D&D (2024) Oil of Sharpness creates permanent +3 magic weapons?

[SlyFlourish]

Looking at the D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Oil of Sharpness:

Oil of Sharpness
Potion, Very Rare

One vial of this oil can coat one Melee weapon or twenty pieces of ammunition, but only ammunition and Melee weapons that are nonmagical and deal Slashing or Piercing damage are affected. Applying the oil takes 1 minute, after which the oil magically seeps into whatever it coats, turning the coated weapon into a +3 Weapon or the coated ammunition into +3 Ammunition.

This clear, gelatinous oil sparkles with tiny, ultrathin silver shards.

The old one from 2014:

Oil of Sharpness
Potion, very rare

This clear, gelatinous oil sparkles with tiny, ultrathin silver shards. The oil can coat one slashing or piercing weapon or up to 5 pieces of slashing or piercing ammunition. Applying the oil takes 1 minute. For 1 hour, the coated item is magical and has a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls.

Do we think this is a typo or the intent to make permanent +3 magic weapons?

 

[Chaltab]

It seems like they forgot to put a time limit on the oil. Oops.

Edit: Hm, maybe not.

 

[TwoSix]

Looking at the D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Oil of Sharpness:



The old one from 2014:



Do we think this is a typo or the intent to make permanent +3 magic weapons?

The change seems detailed enough that I don't think it's an accidental dropping off a sentence.

Considering a +3 weapon is very rare and the oil is also very rare, I can see this as a way to make a +3 weapon in the weapon shape of the player's choice.

 

[Minigiant]

Do we think this is a typo or the intent to make permanent +3 magic weapons?

Seeing that both the oil of sharpness and a +3 weapon are both classified as very rare items and are on the same spots on both the arcana and armament treasure tables I think it was designed on purpose.

I think the oil of sharpness was designed so that you can turn a family heirloom, inherited regular weapon, or weapon of a rare type into a magic item.

My issue is why there's no oil of hardening for bludgeoning weapons.

 

[AlViking]

As long as you don't consider the oil a consumable product for purposes of pricing or balance I don't see an issue with it being permanent. I would be tempted to add lesser levels of the oil if a weapon meant something to the character.

 

[TwoSix]

My issue is why there's no oil of hardening for bludgeoning weapons.

If you think about if for a minute, you can probably figure out why they didn't put "Oil of Hardening" in the random treasure table.

 

[Minigiant]

If you think about if for a minute, you can probably figure out why they didn't put "Oil of Hardening" in the random treasure table.

If you think about it, that is EXACTLY what you'd expect would be on random treasure tables these days.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm not sure if it's the same in the revised 2024 rules. But in the older 5E rules, the magic items aren't placed by rarity, they're placed by Treasure Tables. So while they have the same Rarity, the oil of sharpness (on Table D) starts dropping a lot sooner than +3 weapons (on Table H). With no duration stated for the oil of sharpness,+3 weapons become available about 6 levels sooner than they used to.

Not a problem, per se, but it's something that DMs might want to keep in mind.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm not sure if it's the same in the revised 2024 rules. But in 5E, the magic items aren't placed by rarity, they're placed by Treasure Tables. So while they have the same Rarity, the oil of sharpness (on Table D) starts dropping a lot sooner than +3 weapons (on Table H).

2024 changes that to rarity by type.

 

[TwoSix]

2024 changes that to rarity by type.

Makes sense. As long as players treat its cost as a permanent, not a consumable, the change seems logical to me.