Sack of ball bearings/caltrops

[Greywander]

So a sack has 5x the capacity (both weight and volume) of a pouch. I take this to mean that you can fit 5x as many caltrops, ball bearings, or a mix of the two into a sack. So what if you did just that and dumped out the contents?

I'm pretty sure there's no RAW for this, so I suppose I'm asking how you'd rule this as a DM. Would it be a higher DC? A larger area? Both?

These are both super useful items at low levels (use them!), but since the DCs don't scale, they drop off in usefulness as you level up and face tougher enemies. What I'd hope is that something like what I'm suggesting here might be a way to make them more useful at higher levels. Hmm, I don't suppose there's a magic item version of caltrops or ball bearings with higher DC?

[Zhorn]

Hmm, I don't suppose there's a magic item version of caltrops or ball bearings with higher DC?
Off the top of my head these are the spell equivalents that would jump out at me
Grease for Ball Bearings
Spire Growth for Caltrops
granted though the second doesn't actually have a scaling DC

But if you wanted an easy magic item, wands would be the easiest solution.
Wand of Magic Missile spell swapped to be a Wand of Grease
Wand of Binding spell swapped to be a Wand of Spike Growth

[sithlordnergal]

So a sack has 5x the capacity (both weight and volume) of a pouch. I take this to mean that you can fit 5x as many caltrops, ball bearings, or a mix of the two into a sack. So what if you did just that and dumped out the contents?

I'm pretty sure there's no RAW for this, so I suppose I'm asking how you'd rule this as a DM. Would it be a higher DC? A larger area? Both?

These are both super useful items at low levels (use them!), but since the DCs don't scale, they drop off in usefulness as you level up and face tougher enemies. What I'd hope is that something like what I'm suggesting here might be a way to make them more useful at higher levels. Hmm, I don't suppose there's a magic item version of caltrops or ball bearings with higher DC?

Personally, I'd make it a larger area since its 5x as big as a pouch. If you mixed the two, I'd have both effects going at once, since you are having to spend 5x the resources to do it.

Also, Animate Object + Ball Bearings. You got 1,000 of the things for 10 tiny objects >w>

[Segev]

So a sack has 5x the capacity (both weight and volume) of a pouch. I take this to mean that you can fit 5x as many caltrops, ball bearings, or a mix of the two into a sack. So what if you did just that and dumped out the contents?

I'm pretty sure there's no RAW for this, so I suppose I'm asking how you'd rule this as a DM. Would it be a higher DC? A larger area? Both?

These are both super useful items at low levels (use them!), but since the DCs don't scale, they drop off in usefulness as you level up and face tougher enemies. What I'd hope is that something like what I'm suggesting here might be a way to make them more useful at higher levels. Hmm, I don't suppose there's a magic item version of caltrops or ball bearings with higher DC?

Given that most creatures don't have proficiency in the appropriate saves, do their saves really scale that much with CR? Sure, some will have higher stats, but bound accuracy generally should keep these items relevant all the way to level 20, shouldn't it?

[Chronos]

Ball bearings would probably spread out, though still be a bit concentrated in the square you dumped them into.

Caltrops would just clump up in place, and the tactic of shuffling your feet through the area instead of lifting them would be just as effective as versus a single pouch of them.

[Segev]

Ball bearings would probably spread out, though still be a bit concentrated in the square you dumped them into.

Caltrops would just clump up in place, and the tactic of shuffling your feet through the area instead of lifting them would be just as effective as versus a single pouch of them.

I think the question is less whether you could move at half speed, still, to avoid the damage, and more whether the DC on the save goes up if you have more of them in the space, and by how much, should you choose to move full speed through them.

[Foxhound438]

Ball bearings would probably spread out, though still be a bit concentrated in the square you dumped them into.

Caltrops would just clump up in place, and the tactic of shuffling your feet through the area instead of lifting them would be just as effective as versus a single pouch of them.

On ball bearings I agree completely. Realistically they should work better on some surfaces than others, like a soft dirt in undergrowth it shouldn't do anything.

Caltrops being swept around might not work as well on all surfaces though, a softer surface or one with hard geometry that the points can get caught in might cause a caltrop to be tilted under your foot as you try to sweep it, so it could still end up in your foot.


These are both super useful items at low levels (use them!), but since the DCs don't scale, they drop off in usefulness as you level up and face tougher enemies. What I'd hope is that something like what I'm suggesting here might be a way to make them more useful at higher levels. Hmm, I don't suppose there's a magic item version of caltrops or ball bearings with higher DC?

I would think that painting these things to be camouflaged might make the DC to avoid harder, and tipping caltrops with poison is totally a thing you could do if there was any chance an enemy would actually land on it. Maybe I would let a character with painting tools and a specific kind of environment to deploy in to make a stealth check to set the DC to avoid.

[elyktsorb]

So a sack has 5x the capacity (both weight and volume) of a pouch. I take this to mean that you can fit 5x as many caltrops, ball bearings, or a mix of the two into a sack. So what if you did just that and dumped out the contents?

I'm pretty sure there's no RAW for this, so I suppose I'm asking how you'd rule this as a DM. Would it be a higher DC? A larger area? Both?

These are both super useful items at low levels (use them!), but since the DCs don't scale, they drop off in usefulness as you level up and face tougher enemies. What I'd hope is that something like what I'm suggesting here might be a way to make them more useful at higher levels. Hmm, I don't suppose there's a magic item version of caltrops or ball bearings with higher DC?

I mean at best you could get a larger area, although the point of having them in small pouches means you can spread them over a specific area, if you were to just dump out a sack of them I'd imagine you'd have less control over where they end up going. I can't see any DM making it a high DC since nothing about the objects got harder to avoid, you just threw more on the floor.

So if we assume that the current spaces for the items as they stand (A pouch of caltrops spreads over one square, a pouch of ball bearings spreads over two) then it should be a 5 square area for the caltrops (probably a 4 square area as that makes more sense.) Then Ball Bearings get a ten square area, with caltrops I'd say you could choose which direction (IE, you get to pick the four squares in front of you where you spread it, like by throwing them) but Ball Bearings would basically be randomly spread, as there's no way you could really spread them across 10 squares without also moving around while doing so.

If you wanted to DC to go up, I'd suggest that coating them in oil would make it so it would be a harder DC. Or in the case of caltrops, you could attempt to coat them in poison for other effects.

As far as magic goes, there is no official magic item for either of them (though I wouldn't really want a magic version since it would mean Thief Rogue's couldn't use them as a bonus action)

As for them being useful at higher levels. If you take the time to set up multiple layers of them, or have ways to keep making your enemies have to go through them, then by sheer numbers they end up activating. I know I got use out of both items at as high as level 11.