with a penalty to hit, but crits on 11+. Depending on the system, this makes it either a weird novelty or a devastating luck-based weapon.
Flynn Rider would be proud.
and Sam Gamgee.
How generous are you willing to be with the term “weapon”? I threw a Krakken at a dragon once complete with “release the Krakken!” jokes.
Barring that, for one shot campaign, i had a ranger with a crossbow that could fire custom built arrowheads designed to fracture into a bunch of shards on impact, which the party wizard would then cast Animate Objects on. We called it the Arrow of Bees. This is, not coincidentally, the same one shot that convinced us all to dramatically nerf the Glyph of Warding spell in all of our future campaigns, using the errata rules instead of the PHB rules for transporting a glyph.
Improvised weapons only count if they’re a recurring part of your build. For example, the infamous “masterwork boulder” or its big brother “the vorpal boulder.”
…how did you get the boulder to deal slashing damage?
You obviously missed the “masterwork” part.
Technically it only needs a certain size to qualify as a Boulder. Shape is optional.
How about a Chull’s own arm that I beat it to death with? I kept it as a trophy
I was a fan of the dwarven urgrosh when they introduced it back in D&D 3e. I was so disappointed when I learned they didn’t bring it back in 5e.
I’d be irritated with that thing as a soldier. You can’t lean on it or use it as a walking stick for fear of damaging the spear point. Looks gnarly as hell though. 😀
Historically, if a soldier had a big weapon, they’d usually have some way of carrying it without impeding their ability to use a normal walking stick. You know, a shared wagon or a packhorse or something.
I’d be more irritated about how only one of the pointy ends can be pointed at an enemy at any given time. It’s not as bad as a Darth Maul lightsaber, but you still need to be careful not to accidentally cut you or one of your buddies with whatever end you aren’t using, and switching from spear to axe takes precious moments. Halberds are way more practical.
They’re still distinctive, I’ll give them that. Urgoshes are like pre-industrial RWBY weapons.
A few historical spears/halberds/polearms did have some spike or hook on the opposite end of the axehead/spearhead/whatever. It gives a few options, like resting firmly the weapon in the ground, or hitting a foe with something pointy whenever the butt of the polearm is better positioned to hit than the normal business end.
But indeed, never a full-length spear blade, AFAIK.
I see the awful gyrspike has been talked about above.
For the life of me, I can’t imagine how to use it. As a DM, it may have been the only weapon I would forbid in play.
Ninja reminds me of Speed-o-Sound Sonic, except with lavender hair and less competence.
I tend to not put much stock in fancy exotic weapons. At the end of the day, an attack roll is an attack roll. Sometimes I’d use bastard swords for the larger damage die, but that’s about as fancy as I got. I don’t think I’ve ever even rolled up someone with a spiked chain build.
I can think of another reason for the comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwpjlbC0kiU
Well, yes, that’s part of it.
I’m actually building an Inventor right now using the PF2 playtest, and her weapon is going to be an alchemical crossbow with all sorts of bonuses tacked on from it being my innovation.
Another thing I’ve had in mind is a barbarian follower of Ashava with Rage flavored as a battle dance, using the bladed scarf.
Rage + Dance + Scarf = https://sinchi-foundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Haka.jpg
to quote a member of the Silver Horde in „Interesting Times“
(after cutting himself on a shuriken [after despatching a bunch of ninjas]):
„bah, useless foreign junk!“
my Hunter has a Whip and puts up with the penalty in deference to Calistria.
my retired (TPKed) Barbarian spent a trait to use the Whip as a grappling hook, got the proficiency through an archetype.
and for my Rogue I negotiated a Spring Gonne as hand crossbow, but haven’t used it by level 12, except for char flavor.
What trait is that for the whip? Sounds like fun.
„Indy Jones Trait“ from Adventurer’s Armory
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/equipment-traits/prehensile-whip/
Well she would have been really impressed before she was assassinated. And I guess a forensic team would be perplexed? I dunno man, looking cool seems a lot more important when you’re supposed to be seen. Then again, you always have an audience at the table.
while investigating a ruin:
Rogue: I sneak to the window and peek inside.
Ninja: I go invisible and sneak to the door and peek inside.
DM: you see Monsters inside.
Rogue: I sneak back and report.
Ninja: I stay invisible and sneak inside.
Sorcerer: I throw a Fire Ball inside. 8d6 damage
DM: The Monsters are dead.
Ninjas player: Well thanks for that /sulks rest of the evening.
The best assassins always leave a calling card.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/8b9af93b-c201-4885-8332-4e512266a60c
in my current game, the groups light cleric is wielding an umbrella. Basically, they fought an evil jester that had a whole bunch of weird enchanted items, and one was an enchanted brolly that was basically a club with the option to do piercing damage instead of bludgeoning, and as a reaction can be opened to increase ac as a shield, and grant advantage on strength and dex saves. thus far, all they have used it for is to beat an unsuspecting necromancer into unconsciousness.
This cleric… He wasn’t bird-themed, was he? Maybe some sort of Antarctic fowl?
So the most interesting question is how did Snowflake manage to get in contact with a Ninja in the first place? That is a very talented horse
And I’m adding that one directly to my “script ideas” notes.
I think the sapient treant sapling prosthetic limb that was both an object under my character’s control and also its own creature with its own actions was a complicated weapon/situation. Involved a bunch of archetypes and feats to pull off, on top of the already feat intensive grapple build (thankfully it synergized well as a ranged grappling hook).
I did enjoy playing the much simpler frying pan wielding Gordan Ramsey expy.
Teenage Groot wants his arm back. 😛
I’ve never been into using weird weaponry (The double-chained-inverted weapon-bloat seems to be exclusive to 3X) so I have no experience there.
On the subject of weaponry; I hate the sword-fixation. Every notable weapon in a published module is a sword. All the weapons (Aside from the +X weapons) in the DMG specify sword-only. The actual historical use of a sword is comparable to that of a pistol: A sidearm that is easy to carry on your person. You cant sheathe a spear/axe, you need a dedicated hand to carrying it. If you’re walking around town you might have a sword you won’t have a real weapon. If you lose your real weapon in-battle you can just draw the sword at your side.
I resent modules forcing me to use a sword if I want something magic. Swords are for chumps, and Elves. (But I repeat myself)
I honest to god think this comes from 0e. My understanding is that Fighting Men were the only ones who could wield the game’s best magic swords. They were kind of a class feature.
Oof… Poor Ninja. There are few less auspicious ways to enter canon than hitting yourself by accident in the groin.
I’ve been tempted to take more exotic weaponry, but generally the pay off is fairly minimal compared to the feat investment. To avoid that, in Pathfinder, I’ll look into the various gods’ favored weapon and see if I want to make a cleric, inquisitor, or warpriest with that. Kukri in particular is a great choice for choosing that route. Currently playing a Warpriest wielding a bastard sword and tower shield, but I’m not sure if that’s particularly weird or not. Or I’ll look into the specific race weapons and go from there. Orc Hornbow in particular is one I’ve used for creating a ranged character build, though I’m not sure when I’ll get to use it.
I feel like the tower shield is “basic weird.” It just escalates from there.
My next character will be wielding an odd weapon – namely, a pair of tankards!
She’ll be a Kitsune Warpriest of Cayden Cailean, a rules-legal version of a character that had her adventure in Pathfinder Kingmaker cut short by the game going on permanent hiatus (and the anniversary edition having yet to be released). I talked about her in the comments of an earlier comic I believe.
Whilst I don’t yet have a solid build for her, the plan is to use the Divine Fighting Technique of Cayden Cailean (which Warpriest can easily nab), letting her wield tankards as if they were light maces and getting TWF or Dirty Trick maneuver benefits.
The actual ‘odd’ part of this is that she won’t be using the obvious weapon of choice – a rapier, Cayden’s favored weapon.
The build came as a result of me wanting to make her a weird monk-esque drunkard and from having artwork of her from before.
https://i.imgur.com/VKp5bRL.png
Funnily enough as a Warpriest she probably doesn’t look like her picture for the first few levels, what with lugging medium armor and a shield. That look would better fit a Sacred Fist, my other variant of this character. Other options that could have worked were monk, Baccus Skald or barbarian, but they had different issues (alignment restrictions or not being able to work an unarmed, improv weapon or natural attack build).
Gonna grab one of these bad boys?
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/r-z/tankard-of-the-drunken-hero/
Shame that Pathfinder 1e rules and AP design is such that you are actively punished for going the exotic route, barring established OP builds (I’m looking at you, Black Blade Kensai, and Butchering Axe Barbarian).
For one, exotic weapons never, ever are looted from foes in general, especially not those your fighter fully dedicated to, without DM intervention. With the possible exception of Ranseurs in the Runelord trilogy APs. Thus you are likely to spend a LOT of money of them – and often you can’t even buy them at level 1.
Second, the already mentioned feats, an entry price and full dedication to the one cool and fancy weapon. Meaning you skip the +1 vorpal longsword because it’s not compatible with your feats for wielding a Nodachi. There’s also some that have ‘extra’ requirements, like whips and nets, to use in any cool fashion.
And finally… They’re not worth it. 90% of them give a minimal, minor benefit (+2 damage, or a special quality like brace/disarm) or are strictly worse than cheaper and less clunky alternatives. Coupled with the feat entry cost, you can actively handicap yourself over a martial weapon user.
Thankfully PF2e, D&D 5e and Starfinder are way less annoying in this regard, offering tons of cool options without making you jump (too many) hoops to use weird stuff.
There’s a reason that my last barbarian PC avoided specific weapon feats. I got so sick of missing out on the cool new weapons, I figured that being a generalist was kind of its own “feat” simply because it unlocked everything else in terms of equipment.
Ninja is lucky he didn’t count as sneak attacking himself with that Piranha Strike.
Or that he didn’t run into Horsepower on his way in. Who would teach him the merits of a Power Attack or Vital-Strike’d trample, gore, or bite attack.
I have a feeling these two may meet in future.
Ah, unusual weapons…
So there was this one character in a Final Fantasy campaign who wielded an ancestral submachine gun. It had been passed down through the generations Ship-of-Theseus style, each generation maintaining and modifying and upgrading the weapon. Mechanically it was somewhat of a munchkin weapon, but I suspect you mean narratively weird, though it certainly stuck out when everyone else was using swords, bows, boomerangs, and the like.
From a series of Exalted campaigns comes the “wrackvajra” – a combination of artifacts, basically a thoroughly rune-covered metallic javelin usable as a staff that comes back to hand if thrown, or you can “throw” it and not let go to ride it witch-style.
Or in a campaign I’m in right now, we sometimes wield starship weaponry into personal combat. Though that’s merely large and overpowered, ending battles in one action almost before they begin.
Does having a robot chocobo fall on one’s enemies in multiple battles count?
What about sending small worlds to devour the portion of a planet one’s enemies presently occupy? (Multiple times.)
Hey, if Thor and that one dude from Dragonball can do it, why not an exalt?
Starfinder? We just did that last session. Blasted a dude after the ship was defeated so that the boarding action would be easier.
Many exalts see parallels in popular media.
And – Traveller, actually.
Ninja weapons? Let me check the Warframe arsenal 😛
We got rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, bows, guns, akguns, throwing knives, swords, daggers, brawler, pole, heavy, miscellaneous and other weapons.
And this guy can’t even use some nunchakus without wiping his potential off-spring. He is a shame for the Tenno 🙁
I would be very dissapoint of him have he not be so good looking 😀
Hey now, there’s no call for that. Especially since I don’t know what it is.
Play warframe 😛
Ninjas play for free 😀
I really wanted to use a Sword Cane for one of my characters, but it just refused to work. I had no room for any extra feats to get proficiency for what I wanted her to do. So she got a rapier instead.
On the other hand, I have a blacksmith character (using a Warpriest archetype called Forgepriest) that has the ability to use improvised weapons decently well. The theme is that she’s always using her crafting tools to craft and has learned to defend herself with them. It’s not her main weapon, but I thought it would be something cool.
And finally, I have a Monk/Sorcerer character that uses a Rope Dart. The plan is to fly above the opponents and bonk them with the Rope Dart while also casting spells.
For some reason, I really dislike having a bunch of characters use the same weapon. I have 3 that use rapiers and would love to be able to change one, but again, no room in the build for what I actually wanted. I even purposely gave a character a cutlass just so he wouldn’t be using a rapier even though the stats are pretty much identical.
I know that feel. I really wanted sword and pistol to work, but it just does not play in pf1e. Especially not as a swashbuckler.
In an Epithet Erased inspired campaign (using the same system from said show), I had a character whose Epithet was “Binocular” and used a meteor hammer that would do things like extended really long and allow them to fly across a room.
In a Pact inspired game I had…. well it’s easier to quote it then explain it.
“Vermin created a black metallic yo-yo she uses as a weapon from combining a revenant of a hired killer who used a piano wire garrotte, a bogeyman that took the form of a massive pill bug/armadillo like thing with hard thick plates that would roll into a ball and quickly slam into or run over things and crush them, and a dog spirit. The result is a weapon that is at once both capable of finesse and brute force that is unlikely to be broken, can be used offensively in a number of ways, doesn’t even look like a weapon, and is more dangerous than it appears to be even if you considered it to be one. Thanks to the dog spirit bits it also sort of chases enemies and obeys her commands a bit better than a normal yo-yo would. Also it’s super easy to make it walk the dog.”
Frequently bought together
*This item: The combat yo-yo
*The razor edged slinky of death
*The paddleball set with a spiky mace head for a ball
Total price $68.57
That Practice is pretty wild (not in the Avery/Lucy/Verona sense, obviously). Just sticking bits of Others together into useful tools? Macabre as heck, obviously, but still.
Wow, I’m super glad someone fully understood that. =D
And yeah, they were a fun character (for the short time the game lasted). She basically, at least in a game backstory sense, worked as a “magic item” crafter/seller and kept some for herself. She had five more wacky items of that nature, though that was obviously the “weapon” one.
That’s the second “fly across the room” I’ve seen in this thread. Makes me think it should be a more common thing on weapons. People dig that mess!
I had an idea a while back for a kung-fu movie, not one that I could ever possibly actually make (or even write a whole script or coherent plot for) mind you, but I made up a list of possible ninja weapons:
*A wakizashi chained to a katana to make “samurai nunchucks”
*Three staffs tied together at right angles to make a “multidimensional staff”
*A polearm whose head is a giant pizza wheel
*A sword that straps to the groin like a big dildo
*Spear stilts
*Recursive sai where each of the three prongs splits into three more prongs
*Giant shurikens the size of a discus
*A blowgun designed to be farted into
*Giant chopsticks that you pick people up with
*Heavy, solid-iron chinese food containers that you hit people with
*A hula hoop with razor blades all around it
*Dildo nunchucks
*”Reverse nunchucks” made from a chain, attached to a rod, attached to another chaim
*A tiny version of the flying guillotine for chopping people’s wangs off
*A broken bottle that was smashed by a “master broken-bottle smith”
*Nunchuck earrings
*A blowgun shaped like the letter “Y” that can shoot two people at once but can’t shoot forwards
*A propeller beanie whose propeller is four katanas
*Double nunchucks created by splicing together the chains from two sets of nunchucks
*A cross between the flying guillotine from Flying Guillotine and the fart helmet from Jackass 2. A fat guy throws the helmet onto the victim’s head then farts into the tube and that kills the victim.
*A sword blade with no hilt
*Ear blades
*A 666 section staff
*A pole that you shove up your butt and then spin around on so that you can attack people on all sides
*A giant cheese grater
*A polearm with a cheese grater for a head
*shoes, water bottles, and nailclippers
*A hollow staff that turns into a bong
*A giant fountain pen with a sharpened tip
*Steel nail extensions
*A flamethrower powered by tianjin peppers
*A giant metal boot attached to a chain
*weaponized sign spinning
You are incredibly creative.
And also I hope you have a good therapist.
Other ninja weapons include the sword with a blade that loops around like a crazy straw, the jailor key ring with knives instead of keys, a karate move called “the inappropriate touch of death”, siracha sauce pepper spray, a “three dimensional bow” where the string is replaced by some kind of membrane and the body of the bow is a circular board that’s drawn back into a bowl shape when the bow is drawn and you habe to shoot the arrow through a hole in the center of it, lawn darts, a mace with a flaccid handle, a flail with a way too long chain, a spear shaped like the letter “Y”, a helm shaped like a tiger’s head with a pull chain on the side that makes the jaw snap shut, a spiked metal ball that attaches to your ponytail, a bow that shoots throwing stars, and a hedgehog costume with iron quills 😀
Not too unorthodox (and probably something that already exists), but a thought had crossed my mind about a projectile weapon that shoots bolts of white light that can be modified by fixing different prisms to the front of it.
Blueprints: https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1izKxr9MmBKNjSZTEq6ysKpXa6/ANJOET-501B-XML-T6-LED-Multi-color-Hunting-LED-Flashlight-Torch-White-Green-Blue-Red-Light.jpg
Unfortunately, I’m not a physicist by any means, so I couldn’t do justice to the idea of bending light rays into searing rainbows of death.
Not quite that odd, but there’s a build I’ve been wanting to play that makes use of glass weaponry. Glass is unique as the only type of material in Pathfinder that doesn’t lose the Fragile quality when made magic.
There’s two fun ways to abuse this. The cheesier way is to pick up a Monk Weapon Group weapon (not to be confused with weapons with the Monk quality, because Paizo) with a 19~20/x2 crit range (won’t work with the two weapons with 18~20/x2 crit range, one (Urumi) in the MWG but requiring flexible building materials, the other (Waveblade) having the quality but not being in the weapon group). Preferably a piercing weapon.
Pick up the Ascetic Style feat for that weapon (lets you apply effects normally only affecting your Unarmed Strikes to the weapon), and a Keen Amulet of Mighty Fists (doubling the crit range and treating it as a magic weapon thanks to Ascetic Style). Then get the Quick Draw feat, because you’re intentionally going to break a lot of these, and the Disposable Weapon feat- the latter is the clincher. When you roll a critical threat with a Fragile weapon (because glass), you can purposefully break it to automatically confirm the critical threat.
You have a 1 in 5 chance of a crit with every attack. Go into the Scorpion Style line of feats (not actually a Style so no conflict with Ascetic Style) which will end with you able to make two extra ‘Unarmed Strikes’ on foes with specific conditions each Full Attack, which you can inflict with the proper Critical feats or Stunning Fist (thanks to the Monk class feature).
With the Unchained Monk, you can go the full Ascetic Style line of feats to use your Style Strikes with your Flurry with the weapon in question instead of needing a specific limb, to move and Full Attack or get the condition on the foe you need. An Unchained Monk at full capacity and putting everything into attacking repeatedly can swing 9 times in one turn with all this.
For fun and fluff, you can pick up Impaling Critical, too; you crit with a Piercing weapon, you can choose to leave it embedded in the opponent to do its weapon damage to them at the start of each turn. Normally terrible because you don’t want to give up the ability to attack with your magic weapon, but here you’re literally breaking them anyhow, and that also means you have the neat visual gimmick of leaving the opponent impaled on long shards of glass. Mechanically, they have to spend a move action to remove each weapon, and Ascetic Style means each is doing your unarmed strike damage (sans bonuses) every round they leave’em in- horrifying!
Less cheesy is to become an Inspired Blade Swashbuckler to get free Improved Critical with rapiers at 5th level. You won’t have them be magic, but you can branch out into bronze, obsidian, other fun materials for the flavor you want, and have an actual proper magic weapon as back-up for when you need it.
I wanted to do a skald with fragile weaponry. My idea was to do a caveman hero who walked around with a giant block of flint on his back. He’d make a new weapon every combat by chipping the block, then use this archetype to make ’em cool:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/skald/archetypes/paizo-skald-archetypes/spell-warrior/
…that is an awesome find and an awesome character theme; I tip my non-existent hat to you, good sir!
It’s only fair. I just copy pasted your whole comment into my “build ideas” document. 😀
One of the guys on the GitP forums created a really kickass stone age setting. Might be worth a look if you want to do a game with caveman characters.
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?626529-Introducing-Planegea-a-Stone-Age-setting-for-5E
Not something I’ve ever used in a game, but here’s something I came up with as the natural end-point of Star Wars lightsaber design escalation:
https://i.postimg.cc/JRyvRmm3/Darth-Edge.png
Dual-wielded double-lightsaberchucks (some inspiration from 8-bit theater)
dang that’s edgy
I’ll never understand how jedi don’t eviscerated themselves before they’re fully trained.
Not any that I’ve wielded, but as a DM I had a few artifact weapons look completely, and deliberately, wrong. Like some rather absurd shape for a sword, with a needlessly convoluted blade that looked neither practical nor structurally sound. And, indeed, they really weren’t: a mundane replica would be a good way to injure yourself while breaking it at the first swing. That was the point — the weapon relied entirely on its enchantments to be a deadly weapon, and there was no mistaking the real artifact with a fake.
But even then it wasn’t as ridiculous as that sharkblade thingie. I wouldn’t want to wield that thing unless it had artifact-level of safety enchantments on it!
Hey. It’s been a couple of years since I saw Bleach, but I always have this scene in my head for this sort of thing:
https://i.imgur.com/aifToVZ.png
I’m on the horns of a most annoying dilemma here. On the one hand, I dont think I can afford the $10 a month for the handbook of erotic fantasy, nor am I interested in paying that much for, from what I can gather, seems to be a twice-monthly porn comic. On the other hand, the author is really annoying me with allusions to the plot of said comic, or as close as either comic gets to having a plot
Not to mention the vague sense that a lot of good jokes live there.
If you pay the $10 for one month, you get access to all the comics that have been posted so far.
Handbook of Erotic Fantasy is 3/month.
There’s also 1/month pinup (22 so far), 1/mo roll 20 tokens (35 so far), early access for all comics, a bunch of wallpapers and sketch art, etc. etc.
I mean… I think it’s worth 10 bucks to binge for a month. But then again, I’m an interested party. 😀
I once played a bard named Ariadne. Well, she was multiclass.
Mute Musician Bard
(Deaf curse) oracle of Shelyn, goddess of art and beauty
She couldn’t speak or hear, but her violin playing was beautiful.
And she had a featline that let her use it as a +5 club if you crossed her.
On the side of ‘actual weapons’, my fiance ran a True Neutral inquisitor with a dagger she called Truth. It was +1 Holy, Unholy, Axiomatic, Chaotic. If you had a non-TN alignment, it did +2d6 damage, and another 2d6 if you had one of the corner alignments. it also couldn’t be stolen easily because anyone with a non-TN alignment holding it had painful negative levels.
I’m a sucker for El Kabong stuff. Must by my affinity for El Mariachi:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mariachi
I had a fun bit of weapon synergy happen recently. Our campaign uses the Elephant in the Room Feat Tax rules, meaning things like Weapon Focus applies to entire weapon groups. Because of this, I realized all the feats I took to improve my skill with longswords ALSO gave bonuses to using Chakrams! So now my swashbuckler Xena’s it up when enemies aren’t in stabbing range.
I dig it when new tweaks like this enable new creativity. It’s the best way to leverage all that mechanical complexity lurking in the corner of Pathfinder.
Favorite ninja build (okay it’s technically an evil Monk/Rogue):
Azoth, the Raven’s Shadow
http://bit.ly/2kfZ3rs
Invisibility, shadowblend, and uses thrown sais (with Sneak Attack, Skirmish, and Iaijutsu Focus all providing bonus damage). In this case, sais are the only default monk special weapon that are both melee and thrown.
There was also The Kraken, Grappling Halfling For Eeeeviiill!, who wielded a kusari-gama.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120686&postcount=36
Someday, I also want to create a character that dual-wields hook swords and takes the Flying Tiger feat.
Moving on from 3.5, Locus was a character I first made for Numenara (where he initially wielded a rope dart, before switching it out for essentially a laser gauntlet sword, among other less weird/awesome weapons). When I remade him for a short-lived game of Dungeon World, he wielded a grind cutter (that finger-chain-blades weapon from Alita: Battle Angel).
How is Numenara? I like Monkte Cook’s 3.X adventures, but I’ve never actually examined his system.
I like it. It’s definitely rules-light, but there’s a lot of flexibility. Our group, for instance, had a wizard connected to a dimensional machine made out of meat, a weresatan (turned into literal Satan on the full moon), a sentient slime dude who could duplicate himself, a robot that abhorred the concept of circles and spheres, and me, Locus the cheerful sociopath, beloved of shadows. All of them felt quite distinct, which is impressive for a system with only 3-5 classes.
I also noticed that it’s surprisingly fun to build a tank character, a concept not really easy to do in 3.5 or 5E. Taking a heavy blow and only losing a sliver of HP (if any) really made me feel like a badass.
I really ought to give it a look. I prefer a fantasy dungeon crawl, which tends to keep me away from the rules-light options.
Did the characters feel mechanically distinct, or were they just thematically unique?
It’s been a while since that campaign, but I think they were pretty mechanically unique. Each class has enough choices that I don’t think we shared a specific move between us. I might be biased, since as the only Glaive (combat focus class), which alongside my Cruel trait giving me the unique ability to trade damage for a debuff on any attack meant I had a lot more unique options to play with in combat. But even outside of your specialty there’s a lot you can do.
Also, you’re encouraged to use “numenara” you find to help you along, using them up but freeing you to then pick up more of them (carrying too many at once will cause problems for you). I didn’t do that so much (it really runs counter to my instincts; I just stuck with my beam lance and burned XP every time I rolled “it just ran out of power” to reroll), but I imagine that it spices things up.
All that said, I think it’s fair to say that at least some of the uniqueness came from our wildly differing flavors. Even if the end result is the same “Roll, success, 2 damage”, it feels very different when one of you is growing a demonic claw and making a swipe, one is engulfing the enemy to cover them in acidic slime, and one is firing a crossbow.
Oh, I also built an army that used trident+tower shield as their primary loadout (or whip+tower shield for some of the officers).
http://bit.ly/2kfZr9o
http://bit.ly/2lTPAGO
Was tower shield worth it? I’ve never tried to build one out.
The build was for a competition, so I never used it in play, but for an army of level 1 dudes, the +4 to AC and the ability to create full-cover at will seemed well worth a -2 to hit. Especially on top of the stacking debuffs to enemy to-hit. The army was basically built around the assumption that if you can’t out-damage their healing, they’ll eventually win the battle.
Anyone remember the scene from Big Trouble In Little China where one of the Three Storms had a ring with some kind of blender or food processor blade attached to it?
The whole world is in that movie.
I have a sword saint samurai that refuses to draw his katana against unworthy enemies. He uses his scabbard as an improvised weapon on most foes and will free the katana when he encounters a sufficiently dangerous opponent.
I assume you have a suitably dramatic one-liner when you actually draw the sword…?
Honestly, we’re dipping back into my commentary about flavor. Sure, you can go guissarm glaive etc. but why not just call it a fancy war axe and not punish players for flair?
A DM I’m still annoyed with had a new player join or group, and they wanted a character concept based on something from a sprite based smash bros clone that used a giant war scythe, teleporting in and out of combat (concept reminded me of Deathscythe from an old Gundam Wing fighter game)
I found out that to “accommodate” that, he designed a homebrew scythe weapon that did a measly 1d12 at 10ft reach, but the tradeoff? Disadvantage when attacking at 5ft range. Basically everything would get close to attack him, and then automatically force him to be at disadvantage when he tried to fight back, unless he stepped 5ft back which would almost invariably result in an opportunity attack.
This really upset me. No other reach weapon had that drawback, and all he was getting from it was a measly +1 average damage. A reflavored glaive would have been massively better.
The player went along with it because he was new to 5e and D&D in general, and didn’t realize just how massively unfair of a disadvantage this put him at. I eventually got to talk to him about how the polearm/sentinel combo could make up a LITTLE bit for how badly the DM had crippled his build, but the DM blocked that single feat changeout (even though it was being done as a level up) for being too “overpowered”
I ended up leaving later, but looking back, I should have left that DM a dozen times over.
I had an eldritch knight (3.5) build that used a gyrspike (longsword-flail combo). I’m sure I could have been a bit more optimal with a traditional greatsword, but I enjoyed it. It also played to his “don’t give a damn” attitude.
It also plays into slapstick. That gyrspike is comedy gold!
Okay, so… The most unusual “weapon” I ever worked into a character plan was… chalk.
Yes, chalk. The stuff teachers use on blackboards. The stuff kids use on sidewalks and driveways. And the idea started with a joke: If I had a character that was good enough at combat, who wanted to insult someone, I would say he would use “chalk” to mock the other person. No risk of injury, just scuffing up the offender’s clothes with marks and comments of “that would have been lethal” or “and that would be the last time you use that arm” with each hit.
I ran into a GM that was very generous. (15-player-party generous, but that’s a different headache.) He worked out all the semantics, and let me bring a character that could fight (and defeat) enemies with chalk to life! As I said, it was a 15-player party… and I didn’t end up with as much time as I thought. I bowed out pretty quickly, so I never did get to use that magic chalk made out of kraken…