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I was wondering if there was a way to increase damage for the following weapons could obtain increased damage because they either do 1 or 0 damage.

  • unarmed strikes
  • blowguns
  • nets

I also want these weapons to remain nonmagical(including spells affecting these weapons) and nonsilvered weapons.

Is there a way for these weapons to obtain increased damage without silvering them or enhancing them with/having magic?

TieflingDragon84
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1 Answers1

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Poison for Weapons, Tavern Brawler for Unarmed Strikes

Poisons

For slashing and piering weapons (the blowgun is a piercing weapon), you can use poison. Basic Poison is on the equipment list, and described on page 153 PHB:

Poison, Basic. You can use the poison in this vial to coat one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Applying the poison takes an action. A creature hit by the poisoned weapon or ammunition must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 poison damage. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying.

It is not very economic, and the action to apply is a real cost here, but it can improve the damage without magic. Check with your DM, as not all DMs allow buying poison, some also make it illegal to buy in game and have in-game consequences; you can also create basic poison in other ways, such as with a Poisoner's Kit.

I'm not aware of a straightforward method that would work for the net. Nets don't deal zero damage, they don't deal damage at all, so you cannot add extra damage. You possibly could coat the parts of it that you will not touch in contact poison, for example with Oil of Taggit or Carrion Crawler Mucus (DMG, p. 257), but these poisons do not deal damage; for these kinds of poison it is also entirely up to your DM if they are available for sale.

Tavern Brawler

You can use the Tavern Brawler feat to improve the damage output of your unarmed strikes1 without magic and without Martial Arts (p. 170 PHB):

  • Your unarmed strike uses a d4 for damage.

1 Note that unarmed strikes are not weapons but count as weapon attacks, as explained in the Sage Advice Compendium

Nobody the Hobgoblin
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    This seems like a pretty straightforward “needs more focus”, is there a reason you think this doesn’t need to be split into multiple questions? – Thomas Markov Apr 26 '23 at 17:41
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    So even though unarmed strikes and nets have entirely different rules, and are affected by entirely different sets of game features, asking how to improve unarmed strikes is the same question as asking how to improve nets? – Thomas Markov Apr 26 '23 at 17:45
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    Groody, these are three unrelated items with the same goal. Each should be given it's own opportunity to be answered. This makes it easier for anyone coming after to find what they're looking for as well. By trying to lump them all together, we aren't doing anyone any favors here. – NotArch Apr 26 '23 at 17:45
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    -1, if we're going to group all three items together into a single question, answers need to fully answer the question. – NotArch Apr 26 '23 at 18:32
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    @NauArch - fair enough, it does answer all three, it just happens there is no good way for the net. I did expand on why that is the case. Note that the question for the others is asking for "a way" to add damage, not for "all possible ways", so I think an answer does not need to try to be exhaustive in that way, it just needs to have a practical way to do it. For example this answer for unarmed strikes lists many possible ways, but skips the most straightforward one. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Apr 27 '23 at 04:42