It’s a bit contrived but I was searching for a way to upgrade damage output for weapons that normally do 1d4 (for my beat’em up setting), as a way to balance weapon-using classes with the monk class (1).

Sometimes called blood cudgels or shillelaghs, these are clubs made from a bloodroot tree and specially imbued  with magical potency but oddly, you’ve got to « prove » yourself by beating the crap out of people. Many people…

30 + 1d20 notches required

• You make the roll when you first acquire a blood cudgel.
• a K.O, dropping a foe to 0 hp counts as a Kill.
• You cannot « upgrade » a blood cudgel which have been notched by someone else.

Once you have enough notches, the blood cudgel counts as a magical weapon and its damage dice is one higher (d4 to d6 or d6 to d8 with this feat).

In addition, a blood cudgel may potentially gain special damage if it is used to kill monsters (i.e gaining fire damage if it kills an efreet). At the DM’s discretion.

A blood cudgel costs 80 gp, is a simple weapon and is not widely available.

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1. As Dubs kept remembering me, annoyingly but… he was right!