Uses for Caltrops, Weird or Otherwise

[rayne_dragon]

Alright, a little background first. I've recently undertaken trying to write a regular 'column' (in quotes because it's a message board thing that I'm doing for a friend because he thinks it'll increase interest the message board for his gaming social club thing). Anyways, I decided to call it "Bag of Caltrops" because... well it sounded good at the time. So because of that I decided to do an article detailing 99 uses for caltrops, but I'm kinda stumped at 70 uses (and some of those are really lame).

So I'm wondering if anyone wants to share their ideas for how to use the noble caltrop. It doesn't matter how wacky or zany the idea is (nor do you need to limit yourself to a fantasy setting), I'm hoping to find ones I haven't come up with yet. I'd also ask you to include what name you'd like me to give credit to should I use any of your ideas (not that I get much of an audience, but who knows what could happen?).

I'm also not posting my list because I believe people are more creative when they haven't been influenced by lists n' stuff.

[Hal]

Alright, a little background first. I've recently undertaken trying to write a regular 'column' (in quotes because it's a message board thing that I'm doing for a friend because he thinks it'll increase interest the message board for his gaming social club thing). Anyways, I decided to call it "Bag of Caltrops" because... well it sounded good at the time. So because of that I decided to do an article detailing 99 uses for caltrops, but I'm kinda stumped at 70 uses (and some of those are really lame).

So I'm wondering if anyone wants to share their ideas for how to use the noble caltrop. It doesn't matter how wacky or zany the idea is (nor do you need to limit yourself to a fantasy setting), I'm hoping to find ones I haven't come up with yet. I'd also ask you to include what name you'd like me to give credit to should I use any of your ideas (not that I get much of an audience, but who knows what could happen?).

I'm also not posting my list because I believe people are more creative when they haven't been influenced by lists n' stuff.

Cooking utensils out in the wild.
Warding off assassins at the inn (you know your DM is planning it).
Improvised weapon with piercing damage.

[snoopy13a]

Modified form of lawn darts

[Icewalker]

One which I plan to use, nice and simple, is caltrops + grease spell.

Slip face or back first into a floor of caltrops. I'd have it deal 1d6 damage instead of 1, also, considering.

[Ravens_cry]

Small Christmas tree stands.
Vertical Sausage and Potato roasters
Candle holders
Tied to some rope, make some nasty bolas.

[Kris Strife]

rust monster popcorn

[Weezer]

attach to armor for improvised spiked armor
spread in allies bed as a practical joke

[elliott20]

stick some on a pillar or a wall and you have yourself a back scratcher.

elaborate nipple piercings

[Flickerdart]

Crude d4s. Great for when you do recursion.

[Ionizer]

Caltrops are perfect for a high-stakes game of Jacks.
Also useful as an alarm system ("Heh heh, I'm gonna sneak up and kill that guy while he's sleep--OH GOD MY FOOT!")
Impromptu Shuriken.
High Stakes Hop-scotch.
Endless uses as practical jokes.
Acupuncture.
Caltrops Jenga.
Use them to spice up a routine of jump rope.

[elliott20]

ooh, for the BDSM crowd, make an entire gimp suit out of it.

[BobVosh]

rust monster popcorn

Awesome.

Backscratcher (be careful)

[elliott20]

cast animate objects and they become dance lessons aid.

"if you step in the wrong place, you'll step on a caltrop"
"I don't wanna learn how dance anymore"
"then maybe you'd like the learn the piano instead? If you touch the wrong keys, caltrop"
"look, can't I like, go read a book or something?"
"fine, but if you read below a certain number of words per hour, I stab you with the caltrop"

[mabriss lethe]

helping the Bard practice his "Perform: Scream like a little girl" skill.

staple Ingredient when cooking for those people you reaaaally don't like

Stocking stuffers for that paladin on your list who has everything

[Kris Strife]

stilleto heels for pixies.

[An Enemy Spy]

Christmas Ornaments
A fishook

[Ravens_cry]

Improvised Ninja Stars.

[Lyndworm]

Crude d4s. Great for when you do recursion.

You stole my idea! I was going to say that with the addition of a sharpie, caltrops make a safe alternative to d4s.

Zack

[arguskos]

Put captives in barrels, and then fill the barrels with caltrops and roll them down hills.

-argus

[Yukitsu]

"OK class, first we shrink object these caltrops. Yes timmothy, we do need to use 500 pounds of them. Now then, we simply transform the piece of paper into a delicious piece of taffy. Once the deserving SOB has it good and chewed, we cast dispel magic on his mouth."

[revolver kobold]

Piercing damage sling ammunition.

[Ravens_cry]

How big are caltrops? Because some seem to be much bigger then others. Yet Wikipedia makes no mention about size.

[Larrin]

They probably vary in size. I remember seeing a show where caltrops were spread on a path to lame the horses, the spikes were about as long of my pointer finger (3-4 inches). Human aimed caltrops would certainly be smaller, figure about 2 inch spikes to make sure it can go through boots. I think an inch is the smallest the spike could be and still be effective against non-bare feet.

[Curmudgeon]

Piercing damage sling ammunition.

Bad idea. Caltrops are both too big to fit in a sling pouch, and only half the weight of lead bullets. They're made of iron, which is fairly soft unless it's beefy. Each of the spikes has to be 2+ inches long, so it's a 4-pronged "missile" that's over 4" across -- more than 27 times the volume of a 1.3" diameter lead bullet. And even with a custom "sling" the half weight and improvised ammunition penalties will hurt a lot.

You can hurl ordinary stones with a sling, but stones are not as dense or as round as bullets. Thus, such an attack deals damage as if the weapon were designed for a creature one size category smaller than you and you take a -1 penalty on attack rolls.

Caltrops aren't designed as ammunition, so they're improvised when used for that purpose.

Improvised Weapons

Sometimes objects not crafted to be weapons nonetheless see use in combat. Because such objects are not designed for this use, any creature that uses one in combat is considered to be nonproficient with it and takes a -4 penalty on attack rolls made with that object.

As I said: bad idea.

[xPANCAKEx]

they don't have to be GOOD uses

*suck-or-suck river crossing: Your a DM. Your party come to a river. They can swim across through the potentially monster infested water, or they can walk over the bridge made entirely out of a long, 15ft wide pile of caltrops

[Lord Herman]

I once read something on the WotC forums about the Dwarven Divebomb. It's essentially a barrel filled with caltrops, lamp oil, and vials alchemist's fire. When the barrel is dropped from height, the vials break and the barrel explodes, sending glowing hot caltrops flying in all directions.

[Captain Six]

Before I knew how big they actually were I would sneak them into drinks. They didn't look fun to choke on, fun to watch though.

[Guinea Anubis]

If you are in a campain with black powder, shove a bunch down a cannon.

[Seffbasilisk]

Laughing at calvary.

[Studoku]

Caltrop golem. It's the epitome of spikyness.