OK. Let me rephrase. I think I gave the wrong impression.
If you do a cutscene and make a big deal out of a sword that drinks your blood to get it, then that sword seems like it should have some sort of special ability. So, the drow blade makes perfect sense to have something special about it like Advantage against Drow or causes Drow to have vulnerability to the weapon so it does extra damage since the story behind it would fit something like that.
I shouldn't have made it sound like +1 weapons are lame. I do agree that by Level 4, characters shouldn't be acquiring items of +2 or more. That should be rare, and I also agree that special items with special abilities should be much more rare.
I guess my main point is I think what you're saying Maximuuus. By the time I got this Longsword + 1, it was just not special and I'm not going to likely use it. And that's what saddens me about it. It wasn't special at all. They made a big deal out of it, and it was like, "whaa whaaa!"
And the Sussa Bark Sword also isn't all that. It's a Greatsword + 1, so I think it's good, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting some sort of special ability like "Causes Magic Disruption - Spellcasters hit by it cannot cast spells for 1 round" or something like that. So, it's not really better than a Greataxe I can buy from the hobgoblin vendor (I think it was him) where it is a Greataxe + 1, or the Greataxe you can get earlier that does more damage if your foe is half health. After all the work you put into it to get the sword, the reward of only a + 1 doesn't seem very special.
And so, what I'm trying to say is that if a weapon requires a lot of work or they give it a story or make a big deal out of it, THOSE are the items that should be special. I shouldn't find Nature's Snare, for example, in a random chest in the Secret Tunnels because that is a pretty powerful staff. That should be something more like a quest reward for saving the grove or something.
I just think the bottom line is what we seem to always go back to. If you try to make everything grand and epic, nothing feels grand and epic. If you give us tons of super awesome weapons, then no weapons are truly awesome and special.
