D&D (2024) Hazirawn/flaming Weapon+ Pact of the Blade

[Zardnaar]

So pact of the blade let's you deal radiant, necrotic or psychic damage with your weapon.

What about weapons with bonus dice for damage? Hazirawn for example is 2d6 necrotic damage on top of its base damage. Can you deal 4d6 radiant with it?

 

[Umbran]

I would generally say that the pact option allows you to change the type of the base damage of the weapon, but not any extra damage.

A greatsword normally does 2d6 Slashing.
Pact of the blade can make that 2d6 Radiant.
Hazirawn with Pact of the Blade could be 2d6 Radiant + 2d6 Necrotic.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would generally say that the pact option allows you to change the type of the base damage of the weapon, but not any extra damage.

A greatsword normally does 2d6 Slashing.
Pact of the blade can make that 2d6 Radiant.
Hazirawn with Pact of the Blade could be 2d6 Radiant + 2d6 Necrotic.

Leaning towards that but as worded seems the 2d6 can be changed as well.

I'm adding in a lot of BG3 weapons that deal an extra 1d4 damage (fire, thunder etc) so it's very relevant for those as well.

Player asked about it yesterday.

 

[zottel]

I'm with Umbran on that, but I'd probably allow a single damage type, just to keep things simple and quick.

 

[pukunui]

If you're using Hazirawn specifically, I'd say no because it's a sentient evil sword. If, however, you want to create a similar weapon that does radiant damage instead, there's no reason you couldn't then have a Pact of the Blade warlock do 4d6 radiant damage with it in total.

Or you could allow the wielder of Hazirawn to perform some kind of purifying ritual that cleanses the sword of its evil personality and changes the extra damage from radiant to necrotic.

 

[mellored]

RAW i would say no.

Story wise, I feel like warlocks should change all the damage types.

 

[ECMO3]

So pact of the blade let's you deal radiant, necrotic or psychic damage with your weapon.

What about weapons with bonus dice for damage? Hazirawn for example is 2d6 necrotic damage on top of its base damage. Can you deal 4d6 radiant with it?

"Whenever you attack with the bonded weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier for the attack and damage rolls instead of using Strength or Dexterity; and you can cause the weapon to deal Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage or its normal damage type.

If you are asking what I would do at my table, the answer is change it as desired and change all the damage on the attack (so extra cantrip damage, extra weapon damage, Hex damage etc). That just seems the easiest and most straight forward.

As far as RAW, it really rides on the definition of "normal". IMO Pact of Blade as it applies to non-magic weapons actually creates the weapon out of thin air. The "normal" damage is whatever the non-magic weapon has.

When applied to a magic weapon I would say everything that magic weapon does as "normal" for that weapon. In this respect it would let you change all the damage, but it would be all or none. If you have a dagger of venom you have envenomed and change to Radiant damage then both the slashing and the poison change to radiant.

I would also say this would need to be a property of the weapon specifically. So if you are using Hex the Hex damage does not change. Similarly if you use truestrike you can change the weapon damage to psychic, but the truestrike damage must be either what the weapon does or Radiant.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

"Whenever you attack with the bonded weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier for the attack and damage rolls instead of using Strength or Dexterity; and you can cause the weapon to deal Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage or its normal damage type.

If you are asking what I would do at my table, the answer is change it as desired and change all the damage on the attack (so extra cantrip damage, extra weapon damage, Hex damage etc). That just seems the easiest and most straight forward.

As far as RAW, it really rides on the definition of "normal". IMO Pact of Blade as it applies to non-magic weapons actually creates the weapon out of thin air. The "normal" damage is whatever the non-magic weapon has.

When applied to a magic weapon I would say everything that magic weapon does as "normal" for that weapon. In this respect it would let you change all the damage, but it would be all or none. If you have a dagger of venom you have envenomed and change to Radiant damage then both the slashing and the poison change to radiant.

I would also say this would need to be a property of the weapon specifically. So if you are using Hex the Hex damage does not change. Similarly if you use truestrike you can change the weapon damage to psychic, but the truestrike damage must be either what the weapon does or Radiant.

It's normal damage type is slashing. Your quote implies the opposite of your reading. The weapon itself as an extra rule does extra Necrotic damage on a hit.

So you cause the weapon to deal radiant damage, and then the weapon does an extra 2d6 or whatever on a hit.

 

[Horwath]

I would say that you change weapon base damage only.



off-topic, I really hate this trend of changing damage types of physical weapons.
Yes, it's magic, but do we need every sword turn to light sabre?

I think that ignoring resistance/immunity to non-magical damage is enough for a magic weapon or magic infused attack.

a magic hilt that creates flaming sword should do only fire damage, a magic physical sword that is burning should do base normal damage(magical) and added flaming damage.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The weapons “normal” damage is the damage type that you add the ability score bonus too. This is what can be changed by the warlock ability. If the weapon does secondary damage of a different type this is not affected.