Khatoblepas
2021-05-06, 05:57 AM
While looking up crafting stuff, I came across an interesting interaction in the rules that would allow you to do acid damage anywhere, at any time.
Behold, the Ditherbomb.
Ditherbombs come in three varieties, each of which deals a different amount of damage and has a different blast radius. Weak ditherbombs deal 1d6 points of acid damage to creatures and objects in a 5-foot-radius burst (Reflex DC 10 half). Strong ditherbombs deal 1d4x1d6 points of acid damage (Reflex DC 12 half) in a 10-foot-radius burst. The most potent ditherbombs, called wyrm ditherbombs, deal 1d6x1d8 points of acid damage in a 15-foot-radius burst (Reflex DC 15 half). The damage dealt by a ditherbomb ignores the hardness of stone.
Obviously we want the Wyrm Ditherbomb, since it's the strongest. as it costs 1000gp, we'll need to pay ~333gp for each charge. Which, at higher levels, is really nothing, but the Apprentice (Craftsman) feat can bring us down to 300gp.
But what's the point, I hear you ask? You can make bombs all you want, but that's not instant. But Ditherbombs have a very special property:
Try Again: In addition to the normal parameters of the Craft skill, if you fail a Craft (alchemy) check to create a ditherbomb by 5 or more, the partially created ditherbomb explodes, dealing damage as if it were a completed ditherbomb. The explosion destroys the alchemical lab being used for the ditherbomb's creation.
They do something on a skill failure. They explode, dealing damage. So, we want to fail this check, and fail it as often as possible. Luckily, Complete Adventurer comes to our aid, both in making the skill check impossible to succeed at and reducing the time we take to fail in our task to a minimum.
Quick Creation: You can voluntarily increase the DC of crafting an item by any multiple of 10. This tactic allows you to create an item more quickly (since you'll be multiplying this higher DC by your check result to determine progress). You must decide the increase before you make the check.
Any multiple of ten? If we increase the DC to make a wyrm ditherbomb by, say, an arbitrarily large number, in the millions, we can reduce the crafting time and instantly fail at crafting it by 5 or more. It explodes as if it were a completed bomb, even though we have done absolutely nothing. We also lose half of our raw materials, so 150gp is the total cost, as we can reuse the other half. So long as we have immunity to acid (a Half Black Dragon Kobold does nicely here), we can craft a failed bomb any time, anywhere.........
.... unless the minimum time to craft something is one day. Then we can only do it once per day. But it is kind of fun, and I'm sure there are ways to further it. Is a ditherbomb made of vegetable matter? Then we can use psionic minor creation to reduce it to a standard action.
Behold, the Ditherbomb.
Ditherbombs come in three varieties, each of which deals a different amount of damage and has a different blast radius. Weak ditherbombs deal 1d6 points of acid damage to creatures and objects in a 5-foot-radius burst (Reflex DC 10 half). Strong ditherbombs deal 1d4x1d6 points of acid damage (Reflex DC 12 half) in a 10-foot-radius burst. The most potent ditherbombs, called wyrm ditherbombs, deal 1d6x1d8 points of acid damage in a 15-foot-radius burst (Reflex DC 15 half). The damage dealt by a ditherbomb ignores the hardness of stone.
Obviously we want the Wyrm Ditherbomb, since it's the strongest. as it costs 1000gp, we'll need to pay ~333gp for each charge. Which, at higher levels, is really nothing, but the Apprentice (Craftsman) feat can bring us down to 300gp.
But what's the point, I hear you ask? You can make bombs all you want, but that's not instant. But Ditherbombs have a very special property:
Try Again: In addition to the normal parameters of the Craft skill, if you fail a Craft (alchemy) check to create a ditherbomb by 5 or more, the partially created ditherbomb explodes, dealing damage as if it were a completed ditherbomb. The explosion destroys the alchemical lab being used for the ditherbomb's creation.
They do something on a skill failure. They explode, dealing damage. So, we want to fail this check, and fail it as often as possible. Luckily, Complete Adventurer comes to our aid, both in making the skill check impossible to succeed at and reducing the time we take to fail in our task to a minimum.
Quick Creation: You can voluntarily increase the DC of crafting an item by any multiple of 10. This tactic allows you to create an item more quickly (since you'll be multiplying this higher DC by your check result to determine progress). You must decide the increase before you make the check.
Any multiple of ten? If we increase the DC to make a wyrm ditherbomb by, say, an arbitrarily large number, in the millions, we can reduce the crafting time and instantly fail at crafting it by 5 or more. It explodes as if it were a completed bomb, even though we have done absolutely nothing. We also lose half of our raw materials, so 150gp is the total cost, as we can reuse the other half. So long as we have immunity to acid (a Half Black Dragon Kobold does nicely here), we can craft a failed bomb any time, anywhere.........
.... unless the minimum time to craft something is one day. Then we can only do it once per day. But it is kind of fun, and I'm sure there are ways to further it. Is a ditherbomb made of vegetable matter? Then we can use psionic minor creation to reduce it to a standard action.