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edited Oct 14, 2021 at 12:14

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My first impression is that the item is balanced.

Seems fine and very cool and useful for level 5 character. It provides a nice boost and a bunch of new options for a ranger who is often thought of as a weaker class.

I expect that on high levels the consistently most useful feature of this weapon will be the +1 magical weapon overcoming magical resistances.

If your campaign allows for Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, specifically the optional class features, ranger gets a very powerful one on level 10 that requires bonus action to use:

Nature's Veil

You draw on the powers of nature to hide yourself from view briefly. As a bonus action, you can magically become invisible, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying, until the start of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Many ranger spells also require bonus action to use, so that is going to make the crossbow much harder to useutilize in addition to its power naturally falling off.

Comparison to some existing magical items.

Flame Tongue Weapon

This is a rare sword that after being activated as a bonus action deals 2d6 fire damage on every hit.

The Crossbow has three advantages over the sword, range, versatility in damage types and effects, and +1 to hit.

I would however expect that especially if the party deals with multiple encounters between long rests, the sword's consistent damage output would feel more useful than the crossbow. Having only 4 charges, the crossbow is going to run out fast.

Javelin of lightning

An uncommon item. The effect is mostly comparable to the Lightning effect of the crossbow but it does not require a bonus action to use which is very useful.

Suggestions and things to consider

Below are some tweaks I would suggest. Since I am not sure what type of game you are running, I want to mention that the campaigns I DM and play often contain fairly powerful magical items and characters that often are above the average power curve I would assume.
Reword the Fire effect to make it clear if the attack needs to hit, or if the explosion happens regardless
Rename the Poison effect since the actual effects seem to have nothing to do with poisons as far as the game is concerned (should it interact with the poison resistance/immunity?)
The Lightning effect doing 4d8 to the primary target but 4d6 to the secondary ones feels a bit fiddly to me. I would suggest unifying this. It's not going to have that big of an impact on the damage either way but it is one less thing to keep track of.
Make the crossbow fully recharge on long rest or give it more charges. The charges already seem fairly limiting but rolling 1 on the d4 after resting is going to feel exceptionally bad.
Consider removing the bonus action cost to activate the crossbow. This is going to make it much more usable as characters start getting more features competing for their action economy.

My first impression is that the item is balanced.

Seems fine and very cool and useful for level 5 character. It provides a nice boost and a bunch of new options for a ranger who is often thought of as a weaker class.

I expect that on high levels the consistently most useful feature of this weapon will be the +1 magical weapon overcoming magical resistances.

If your campaign allows for Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, specifically the optional class features, ranger gets a very powerful one that requires bonus action to use:

Nature's Veil

You draw on the powers of nature to hide yourself from view briefly. As a bonus action, you can magically become invisible, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying, until the start of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Many ranger spells also require bonus action to use, so that is going to make the crossbow much harder to use in addition to its power naturally falling off.

Comparison to some existing magical items.

Flame Tongue Weapon

This is a rare sword that after being activated as a bonus action deals 2d6 fire damage on every hit.

The Crossbow has three advantages over the sword, range, versatility in damage types and effects, and +1 to hit.

Javelin of lightning

An uncommon item. The effect is mostly comparable to the Lightning effect of the crossbow but it does not require a bonus action to use which is very useful.

Suggestions and things to consider

Below are some tweaks I would suggest. Since I am not sure what type of game you are running, I want to mention that the campaigns I DM and play often contain fairly powerful magical items and characters that often are above the average power curve I would assume.
Reword the Fire effect to make it clear if the attack needs to hit, or if the explosion happens regardless
Rename the Poison effect since the actual effects seem to have nothing to do with poisons as far as the game is concerned (should it interact with the poison resistance/immunity?)
The Lightning effect doing 4d8 to the primary target but 4d6 to the secondary ones feels a bit fiddly to me. I would suggest unifying this. It's not going to have that big of an impact on the damage either way but it is one less thing to keep track of.
Make the crossbow fully recharge on long rest or give it more charges. The charges already seem fairly limiting but rolling 1 on the d4 after resting is going to feel exceptionally bad.
Consider removing the bonus action cost to activate the crossbow. This is going to make it much more usable as characters start getting more features competing for their action economy.

My first impression is that the item is balanced.

Seems fine and very cool and useful for level 5 character. It provides a nice boost and a bunch of new options for a ranger who is often thought of as a weaker class.

I expect that on high levels the consistently most useful feature of this weapon will be the +1 magical weapon overcoming magical resistances.

If your campaign allows for Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, specifically the optional class features, ranger gets a very powerful one on level 10 that requires bonus action to use:

Nature's Veil

You draw on the powers of nature to hide yourself from view briefly. As a bonus action, you can magically become invisible, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying, until the start of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Many ranger spells also require bonus action to use, so that is going to make the crossbow much harder to utilize in addition to its power naturally falling off.

Comparison to some existing magical items.

Flame Tongue Weapon

This is a rare sword that after being activated as a bonus action deals 2d6 fire damage on every hit.

The Crossbow has three advantages over the sword, range, versatility in damage types and effects, and +1 to hit.

Javelin of lightning

An uncommon item. The effect is mostly comparable to the Lightning effect of the crossbow but it does not require a bonus action to use which is very useful.

Suggestions and things to consider

Below are some tweaks I would suggest. Since I am not sure what type of game you are running, I want to mention that the campaigns I DM and play often contain fairly powerful magical items and characters that often are above the average power curve I would assume.
Reword the Fire effect to make it clear if the attack needs to hit, or if the explosion happens regardless
Rename the Poison effect since the actual effects seem to have nothing to do with poisons as far as the game is concerned (should it interact with the poison resistance/immunity?)
The Lightning effect doing 4d8 to the primary target but 4d6 to the secondary ones feels a bit fiddly to me. I would suggest unifying this. It's not going to have that big of an impact on the damage either way but it is one less thing to keep track of.
Make the crossbow fully recharge on long rest or give it more charges. The charges already seem fairly limiting but rolling 1 on the d4 after resting is going to feel exceptionally bad.
Consider removing the bonus action cost to activate the crossbow. This is going to make it much more usable as characters start getting more features competing for their action economy.

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created Oct 14, 2021 at 12:03

Deeps

5.9k
2
23
47

My first impression is that the item is balanced.

Seems fine and very cool and useful for level 5 character. It provides a nice boost and a bunch of new options for a ranger who is often thought of as a weaker class.

I expect that on high levels the consistently most useful feature of this weapon will be the +1 magical weapon overcoming magical resistances.

If your campaign allows for Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, specifically the optional class features, ranger gets a very powerful one that requires bonus action to use:

Nature's Veil

You draw on the powers of nature to hide yourself from view briefly. As a bonus action, you can magically become invisible, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying, until the start of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Many ranger spells also require bonus action to use, so that is going to make the crossbow much harder to use in addition to its power naturally falling off.

Comparison to some existing magical items.

Flame Tongue Weapon

This is a rare sword that after being activated as a bonus action deals 2d6 fire damage on every hit.

The Crossbow has three advantages over the sword, range, versatility in damage types and effects, and +1 to hit.

Javelin of lightning

An uncommon item. The effect is mostly comparable to the Lightning effect of the crossbow but it does not require a bonus action to use which is very useful.

Suggestions and things to consider

Below are some tweaks I would suggest. Since I am not sure what type of game you are running, I want to mention that the campaigns I DM and play often contain fairly powerful magical items and characters that often are above the average power curve I would assume.
Reword the Fire effect to make it clear if the attack needs to hit, or if the explosion happens regardless
Rename the Poison effect since the actual effects seem to have nothing to do with poisons as far as the game is concerned (should it interact with the poison resistance/immunity?)
The Lightning effect doing 4d8 to the primary target but 4d6 to the secondary ones feels a bit fiddly to me. I would suggest unifying this. It's not going to have that big of an impact on the damage either way but it is one less thing to keep track of.
Make the crossbow fully recharge on long rest or give it more charges. The charges already seem fairly limiting but rolling 1 on the d4 after resting is going to feel exceptionally bad.
Consider removing the bonus action cost to activate the crossbow. This is going to make it much more usable as characters start getting more features competing for their action economy.