D&D 5E Pedantic Equipment Complaints

[Roger]

It's modernish, but I think that's just a problem on the demand-side; there doesn't seem to be any engineering issues with pulling it off in antiquity that I can think of.

Marbles are probably a fine way to approach it; I might also go with some sort of hard round seed of about the right size.

 

[Henrix]

It's modernish, but I think that's just a problem on the demand-side; there doesn't seem to be any engineering issues with pulling it off in antiquity that I can think of.

Apart from building a 200 feet tall tower, making a fine copper mesh, and easily melting lead on top of said construction.
It could probably be done, but just barely and at great cost.
You also need the metallurgical know how to figure out how fast the lead cools in order to get the details, such as height, right. Which is trickier.

And you need a reason for somebody to invent it.

I'm in a silly mood and probably boring the rest of you out of your gourds, but:

- What's that mighty tower? Immensely tall, isn't it?
- Yes, sir, it's a little over 200 feet. Twice as tall as the Tower of London!
- Most impressive! A roost for the griffin cavalry, I suppose?
- They use the squatter tower to the left. The one that looks like a huge dovecote. That one's just ten stories, barely half as tall.
- Uh, so it's a mighty wizards tower then? Abr'com the Bloody?
- No, no, nothing like that. It's our shot tower.
- Shot tower?
- Yeah, we make lead ball bearings in it. Hundreds of thousands of them. Except it isn't really ball bearings, being lead and all. Wouldn't work at all.
- Ball bearings?
- Yep, sells like sweet chili sauce on an orc barbecue. Silly adventurers pay solid gold for it. Buy it by the thousands.
- So you built this immense tower just so adventurers can have a go at tripping goblins with low dexterity? Couldn't you find an easier way to make money? Making shovels, perhaps? Or clubs, they go for a silver each.

 

[Essenti]

Apart from building a 200 feet tall tower, making a fine copper mesh, and easily melting lead on top of said construction.
It could probably be done, but just barely and at great cost.
You also need the metallurgical know how to figure out how fast the lead cools in order to get the details, such as height, right. Which is trickier.

And you need a reason for somebody to invent it.

I'm in a silly mood and probably boring the rest of you out of your gourds, but:

- What's that mighty tower? Immensely tall, isn't it?
- Yes, sir, it's a little over 200 feet. Twice as tall as the Tower of London!
- Most impressive! A roost for the griffin cavalry, I suppose?
- They use the squatter tower to the left. The one that looks like a huge dovecote. That one's just ten stories, barely half as tall.
- Uh, so it's a mighty wizards tower then? Abr'com the Bloody?
- No, no, nothing like that. It's our shot tower.
- Shot tower?
- Yeah, we make lead ball bearings in it. Hundreds of thousands of them. Except it isn't really ball bearings, being lead and all. Wouldn't work at all.
- Ball bearings?
- Yep, sells like sweet chili sauce on an orc barbecue. Silly adventurers pay solid gold for it. Buy it by the thousands.
- So you built this immense tower just so adventurers can have a go at tripping goblins with low dexterity? Couldn't you find an easier way to make money? Making shovels, perhaps? Or clubs, they go for a silver each.

Ball bearings wouldn't have to be perfect to be useable. Couldn't they just use a mass mold and a tumbler?

Or... hire a 3rd level wizard, levitate should work fairly nicely for making them. About 500lbs of steel ball bearings per spell use.

 

[jrowland]

All that to give some pesky adventurer's a chance to inflict a DC 10 reflex save on some poor goblins for the cost of half a shovel? Wow!

Bacon...its all for bacon.

 

[Stormonu]

A dead sprite in a jar? (46) Aren't sprites, you know, people?

There are a lot of references on that page though, everything from sandman (86) to the matrix (49), might be fun to try to pick them all out.

What, you don't get the Legend of Zelda reference (capturing a fairy in a bottle)?

As to the ball bearings, shot tower is one way to make them - if you don't have the tower, you could use a cliff bluff (with a pond or other water area below). Also, if you're not worried about mould lines, they could be cast as well. And at 1,000 a go, these things are probably smaller than marbles - maybe just a few mm in diameter - perhaps the size of BB's.

<EDIT> Thinking about it, doesn't BB stand for ball bearing? - Just remember not ta put your eye out, kid.

 

[Henrix]

I think I'll stick to a shorter reply this time:


Why is there a mass production line for ball bearings in a quasi-mediaeval world? What sort of economy is there in those things?






[Edit]
Never mind mass production of lead shot. In a world with no firearms.

(And BB shot is not, by far, ball bearings. BB is a bird shot size.)

 

[jrowland]

/cast ThreadRessurrection

http://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/mechanical-inventions/leonardo-da-vinci-ball-bearing/

Whaddya know!

 

[iamntbatman]

This thread is gold. Just wait until this Henrix fellow finds the anti-matter rifles in the DMG.

 

[Nevvur]

I don't like rapiers. D8 finesse weapons should not exist, and do not exist in my current campaign. There are rapiers narratively, but mechanically we call them short swords.

Studded leather armor and hide armor no longer exists. There's just leather armor and it's AC 12. Padded armor does not cause disadvantage on stealth.