I thought of this today. Whetstones sharpen blades. For adventurers, a nice sharp blade would be better than a dull one. However, I've never seen whetstones used in games, other than as dressing or as useless items you would find or never buy because they had no mechanical use... until now! This isn't about weapon maintenance, characters are assumed to be doing that - it's an elective bonus, a rule for when the party dramatically sharpen their swords to razors before going into battle.
It takes 10 minutes (or 1 hour, you choose) to sharpen a bladed weapon with a whetstone. Once sharpened the weapon deals a minimum of 2 damage. Damage rolls of 1 are bumped up to 2. The player writes [sharp] next to the weapon on their character sheet. This effect lasts... (select one)
- for a single battle (in which the weapon is used)
- for the whole day (even if the weapon is unused)
- until a result of 1 is rolled on an attack roll using the sharpened weapon
- until the weapon is notched
A whetstone doesn't last forever. When a whetstone is used, roll a d20, if you roll under the maximum damage of the weapon being sharpened (e.g 6 for a d6 weapon) the whetstone cannot be used again.
