Traitor Item - Whetstone

[locusts]

Too cheap or too poor to shell out for a katana? Sick of your stabbing sprees being let down by your dull kitchen knives? Have you considered... sharpening them?

The whetstone is a traitor item that can be used with certain melee weapons in order to enhance the damage that they can do. Typically it provides an increase in brute damage, an increase to bleeding and a higher chance of removing limbs.

Examples of items that can be sharpened include knives, screwdrivers, the grody bone, the katana (if you can find one), spears, shards of glass. Pretty much anything sharp. Maybe throw some joke options in there too like the Bible or something, I don't know. Not the C-Saber because that makes no sense.

Items can be sharpened more than once, stacking the attack bonuses, however for each level of sharpness, it will take exponetially longer to actually complete the sharpening process, so making a Screwdriver+1 is pretty quick, making a Screwdriver+5 will take some dedication. Additionally, sharpening a weapon includes a very telling sharpening sound, so you will want to find a secluded place to begin the process. However if you are clever about it you can carry an inventory of impressively lethal improvised weapons around!

Telecrystal cost: less than actual weapons but enough that you can't buy it and a katana at the same time.

edit: Alternatively, restrict it to X number of sharpens and lower the cost so you can buy it and the katana at the same time.

[Frank_Stein]

TBH, this sounds like something that could generally be a feature in other ways

Like, if tools could be boosted with maintenance to work better and faster but gradually wore down to their original state.

[Technature]

Not the C-Saber because that makes no sense.

Using it on a C-Saber destroys it, and gives you a message along the lines of "What the hell were you expecting to happen?".

[Grek]

Not the C-Saber because that makes no sense.

Using it on a C-Saber destroys it, and gives you a message along the lines of "What the hell were you expecting to happen?".

C#, obviously.

[poland spring]

let us use this to create shivs out of material blocks or what have you

[Haprenti]

Not the C-Saber because that makes no sense.

Using it on a C-Saber destroys it, and gives you a message along the lines of "What the hell were you expecting to happen?".

C#, obviously.

Yeah instead of destroying it it shapes it into some gimmick musical instrument only using C#, named C#

And yeah I really like Frank_Stein's version. It could make use of material properties for faster sharpening.

[Gannets]

Reposting from discord but:

An alternative idea for this is a version that only increases damage for a set number of attacks.

[warcrimes]

i'd be partial to an implementation with no cap, but with the whole exponential time sink.
and even more so to a keyboard-mashing, spark-flying, sprite-shaking extravaganza like icecube breakouts to cut it down a bit.

mostly because I want two fedora tippin greyshirts to spend 50 minutes frantically trying to outsharpen their own katana to be the ultimate mallcrawling stationslasher. Also after like an hour of sharpening those things should go through a screen's worth of tiles and just split open floors.

ss13 filler battle episodes.

[Dr Zoidcrab]

Would make a good surplus crate item.

[NateTheSquid]

Using it on a C-Saber destroys it, and gives you a message along the lines of "What the hell were you expecting to happen?".

C#, obviously.

no one is gonna appreciate this sick pun. also id love to go on a murder spree with the grody bone