TRPG General Chat

2:44 AM

I just struck me that the Buffy/Supernatural model of monster slaying is effectively crime. Monsters are like security systems - invulnerable until you get the key pieces of information that reveal that they’re actually fragile and easily defeated with the right approach.

Tweeted by rdonoghue on June 20, 2018 at 12:21 PM

trogdor

3:12 AM

@BESW I've thought of this before,.. the main issue being that usually those monsters are not willing to buy into social contracts,.... Like mainly don't kill people XD

Youjay

3:45 AM

Hey all, I have a character whos a forest gnome artificer, and he wants to find a way have an automatic reloading crossbow trap. any ideas?

Right now he's come up with a "rabbit reload" system, where he has a rabbit in a hamster wheel pulling the draw string back and a wooden magazine ontop. what would this entitle mechanically?

Mike Q

@Youjay Possibly using a different game system instead of 5e

Mike Q

4:04 AM

Speaking with a random wild animal, and expecting it to proplerly operate a crossbow mechanism, is not genius. It's a cartoonishly silly and inefficient strategy that shouldn't work, and has no supporting mechanics within the system. It's not unbalanced or broken, because it shouldn't succeed in the first place.

Rubiksmoose

@Youjay As much as I think the idea is cute, I really wouldn't allow it to work in the first place honestly. Speak with animals does not allow you to command animals to do such things and even if you could, I can't really imagine a system that would actually work to have a rabbit reload a crossbow with a wheel.

Mike Q

@Rubiksmoose Mutants and masterminds, probably

Rubiksmoose

I don't really think switching systems is really an option here since they've already started playing 5e and this seems to be a relatively small issue.

Youjay

@MikeQ Yep I agree. "genius" was meant to be sarcastic but "poes law" happened, sorry bout that.

yeah maybe i should direct the question more abstractedly. Can anyone thing of a way an inventor in a fantasy setting (who's already invented a gun) to find a way to create an auto reloading crossbow tripwire trap? Narratively first, then mechanically.

Mike Q

Narratively there are hundreds of ways to explain it. Clockwork, or spring-loaded gears, or a rudimentary electrical circuit, or a magic stone, or magic runes, or this, or that, etc.

Rubiksmoose

4:13 AM

@MikeQ Regarding your rage answer, I would make it very clear that attacking yourself shouldn't work either since you are not "hostile" to yourself.

Mike Q

@Rubiksmoose it falls under the category of "or taken damage"

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ so it does. I stand corrected. Carry on lol.

@Youjay Yeah that is a tough one for me right now. There are lots of options narratively but I don't know about mechanically. Have you looked in the trap-making section of the DMG (iirc)?

@Youjay Also between this question and the rage one I feel very sorry for rabbits in the general vicinity of your party.

Mike Q

Mechanically there is a feat "Crossbow Expert" that lets you ignore the loading quality of crossbows. If a party member can cast Unseen Servant, or has a familiar, then they can command it to reload the crossbow.

Youjay

@Rubiksmoose what page is trap making in the DMG? i found the trap page but it says nothing about making new ones

Rubiksmoose

@Youjay Sorry it looks like it is in XGE

Youjay

4:23 AM

@MikeQ also to my knowledge unseen servant and familiars can't attack, so i take it that reloading isn't an attack. do they need the crossbow expert feat for that specific circumstance?

Rubiksmoose

The entirety of chapter 2 is about traps (including designing them). Though it is mainly intended to be used by the DM against PCs and might not be exactly what you need, but I think it is the closest you'll get in the rules.

Mike Q

@Youjay No, those were separate mechanical approaches. Unseen Servants and familiars can't take feats.

Rubiksmoose

They can take feet though if you lop them off of something first.

A rabbit, say.

Youjay

@MikeQ Does the "crossbow expert" feat count towards traps?

ravery

for a warlock the familiar can attack if you give up your action, not sure if it applies to other casters

Rubiksmoose

4:33 AM

@Youjay No it doesn't.

Anyways I'm off to bed. Sorry. I hope you get everything worked out!

Mike Q

> A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal.

ravery

it can for a warlock

Mike Q

RAW, it's true, the familiar is not explicitly able to reload a crossbow. But "other actions as normal" may cover that.

More importantly though, I'm not sure what the point of the rabbit contraption is. Generally speaking, the person using the crossbow is also the one reloading it. There is no "reload" action in 5e.

Youjay

the rabbit contraption has be defunked. but the idea was taking the rotational energy from a hamster wheel and using a similar system to train wheel (and include a pully system somewhere in there) to draw the bow string back, with a wooden magazine ontop to reload.

an the idea was a tripwire trap using a crossbow, so noone is physically "there" to reload.

Mike Q

Generally speaking, the limitations on crossbows are:
- Ammunition property: Each shot requires 1 ammunition, which is loaded as part of the attack
- Loading property: You can fire 1 shot at a time
- (FAQ): You need an empty hand to reload it

Sdjz

11:04 AM

-4

A: What RPG concepts does "rules as written" encompass?

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