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Thread: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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2021-10-21, 12:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2017
Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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?
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2021-10-21, 01:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2018
- Location
- Space Australia
- Gender
Re: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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
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2021-10-21, 03:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2016
Re: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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>Never let the fluff of a class define the personality of a character. Let Clerics be Atheist, let Barbarians be cowardly or calm, let Druids hate nature, and let Wizards know nothing about the arcane
Fun Fact: A monk in armor loses Martial Arts, Unarmored Defense, and Unarmored Movement, but keep all of their other abilities, including subclass features, and Stunning Strike works with melee weapon attacks. Make a Monk in Fullplate with a Greatsword >=D
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2021-10-21, 01:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
Re: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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2021-10-21, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- The Land of Cleves
- Gender
Re: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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.Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
Chronos's Unalliterative Skillmonkey Guide
Current Homebrew: 5th edition psionics
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2021-10-21, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
Re: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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2021-10-21, 07:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
Re: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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?Spoiler: bad tactics
I look at the lich and smirk a bit, as I bring myself back to my feet
"What are you smiling about?" it says
"hehe, it looks like you've made... a grave mistake :D"
the bard, actively bleeding out on the ground *ba-dum-tss*
"Ha! Nice try. Telling a bad joke to try to make your opponent drop their guard. Oldest trick in the book. Trust me, I was there."
*barbarian falling, sword in hands, from the top of the castle wall directly above the lich*
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2021-10-21, 07:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2018
- Location
- USA, Wisconsin
Re: Sack of ball bearings/caltrops
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.