The Vorpal blade

[Incenjucar]

Vorpal will probably be activated by "bloodied" status and/or "combat advantage."

 

[Xyl]

Vorpal will probably be activated by "bloodied" status and/or "combat advantage."

Having it work on a critical, but only if the enemy is bloodied after the weapon's damage, would be reasonably fair. It's still a cool effect, but you have to get the monster halfway dead before it works.

 

[A'koss]

Having it work on a critical, but only if the enemy is bloodied after the weapon's damage, would be reasonably fair. It's still a cool effect, but you have to get the monster halfway dead before it works.

Still too powerful IMO.

 

[Xyl]

Still too powerful IMO.

You're probably right. It depends on whether there are other "instadeath, but only if you're bloodied" effects.

 

[bgaesop]

Just a quick thing to point out: the poem is Jabberwocky, the creature is The Jabberwock.

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.​

You know, if you read that passage a bit more carefully, it doesn't even look like the vorpal blade decapitates the jabberwocky -- not before it's dead, at any rate. It looks like he slices the jabberwocky a half-dozen times -- One, two! One, two! And through and through -- before killing it.

I really have no idea where the idea of the Vorpal Blade as a one-hit-kill sword came from. Does anyone know?

 

[Ipissimus]

Well given the removal of Save or Die, I would guess the vorpal weapon will not have the ability to one hit behead foes. Perhaps it will be made sort of like the lightsaber, ignores all hardness/DR and weapon materials will be less important.

Or it could use similar mecahnics to the Beholder's flesh to stone. That way, you could decapitate an opponant slowly... like a saw...

 

[Lanefan]

Will 4e have mechanics to handle limb loss? If so, fold the Vorpal ability in with Sharpness, where a nat. 20 cuts off a random limb. Then, treat the head as any other limb (so, roll a d5 to see what gets cut off) and there you go.

(and if 4e does not have limb-loss mechanics, I assume that'll be the end of the old classic "Wither" spell...)

Lanefan

 

[OakwoodDM]

I prefer the Munchkin (the card game) version of Vorpal - it's more powerful vs creatures whose names begin with J.
You can get that from the poem at least as much as the beheading quality, and is less overpowering!

 

[IceFractal]

Well, they could go the "Power Word, Kill" route with it:
When a strike from a Vorpal Sword brings a creature below X hit points, the creature is beheaded.

Balance wise, it's just dealing an extra X+10 damage under the right circumstances - the power would depend on what X was; it doesn't even have to be +5 grade, but if it is then X could be fairly decent (compare to Bane x5). And as a benefit, Vorpal would actually come into play fairly often instead of rarely and randomly.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Will 4e have mechanics to handle limb loss? If so, fold the Vorpal ability in with Sharpness, where a nat. 20 cuts off a random limb. Then, treat the head as any other limb (so, roll a d5 to see what gets cut off) and there you go.

(and if 4e does not have limb-loss mechanics, I assume that'll be the end of the old classic "Wither" spell...)

Lanefan

3.x didn't really have one, did it? (I mean, there was some kind of "side-bar" treatment for the issue, but there weren't really any rules that got get you to that state. Though they're were rules covering healing this kind of "injury")

I guess the 3.x mechanics of Vorpal don't fit that well into 4e. Though maybe it could work as a stronger bonus on a critical (more damage), with an additional benefit: If you're reduced below 0 hit points, your head goes off, and you need very powerful Ressourection magic to get you back to life. (No Warlord saying "bah, only a flesh wound! Get up, lazy ass!" and you activating a second wind ...)

Save or Die is not in 4E as far as WotC told us. I don't know if they are willing to replace that with "If Bloodied, Save or Die". It is still half as "unfair"/"unfun" then the 3.x Save or Die effects. (If effects like that were common, you can rest assured that any character min-maxed for using special abilities when Bloodied will have one severe weakness...)