A Ruby-Inset Onyx Warhammer with Polished Steel Faces
On a 10+ result from Hack & Slash, the amount of damage you inflict may also be absorbed and transferred as health to an ally. You sense that a dark, necrotic magic lies behind its power. When you transfer health this way, your total HP is reduced by 1 permanently and your body begins to turn a sickly black and necrotic with each use.
#cometothedarkside
That seems pretty punitive for something that only can give up to 10 health.
Oh this can give way more then just 10 Hitpoints…
On the other hand I agree that this could easily trigger everytime you deal damage.
The way it’s written, every time you roll 10+, you can transfer the damage you deal to an ally, but lose 1 health permanently.
If I’m a fighter, my max damage is 10, so at the cost of 1 permanent HP, I could transfer 10 HP to someone else. Ick.
Here’s how I’d fix it –
On a 10+ you may send healing equal to the damage you deal to a nearby ally. On a 7-9, you may choose to either send healing or deal damage – you will still take damage from your opponent. On a 6-, you fail to do damage, and you take an additional 1d4 damage from the warhammer, which is automatically sent as healing to your ally.
So it’s obviously a trade-off. The power of being able to heal a significant amount for free, without having to cast or use another method, is the choice – not to mention it intentionally draws you towards Death as you use it. It is intentionally supposed to give you power at a cost. Not just to exist as a healing hammer. The Fighter, as well as some other classes, have the ability to generate more than just base die damage, utilizing the 10+ H&S extra damage or other advanced moves.
Another thing to remember with magic items and treasure, as well as fiction in general, that the things that cause detriment to parties can always be changed. So if you find yourself to be at half you max HP one day after using this a lot, you can always seek a magical NPC to return you to normal, or not, based on the outcome of the fiction. I think that gets overlooked a lot.
Thanks for the other ideas.
I suppose it depends on your interpretation of “permanently”