Hey there, Gamer Nation. We’re back with another installment of MtG to D&D, the semi-regular installment where I take a look at a card from Magic: The Gathering and look at how it could be converted for use into your 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game, whether that be as a magic item or a creature.
Hedron Blades are weapons created from a naturally occurring stone that carry a special enchantment that strikes hard against creatures without other protections. In the distant, past a group of magewrights discovered the secret to working with the stone in order to create magical items including these powerful blades which they gifted to their champions in exchange for oaths swearing loyalty and protection to the cabal. It is unknown how many of these weapons were crafted over the years or how many may still be sealed away within their vaults, but a good number of them fell into other peoples’ hands after the champions wielding them were struck down over the years. It’s rare to find one of these blades on the open market, but they have been found in tombs of fallen warriors or wielded by powerful warlords or tribal chieftains a time or two.
This card is an equipment that increases the power of the creature that wields it. Additionally, whenever it is blocked by colorless creatures the weapon gains the deathtouch ability. Now, obviously the ability to just instantly destroy a creature is incredibly powerful. So how do we capture the feeling of this card with a different mechanic? Well, there are plenty of creatures that have resistances or imunities to various types of damage. So how about we make the weapon deal more damage to creatures that have no resistances? This feels like the best analogue to a “colorless creature” that we have without inventing something completely new. And instead of simply letting the blade kill a creature, why don’t we use one of my favorite mechanics from 5e that doesn’t get nearly enough love – exhaustion? It can be useful to apply some debuffs to powerful enemies with this mechanic. And it makes it even more potent to use against PCs in the hands of a capable warrior. And with that we have something that looks like this:
And that’s this week’s installment. How would you use this weapon in your game? And as always, if you like this content, let me know what Magic card you would want to see converted over to Dungeons and Dragons?
Ben Erickson
