I've been playing 5e for about a year now and recently started my own campaign DMing for a group of people that have never played before. They took to it immediately! Things have been going pretty well so far and we've been having a great time.
Our group's warlock recently found a Wand of the War Mage +1. He'd like to find a high level wizard who can help him inlay it into a dagger (or, for those more flavour text oriented, a black kris blade). The goal being to then have a functioning dagger that gives a +1 to spell attack rolls. It would still be primarily a spellcasting focus, but would additionally give him a little bit of melee should he be caught in close range and not able to escape (he is a pure caster and not a bladelock so will be doing his best to avoid direct combat most of the time).
I asked my former DM (a very much RAW kind of guy) and he said NO. He didn't really have a good explanation as to why though. I am, however, leaning in the opposite direction, If he's willing to part with his gold I see no reason not to let this happen. Still, is there support for or against this decision?
I don't yet have all the materials myself and was wondering if there is anything outright stated about this type of crafting (inlaying) in RAW. That being said, I would love to hear more opinions, either for or against, from some more experienced DMs.
Best Answer
Yes. And oh my the role playing options you are going to experience with creative player's like this!
One of the great things about 5e is how little information they decided to put into the Player's Handbook about crafting. This leaves it entirely in your lap as DM, and more importantly, for your player to discuss with you. Your player has stated that what they want is to:
So, we have a couple of handy tools to help you with this. For starters, we'll take the components for this spell as your player detailed them.
Then we'll take the two items and consider the "weight" of adding the ability to do melee damage would be to this. To do so, we'll take another magical weapon with similar benefits and compare it's capabilities. You'll find that in the DMG, the general rule of thumb for magical items and rarities is: 1 magic effect = uncommon, 2 = rare, 3 = very rare, 4+ = legendary.
So, we have a sword capable of dealing damage, that also has a bonus to attack rolls and damage, and also deals additional damage in specific circumstances. The DMG lists this item as rare, and as I said before, you will find that it is often the case that when a magical item has 2 properties it will fall in the rare category.
So, we can go to the DMG pg. 135 and see the Magic Item Rarity table which lists Rare items as targeting 5th level or higher for the character, and costing between 501 to 5,000 GP.
Since a Wand of the War Mage requires an attunement slot (which you are limited to 3 of), I would personally make this a less valuable item, and drop it down into the 501 to 1,000 GP range. In fact, I may even make it uncommon considering the attunement requirement (but that's a personal choice). However, since your player is commissioning somebody else to use it as a material in an attempt to craft a Kris of the War Mage, I would personally double whatever price you set as the price the Wizard is charging for creating the item.
Bottom line, to craft this using the information I provided, I would do the following:
And that's it. At the end, you've given the player a rare item that has an additional function, but at the cost of an attunement slot. It's also opened the door to creative crafting options at your table.
Have fun!