Staff of the Adder 5e
Staff, uncommon (requires attunement by a cleric, druid, or warlock)
You can use a bonus action to speak this staff's command word and make the head of the staff become that of an animate poisonous snake for 1 minute. By using another bonus action to speak the command word again, you return the staff to its normal inanimate form.
You can make a melee attack using the snake head, which has a reach of 5 feet. Your proficiency bonus applies to the attack roll. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 piercing damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or take 3d6 poison damage.
The snake head can be attacked while it is animate. It has an Armor Class of 15 and 20 hit points. If the head drops to 0 hit points, the staff is destroyed. As long as it's not destroyed, the staff regains all lost hit points when it reverts to its inanimate form.
Commentary by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Want a pet snake, but one you don’t really have to feed or take care of? The Staff of the Adder is for you!
Mechanically, you can spend a bonus action activating it or deactivating it. You can make weapon attacks using the Staff, which deals 1d6 piercing damage and forces a save or the target suffers 3d6 poison damage. That can be reasonable damage, and the DC is 15, which is solid in the early tiers at least!
The Staff of the Adder isn’t a quarterstaff; it's a Staff, which is a separate item, and notably not a weapon.
Staffs are Arcane Focus, meaning you can use the Staff of the Adder as your Arcane Focus as a Warlock, but it doesn’t specify if it's made of wood or not, meaning whether or not it's able to be a Druidic Focus is up to your DM.
It definitely isn’t a Holy Symbol, meaning Clerics can’t use it as a spell focus despite being able to attune to it.
Despite not being a weapon, you can make an attack roll that you have proficiency with while attuned to the Staff. Because it’s a melee attack roll, and it doesn’t have the finesse trait, you add your Strength modifier to the attack’s hit and damage rolls as well.
Because the Staff of the Adder isn’t a club, nor a quarterstaff, you can’t cast the spell Shillelagh on it rules as written.
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