Lance Bolter Cannon?

[KnotKnormal]

One of my players just gave me his character to go over and he is playing an artificer that has effectively made power armor for himself, and it is equipped with something he called a Rotating Lance Bolter Cannon. supposedly it has a 100 round magazine, and fires 2D20+10 Bolts that do 2D12 damage each. at its worst I Figured it out to only do 24dmg but if rolled max it deals a whopping 1,200dmg which is enough to bring down, well anything published.

so i was wondering A. if anyone has heard on this and where it can be found and B. how you would nerf it a little to make it a little more fair for the monsters.

Edit: Apparently its a modification to a Apparatus of Kwalish which is apparently in the DMG. more coming as soon as i find the giant lobster looking thing.

Update on Edit: Ok the Apparatus of Kwalish does exist however it is impossible to find. (that seams like a pretty awesome thing to just scan over in the book like they do) but there is no table for modifications however it does say it can be modified.

[Zombulian]

S**t's fake as hell yo.

[EugeneVoid]

He's cheating
100% cheating

If he's lying and shows you some bs third party source, call him out for it.

Get him to fix his character. Artificers can do hundreds of damage without cheating.

[(Un)Inspired]

Hit him with your DMG till he admits hes cheating.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Tell the player that he isn't proficient with Terminator Armor or Vulcan Mega Bolters because this universe isn't grimdark and he isn't serving the Emprah.

[D4rkh0rus]

Or... think of it this way... If one of your characters can wield one... whats stopping every other mook from getting their own Bolter?

Power Armoured Trolls with Thunderhammers? Your artificer has some hurt coming for him.


Heck, have a tribe of orcs and goblins ride a fully armoured (out of junk) tarrasque... They can fit a house on top too.


If your players try to powergame you. you powergame them back. After they admit their mistake, you retcon everything and continue your quest to save the world.

[KnotKnormal]

So he might be cheating but instead of taking it away from him how do i nerf it to work... could i simply raise the DR of my monsters? Each bolt can only do a max damage of 24dmg so if i increase the DR to 15 only 9dmg will make it through on each bolt making the new max damage 450dmg and the min 0. is that at all fair the other players should be able to clear 15 damage easily to get past the DR.

[Tessman the 2nd]

If you really want him to have it maybe just a zupped up repeating crossbow
this means he can only fire for every attack he has worth in BaB.

[Zombulian]

So he might be cheating but instead of taking it away from him how do i nerf it to work... could i simply raise the DR of my monsters? Each bolt can only do a max damage of 24dmg so if i increase the DR to 15 only 9dmg will make it through on each bolt making the new max damage 450dmg and the min 0. is that at all fair the other players should be able to clear 15 damage easily to get past the DR.

Give him a Repeating Self-Loading Force Crossbow. It gives the same feel and isn't incredibly stupid.

[Maginomicon]

If he really really really really wants power armor, There's the Astral Construct Power Armor (https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17CABKHnYCJSr1VsBBALddw_MZP84LwhaJjJ0C7NKEu E) (homebrew, sorta) and the Aegis class (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/aegis) (Pathfinder).

[Eldaran]

Also the Aegis has an archetype in Ultimate Psionic that makes them into Iron Man, complete with Psicrystal as Jarvis.

[Captnq]

One of my players just gave me his character to go over and he is playing an artificer that has effectively made power armor for himself, and it is equipped with something he called a Rotating Lance Bolter Cannon. supposedly it has a 100 round magazine, and fires 2D20+10 Bolts that do 2D12 damage each. at its worst I Figured it out to only do 24dmg but if rolled max it deals a whopping 1,200dmg which is enough to bring down, well anything published.


Well I can help.

See my Sig? Go There. Get the EVD. If it's not in there, it's not official 3.0/3.5 equipment.

Now, I've worked hard on building the BFG. It's over HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16040887&postcount=12).

Now, the best I could come up with is:
A light ballista that fires 7 bolts a round for 4d6+2 damage. Each. If you allow a quick loading Triple weapon capsula retainer (Technically not RAW.) You can boost the damage up +3d6 in elemental damage. Then add in a quick loading oil sprayer for another +1d6 fire damage, or if you have the gold to blow, Liquid Embers.

But this thing gets expensive DAMN fast. We're talking 10,000+ gp a round to fire it at full tilt.

At most you could fire it for 14 rounds before you need to spend a HALF HOUR reloading everything.

And trust me, I munchkin like nobody has munchkin'd before. This is as good as it gets. What he's talking about is pure BS.

If he wants to Min/Max, give him my EVD. It's got plenty in there, and when he puts something together it also has notes for the DM to tell you, "HEY! This is broken! Don't let your players abuse this!"

Should help.

[TheIronGolem]

at its worst I Figured it out to only do 24dmg but if rolled max it deals a whopping 1,200dmg which is enough to bring down, well anything published.

So he might be cheating but instead of taking it away from him how do i nerf it to work... could i simply raise the DR of my monsters? Each bolt can only do a max damage of 24dmg so if i increase the DR to 15 only 9dmg will make it through on each bolt making the new max damage 450dmg and the min 0. is that at all fair the other players should be able to clear 15 damage easily to get past the DR.

Kind of a side issue, but...

Don't get too hung up on the maximum possible damage; that's the kind of error that leads DM's to facepalmers like "rogues are so overpowered, look how much damage sneak attacks can do!". Dealing maximum damage is fairly rare, and only gets more rare with multiple dice. Remember, multiple dice means you get a bell curve that favors near-average values.

Instead, you need to look at average damage.

The average roll for a given die type is (minimum value + maximum value)/2. For a d12, that's (1+12)/2, or 6.5. Hence, a weapon with 2d12 damage will deal an average of 13 damage per hit (assuming no other damage mods are in play). So DR 15 on your monsters would hurt this guy more than I think you realize, especially with the multiple-dice bell curve in effect.

The same math applies to the number of bolts being fired. 2d20+10 will give us an average of 33, so that's roughly how many shots you could expect most of the time (bell curve strikes again!). So take those 33 attacks and multiply it by the average damage of 13, and you get an average of 429 damage per round, well short of the 1200 figure you were worried about. Technically the 1200 is possible, but the odds against it are astronomical (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=400+times+%2812+to+the+power+of+50%29). You have a better chance of getting hit by lightning on your way home from collecting your Powerball winnings.

Still, 429 is a lot of damage to be putting out reliably, isn't it? Well, not so fast, we still aren't done. Our numbers so far are assuming that every attack hits, which obviously won't happen even with an astronomical attack bonus (barring cheating on to-hit rolls). Depending on the AC of the monsters, this 429 damage would be reduced by anywhere from 5% (giving us 407.55 damage/round) to 95% (giving us 21.45 damage/round). Let's assume a middle ground and give the monsters an AC that requires a roll of 11 or above to hit. That gives us an average damage of 214.5 damage. Still a lot, of course, by the standards of what I assume to be a low-to-mid-level campaign.

Ah, but what about crits? That pushes our average up a bit, right? Yes, but not as much as you might think. Assuming this crazy 40K-wannabe weapon crits like a normal lance, that's a threat range of 20 and a x3 multiplier. I'm not going to do a deep-dive on the math here, but my back-of-the-napkin calculating gives me about a 15% increase. So the 214.5 damage goes up to 246.675. Call it 247. Way past reasonable, of course, but note that it's hardly more than a fifth of the 1200 damage that was vexing you.

Now, all that said, the other posters are almost certainly correct to call shenanigans (I only say "almost" because I'm not personally familiar with the artificer class), and the suggestion to replace that silly lance-chaingun with some variant of repeating crossbow is a good one. I'm just addressing your "max damage" concerns because they are liable to lead you down a bad road in other ways (please, think of those poor rogues!). You're absolutely right to think this player has gone over the line; it's just important to understand where the line actually is so you know just how far over it he's gone.

And don't worry: you don't need to go into as much of the math as I've shown you above every time you want to evaluate something. Just remember that it's averages you need to worry about, not the rare occasions where all the dice come up maxed.

[KnotKnormal]

Kind of a side issue, but...

Don't get too hung up on the maximum possible damage; that's the kind of error that leads DM's to facepalmers like "rogues are so overpowered, look how much damage sneak attacks can do!". Dealing maximum damage is fairly rare, and only gets more rare with multiple dice. Remember, multiple dice means you get a bell curve that favors near-average values.

Instead, you need to look at average damage.

The average roll for a given die type is (minimum value + maximum value)/2. For a d12, that's (1+12)/2, or 6.5. Hence, a weapon with 2d12 damage will deal an average of 13 damage per hit (assuming no other damage mods are in play). So DR 15 on your monsters would hurt this guy more than I think you realize, especially with the multiple-dice bell curve in effect.

The same math applies to the number of bolts being fired. 2d20+10 will give us an average of 33, so that's roughly how many shots you could expect most of the time (bell curve strikes again!). So take those 33 attacks and multiply it by the average damage of 13, and you get an average of 429 damage per round, well short of the 1200 figure you were worried about. Technically the 1200 is possible, but the odds against it are astronomical (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=400+times+%2812+to+the+power+of+50%29). You have a better chance of getting hit by lightning on your way home from collecting your Powerball winnings.

Still, 429 is a lot of damage to be putting out reliably, isn't it? Well, not so fast, we still aren't done. Our numbers so far are assuming that every attack hits, which obviously won't happen even with an astronomical attack bonus (barring cheating on to-hit rolls). Depending on the AC of the monsters, this 429 damage would be reduced by anywhere from 5% (giving us 407.55 damage/round) to 95% (giving us 21.45 damage/round). Let's assume a middle ground and give the monsters an AC that requires a roll of 11 or above to hit. That gives us an average damage of 214.5 damage. Still a lot, of course, by the standards of what I assume to be a low-to-mid-level campaign.

Ah, but what about crits? That pushes our average up a bit, right? Yes, but not as much as you might think. Assuming this crazy 40K-wannabe weapon crits like a normal lance, that's a threat range of 20 and a x3 multiplier. I'm not going to do a deep-dive on the math here, but my back-of-the-napkin calculating gives me about a 15% increase. So the 214.5 damage goes up to 246.675. Call it 247. Way past reasonable, of course, but note that it's hardly more than a fifth of the 1200 damage that was vexing you.

Now, all that said, the other posters are almost certainly correct to call shenanigans (I only say "almost" because I'm not personally familiar with the artificer class), and the suggestion to replace that silly lance-chaingun with some variant of repeating crossbow is a good one. I'm just addressing your "max damage" concerns because they are liable to lead you down a bad road in other ways (please, think of those poor rogues!). You're absolutely right to think this player has gone over the line; it's just important to understand where the line actually is so you know just how far over it he's gone.

And don't worry: you don't need to go into as much of the math as I've shown you above every time you want to evaluate something. Just remember that it's averages you need to worry about, not the rare occasions where all the dice come up maxed.

thank you very much on doing the math... rather impressive. I realized that the mins and maxs would never happen and pulled out my handy dandy dice roller and started to go to town i got an average of around 436. with 34 average bolts fired. so my concern quickly shifted from how much damage it did to how much he could use it. even with your numbers at 214 due to miss chance, that is still enough to drop a the gods I'm having them kill in 7 rounds (+ one full round to reload, his ruling)

this aside i may just give him a variant of the repeating crossbow for his lobster and be done.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Also remember that a simple DR 5 will decrease his average damage per hit from 13 to 8. DR 10 will make it 3.

Suddenly his average damage per 34 hits goes from ~429 to ~264 (DR 5) or ~99 (DR 10), dropping his average damage per round (assuming 50% accuracy) goes from ~429 to ~132 or ~50. With his self imposed rule on reloading, he might not be all that effective.

Unless he's magical, the protection from arrows spell could give this weapon some problems.

[nedz]

IIRC Apparatus of Kwalish is just a mini-sub.

What level are you starting the game at ?

If this is an Epic game then the LBC might be less of an issue, otherwise ask him for the full details of how it's made and then pull him up on the errors.

[SassyQuatch]

Well, first you let him know that his "it's totally real" thing doesn't exist and you know it.

You can then mention what some here have said, that you are willing to allow it, but woth possible alterations like DR applying to each round separately. Also mentioning that DR will likely be more common with this thing around since everyone else will want their own super machine.

Then you mention that you already have an enemy general that you want to use as a foil against him and his machine. Name-drop the general's name, like let's say Ross LeMan.

At this point he should be backing off. If not you just adjusted your game closer to D20K which is it's own kind of awesome. Then again, it also means that your players are now likely to be deemed heretics and any town they visit subject to exterminatus, so they are responsible for countless deaths so long as they pursue a path of opposition (which simply having such a weapon would automatically entail).

If the players want to take pieces of grimdark you can always make their game darker. Because taking advantage of the occasional campaign opportunity where you get to crushe your players' souls is quite enjoyable. Hooray for catharsis!

[KnotKnormal]

thanks for the help everyone. I talk o hi and hash out some sot of compromise.