New Weapon

The Barbed Stick (Craftable Weapon)

The description:

• When you strike an enemy with the barbed stick, the barbs break off into them

• Until the player removes the barbs they deal a tier 1 bleed indefinitely

• After the barbs are broken the weapon is reverted back to its original form (a stick)

• You can craft another set of barbs by using a bandage on a bone pile.

• The crafted barbs can then be attached to another stick.

• The barbs will also break if they hit any object in the environment

Now it might seem like it would be OP at first but I don't think it would be. A tier 1 bleed would be 4 damage every 12 seconds. It would also cost around 20 func, 5 func to make the bandage, and 5 to make the barbs but you are also sacrificing the 5 func you could get from the bone pile and an extra 5 to attach them to the stick (the cost could be increased or decreased). To make the barbs you'd also need to actually find a bone pile and while they aren't uncommon you might not be able to easily and quickly find one. I think it would be a good weapon to use with bludgeons, you could apply the bleed and then switch to your bludgeon and not have to worry about reapplying it. The time required to remove the barbs would be another way to balance the weapon, but I think half of the time to escape a snare would be reasonable. Someone with a smoke bomb or caltrops could slow their opponent down long enough to remove them.

Thought I'd post this outside the contest as well just to get some feedback on the idea.

Edit: Edit: A second version of the weapon that is easier to implement with a cripple and bleed.

/u/JubJub87 pointed out it would be very hard to implement removing the bards and it would interfere with any other actions. /u/Banter-saurus suggested a cripple instead. So, instead of having the option to remove the barbs the barbed stick would apply a duration cripple, say 12 seconds (could be increased or decreased), after that cripple duration has ended the barbs would fall out and apply a tier 1 bleed (again, this could be increased or decreased). This would be a lot easier to implement and it would also make the weapon more useful as you could use it on the offensive to keep your target from running or on the defensive to escape.