Off book uses - Ball Bearings

[nickl_2000]

Basically I'm looking for other creative uses of normal adventuring gear than the uses in the book. So, today I'm looking at Ball Bearings.


Ball bearings: As an action, you can spill these tiny metal balls from their pouch to cover a level, square area that is 10 feet on a side. A creature moving across the covered area must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. A creature moving through the area at half speed doesn’t need to make the save.

A few ideas from me
-tossing these down for use with the animate object spell
-Putting them under heavy objects and using them to roll the object instead of push it
-put them in a sack to become an improvised weapon.

What have you got, what weird and off book usage can you think of?

[Willie the Duck]

Use mage hand to drop a few down the stairway behind the sentries, making them investigate that and letting you sneak by.
Breadcrumb trail for rust monster
Use the object roller ability you mentioned to make a sled-ram
Turn an existing quickly moving object in the environment into a random-direction bearing-launcher (suppression-fire machine gun, in effect)
Move something you wouldn't need the bearings for, simply quieter than without them
Clay pot (expendable) plus bearings make a decent rock tumbler for grinding or polishing things.
Imbed them in clay-instead of slipping hazard, they become traction enhancer.

[kamap]

- Sling shot or catapult ammo.
- Moving something heavy by putting it on the ball bearings and pushing it along.
- Setting off pressure triggers.
- focal point for the spells Light and Darkness.
- making pouches of coin feel heavier and worth more.
- making noise where you want the enemy you're sneaking up on to pay attention.
- Use them to check and see if a surface is level.
- Drop down a hole and listen for impact to judge distance.
- Use one to check for traps without spotting them.
- Put them in a clay pot use the spell catapult to lob them at an enemy to do some damage and have the spot covered in ball bearings.

[Slayn82]

Too bad muskets aren't an option.

Since they are metal, you can feed them to a rust monster.

You may drop them around one by one to leave clues to someone following your trail.

Throw one somewhere close to create a distraction.

You may heat them, maybe using create bonfire, and drop them over someone, like a poor man's heat metal trap.

You may use a cantrip to make them fit inside a bottle or flask just to annoy anyone trying to drink it.

[DarkKnightJin]

- Put them in a clay pot use the spell catapult to lob them at an enemy to do some damage and have the spot covered in ball bearings.

Considering I wanted to play an Eldritch Knight with the Catapult Spell, this could make for a wonderful damage and area-denial combo. Occassionally.
If you start doing this all the time, the DM is going to throw non-level ground your way to counter your cheese.

[Ganymede]

Basically I'm looking for other creative uses of normal adventuring gear than the uses in the book. So, today I'm looking at Ball Bearings.



A few ideas from me
-tossing these down for use with the animate object spell



This is DM dependent. A DM might allow you to cast this spell on ball bearings, grains of sand, flecks of dust, etc., but the only real examples of tiny objects we have are things the size of a bottle or a padlock, so he or she might not.

[Dudewithknives]

Am I the only one who finds the idea of having a bag of 1000 ballbearings in a setting with the limited in world tech kind of ridiculous?
Ballbearings are not exactly easy to make in fast bulk quantities unless you have some heavy machines, yet 1000 of them are the same price as a simple quarterstaff.

On topic:

Cave exploring for tossing and listening for echos and bounces.
Sling-shot ammo.
Flatten them out to make it appear you have a very loaded coin purse, great for throwing off thieves from your real coin purse that is hidden elsewhere.
Testing illusions, just toss a ballbearing at it to see if goes through or bounces off.
Just playing games with them like marbles or things.
Winning in a frog jumping contest. (Little obscure there)
Moving something large more quietly by laying it on them.
Thief checking, lay them on the ground in a certain pattern, like a grid. if they are out of place, someone moved them.

[Snowbluff]

You know, one of the off book uses would be using them as bearings, wouldn't it?

[Willie the Duck]

You know, one of the off book uses would be using them as bearings, wouldn't it?

Well, the 5e srd suggests that the only listed use in the book is to use them as a area-effect tripping hazard. So yes, apparently.

[Ganymede]

Am I the only one who finds the idea of having a bag of 1000 ballbearings in a setting with the limited in world tech kind of ridiculous?
Ballbearings are not exactly easy to make in fast bulk quantities unless you have some heavy machines, yet 1000 of them are the same price as a simple quarterstaff.


It is actually far easier than you think. Most setups require a forge hot enough to melt iron and a source of water from the elemental plane. A decanter of endless water works for these purposes.

Molten iron is dripped into the decanter. The special properties of this elemental water allow the droplets to spherize perfectly and the lack of impurities in the water keeps the resulting bearings pristine.

[Dudewithknives]

It is actually far easier than you think. Most setups require a forge hot enough to melt iron and a source of water from the elemental plane. A decanter of endless water works for these purposes.

Molten iron is dripped into the decanter. The special properties of this elemental water allow the droplets to spherize perfectly and the lack of impurities in the water keeps the resulting bearings pristine.

Common Blacksmith Smith has water from the elemental plane of water to quench his metals in?
I do not see that happening.

Also having very pure water would not make a difference, unless this is some kind of special water with magical properties.

The easiest way would be to use molds, molds that are just hollow cylinders that are clamped together, pour in the metal, let it cool, or quench it if you need it to be hardened more.

You could make basic iron ballbearings, the issue is that basic iron ballbearings made that way would not be all that pure at all and not particularly hardened.

In the end there is no way 1000 of them should be the same price as a quarterstaff that could easily be made in about an hour.

[Ganymede]

Common Blacksmith Smith has water from the elemental plane of water to quench his metals in?
I do not see that happening.

Also having very pure water would not make a difference, unless this is some kind of special water with magical properties.

The easiest way would be to use molds, molds that are just hollow cylinders that are clamped together, pour in the metal, let it cool, or quench it if you need it to be hardened more.

You could make basic iron ballbearings, the issue is that basic iron ballbearings made that way would not be all that pure at all and not particularly hardened.

In the end there is no way 1000 of them should be the same price as a quarterstaff that could easily be made in about an hour.

Honestly, it sounds like you know absolutely nothing about the properties of water procured from the Elemental Plane of Water. Get educated.

[Man_Over_Game]

Honestly, it sounds like you know absolutely nothing about the properties of water procured from the Elemental Plane of Water. Get educated.

Come on, now. No need for that, we're all friends here.

It is a valid problem. Ball Bearings cost 1gp for 1000, the same cost of a mundane hammer. The only other item that would need magic to create on the standard items list is the Healing Potion, which costs 50gp. You would probably have to work overtime to sell 1000 ball bearings with a magic item to inflate the market enough for them to be 1gp/1000.

Perhaps the ball bearings are some kind of refuse? Not much rounder than a stone? Or maybe it's some kind of rod? I can see those tripping people but still be regularly made.

[Dudewithknives]

Come on, now. No need for that, we're all friends here.

It is a valid problem. Ball Bearings cost 1gp for 1000, the same cost of a mundane hammer. The only other item that would need magic to create on the standard items list is the Healing Potion, which costs 50gp. You would probably have to work overtime to sell 1000 ball bearings with a magic item to inflate the market enough for them to be 1gp/1000.

Perhaps the ball bearings are some kind of refuse? Not much rounder than a stone? Or maybe it's some kind of rod? I can see those tripping people but still be regularly made.

I think it is a big assumption to think that all the people here are friends, there are many people here that hate each other.

[Crgaston]

A shot tower would be the easiest and cheapest way to make them, since they wouldn't necessarily need to be just exactly perfect. No magic needed at all.

Briefly, so you don't HAVE to google... Molten metal is dribbled into the air from a tall tower. Surface tension makes it form into a sphere and it solidifies on its way down before being quenched in a pool of water.

[DMThac0]

-Drive them in to trees with a hammer to mark paths
-Toss in the air as a distraction for sneak attack
-Slip into footwear of guards to make life miserable
-Toss one every second, consistently, at the same speed, at a prisoner/monster to force a confession/extract information
-Practice flicking them with speed, power, and accuracy to make them improvised missile weapons
-Create a Newton's Cradle

[Man_Over_Game]

A shot tower would be the easiest and cheapest way to make them, since they wouldn't necessarily need to be just exactly perfect. No magic needed at all.

Briefly, so you don't HAVE to google... Molten metal is dribbled into the air from a tall tower. Surface tension makes it form into a sphere and it solidifies on its way down before being quenched in a pool of water.

Looks like the Bliemeister method, developed a little more recently, would work to make small ball bearings with very good accuracy. You effectively roll the molten lead down a vat of hot oil. You don't need much space (as much space as your desk), and a few gallons of oil. Looks like it takes a decent amount of work, though. Not sure who'd want to make a living doing that.

[Ganymede]

Come on, now. No need for that, we're all friends here.



I wasn't actually taking issue with his education levels regarding a fictional substance. I was making an absurdist joke about an inherently unknowable fantasy world.

But yeah, it is well within the realm of fantasy fidelity to imagine some guy opening a shop in Waterdeep using a quasi-magical process to churn out millions of ball bearings. There is very little suspension of disbelief involved.

[druid91]

I mean. Seems like a decent source of money for a wizard. Cast fabricate on a big block of steel to make ten bajillion ball bearings.

[Dudewithknives]

I mean. Seems like a decent source of money for a wizard. Cast fabricate on a big block of steel to make ten bajillion ball bearings.

In a world that has magic, or just in the real world, you could make a VERY large amount of money from preatidigitation alone.

That is why when I saw the forge cleric ability to craft at a rest I was like, ummm what.

[Ganymede]

In a world that has magic, or just in the real world, you could make a VERY large amount of money from preatidigitation alone.

That is why when I saw the forge cleric ability to craft at a rest I was like, ummm what.

The rules for PC creation and development are a gamist conceit designed to give a sense of progression in a storytelling game among friends. They are not a socioeconomic model of a fantasy world.

[Willie the Duck]

Am I the only one who finds the idea of having a bag of 1000 ballbearings in a setting with the limited in world tech kind of ridiculous?
Ballbearings are not exactly easy to make in fast bulk quantities unless you have some heavy machines, yet 1000 of them are the same price as a simple quarterstaff.


The rules for PC creation and development are a gamist conceit designed to give a sense of progression in a storytelling game among friends. They are not a socioeconomic model of a fantasy world.

What Ganymede said, and same principle with the cost of them being less than that of a quarterstaff. Prices have always been gamist in D&D. A ten foot pole was usually more expensive than a 10' ladder (presumably made of two 10' poles) because the pole was generally more useful to adventurers.

Now whether you want to include them at all (other than maybe one-offs, hand-fashioned), I can get behind calling foul on them not existing in-game. But economics? It's just one more thing in a long list of inconsistencies there.
Now whether you want to include them at all (other than maybe something hand-fashioned), I get that too. Certainly out of metal.

[No brains]

I think these side conversations have little bearing on the subject.:smallcool: Use them for puns!

[Damon_Tor]

Common Blacksmith Smith has water from the elemental plane of water to quench his metals in?
I do not see that happening.

Also having very pure water would not make a difference, unless this is some kind of special water with magical properties.

The easiest way would be to use molds, molds that are just hollow cylinders that are clamped together, pour in the metal, let it cool, or quench it if you need it to be hardened more.

You could make basic iron ballbearings, the issue is that basic iron ballbearings made that way would not be all that pure at all and not particularly hardened.

In the end there is no way 1000 of them should be the same price as a quarterstaff that could easily be made in about an hour.

You don't make ball bearings with a mold. You pour motlen iron through a grate, then let it fall some distance into a pool of water, then collect them from the bottom of the pool. They make special towers for this (the farther the droplets fall, the rounder the bearings). The tower is a one-time expense, but once it's built it lasts effectively forever. There are bearing towers in Europe that are close to 1000 years old. You can produce them extremely quickly, and from garbage-quality iron not suited for anything else.

[Sigreid]

https://youtu.be/IvUU8joBb1Q

[Lunali]

Use them to trap the windows of your inn room to fall to the floor and wake you if the window is moved, optionally include playing cards to increase sensitivity or hide the nature of the trap.

[Vogie]

The way I figure out these things is also to figure out a reason why most people, even NPCs, would require an abundance of ball bearings in the first place, which would drive the price down

Some thoughts:

Moving heavy objects across hard floors
Ad Hoc Weights for barter/comparison
A recent explosion of prevalence of Kinetic Furniture and sculptures, such as clocks, timers, calendars (music machines! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q)) and the like, that need a myriad of rolling bits
Pieces for a common game, such as Mancala, Jax or Marbles, or something exotic... like a Crossfire or Hungry Hippos clone. Even things like Chinese Checkers or Carrom could be played with a normalized set of balls.
Normalizing use of Codd-Neck-style bottles for home canning and liquid storage
Ball bearings in a sack as a cosh (improvised Blackjack), for reasons like a high crime rate in areas with heavy limitation to weapon access, or societal preference of nonlethal weaponry
Pigeon infestation, or similar, that can be easily scattered by kids (of all ages) with slingshots

[KorvinStarmast]

A friend of mine played a wizard.
Ball bearings + animate object was .... the D&D version of a Claymore mine.

[NecessaryWeevil]

1. Add ballbearings to birdseed
2. Get a big magnet
3. Catch roadrunner

[Son of A Lich!]

1. Add ballbearings to birdseed
2. Get a big magnet
3. Catch roadrunner
4. Realize the Magnet is marked to not catch Roadrunners, as per the instructions.

Mended that for you

[Vogie]

If you have minor spell effects available to the public, which is fairly common in mid- to high-magic settings:

ball bearings could be used alongside Wands of Gust as an airsoft replacement.
Wands, or similar minor wondrous items could be used alongside ball bearings to produce an effect similar to a Conjuration wizard's Minor Conjuration feature, giving an average person of adequate means the ability to arrange said ball bearings into simple shapes, whether that be furniture, housewares or whatever.

[kamap]

A ten foot pole was usually more expensive than a 10' ladder (presumably made of two 10' poles) because the pole was generally more useful to adventurers.

So you buy a ladder, take out the 2 ten foot poles and voila profit.

[Unoriginal]

You could spread them in a room, leave and come back, and if they're disturbed, it means someone went into this room.

Or you could spread out around the camp area to gain an advantage over people trying to sneak around/attack the camp.

[Willie the Duck]

So you buy a ladder, take out the 2 ten foot poles and voila profit.

It has been suggested (http://www.goblinscomic.org/comic/09092006).

[kamap]

Goblins by Thunt is awsome and have you heard about the goblins of elderstone that will reference the comic?

[Tanarii]

You don't make ball bearings with a mold. You pour motlen iron through a grate, then let it fall some distance into a pool of water, then collect them from the bottom of the pool. They make special towers for this (the farther the droplets fall, the rounder the bearings). The tower is a one-time expense, but once it's built it lasts effectively forever. There are bearing towers in Europe that are close to 1000 years old. You can produce them extremely quickly, and from garbage-quality iron not suited for anything else.
Citation needed. Everything I can find online says they're primarily a industrial era thing, mid to late 1700s onwards. I can't find anything about ball bearing towers.

Maybe you're thinking of shot towers, which do it for lead ammunition? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower
(Which I'll note is also industrial era.)

[Sharur]

Citation needed. Everything I can find online says they're primarily a industrial era thing, mid to late 1700s onwards. I can't find anything about ball bearing towers.

Maybe you're thinking of shot towers, which do it for lead ammunition? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower
(Which I'll note is also industrial era.)

Tanarii, while that is true, a "ball bearing" is a modern thing. Per Wikipedia, they were designed in 1794, although the idea was apparently described by Da Vinci. "Bearings" however are ancient.

We are also assuming that the ball bearings are made of metal, which need not be the case. The Romans had wooden ones.

So there are four possibilities:

1) Magic is involved in their creation

2) Technology levels are higher (possibility due to magic, either directly(e.g. wizards as scientists) or indirectly(e.g. trade and travel are increased, increasing demand for large scale goods; Druids and Clerics make more food and more reliable food, so peasant labor is freed up for more commercial pursuits).

3) Ball bearings are not made of metal: possible replacement candidates include clay(cheap, easily shapable and fireable in mass numbers), wood and/or stone (somewhat expensive, and somewhat), and glass (e.g. marbles; expensive, but also a good way to recoup money from flawed or waste pieces of expensive glass, i.e. all glass).

4) Doyalist: "Ball" bearings are not actually ball shaped, and the term is used to give players (including DMs) a better idea of what they can do and be used for.

*Apprentice smiths tended to spend a lot of time receptively making small standardized items, particularly arrowheads(there are some reports of smiths paying their taxes in arrowheads) and nails(a reliable income source). Such apprentices could add bearings to their repertoire, and wood carver, stone carver and potter apprentices could likewise be set to work on making use of flawed or damaged materials. Note that stone and clay were used in ancient times for sling bullets, so there is some precedent for this.

[Joe the Rat]

What's the relative production difficulty of tiny spheres of metal vs glass ? I could easily see this falling back to the marble category.

On topic:


Detect slope
Detect illusory floors
Detect magnetic fields, induction fields, lightning traps
Invent Pachinko
Nigh-limitless supply of targets for light cantrip
(mostly) harmless blowgun ammo
Distract classical vampire

[Sharur]

Actually, I've just learned that during the ancient period, glass recycling was available. So never mind it wouldn't be practical to make glass ball bearings.

It would be more difficult to craft ball bearings out of wood or stone than metal, but the upside is there are few uses for a small piece of wood or stone, besides some other small decorative carving; small pieces of metal can always be gathered together a melted down to cast into some other larger piece.