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Aemoh87
2011-01-28, 02:01 AM
I had a fun thread idea, what are the best mundane items in 3.5 or 3.0?
Please list cost and what book they are from as well.

My favorite is the Dueling Cloak because it adds a shield bonus to AC but counts as light armor. It can be found in Dragon 335 for 15 gp.

A close second is the Potion Belt from the Forgotten Realms Camp Setting. For 1 gp you can pull potions out as a free action once per turn.

dsmiles
2011-01-28, 02:49 AM
I'll always give these three answers:
1. Caltrops (for obvious reasons)
2. Marbles (for the same reasons as caltrops, but funnier)
3. Small Metal Mirrors (look around corners, long distance signalling, etc.)

Aemoh87
2011-01-28, 02:51 AM
Marbles combo'd with xylophone = best bard ever.

gorfnab
2011-01-28, 03:25 AM
Smugglers Boots (A&EG) - 10gp - great for hiding a concealed backup dagger or wand
Knife Vest (A&EG) - 25gp - not only good for Rogues but great for Artificers who use wands
Wand Chamber (DS) - 100gp - very nice for any spellcaster or for anyone using UMD
Dagger - 2gp - if you can't think of a reason not to have at least 2 of these on your PC you're not trying hard enough
Handaxe - 6gp - being a SCAdian this is part of my standard camping gear anyways, like daggers they have many other purposes besides being a weapon

BobSutan
2011-01-28, 04:52 AM
Something I think every D&D campaign will eventually find useful is the charts in Arms & Equipment for getting drunk :smallbiggrin: It's on page 32 IIRC.

big teej
2011-01-28, 11:17 AM
before I contribute....

I've a question


do alchemical items count as mundane?

Aemoh87
2011-01-28, 11:18 AM
I was waiting for knife vest and booze to show up on here.

Ernir
2011-01-28, 11:22 AM
Darrin's Shax's Indispensible Haversack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148101) contains a lot of these.

Aemoh87
2011-01-28, 11:45 AM
alchemical items do count but poisons do not.

RndmNumGen
2011-01-28, 12:20 PM
Coming from the PHB:

10-Foot Pole: Standard Issue.
Bullseye Lantern: Good illumination range, lasts for 6 hours.
Caltrops: Already mentioned.
Ladder: Never know when you need to get somewhere.
Mirror: Already mentioned.
Oil: Aside from lantern fuel, comes in useful in a variety of situations.
Rope: You can never have enough rope.
Vial: Who doesn't want to take random liquid samples home as a souvenir?

Aemoh87
2011-01-28, 12:47 PM
Wow those links posted are handy :)

randomhero00
2011-01-28, 12:51 PM
tangle foot bag at low levels. Holy water. Silversheen. Oh and thunderstones.

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-28, 12:53 PM
Rope.

With a length of rope, an Immovable Rod, and a Portable Hole, you can do anything.

dsmiles
2011-01-28, 01:00 PM
Rope.

With a length of rope, an Immovable Rod, and a Portable Hole, you can do anything.

But can you hide in your a-hole (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/06/13/episode-1140-where-the-sun-dont-shine/)? :smallwink:

Antonok
2011-01-28, 01:08 PM
This is going to sound really odd, but just plain old regular Soap from the PHB. Things I've used it for:

Shoved a bar of soap in a wizards mouth to stop him from casting a spell.

Soaped up a smooth marble hallway so when the enemies charged down it at us they would slip and fall.

Threw a bar under an enemies foot to make him trip.

Other then that, who really wants one of thier party members/themselves walking around smelling like a goblin barbarian all the time (except maybe said goblin barbarian)?

Volos
2011-01-28, 01:11 PM
Crowbars.

I have done more terrible things with crowbars than my DM ever though was possible. I tried prying a monter's mouth open (it was Huge size) so I could throw a bag full of poisons down it's throat. So I had my trusty crowbar handy, pryed (won) and tossed it in. The monster didn't so much die as it went insane and nearly killed us all before impoloding. Apparenlty it's regenration went crazy when the poison started melting it's flesh away from the inside out, making a cancerous growth. That led to pressure on certian parts of it's brain that made it start raging while slinging spells at the same time. The moral of the story was that we should defeat monsters normally, not by being cheap about it.

randomhero00
2011-01-28, 01:24 PM
Crowbars.

I have done more terrible things with crowbars than my DM ever though was possible. I tried prying a monter's mouth open (it was Huge size) so I could throw a bag full of poisons down it's throat. So I had my trusty crowbar handy, pryed (won) and tossed it in. The monster didn't so much die as it went insane and nearly killed us all before impoloding. Apparenlty it's regenration went crazy when the poison started melting it's flesh away from the inside out, making a cancerous growth. That led to pressure on certian parts of it's brain that made it start raging while slinging spells at the same time. The moral of the story was that we should defeat monsters normally, not by being cheap about it.

Hahah, that's great. What a good response from the DM. Now I must do this as well. Time to start carrying around a crowbar. I'm more interested in trying to throw thunderstones, tanglefoot bags, and alchemical fire down there throats though to see what happens....

Telonius
2011-01-28, 01:53 PM
1 square yard of linen. (Substitute linen with terrycloth if your DM allows). Possibly the most important tool to have with you whenever you're traveling.

Hammerhead
2011-01-28, 02:01 PM
Does a dirigible count as mundane? Because I'm definitely going to go with a dirigible.

Or chalk.

gorfnab
2011-01-28, 02:55 PM
1 square yard of linen. (Substitute linen with terrycloth if your DM allows). Possibly the most important tool to have with you whenever you're traveling.
The infamous towel, never leave home without one.


Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Trekkin
2011-01-28, 06:13 PM
A board, carpentry tools, a water jug, a long rope, and a shovel.

Use the shovel to dig a well unless there's a river nearby, and the board and carpentry tools become a mold. Its practical applications are limited, but a surprising number of challenges can be defeated with a large enough structure made of mud bricks or adobe (assuming you have grasses available). Staircases, boats, bunkers, and more can spring up relatively quickly and usually to the DMs consternation.
I built around my DM's challenges with wood, and suddenly there were no trees. So I built around his challenges with grass, and suddenly there was no grass.
So I built around his challenges with dirt.

Ajadea
2011-01-28, 06:25 PM
Sack of flour and candle wick.

10 GP, 3 SP, for 10 lbs of flour, a sack, and 50 feet of candle wick. Cheaper than ditherbombs and more reliable.

Volos
2011-01-28, 07:39 PM
Sack of flour and candle wick.

10 GP, 3 SP, for 10 lbs of flour, a sack, and 50 feet of candle wick. Cheaper than ditherbombs and more reliable.

I built a trap for my players once that was activated by being inside of the hallway that held the trap. It seemed harmless, all it did was spinkle flower down on them like snow. So they proceeded forward. Halfway down the hallway there was a pressure plate that would summon a tiny fire elemental. He'd wave to the party just as all the 'snow' flower caught on fire, nearly resulting in a TPK. The rogue made his reflex save and was left alone in the dungeon. It worked a little too well.

Alaris
2013-09-12, 11:21 PM
I built a trap for my players once that was activated by being inside of the hallway that held the trap. It seemed harmless, all it did was spinkle flower down on them like snow. So they proceeded forward. Halfway down the hallway there was a pressure plate that would summon a tiny fire elemental. He'd wave to the party just as all the 'snow' flower caught on fire, nearly resulting in a TPK. The rogue made his reflex save and was left alone in the dungeon. It worked a little too well.

Flour is that flammable? Well shoot... think I'm going to have to use that on my players.

Any idea on possible damage for that? Fire damage, or some kind of force (explosion?). Thanks in advance.

lytokk
2013-09-13, 07:49 AM
Grappling hook and rope. Climbers kit too, if you want to completely bypass that adventure hook the DM threw at you.

CombatOwl
2013-09-13, 09:58 AM
I had a fun thread idea, what are the best mundane items in 3.5 or 3.0?
Please list cost and what book they are from as well.

My favorite is the Dueling Cloak because it adds a shield bonus to AC but counts as light armor. It can be found in Dragon 335 for 15 gp.

A close second is the Potion Belt from the Forgotten Realms Camp Setting. For 1 gp you can pull potions out as a free action once per turn.

Water Clock. Why? Because think about the bandit who sees this group of heavily armed adventurers walked around with a water clock on a wagon. Are you going to mess with some people ballsy enough (and rich enough) to bother dragging such a thing on their adventures? The WBL required to simply throw that kind of money into a mostly useless device strongly indicates that they're WAY out of your league. Are you going to mess with such people? No! So, in a way, it's basically bandit repellent.

CombatOwl
2013-09-13, 10:02 AM
Flour is that flammable? Well shoot... think I'm going to have to use that on my players.

Unfortunately by the rules a fuel-air explosive of that nature would simply do 1d6 fire damage, because it's just mundane fire. But yes, flour is quite explosive under the right conditions. Which is true of just about anything, actually--if you really want to be an ass sometime, have a room filled with pure oxygen. Everything that enters ought to take both corrosive and fire damage, since it will not only oxidize everything it can, but it'll also make normally safe materials highly flammable. Oh, wait, d&d physics...


Any idea on possible damage for that? Fire damage, or some kind of force (explosion?). Thanks in advance.

By the rules, 1d6 fire, sadly.

Vizzerdrix
2013-09-13, 11:05 AM
Eggshell grenades
Shapesand (Better than many class features for only 100 gold!!!)
Trail/Ration bars
Any of the Complete Mage/Scoundrel alchemical items
Masterwork potion belts
Masterwork bandoliers
Cable spools
Spikard weapons
Alchemical Blade
Gnome Calculus

Alaris
2013-09-13, 11:51 AM
By the rules, 1d6 fire, sadly.

Well, I'm already homebrewing that flour is flammable within the rules, since it normally wouldn't be (as far as I know). So... more realistically, how much damage would/could it do? :P

Vizzerdrix
2013-09-13, 12:10 PM
Well, I'm already homebrewing that flour is flammable within the rules, since it normally wouldn't be (as far as I know). So... more realistically, how much damage would/could it do? :P

They are using coffee creamer, but the premise is the same. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw4ZRqmxOc)

Ashtagon
2013-09-13, 12:38 PM
I built a trap for my players once that was activated by being inside of the hallway that held the trap. It seemed harmless, all it did was spinkle flower down on them like snow. So they proceeded forward. Halfway down the hallway there was a pressure plate that would summon a tiny fire elemental. He'd wave to the party just as all the 'snow' flower caught on fire, nearly resulting in a TPK. The rogue made his reflex save and was left alone in the dungeon. It worked a little too well.

Thing is, a FAE weapon relies on a rather precise distribution of the powder to be burned. As shown in mythbusters, getting the explosion to occur requires both a high pressure system for even distribution without clumping, and careful timing to ensure the powder is ignited before gravity has a chance to do anything to the cloud pattern.

If the powder is just left to fall long enough for the party to advance any significant distance, it'll either settle and not chain-ignite in the way a FAE weapon needs, or it'll present a choking hazard long before it has been ignited.

That said, sounds like you had a blast.

Alaris
2013-09-13, 01:35 PM
They are using coffee creamer, but the premise is the same. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw4ZRqmxOc)

So.. DieD6 points of damage? Sounds about right...