Useful things that aren't weapons?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

My character has been trying to stock up on a few useful things which aren't weapons. Rope, some climbing equipment, ball bearings of course....one of the guys had a shovel and another a pry bar we used to good effect.

What else do you all carry around which isn't a traditional weapon but has come in handy?

[Finger6842]

Oil, pen and paper, cured meat, tarp, piton, grappling hook, a cup, fishing line, tinder box, torch, coal, spell components (focus not available), generic small trinkets (gifts), fine lace (bug netting), spare bow string, leather oil, pulleys/block and tackle, sand

[Jaelommiss]

Change of clothes, comfy blanket, chamberpot, cutlery, crockery, cup, cooking utensils, pots and pans, tent with straw ground mat, manservant. All enchanted with self cleaning (including the man servant. Have you ever smelled an unwashed peasant before?), self heating where applicable, and an anti-knocking-your-cup-over abjuration on the cup. Glowing glass marbles to replace torches and campfires.

Refinement and civility are what separate adventurers from savages, after all.

[Sirdar]

A good book so I can stay awake when it is my turn to keep watch. May backfire once in a while though.
Exotic candy. You don't need gold to get information from friendly people.
My bucket list.

[Hairfish]

Candles, chalk, soap, and string.

[nickl_2000]

Chalk is certainly useful for marking places in dungeons, a 10 foot pole is good for traps, caltrops are great is you need to run away, spare foci/holy symbols, extra flasks/bottles if you ever run into special liquids you want to save, always have spare healing kits sitting around, perfume (since adventuring is smelly business), and a mirror for peaking around corners.

[mgshamster]

Think about it as if you were in their shoes.

Let's say you had to walk to a city in the next state or country over. No roads. No cars.

What would you bring?

Stuff to protect against the wilderness, and maybe other people? Things to take notes? Maps? Stuff to start a campfire? Equipment for sleeping?

What's between you and the next state/country? Mountains? Cave passages? Small towns? Rivers? What will you need to bring to bypass those obstacles?

If you think of your character more as a role that you could actually be in and less of an artificial character for a game, it becomes much easier to figure out what you'll need beyond improving your own stats.

[psychopomp23]

Started a game recently at level 10. Bought a bag of holding and just pretty much bought everything! I find that some chain and lock can be useful if you want to tie up a bad guy.

[Hairfish]

Oh, if you can find ann archive of Dragon magazine someplace, issue #193 has an article "Dungeoneering 101", the first part of which is basically all about this topic.

[Azgeroth]

Oil, pen and paper, cured meat, tarp, piton, grappling hook, a cup, fishing line, tinder box, torch, coal, spell components (focus not available), generic small trinkets (gifts), fine lace (bug netting), spare bow string, leather oil, pulleys/block and tackle, sand

all this,

add charcoal to the pen and paper for taking rubbings, making notes, drawing maps. cured meat, not just as rations, but help with the wilder-beasties, tarp not just cover but you can drag things on it, like fallen party members. spell components because it just makes sense, small trinkets for gifts to simple minded folk, bug net because bugs are not fun, also lets you catch them, spare bow string, because bow strings a f***in strong, leather oil, for maintenance, pulleys/block and tack with pitons, hammer and crowbar so you can lift/lowwer/move just about anything. and sand, for finding hidden doors, traps, soaking up oil, or throwing in faces. oil, because it lights easy, and burns hot.

also, a good blanket, and rope, 2 50ft lengths, and 5 10ft lengths, lay all that stuff on the blanket, on the tarp, tie it to a 10 foot pole, and you have the swiss army hobo stash. though it will be rather large... or, stick it in a bag of holding for that modern adventurer look.

[JellyPooga]

A change of clothes.

Because trying to get an audience with an innkeeper, let alone a noble or the king, is harder than you think when the clothes you're wearing are travel stained, battle worn, muddy, bloody and of generally worse condition than the local beggars.

[Naanomi]

A last will and testament; doubly so if a necromancer is in the party

[JAL_1138]

A 10ft pole. The single most useful item an old-school adventurer could possibly own.

Most uses absolutely require an accommodating DM, but in the old days, it was THE way to check for traps and set them off from a safe distance. It has a ton of other uses as well (again, with an accomodating DM, since none of these are spelled out in the book)—check for Gelatinous Cubes or other invisible critters, determine whether that liquid is water or acid, determine whether that green goop is just pond scum or corrosive Green Slime, tie a grappling hook or crowbar to the end and use it to help retrieve objects, use it as a lever, you could break it to make impromptu clubs or a quarterstaff, re-haft a damaged polearm, use it to help balance on a narrow bridge, use it to pole-vault, use it to help carry heavy objects, use it to brace a door, use it as a tentpole, chop it up for firewood if you don't have any other fuel, even use it as a spit to roast meat—the list goes on and on.

A 10ft pole is an adventurer's best friend. They've saved my characters' lives far more often than any +1 magical weapon could ever hope to.

[scalyfreak]

What else do you all carry around which isn't a traditional weapon but has come in handy?

A flute.

I was playing a bard at the time.

[JellyPooga]

A 10ft pole. The single most useful item an old-school adventurer could possibly own.

As useful as it may be and despite it's status as traditional adventuring gear, I've long hated the humble 10ft pole...*ahem*...

IT'S A FRIGGIN' TEN-FOOT LONG POLE!

I mean, come on! Seriously. Most ceilings are only about 8 or 9ft and can you imagine tryng to get round a corner with it? It just ain't happenin', Bub. I can sort of forgive the Fighter wearing his plate armour 24/7. I can forgive the Ranger and his infinite quiver of "oops I forgot to tally my arrow usage in that that fight". I can happily handwave the minor expenses, the spell components, the rations and the water (the last only barely, but still I can do it)...

...but some guy casually lugging a Ten. Foot. Pole around? Prodding at every other flagstone, waving it around for tripwires and all the other things while holding it at the tippy-tip of the end to get the maximum reach of 10ft and expecting to get any kind of result despite the fact that the leverage involved is physically ludicrous and grinning like he's a genius because he brought along his "handy-dandy" ten foot bloody pole! If you want 10ft of reach, bring a 12ft pole, genius! Minimum. You're looking at closer to a 15ft pole if you want any decent leverage at a range of 10ft. Assuming you can find a material strong enough to support forces perpendicular to the length of the shaft at that sort of distance without breaking. Let's see you walk through the forest with that! Or in through the friggin' door, for that matter. Or how about when you turn around to acknowledge a friend? "Where's your pole and what's it doing?" is not a question, as a fellow player or as GM, that I should need to be asking, but you're forcing me to address it. Constantly!

"Oh" I hear you say "I'll just carry it in my Bag of Holding." Problem solved right? Really[/sarcasm]. I ain't done ranting yet! Your BoH might be able to store it, sure, but how are you retrieving it? You can't just put it on the ground and pull your 10ft pole out; it'll hit the ceiling before it's clear. You could have a friend hold the bag and walk it out, I suppose, but that's some to-ing and fro-ing that the confines of your locale might not allow. Often doesn't, especially if you're using it to check for traps and are unsure about your footing. Any other suggestions? That's assuming you have a Bag of Holding in the first place.

Also! Who in the nine hells is manufacturing 10ft poles? They're not exactly an item common to your average homestead and the professions that use them could accurately be described as a "niche market". Fornan adventurer, getting hold of a purpose-made 10ft adventuring pole is going to be a comissioned job. Sure, any carpenter worth his trade could knock one out, I guess, buy he's also not stocking them at the General Store. It's a weird friggin' thing to ask for and weirder still to walk around with.

No. That's my line. That's the one that completely breaks my suspension of disbelief. If a party member pulls out a 10ft pole...I burn it. And the character holding it...with the highest level, most powerful, hottest fire I can find. If that means traveling to the deepest and most inhospitable, superheated reaches of the Elemental Plane of Fire and convincing the biggest, gnarliest, most volcanic and ancient Elemental leviathan I can find, to come to the material plane for the sole purpose of turning that pole and the character holding it to ash, then eat the ash and then throw whatever waste product an Elemental produces into the centre of the hottest sun in the multiverse to be compressed into several atoms worth of some denser element that I can then sprinkle on my gilded epaulette, only to brush it off with a disdainful look of disgust on my face...So. Be. It. :smallannoyed:

...I'm glad I got that off my chest. Sorry folks.

[JAL_1138]

...And then you set off the deathtrap and get dissolved by green slime because you burned your 10ft pole. :smalltongue:


When I played through Tomb of Horrors, the only person who died did so because he absolutely refused to use one, thinking it silly and pointless. The rest of us, using 10ft poles, survived the deathtrap that killed him completely unharmed.

[Mith]

As useful as it may be and despite it's status as traditional adventuring gear, I've long hated the humble 10ft pole...*ahem*...

IT'S A FRIGGIN' TEN-FOOT LONG POLE!

I mean, come on! Seriously. Most ceilings are only about 8 or 9ft and can you imagine tryng to get round a corner with it? It just ain't happenin', Bub. I can sort of forgive the Fighter wearing his plate armour 24/7. I can forgive the Ranger and his infinite quiver of "oops I forgot to tally my arrow usage in that that fight". I can happily handwave the minor expenses, the spell components, the rations and the water (the last only barely, but still I can do it)...

...but some guy casually lugging a Ten. Foot. Pole around? Prodding at every other flagstone, waving it around for tripwires and all the other things while holding it at the tippy-tip of the end to get the maximum reach of 10ft and expecting to get any kind of result despite the fact that the leverage involved is physically ludicrous and grinning like he's a genius because he brought along his "handy-dandy" ten foot bloody pole! If you want 10ft of reach, bring a 12ft pole, genius! Minimum. You're looking at closer to a 15ft pole if you want any decent leverage at a range of 10ft. Assuming you can find a material strong enough to support forces perpendicular to the length of the shaft at that sort of distance without breaking. Let's see you walk through the forest with that! Or in through the friggin' door, for that matter. Or how about when you turn around to acknowledge a friend? "Where's your pole and what's it doing?" is not a question, as a fellow player or as GM, that I should need to be asking, but you're forcing me to address it. Constantly!

"Oh" I hear you say "I'll just carry it in my Bag of Holding." Problem solved right? Really[/sarcasm]. I ain't done ranting yet! Your BoH might be able to store it, sure, but how are you retrieving it? You can't just put it on the ground and pull your 10ft pole out; it'll hit the ceiling before it's clear. You could have a friend hold the bag and walk it out, I suppose, but that's some to-ing and fro-ing that the confines of your locale might not allow. Often doesn't, especially if you're using it to check for traps and are unsure about your footing. Any other suggestions? That's assuming you have a Bag of Holding in the first place.

Also! Who in the nine hells is manufacturing 10ft poles? They're not exactly an item common to your average homestead and the professions that use them could accurately be described as a "niche market". Fornan adventurer, getting hold of a purpose-made 10ft adventuring pole is going to be a comissioned job. Sure, any carpenter worth his trade could knock one out, I guess, buy he's also not stocking them at the General Store. It's a weird friggin' thing to ask for and weirder still to walk around with.

No. That's my line. That's the one that completely breaks my suspension of disbelief. If a party member pulls out a 10ft pole...I burn it. And the character holding it...with the highest level, most powerful, hottest fire I can find. If that means traveling to the deepest and most inhospitable, superheated reaches of the Elemental Plane of Fire and convincing the biggest, gnarliest, most volcanic and ancient Elemental leviathan I can find, to come to the material plane for the sole purpose of turning that pole and the character holding it to ash, then eat the ash and then throw whatever waste product an Elemental produces into the centre of the hottest sun in the multiverse to be compressed into several atoms worth of some denser element that I can then sprinkle on my gilded epaulette, only to brush it off with a disdainful look of disgust on my face...So. Be. It. :smallannoyed:

...I'm glad I got that off my chest. Sorry folks.

Thanks for making my day with that rant.

[JAL_1138]

Several folks have mentioned cured meat, but bring some trail rations and especially waterskins. Dying of thirst is a bad way to go. Bring a few bags, sacks, pouches, etc. as well, to carry treasure back to town in.

Depending on campaign, it can be worth it to invest in a horse and wagon to help haul gear and loot as you travel.

[BestPlayer]

Manacles and shackles or chain or rope for restraining prisoners. Don't forget empty sacks for carrying things.

[JellyPooga]

Manacles and shackles or chain or rope for restraining prisoners. Don't forget empty sacks for carrying things.

Ooh, yeah, empty sacks are a good one. They're handy as impromptu blindfolds, bandages, a begger disguise, or to cover your modesty in case both the clothes you're wearing and your spares get totally wrecked. Amongst other things; they'll block smoke if stuffed under a door, absorb water or other liquids (stop floods today with a super-absorbant sack!), you can stuff small critters in them (just as good as manacles for the diminutive!), you can unpick them to get a piece of twine, ball one up as a gag, have a race at the county fair in your own, personalised sack, use one (or two if you're longer than a Halfling) as bedding (no ticks or fleas!), wrap them around your feet to muffle your foot-falls, fill one with sand and filter scummy water, put a rock in it and use it as a bludgeoning instrument or as a grappling hook with some added rope; thinking of which, tie some together to use as rope. The possibilities are endless!

I always pack a couple. You can, as BestPlayer says, always just carry things in them too :smallwink:

[War_lord]

...And then you set off the deathtrap and get dissolved by green slime because you burned your 10ft pole. :smalltongue:


When I played through Tomb of Horrors, the only person who died did so because he absolutely refused to use one, thinking it silly and pointless. The rest of us, using 10ft poles, survived the deathtrap that killed him completely unharmed.

Or you could, you know, get the guy with the spear to poke things... or play modules that haven't aged horribly and require items that only exist because of Gary's love of awful puns.

[smcmike]

A towel is just about the most massively useful thing any adventurer can carry. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold wastes of Frostfell; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of the Sword Coast, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the deserts of Athas, use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Dessarin; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

[War_lord]

Is a Wet Towel a simple weapon or an improvised weapon?

[GlenSmash!]

A towel is just about the most massively useful thing any adventurer can carry. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold wastes of Frostfell; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of the Sword Coast, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the deserts of Athas, use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Dessarin; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

+100000000

[JAL_1138]

Ooh, yeah, empty sacks are a good one. They're handy as impromptu blindfolds, bandages, a begger disguise, or to cover your modesty in case both the clothes you're wearing and your spares get totally wrecked. Amongst other things; they'll block smoke if stuffed under a door, absorb water or other liquids (stop floods today with a super-absorbant sack!), you can stuff small critters in them (just as good as manacles for the diminutive!), you can unpick them to get a piece of twine, ball one up as a gag, have a race at the county fair in your own, personalised sack, use one (or two if you're longer than a Halfling) as bedding (no ticks or fleas!), wrap them around your feet to muffle your foot-falls, fill one with sand and filter scummy water, put a rock in it and use it as a bludgeoning instrument or as a grappling hook with some added rope; thinking of which, tie some together to use as rope. The possibilities are endless!

I always pack a couple. You can, as BestPlayer says, always just carry things in them too :smallwink:

Indeed. Don't forget the poor-man's smokestick--set a bag filled with damp/wet leaves on fire. For that matter, they're also good for fire in general--depending on material and how it's used, they can either burn quite nicely, or be used to smother a fire, or you can wrap one around your hand to use as an oven mitt. Smaller bags are also good to keep a bit of sand or crushed glass in, to throw into your opponents' eyes. Could also stuff them with leaves to make a pillow. They also make a good distraction--keep a bag loaded with cheap mundane goods and huck it away from you if being pursued; your investigator may want to see what you were carrying more than they want to catch you (this can backfire if they assume the goods were stolen because you ditched them, though).

There's all kinds of things spare bags are good for. They're almost as useful as a 10ft pole! :smalltongue:


A towel is just about the most massively useful thing any adventurer can carry. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold wastes of Frostfell; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of the Sword Coast, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the deserts of Athas, use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Dessarin; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

This wins the thread, hands down. :smallbiggrin:

[JellyPooga]

They're almost as useful as a 10ft pole! :smalltongue:

Touché :smallwink:

[Waterdeep Merch]

Donkeys, often plural, with plenty of packs, bags, and ropes. If you aim to loot, loot everything.

Sweets. For the kids. Helps more than you'd think.

Ale. For the dwarves. Helps more than you'd think.

Unless you can get a great price on them and need the coin, don't sell off all your unneeded magic items. They're great for bartering.

If your game world has it, get black powder. Tons of it. If not, get alchemist's fire. Tons of it.

Acid's nifty. You can make the rogue look like a ponce about once per adventure if you know where to use it.

Portable battering ram. Now the rogue looks like a ponce about twice per adventure.

Lamp oil. Add it to the ball bearings and the floor becomes slapstick alley. Then you can light it on fire.

[Sariel Vailo]

Painters supplies. Durring my time on wacth id paint for hours and sell it for two or three platinum. Than id meditate.i once used my easal as an improvised weapon was not to thrilled about that

[Luppers]

If your game world has it, get black powder. Tons of it. If not, get alchemist's fire. Tons of it.

I feel this could backfire if not stored safely enough :smalltongue:

[Afrodactyl]

Chalk, torches, tinderbox, a bucket, rope, ball bearings, block and tackle, and a blanket or sheet.

Also, on the right character, a portable ram. I have a baillif-come-adventurer, who with his ram, high strength stat and expertise in athletics, has yet to meet a mundane door he couldn't smash open.

[JellyPooga]

I've had a lot of success with a cart, especially at lower levels. Cheaper to feed and less liable to bolt than a mule and a couple of the party strong-arms should be happy to drag it if they get to use it too. Handy for transporting larger items (statues, tapestries, adamantium doors, etc.) out of the dungeon and back to town for sale. Also handy for carrying corpses bodies (either for bounty or the sick/dying/dead you need to heal up).

[Finger6842]

I've had a lot of success with a cart, especially at lower levels. Cheaper to feed and less liable to bolt than a mule and a couple of the party strong-arms should be happy to drag it if they get to use it too. Handy for transporting larger items (statues, tapestries, adamantium doors, etc.) out of the dungeon and back to town for sale. Also handy for carrying corpses bodies (either for bounty or the sick/dying/dead you need to heal up).

I love carts, 10' poles and the like. Sadly I have a DM who believes it's his job to counter any planning on the players part. Cart, meet narrow walled cave passage, and no, you may not go around nor will you exit where you entered. Also a twisty passage has experienced a roof collapse you must crawl through. I'm very sorry your pole won't fit through either. /sigh

[JAL_1138]

I love carts, 10' poles and the like. Sadly I have a DM who believes it's his job to counter any planning on the players part. Cart, meet narrow walled cave passage, and no, you may not go around nor will you exit where you entered. Also a twisty passage has experienced a roof collapse you must crawl through. I'm very sorry your pole won't fit through either. /sigh

Invent the collapsible 10ft pole. A long bronze or steel ferrule and a couple of removable pins should do the trick to separate it into two 5ft halves, or you could do it in 3'4" thirds. Wouldn't try pole-vaulting with it, but should work for trapfinding purposes.

[Arial Black]

Back in the old days, one of the cruellest pranks you could play on the PCs was to have a creature sneakily saw six inches off every 10 foot pole they had.

Because while 10 foot poles a very useful, nine-and-a-half foot poles were not an item in the book. They didn't technically exist; they were just broken 10 foot poles, and broken things don't work.

So now, you don't get the 10 foot pole benefits and still can't turn around in a corridor! :smallsmile:

[Finger6842]

Invent the collapsible 10ft pole. A long bronze or steel ferrule and a couple of removable pins should do the trick to separate it into two 5ft halves, or you could do it in 3'4" thirds. Wouldn't try pole-vaulting with it, but should work for trapfinding purposes.

I like this so much I'm going to try it, thanks!

[Hypersmith]

damn, I thought I was a cruel DM

[Potato_Priest]

As a DM, my first and foremost enemy is the cart.

Dangerous monsters in a survival setting?

Cut 'em up and put the meat on the cart to eat later.

Deadly traps in a dungeon?

Break the wall, pull out the traps, and load em onto the cart to sell for scrap.

Wanted outlaw in the party?

Put him in the cart and cover him in hay.

Goblin horde?

Put all their weapons and armor on the cart to sell later.

More monsters?

Knock them out, tie them up and put them on the cart to sell to collectors.

When players have a cart, they are unstoppable.

Edit: To truly emulate my players, you have to never specify whether you're bringing the cart along at the start of an expedition, instead opting to decide retroactively when you know what terrain you're facing. Encounter a canyon with a broken rope bridge? You obviously left it behind. A nice smooth mausoleum floor, well duh, of course you brought it along.

[Hypersmith]

My players can't hang on to horses at all. They always end up dead. A halfling player just bought a dog mount, lets see how long it lasts

[Lombra]

Nobody mentioning healing potions and some scrolls?

[Finger6842]

Nobody mentioning healing potions and some scrolls?

I thought about it but decided they weren't something a Newby would have enough gold for. You're right though, they should be on the list.

[Psikerlord]

I like this so much I'm going to try it, thanks!

yeah I can totally see the 2 x 5 foot joinable pole being a thing. Maybe even 4 ft with 3 screw in sections. But just one big 10' pole - just too cumbersome to carry around. I dont care how useful it is supposed to be, you just wouldnt carry it for miles and miles etc.

On the other hand you could probably use a 6 ft staff for just about everything you use the 10 ft pole for.