[RPG] Can you make a weapon bond with an improvised weapon

class-featurednd-5eeldritch-knightfighterimprovised-weaponry

The Eldritch Knight Fighter archetype has the ability Weapon Bond where they bond with a weapon, making it summonable and you cannot be disarmed of it. My question is, can you make a bond with an improvised weapon, such as a chair leg or a lamp?

Best Answer

This is one of those situations that the rules don't really cover and as such would be left up to the decision of the DM.

Personally, I'd allow it for the sheer amusement of the player(s) but it would very much depend on what exactly is being used as the improvised weapon.

From the Improvised Weapons section on page 147 of the PHB:

In many cases, an improvised weapon is similar to an actual weapon and can be treated as such. For example, a table leg is akin to a club.

By this statement a DM could definitely treat objects similar to actual weapons as weapons for the purpose of a weapon bond.

However, the Improvised Weapons section also says:

An improvised weapon includes any object you can wield in one or two hands, such as broken glass, a table leg, a frying pan, a wagon wheel, or a dead goblin.

By this statement the players could find a lot of things that wouldn't fall within the "similar to actual weapons" clause and allowing "any object you can wield with one or two hands" to be subject to the rules of the weapon bond could create some pretty hairy situations.

As such I would allow improvised weapons to be bonded but would restrict it to objects that are similar to actual weapons and "common place" objects.

Also, this isn't defined within the rules but I see improvised weapons as just that, improvised, makeshift, and temporary. They are objects that wouldn't normally be classified as weapons except for under certain circumstances. As such it would be reasonable to say that Weapon Bond wouldn't work with improvised weapons because they aren't normally classified as weapons.