New Players and Somnolescent Blowguns

[.frog]

Hey everyone!

I am DMing my first campaign at the moment, with a group of first-time players. We began our campaign yesterday. Questions are cropping up, and I can't say I've been ready for all of them.

One of the first things the rogue asks is: "Can I make a blowgun? I want to put sleeping goop on it so we can knock people out". He maintained that they are very easy to make and accurate over short distances.

Dealing with the blowgun itself, although not a canonical weapon, isn't very tough. But this sleep-dart issue has me perplexed. I feel like it would be CRAZY overpowered for a bunch of first levellers.

I have since scoured the internet and books for references to sleeping potions or sleeping "stuff", but have no idea how to manage this, or even if I should permit it. Ideas?

[Vaz]

Sleep Poisons are available in the Serpent Kingdoms book (Forgotten Realms).

It's a little strange, causes 1d3 rounds (18 seconds) of Unconciousness, they wake up, and then after a further 42 seconds, test again, or fall Unconcious for another 1d3 hours.

However, it is 390gp a pop, so unless they're a Psionic Shaper with the ability to "Minor Creation", they're limited to only 2 doses of such a poison (390gp per) unless they can make it.

There is Batass' smoke (same book), but it's Inhaled, unless you have a Mister (Drow of the Underdark, IIRC), it's unlikely you're going to be able to maximise that, it instead being a plot fixture.

In Waterdeep, However, there is Sleep-Smoke, a 25gp Inhaled 20GP area bomb. The trick is, it's a low DC, and doesn't scale well.

[Aotrs Commander]

Hey everyone!

I am DMing my first campaign at the moment, with a group of first-time players. We began our campaign yesterday. Questions are cropping up, and I can't say I've been ready for all of them.

One of the first things the rogue asks is: "Can I make a blowgun? I want to put sleeping goop on it so we can knock people out". He maintained that they are very easy to make and accurate over short distances.

Dealing with the blowgun itself, although not a canonical weapon, isn't very tough. But this sleep-dart issue has me perplexed. I feel like it would be CRAZY overpowered for a bunch of first levellers.

I have since scoured the internet and books for references to sleeping potions or sleeping "stuff", but have no idea how to manage this, or even if I should permit it. Ideas?

Just make sure your player realises that a blowgun is not a slightly larger pea-shooter like you see in cartoons! I had cause to do some research in this area myself, for a previous game and real blowguns/blowpipes are not small and easily concealed things; the small version is 4' long! They also take some considerable skill to use.

If it's of any assistance, here are the rules I did for my own use. I broke them into two weapons a "light" one and a "heavy" one as they do come into variable lengths in reality, and the larger ones are the ones used for actual hunting.



Blowgun (Exotic): A blowgun is a 6-7’ long hollow tube, thorough which a 10” blowdart is propelled via the user’s breath. Blowguns are larger than blowpipes, and actually used for hunting or warfare. Creatures that cannot exhale cannot use a blowgun. Loading a blowgun is a move action that requires two hands. Firing a blowgun requires both hands. A blowgun adds the user’s Constitution bonus, not their Strength bonus, on a successful hit but is otherwise treated as a projectile weapon.

Blowpipe (Simple Weapon1): A blowpipe or fukiya is a 4’ long hollow tube, thorough which a 2” blowdart is propelled via the user’s breath. Blowpipes are used mainly for sport or assassination, given their lightness and delivery. Creatures that cannot exhale cannot use a blowpipe. Loading a blowpipe is a move action that requires two hands. Firing a blowpipe requires both hands. A blowpipe adds the user’s Constitution bonus, not their Strength bonus, on a successful hit but is otherwise treated as a projectile weapon.


Blowpipe 1 gp 1D2 ×2 10 ft. 2 lbs. Piercing
Blowdarts (20) 1 gp — — — 0 lb. —
Blowgun 5 gp 1D4 ×2 20 ft. 4 lbs Piercing
Blowdarts (20) 1 gp — — — 0 lb. —




1This as as much a lie as Sling being a simple weapon in reality2, but for the purposes of the rules, what the hey.

2Slings actually aren't simple at all, they take a good deal of practise and skill to use and the reason they were superceded by bows was partly because of that. They deserve more damage than the D4 D&D gives them, but then again, it took until 3.0 before heavy crossbows actually did more damage than bows (provided, y'know, that the longbow isn't composite and used by someone with a Str bonus...), so yeah. *shrug*




For the poison, a good place to start would be Drow knock-out poison or blue whinnis. However, as usual, poisons suffer in 3.x from being both extremely expensive and terribly low DCs for the cost. So unless you are using homebrew/alternative poison rules (or maybe 10% of the price!) or the PCs are going to be looting a lot of poison from monsters or something, it really isn't a practically cost-effective option. (If it was cheaper, it would be okay. If the DCs of PC-obtainable poisons were high enough that they mattered much beyond low-to-low-mid levels, it would be okay.)

[Kuulvheysoon]

Guys, there are actual Blowgun stats (as well as Greater Blowguns) presented in the back of Complete Warrior.

But I'd second the drow sleeping poison. Make it work off of the same mechanics, but call it something different that you can make/find on the cheap.

[Callin]

I had a blowgun that was roughly 2' long and was highly accurate at 15' or so.

[.frog]

First off, thanks a lot for the quick and very helpful responses!

I had myself done a bit of research on RL blowguns today, and I will be sure to point out that he's not gonna have a pen-sized infinite-metre-shooting little tool.

I would like to ask more about the act of building a blowgun (in-game, of course). My first thought was, as this player has no ranks in Craft::Weaponsmithing, that I would treat it as a permanently improvised weapon with the accompanying -4 penalty to attack rolls. Does that make sense, or is it too strict?

[Friv]

First off, thanks a lot for the quick and very helpful responses!

I had myself done a bit of research on RL blowguns today, and I will be sure to point out that he's not gonna have a pen-sized infinite-metre-shooting little tool.

I would like to ask more about the act of building a blowgun (in-game, of course). My first thought was, as this player has no ranks in Craft::Weaponsmithing, that I would treat it as a permanently improvised weapon with the accompanying -4 penalty to attack rolls. Does that make sense, or is it too strict?

Honestly, I would say that if he's only going to have the one, and he's buying proficiency, he can probably build one. If a blowpipe costs 1 gp to buy, it's only a DC 10 Craft roll, and chances are if he spent some time he was able to do that without too much trouble. Just have him pay the 1 gp for the one he starts with and let him say he carved it.

Chances are, if he's not a veteran player, he's going to be a little cheesed about poison prices. If he is, you're going to want to explain to him why, as something that unbalances the game, all poison prices are artificially inflated in D&D. It's not a realism thing, it's just a game balance thing.

[Ivellius]

Guys, there are actual Blowgun stats (as well as Greater Blowguns) presented in the back of Complete Warrior.

But I'd second the drow sleeping poison. Make it work off of the same mechanics, but call it something different that you can make/find on the cheap.

There are stats for a blowgun in the Dungeon Master's Guide, in fact. Check page 145 for it and a few other exotic/different technology level weapons.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Callin
I had a blowgun that was roughly 2' long and was highly accurate at 15' or so.

I still have a 20" blowgun which I picked up in northern Peru some years ago, handcrafted with kapok thistle on the darts. It looks nativey, but it's essentially a toy.

Aotrs has the right of it; real blowguns aren't small at all. Most hunting blowguns range from five to ten feet long, and can be accurate up to a hundred feet; some Jivaro hunters were said to be accurate up to forty-five yards.

They're also not trivial to make; constructing one of the ten-foot Jivaro blowguns could take two months, and that's by an experienced hand. If your player wants to try making one in-game, even a small one, I'd require his character spend a fair amount of time on it--and if his character has never used a blowgun before, and has no ranks in weaponsmithing, I'd say a -4 penalty is absolutely appropriate.

As for stats, Masters of the Wild originally presented a basic blowgun, which shot "needles" that did 1 pt. of damage apiece, and the greater blowgun, whose darts did 1d4. It's this basic blowgun which is reprinted on p. 145 of the DMG. The greater blowgun reappears on p. 154 of Complete Warrior, with weaker darts doing 1d3, but at 150% the original price.

As for the poison, I'll go a slightly different route and suggest that a good Knowledge (nature) check, maybe DC 20 or so, would let your group's druid or ranger-type identify a local frog, small tree, etc. with a natural poison that could be rendered and applied to the darts. This avoids the issue of the extremely high poison prices (at least for a first-level group) and also introduces the option for some mildly hilarious side effects if your rogue happens to poison himself.

[Daftendirekt]

Guys, there are actual Blowgun stats (as well as Greater Blowguns) presented in the back of Complete Warrior.

But I'd second the drow sleeping poison. Make it work off of the same mechanics, but call it something different that you can make/find on the cheap.

Also in Oriental Adventures.

Blowgun
1 damage, 10ft. range increment, 2 lbs, piercing.

Blowgun, greater
1d3 damage, 10 ft. range increment, 4 lbs, piercing.

[Urpriest]

In terms of the Craft DC, most ranged weapons are DC 15, so that's probably what I'd rule. You can make Craft checks untrained, by the way, so the lack of ranks just makes the task harder, it shouldn't have any extra penalties. The character could even go buy a blowgun, which is probably the better option, since they'll need to buy the poison anyway.

[.frog]

Once again, thanks for the great insight everyone. For a new DM like me, this stuff is like gold.

The player who posed the question of the blowgun, I think his intention was not only to use it in non-combat situations, like knocking guards unconscious, but also in combat. I guess he figures, just knock everyone out, problem solved.

I don't exactly know how to handle that. On the one hand, I want to encourage him to use creative solutions, but on the other, I can't have him thinking he can essentially sidestep every encounter like that. What should I tell him/how should I run it that I can avoid that?

[Greenish]

Because D&D is a game, not a story, it follows game logic (no, you can't knock everyone out every time) instead of story logic (yes, a poisoned dart always works, but you can only use them when the plot allows).

Hence, the sleep poison, however you decide to make it work, should allow for a save, and probably also a secondary save.