Jowgen
2017-07-22, 01:10 PM
Splintering bolts appear in Dragon 349 and have the following text:
A splintering bolt is actually a dozen smaller bolts loosely bound together and designed to come apart from the force of being fired. When fired, the bolts separate, creating a 30-ft cone of metal-tipped splinters. No attack roll is required. Creatures in the cone take 1d6 points of damage (1d4 points of damage for a small crossbow). This damage is reduced by half with a DC 15 Reflex save.
Considering this thing turns any regular ranged attack into a cone, I feel there is significant potential for optimization here, but before that here's a bunch of questions that need answering.
First off, what sort of damage-boosting effects can be applied to the splinter-bolts?
As far as I can tell, splinter Bolts are still ammunition fired from the crossbow to make an attack; so while the lack of attack roll should preclude Sneak Attacks, anything that can be applied to "weapon damage rolls", "ranged attacks" and anything else worded in this vein should work.
Secondly, what about rider-effects from the firing crossbow can be applied?
Weapon-special abilities that bestow their effect upon the ammuntion should work no problem, but the rules get trickier when dealing with things like Poisons, not to mention spells that were created with the assumption of 1 attack = 1 target.
Lastly, either in addition or regardless of the boosting of area damage and the spreading of rider-effects; what sort of uses and abuses can you see working with these beauties?
A splintering bolt is actually a dozen smaller bolts loosely bound together and designed to come apart from the force of being fired. When fired, the bolts separate, creating a 30-ft cone of metal-tipped splinters. No attack roll is required. Creatures in the cone take 1d6 points of damage (1d4 points of damage for a small crossbow). This damage is reduced by half with a DC 15 Reflex save.
Considering this thing turns any regular ranged attack into a cone, I feel there is significant potential for optimization here, but before that here's a bunch of questions that need answering.
First off, what sort of damage-boosting effects can be applied to the splinter-bolts?
As far as I can tell, splinter Bolts are still ammunition fired from the crossbow to make an attack; so while the lack of attack roll should preclude Sneak Attacks, anything that can be applied to "weapon damage rolls", "ranged attacks" and anything else worded in this vein should work.
Secondly, what about rider-effects from the firing crossbow can be applied?
Weapon-special abilities that bestow their effect upon the ammuntion should work no problem, but the rules get trickier when dealing with things like Poisons, not to mention spells that were created with the assumption of 1 attack = 1 target.
Lastly, either in addition or regardless of the boosting of area damage and the spreading of rider-effects; what sort of uses and abuses can you see working with these beauties?