D&D 5E Thief Rogue throwing Ball Bearings everywhere

[TrueBagelMan]

So I was looking at the thief archetype for the rogue and my question is, would it break anything if a rogue with leatherworker tools could make boots that make you auto succeed against ball bearings. I find it odd that the thief screws his allies and his enemies by using caltrops and ball bearings.

 

[commandercrud]

What? No! If a thief can make boots immune to them for his friends then everyone else would have them too.

 

[Mistwell]

I think it would be fine, though I might slow their movement speed by 5' due to the unusual shoes.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Ball bearings are non-trivial to manufacture in large quantities, unless your game world has technology equal to 19th century+.

At the very least, charge maybe 2s each for them.

Glass marbles would make more sense. Still not easy to make, though.

(Yes, I know the official gear list has 1,000 for 1g. It bugs me.)

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Ball bearings are non-trivial to manufacture in large quantities, unless your game world has technology equal to 19th century+.

Really? You need a pretty significant resource investment in building a drop tower, but the actual technology isn't too sophisticated, is it? You just melt metal and drop it.

 

[Helldritch]

Really? You need a pretty significant resource investment in building a drop tower, but the actual technology isn't too sophisticated, is it? You just melt metal and drop it.

It is much more than this. You can mold them, but you have to remove the molding excesses and polish them to perfect spherical shape if you want them to roll and no just stand where they land (more or less). This is a lot of work. Making just one bead with classical instrument took me about an hour. The second was faster but was still about half an hour and I cheated using a motorized polisher. No, it is a lot of work.

 

[MarkB]

So I was looking at the thief archetype for the rogue and my question is, would it break anything if a rogue with leatherworker tools could make boots that make you auto succeed against ball bearings. I find it odd that the thief screws his allies and his enemies by using caltrops and ball bearings.

Making such cheap and simple traps discriminating seems a bit much. Just give party members advantage on saves against their effects if the rogue makes them aware of their placement.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So I was looking at the thief archetype for the rogue and my question is, would it break anything if a rogue with leatherworker tools could make boots that make you auto succeed against ball bearings. I find it odd that the thief screws his allies and his enemies by using caltrops and ball bearings.

Umm... how would they work to enable the rogue to auto-succeed?

Even if you had an idea that is reasonable, the best I would do is allow them to grant the rogue advantage, not auto-success.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Have you checked in with the wizard about his fireballs being a hazard to others?

 

[Helldritch]

It just dawned on me. These already exists. They're called slippers of spider climbing. You now have your shoes. Just walk on the walls and those pesky baĺls will not bother you.

Edit: Darn the autocorretor...